Hypatia Part 9

'She calls for thee, insensate wretch! Theon sent me--breathless at once with running and with envy--Go! favourite of the unjust G.o.ds!'

'Who is Theon?'

'Her father, ignorant! He commands thee to be at her house--here- opposite--to-morrow at the third hour. Hear and obey! There they are coming out of the Museum, and all the parasols will get wrong! Oh, miserable me!' And the poor little fellow rushed back again, while Philammon, at his wits' end between dread and longing, started off, and ran the whole way home to the Serapeium, regardless of carriages, elephants, and foot-pa.s.sengers; and having been knocked down by a surly porter, and left a piece of his sheepskin between the teeth of a spiteful camel-neither of which insults he had time to resent-arrived at the archbishop's house, found Peter the Reader, and tremblingly begged an audience from Cyril.

CHAPTER IX.

: THE SNAPPING OF THE BOW.

Cyril heard Philammon's story and Hypatia's message with a quiet smile, and then dismissed the youth to an afternoon of labour in the city, commanding him to mention no word of what had happened, and to come to him that evening and receive his order when he should have had time to think over the matter. So forth Philammon went with his companions, through lanes and alleys hideous with filth and poverty, compulsory idleness and native sin. Fearfully real and practical it all was; but he saw it all dimly as in a dream. Before his eyes one face was shining; in his ears one silvery voice was ringing .... 'He is a monk, and knows no better.' .... True! And how should he know better? How could he tell how much more there was to know, in that great new universe, in such a cranny whereof his life had till now been past? He had heard but one side already. What if there were two sides? Had he not a right-that is, was it not proper, fair, prudent, that he should hear both, and then judge?

Cyril had hardly, perhaps, done wisely for the youth in sending him out about the practical drudgery of benevolence, before deciding for him what was his duty with regard to Hypatia's invitation. He had not calculated on the new thoughts which were tormenting the young monk; perhaps they would have been unintelligible to him bad he known of them. Cyril had been bred up under the most stern dogmatic training, in those vast monastic establishments, which had arisen amid the neighbouring saltpetre quarries of Nitria, where thousands toiled in voluntary poverty and starvation at vast bakeries, dyeries, brick-fields, tailors' shops, carpenters' yards, and expended the profits of their labour, not on themselves, for they had need of nothing, but on churches, hospitals, and alms. Educated in that world of practical industrial production as well as of religious exercise, which by its proximity to the great city accustomed monks to that world which they despised; entangled from boyhood in the intrigues of his fierce and ambitious uncle Theophilus, Cyril had succeeded him in the patriarchate of Alexandria without having felt a doubt, and stood free to throw his fiery energy and clear practical intellect into the cause of the Church without scruple, even, where necessary, without pity. How could such a man sympathise with the poor boy of twenty, suddenly dragged forth from the quiet cavern-shadow of the Laura into the full blaze and roar of the world's noonday? He, too, was cloister- bred. But the busy and fanatic atmosphere of Nitria, where every nerve of soul and body was kept on a life-long artificial strain, without rest, without simplicity, without human affection, was utterly antipodal to the government of the remote and needy, though no less industrious commonwealths of Coen.o.bites, who dotted the lonely mountain-glens, far up into the heart of the Nubian desert. In such a one Philammon had received, from a venerable man, a mother's sympathy as well as a father's care; and now he yearned for the encouragement of a gentle voice, for the greeting of a kindly eye, and was lonely and sick at heart .... And still Hypatia's voice haunted his ears, like a strain of music, and would not die away. That lofty enthusiasm, so sweet and modest in its grandeur-- that tone of pity--in one so lovely it could not be called contempt --for the many; that delicious phantom of being an elect spirit. unlike the crowd .... 'And am I altogether like the crowd?' said Philammon to himself, as he staggered along under the weight of a groaning fever-patient. 'Can there be found no fitter work for me than this, which any porter from the quay might do as well? Am I not somewhat wasted on such toil as this? Have I not an intellect, a taste, a reason? I could appreciate what she said.--Why should not my faculties be educated? Why am I only to be shut out from knowledge? There is a Christian Gnosis as well as a heathen one. What was permissible to Clement'--he had nearly said to Origen, but checked himself on the edge of heresy--'is surely lawful for me! Is not my very craving for knowledge a sign that I am capable of it? Surely my sphere is the study rather than the street!'

And then his fellow-labourers--he could not deny it to himself-- began to grow less venerable in his eyes. Let him try as he might to forget the old priest's grumblings and detractions, the fact was before him. The men were coa.r.s.e, fierce, noisy .... so different from her! Their talk seemed mere gossip--scandalous too, and hard- judging, most of it; about that man's private ambition, and that woman's proud looks; and who had stayed for the Eucharist the Sun- day before, and who had gone out after the sermon; and how the majority who did not stay could possibly dare to go, and how the minority who did not go could possibly dare to stay .... Endless suspicions, sneers, complaints .... what did they care for the eternal glories and the beatific vision? Their one test for all men and things, from the patriarch to the prefect, seemed to be--did he or it advance the cause of the Church?--which Philammon soon discovered to mean their own cause, their influence, their self- glorification. And the poor boy, as his faculty for fault-finding quickened under the influence of theirs, seemed to see under the humble stock-phrases in which they talked of their labours of love, and the future reward of their present humiliations, a deep and hardly-bidden pride, a faith in their own infallibility, a contemptuous impatience of every man, however venerable, who differed from their party on any, the slightest, matter. They spoke with sneers of Augustine's Latinising tendencies, and with open execrations of Chrysostom, as the vilest and most impious of schismatics; and, for aught Philammon knew, they were right enough. But when they talked of wars and desolation past and impending, without a word of pity for the slain and ruined, as a just judgment of Heaven upon heretics and heathens; when they argued over the awful struggle for power which, as he gathered from their words, was even then pending between the Emperor and the Count of Africa, as if it contained but one question of interest to them--would Cyril, and they as his bodyguard, gain or lose power in Alexandria? and lastly, when at some mention of Orestes, and of Hypatia as his counsellor, they broke out into open imprecations of G.o.d's curse, and comforted themselves with the prospect of everlasting torment for both; he shuddered and asked himself involuntarily--were these the ministers of a Gospel?--were these the fruits of Christ's Spirit? .... And a whisper thrilled through the inmost depth of his soul--'Is there a Gospel? Is there a Spirit of Christ? Would not their fruits be different from these?'

Faint, and low, and distant, was that whisper, like the mutter of an earthquake miles below the soil. And yet, like the earthquake-roll, it had in that one moment jarred every belief, and hope, and memory of his being each a hair's-breadth from its place .... Only one hair's-breadth. But that was enough; his whole inward and outward world changed shape, and cracked at every joint. What if it were to fall in pieces? His brain reeled with the thought. He doubted his own ident.i.ty. The very light of heaven had altered its hue. Was the firm ground on which he stood after all no solid reality, but a fragile sh.e.l.l which covered--what?

The nightmare vanished, and he breathed once more. What a strange dream! The sun and the exertion must have made him giddy. He would forget all about it.

Weary with labour, and still wearier with thought, he returned that evening, longing and yet dreading to be permitted to speak with Hypatia. He half hoped at moments that Cyril might think him too weak for it; and the next, all his pride and daring, not to say his faith and hope, spurred him on. Might he but face the terrible enchantress, and rebuke her to her face! And yet so lovely, so n.o.ble as she looked! Could he speak to her, except in tones of gentle warning, pity, counsel, entreaty? Might he not convert her--save her? Glorious thought! to win such a soul to the true cause! To be able to show, as the firstfruits of his mission, the very champion of heathendom! It was worth while to have lived only to do that; and having done it, to die.

The archbishop's lodgings, when he entered them, were in a state of ferment even greater than usual. Groups of monks, priests, parabolani, and citizens rich and poor, were banging about the courtyard, talking earnestly and angrily. A large party of monks fresh from Nitria, with ragged hair and beards, and the peculiar expression of countenance which fanatics of all creeds acquire, fierce and yet abject, self-conscious and yet ungoverned, silly and yet sly, with features coa.r.s.ened and degraded by continual fasting and self-torture, prudishly shrouded from head to heel in their long ragged gowns, were gesticulating wildly and loudly, and calling on their more peaceable companions, in no measured terms, to revenge some insult offered to the Church.

'What is the matter?' asked Philammon of a quiet portly citizen, who stood looking up, with a most perplexed visage, at the windows of the patriarch's apartments.

'Don't ask me; I have nothing to do with it. Why does not his holiness come out and speak to them? Blessed virgin, mother of G.o.d! that we were well through it all!--'

'Coward!' bawled a monk in his ear. 'These shopkeepers care for nothing but seeing their stalls safe. Rather than lose a day's custom, they would give the very churches to be plundered by the heathen!'

'We do not want them!' cried another. 'We managed Dioscuros and his brother, and we can manage Orestes. What matter what answer he sends? The devil shall have his own!'

'They ought to have been back two hours ago: they are murdered by this time.'

'He would not dare to touch the archdeacon!'

'He will dare anything. Cyril should never have sent them forth as lambs among wolves. What necessity was there for letting the prefect know that the Jews were gone? He would have found it out for himself fast enough, the next time he wanted to borrow money.'

'What is all this about, reverend sir?' asked Philammon of Peter the Reader, who made his appearance at that moment in the quadrangle, walking with great strides, like the soul of Agamemnon across the meads of Asphodel, and apparently beside himself with rage.

'Ah! you here? You may go to-morrow, young fool! The patriarch can't talk to you. Why should he? Some people have a great deal too much notice taken of them, in my opinion. Yes; you may go. If your head is not turned already, you may go and get it turned to- morrow. We shall see whether he who exalts himself is not abased, before all is over!' And he was striding away, when Philammon, at the risk of an explosion, stopped him.

'His holiness commanded me to see him, sir, before--'

Peter turned on him in a fury. 'Fool! will you dare to intrude your fantastical dreams on him at such a moment as this?'

'He commanded me to see him,' said Philammon, with the true soldierlike discipline of a monk; 'and see him I will in spite of any man. I believe in my heart you wish to keep me from his counsels and his blessing.'

Peter looked at him for a moment with a right wicked expression, and then, to the youth's astonishment, struck him full in the face, and yelled for help.

If the blow had been given by Pambo in the Laura a week before, Philammon would have borne it. But from that man, and coming unexpectedly as the finishing stroke to all his disappointment and disgust, it was intolerable; and in an instant Peter's long legs were sprawling on the pavement, while he bellowed like a bull for all the monks in Nitria.

A dozen lean brown hands were at Philammon's throat as Peter rose. 'Seize him! hold him!' half blubbered he. 'The traitor! the heretic! He holds communion with heathens!'

'Down with him!' 'Cast him out! Carry him to the archbishop!' while Philammon shook himself free, and Peter returned to the charge.

'I call all good Catholics to witness! He has beaten an ecclesiastic in the courts of the Lord's house, even in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem! And he was in Hypatia's lecture-room this morning!'

A groan of pious horror rose. Philammon set his back against the wall.

'His holiness the patriarch sent me.'

'He confesses, he confesses! He deluded the piety of the patriarch into letting him go, under colour of converting her; and even now he wants to intrude on the sacred presence of Cyril, burning only with the carnal desire that he may meet the sorceress in her house to- morrow!'

'Scandal!' 'Abomination in the holy place!' and a rush at the poor youth took place.

His blood was thoroughly up. The respectable part of the crowd, as usual in such cases, prudently retreated, and left him to the mercy of the monks, with an eye to their own reputation for orthodoxy, not to mention their personal safety; and he had to help himself as he could. He looked round for a weapon. There was none. The ring of monks were baying at him like hounds round a bear: and though he might have been a match for any one of them singly, yet their sinewy limbs and determined faces warned him that against such odds the struggle would be desperate.

'Let me leave this court in safety! G.o.d knows whether I am a heretic; and to Him I commit my cause! The holy patriarch shall know of your iniquity. I will not trouble you; I give you leave to call me heretic, or heathen, if you will, if I cross this threshold till Cyril himself sends for me back to shame you.'

And he turned, and forced his way to the gate, amid a yell of derision which brought every drop of, blood in his body into his cheeks. Twice, as he went down the vaulted pa.s.sage, a rush was made on him from behind, but the soberer of his persecutors checked it. Yet he could not leave them, young and hot-headed as he was, without one last word, and on the threshold he turned.

'You! who call yourselves the disciples of the Lord, and are more like the demoniacs who abode day and night in the tombs, crying and cutting themselves with stones--'

In an instant they rushed upon him; and, luckily for him, rushed also into the arms of a party of ecclesiastics, who were hurrying inwards from the street, with faces of blank terror.

'He has refused!' shouted the foremost. He declares war against the Church of G.o.d!'

'Oh, my friends,' panted the archdeacon, 'we are escaped like the bird out of the snare of the fowler. The tyrant kept us waiting two hours at his palace-gates, and then sent lictors out upon us, with rods and axes, telling us that they were the only message which he had for robbers and rioters.'

'Back to the patriarch!' and the whole mob streamed in again, leaving Philammon alone in the street--and in the world.

Whither now?

He strode on in his wrath some hundred yards or more before he asked himself that question. And when he asked it, he found himself in no humour to answer it. He was adrift, and blown out of harbour upon a sh.o.r.eless sea, in utter darkness; all heaven and earth were nothing to him. He was alone in the blindness of anger.

Gradually one fixed idea, as a light-tower, began to glimmer through the storm .... To see Hypatia, and convert her. He had the patriarch's leave for that. That must be right. That would justify him--bring him back, perhaps, in a triumph more glorious than any Caesar's, leading captive, in the fetters of the Gospel, the Queen of Heathendom. Yes, there was that left, for which to live.

His pa.s.sion cooled down gradually as he wandered on in the fading evening light, up one street and down another, till he had utterly lost his way. What matter? He should find that lecture-room to- morrow at least. At last he found himself in a broad avenue, which he seemed to know. Was that the Sun-gate in the distance? He sauntered carelessly down it, and found himself at last on the great Esplanade, whither the little porter had taken him three days before. He was close then to the Museum, and to her house. Destiny had led him, unconsciously, towards the scene of his enterprise. It was a good omen; he would go thither at once. He might sleep upon her doorstep as well as upon any other. Perhaps he might catch a glimpse of her going out or coming in, even at that late hour. It might be well to accustom himself to the sight of her. There would be the less chance of his being abashed to-morrow before those sorceress eyes. And moreover, to tell the truth, his self- dependence, and his self-will too, crushed, or rather laid to sleep, by the discipline of the Laura, had started into wild life, and gave him a mysterious pleasure, which he had not felt since he was a disobedient little boy, of doing what he chose, right or wrong, simply because he chose it. Such moments come to every free-willed creature. Happy are those who have not, like poor Philammon, been kept by a hotbed cultivation from knowing how to face them? But he had yet to learn, or rather his tutors had to learn, that the sure path toward willing obedience and manful self-restraint, lies not through slavery, but through liberty.

He was not certain which was Hypatia's house; but the door of the Museum he could not forget. So there he sat himself down under the garden wall, soothed by the cool night, and the holy silence, and the rich perfume of the thousand foreign flowers which filled the air with enervating balm. There he sat and watched, and watched, and watched in vain for some glimpse of his one object. Which of the houses was hers? Which was the window of her chamber! Did it look into the street? What business had his fancy with woman's chambers? .... But that one open window, with the lamp burning bright inside--he could not help looking up to it--he could not help fancying--hoping. He even moved a few yards to see better the bright interior of the room. High up as it was, he could still discern shelves of books--pictures on the walls. Was that a voice? Yes! a woman's voice--reading aloud in metre--was plainly distinguishable in the dead stillness of the night, which did not even awaken a whisper in the trees above his head. He stood, spellbound by curiosity.

Suddenly the voice ceased, and a woman's figure came forward to the window, and stood motionless, gazing upward at the spangled star- world overhead, and seeming to drink in the glory, and the silence, and the rich perfume .... Could it be she? Every pulse in his body throbbed madly .... Could it be? What was she doing? He could not distinguish the features; but the full blaze of the eastern moon showed him an upturned brow, between a golden stream of glittering tresses which hid her whole figure, except the white hands clasped upon her bosom .... Was she praying? were these her midnight sorceries? ....

And still his heart throbbed and throbbed, till he almost fancied she must hear its noisy beat--and still she stood motionless, gazing upon the sky, like some exquisite chryselephantine statue, all ivory and gold. And behind her, round the bright room within, painting, books, a whole world of unknown science and beauty .... and she the priestess of it all....inviting him to learn of her and be wise! It was a temptation! He would flee from it!--Fool that he was!--and it might not be she after all!

He made some sudden movement. She looked down, saw him, and shutting the blind, vanished for the night. In vain, now that the temptation had departed, he sat and waited for its reappearance, half cursing himself for having broken the spell. But the chamber was dark and silent henceforth; and Philammon, wearied out, found himself soon wandering back to the Laura in quiet dreams, beneath the balmy, semi-tropic night.

CHAPTER X.

: THE INTERVIEW.

Philammon was aroused from his slumbers at sunrise the next morning by the attendants who came in to sweep out the lecture-rooms, and wandered, disconsolately enough, up and down the street; longing for, and yet dreading, the three weary hours to be over which must pa.s.s before he would be admitted to Hypatia. But he had tasted no food since noon the day before: he had but three hours' sleep the previous night, and had been working, running, and fighting for two whole days without a moment's peace of body or mind. Sick with hunger and fatigue, and aching from head to foot with his hard night's rest on the granite-flags, he felt as unable as man could well do to collect his thoughts or brace his nerves for the coming interview. How to get food he could not guess; but having two hands, he might at least earn a coin by carrying a load; so he went down to the Esplanade in search of work. Of that, alas! there was none. So he sat down upon the parapet of the quay, and watched the shoals of sardines which played in and out over the marble steps below, and wondered at the strange crabs and sea-locusts which crawled up and down the face of the masonry, a few feet below the surface, scrambling for bits of offal, and making occasional fruitless dashes at the nimble little silver arrows which played round them. And at last his whole soul, too tired to think of anything else, became absorbed in a mighty struggle between two great crabs, who held on stoutly, each by a claw, to his respective bunch of seaweed, while with the others they tugged, one at the head and the other at the tail of a dead fish. Which would conquer? .... Ay, which? And for five minutes Philammon was alone in the world with the two struggling heroes .... Might not they be emblematic? Might not the upper one typify Cyril?--the lower one Hypatia?--and the dead fish between, himself? .... But at last the deadlock was suddenly ended--the fish parted in the middle; and the typical Hypatia and Cyril, losing hold of their respective seaweeds by the jerk, tumbled down, each with its half-fish, and vanished head over heels into the blue depths in so undignified a manner, that Philammon burst into a shout of laughter.

'What's the joke?' asked a well-known voice behind him; and a hand patted him familiarly on the back. He looked round, and saw the little porter, his head crowned with a full basket of figs, grapes, and water-melons, on which the poor youth cast a longing eye. 'Well, my young friend, and why are you not at church? Look at all the saints pouring into the Caesareum there, behind you.'

Philammon answered sulkily enough something inarticulate.

'Ho, ho! Quarrelled with the successor of the Apostles already? Has my prophecy come true, and the strong meat of pious riot and plunder proved too highly spiced for your young palate? Eh?'

Poor Philammon! Angry with himself for feeling that the porter was right; shrinking from the notion of exposing the failings of his fellow-Christians; shrinking still more from making such a jackanapes his confidant: and yet yearning in his loneliness to open his heart to some one, he dropped out, hint by hint, word by word, the events of the past evening, and finished by a request to be put in the way of earning his breakfast.

'Earning your breakfast! Shall the favourite of the G.o.ds--shall the guest of Hypatia--earn his breakfast, while I have an obol to share with him? Base thought! Youth! I have wronged you. Unphilosophically I allowed, yesterday morning, envy to ruffle the ocean of my intellect. We are now friends and brothers, in hatred to the monastic tribe.'

'I do not hate them, I tell you,' said Philammon. 'But these Nitrian savages--'

'Are the perfect examples of monkery, and you hate them; and therefore, all greaters containing the less, you hate all less monastic monks--I have not heard logic lectures in vain. Now, up! The sea woos our dusty limbs: Nereids and Tritons, charging no cruel coin, call us to Nature's baths. At home a mighty sheat-fish smokes upon the festive board; beer crowns the horn, and onions deck the dish; come then, my guest and brother!'

Philammon swallowed certain scruples about becoming the guest of a heathen, seeing that otherwise there seemed no chance of having anything else to swallow; and after a refreshing plunge in the sea, followed the hospitable little fellow to Hypatia's door, where he dropped his daily load of fruit, and then into a narrow by-street, to the ground-floor of a huge block of lodgings with a common staircase, swarming with children, cats, and chickens; and was ushered by his host into a little room, where the savoury smell of broiling fish revived Philammon's heart.

'Judith! Judith! where lingerest thou? Marble of Pentelicus! foam- flake of the wine dark main! lily of the Mareotic lake! You accursed black Andromeda, if you don't bring the breakfast this moment, I'll cut you in two!'

The inner door opened, and in bustled, trembling, her hands full of dishes, a tall lithe negress, dressed in true negro fashion, in a snow-white cotton shift, a scarlet cotton petticoat, and a bright yellow turban of the same, making a light in that dark place which would have served as a landmark a mile off. She put the dishes down, and the porter majestically waved Philammon to a stool; while she retreated, and stood humbly waiting on her lord and master, who did not deign to introduce to his guest the black beauty which composed his whole seraglio .... But, indeed, such an act of courtesy would have been needless; for the first morsel of fish was hardly safe in poor Philammon's mouth, when the regress rushed upon him, caught him by the head, and covered him with rapturous kisses.

Up jumped the little man with a yell, brandishing a knife in one hand and a leek in the other; while Philammon, scarcely less scandalised, jumped up too, and shook himself free of the lady, who, finding it impossible to vent her feelings further on his head, instantly changed her tactics, and, wallowing on the floor, began frantically kissing his feet.

'What is this? before my face! Up, shameless baggage, or thou diest the death!' and the porter pulled her up upon her knees.

'It is the monk! the young man I told you of, who saved me from the Jews the other night! What good angel sent him here that I might thank him?' cried the poor creature, while the tears ran down her black shining face.

'I am that good angel,' said the porter, with a look of intense self -satisfaction. 'Rise, daughter of Erebus; thou art pardoned, being but a female. What says the poet?-- '"Woman is pa.s.sion's slave, while rightful lord O'er her and pa.s.sion, rules the n.o.bler male."

Youth! to my arms! Truly say the philosophers, that the universe is magical in itself, and by mysterious sympathies links like to like. The prophetic instinct of thy future benefits towards me drew me to thee as by an invisible warp, hawser, or chain-cable, from the moment I beheld thee. Thou went a kindred spirit, my brother, though thou knewest it not. Therefore I do not praise thee--no, nor thank thee in the least, though thou hast preserved for me the one palm which shadows my weary steps--the single lotus-flower (in this case black, not white) which blooms for me above the mud-stained ocean wastes of the Hylic Borboros. That which thou hast done, thou hast done by instinct--by divine compulsion--thou couldst no more help it than thou canst help eating that fish, and art no more to be praised for it.'

'Thank you,' said Philammon.

'Comprehend me. Our theory in the schools for such cases is this-- has been so at least for the last six months; similar particles, from one original source, exist in you and me. Similar causes produce similar effects; our attractions, antipathies, impulses, are therefore, in similar circ.u.mstances, absolutely the same; and therefore you did the other night exactly what I should have done in your case.'

Philammon thought the latter part of the theory open to question, but he had by no means stopped eating when he rose, and his mouth was much too full of fish to argue.

'And therefore,' continued the little man,'we are to consider ourselves henceforth as one soul in two bodies. You may have the best of the corporeal part of the division .... yet it is the soul which makes the person. You may trust me, I shall not disdain my brotherhood. If any one insults you henceforth, you have but to call me; and if I be within hearing, why, by this right arm---'

And he attempted a pat on Philammon's head, which, as there was a head and shoulder's difference between them, might on the whole have been considered, from a theatric point of view, as a failure. Whereon the little man seized the calabash of beer, and filling therewith a cow's horn, his thumb on the small end, raised it high in the air.

'To the Tenth Muse, and to your interview with her!'

And removing his thumb, he sent a steady jet into his open mouth, and having drained the horn without drawing breath, licked his lips, handed it to Philammon, and flew ravenously upon the fish and onions.

Philammon, to whom the whole was supremely absurd, had no invocation to make, but one which he felt too sacred for his present temper of mind: so he attempted to imitate the little man's feat, and, of course, poured the beer into his eyes, and up his nose, and in his bosom, and finally choked himself black in the face, while his host observed smilingly-- 'Aha, rustic! unacquainted with the ancient and cla.s.sical customs preserved in this centre of civilisation by the descendants of Alexander's heroes? Judith! clear the table. Now to the sanctuary of the Muses!'

Philammon rose, and finished his meal by a monkish grace. A gentle and reverent 'Amen' rose from the other end of the room. It was the negress. She saw him look up at her, dropped her eyes modestly, and bustled away with the remnants, while Philammon and his host started for Hypatia's lecture-room.

'Your wife is a Christian?' asked he when they were outside the door.

'Ahem--! The barbaric mind is p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion. Yet she is, being but a woman and a negress, a good soul, and thrifty, though requiring, like all lower animals, occasional chastis.e.m.e.nt. I married her on philosophic grounds. A wife was necessary to me for several reasons: but mindful that the philosopher should subjugate the material appet.i.te, and rise above the swinish desires of the flesh, even when his nature requires him to satisfy them, I purposed to make pleasure as unpleasant as possible. I had the choice of several cripples--their parents, of ancient Macedonian family like myself, were by no means adverse; but I required a housekeeper, with whose duties the want of an arm or a leg might have interfered.'

'Why did you not marry a scold?' asked Philammon.

'Pertinently observed: and indeed the example of Socrates rose luminous more than once before my imagination. But philosophic calm, my dear youth, and the peaceful contemplation of the ineffable? I could not relinquish those luxuries. So having, by the bounty of Hypatia and her pupils, saved a small suns, I went out bought me a negress, and hired six rooms in the block we have just left, where I let lodgings to young students of the Divine Philosophy.'

'Have you any lodgers now?'

'Ahem! Certain rooms are occupied by a lady of rank. The philosopher will, above all things, abstain from babbling. To bridle the tongue, is to--But there is a closet at your service; and for the hall of reception, which you have just left--are you not a kindred and fraternal spark? We can combine our meals, as our souls are already united.'

Philammon thanked him heartily for the offer, though he shrank from accepting it; and in ten minutes more found himself at the door of the very house which he had been watching the night before. It was she, then, whom he had seen! .... He was handed over by a black porter to a smart slave-girl, who guided him up, through cloisters and corridors, to the large library, where five or six young men were sitting, busily engaged, under Theon's superintendence, in copying ma.n.u.scripts and drawing geometric diagrams.

Philammon gazed curiously at these symbols of a science unknown to him, and wondered whether the day would ever come when he too would understand their mysteries; but his eyes fell again as he saw the youths staring at his ragged sheepskin and matted locks with undisguised contempt. He could hardly collect himself enough to obey the summons of the venerable old man, as he beckoned him silently out of the room, and led him, with the t.i.tters of the young students ringing in his ears, through the door by which he had entered, and along a gallery, till he stopped and knocked humbly at a door .... She must be within! knocked together under him. His heart sank and sank into abysses! Poor wretch! .... He was half minded once to escape and dash into the street .... but was it not his one hope, his one object? .... But why did not that old man speak? If he would have but said something! .... If he would only have looked cross, contemptuous! .... But with the same impressive gravity, as of a man upon a business in which he had no voice, and wished it to be understood that lie had none, the old man silently opened the door, and Philammon followed .... There she was! looking more glorious than ever; more than when glowing with the enthusiasm of her own eloquence; more than when transfigured last night in golden tresses and glittering moonbeams. There she sat, without moving a finger, as the two entered. She greeted her father with a smile, which made up for all her seeming want of courtesy to him, and then fixed her large gray eyes full on Philammon.

'Here is the youth, my daughter. It was your wish, you know; and I always believe that you know best--'

Another smile put an end to this speech, and the old man retreated humbly toward another door, with a somewhat anxious visage, and then lingering and looking back, his hand upon the latch-- 'If you require any one, you know, you have only to call--we shall be all in the library.'

Another smile; and the old man disappeared, leaving the two alone.

Philammon stood trembling, choking, his eyes fixed on the floor. Where were all the fine things he had conned over for the occasion? He dared not look up at that face, lest it should drive them out of his head. And yet the more lie kept his eyes turned from the face, the more lie was conscious of it, conscious that it was watching him; and the more all the fine words were, by that very knowledge, driven out of his head .... When would she speak? Perhaps she wished him to speak first. It was her duty to begin, for she had sent for him .... But still she kept silence, and sat scanning him intently from head to foot, herself as motionless as a statue; her hands folded together before her, over the ma.n.u.script which lay upon her knee. If there was a blush on her cheek at her own daring, his eyes swam too much to notice it.

When would the intolerable suspense end? She was, perhaps, as unwilling to speak as he. But some one must strike the first blow: and, as often happens, the weaker party, impelled by sheer fear, struck it, and broke the silence in a tone half indignant, half apologetic-- 'You sent for me hither!'

'I did. It seemed to me, as I watched you during my lecture, both before and after you were rude enough to interrupt me, that your offence was one of mere youthful ignorance. It seemed to me that your countenance bespoke a n.o.bler nature than that which the G.o.ds are usually pleased to bestow upon monks. That I may now ascertain whether or not my surmises were correct, I ask you for what purpose are you come hither?'

Philammon hailed the question as a G.o.dsend.--Now for his message! And yet he faltered as he answered, with a desperate effort,--'To rebuke you for your sins.'

'My sins! What sins?' she asked, as she looked up with a stately, slow surprise in those large gray eyes, before which his own glance sank abashed, he knew not why. What sins?--He knew not. Did she look like a Messalina? But was she not a heathen and a sorceress?-- And yet he blushed, and stammered, and hung down his head, as, shrinking at the sound of his own words, he replied-- 'The foul sorceries--and profligacy worse than sorceries, in which, they say--' He could get no farther: for he looked up again and saw an awful quiet smile upon that face. His words had raised no blush upon the marble cheek.