Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 44

'Be it so. But-why is Cyril, and not Hypatia, master of the ma.s.ses of Alexandria this day? Why but because he and his have fought, and suffered, and died too, many a hundred of them, for their G.o.d, omnipotent as they believe him to be? Why are the old G.o.ds forgotten; my fairest logician?-for forgotten they are.'

Hypatia trembled from head to foot, and Orestes went on more blandly than ever.

'I will not ask an answer to that question of mine. All I entreat is forgiveness for-what for I know not: but I have sinned, and that is enough for me. What if I have been too confident-too hasty? Are you not the price for which I strain? And will not the preciousness of the victor's wreath excuse some impatience in the struggle for it? Hypatia has forgotten who and what the G.o.ds have made her-she has not even consulted her own mirror, when she blames one of her innumerable adorers for a forwardness which ought to be rather imputed to him as a virtue.'

And Orestes stole meekly such a glance of adoration, that Hypatia blushed, and turned her face away.... After all, she was woman. And she was a fanatic.... And she was to be an empress.... And Orestes's voice was as melodious, and his manner as graceful as ever charmed the heart of woman.

'But Pelagia?' she said, at last, recovering herself.

'Would that I had never seen the creature! But, after all, I really fancied that in doing what I have done I should gratify you.'

'Me?'

'Surely if revenge be sweet, as they say, it could hardly find a more delicate satisfaction than in degradation of one who-'

'Revenge, sir? Do you dream that I am capable of so base a pa.s.sion?'

'I? Pallas forbid!' said Orestes, finding himself on the wrong path again. 'But recollect that the allowing this spectacle to take place might rid you for ever of an unpleasant-I will not say rival.'

'How, then?'

'Will not her reappearance on the stage, after all her proud professions of contempt for it, do something towards reducing her in the eyes of this scandalous little town to her true and native level? She will hardly dare thenceforth to go about parading herself as the consort of a G.o.d-descended hero, or thrusting herself unbidden into Hypatia's presence, as if she were the daughter of a consul.'

'But I cannot-I cannot allow it even to her. After all, Orestes, she is a woman. And can I, philosopher as I am, help to degrade her even one step lower than she lies already?'

Hypatia had all but said 'a woman even as I am': but Neo-Platonic philosophy taught her better; and she checked the hasty a.s.sertion of anything like a common s.e.x or common humanity between two beings so antipodal.

'Ah' rejoined Orestes, 'that unlucky word degrade! Unthinking that I was, to use it, forgetting that she herself will be no more degraded in her own eyes, or any one's else, by hearing again the plaudits of those "dear Macedonians," on whose breath she has lived for years, than a peac.o.c.k when he displays his train. Unbounded vanity and self-conceit are not unpleasant pa.s.sions, after all, for their victim. After all, she is what she is, and her being so is no fault of yours. Oh, it must be! indeed it must!'

Poor Hypatia! The bait was too delicate, the tempter too wily; and yet she was ashamed to speak aloud the philosophic dogma which flashed a ray of comfort and resignation through her mind, and reminded her that after all there was no harm in allowing lower natures to develop themselves freely in that direction which Nature had appointed for them, and in which only they could fulfil the laws of their being, as necessary varieties in the manifold whole of the universe. So she cut the interview short with-

'If it must be, then.... I will now retire, and write the ode. Only, I refuse to have any communication whatsoever with-I am ashamed of even mentioning her name. I will send the ode to you, and she must adapt her dance to it as best she can. By her taste, or fancy rather, I will not be ruled.'

'And I,' said Orestes, with a profusion of thanks, 'will retire to rack my faculties over the "dispositions." On this day week we exhibit-and conquer! Farewell, queen of wisdom! Your philosophy never shows to better advantage than when you thus wisely and gracefully subordinate that which is beautiful in itself to that which is beautiful relatively and practically.'

He departed; and Hypatia, half dreading her own thoughts, sat down at once to labour at the ode. Certainly it was a magnificent subject. What etymologies, cosmogonies, allegories, myths, symbolisms, between all heaven and earth, might she not introduce-if she could but banish that figure of Pelagia dancing to it all, which would not be banished, but hovered, like a spectre, in the background of all her imaginations. She became quite angry, first with Pelagia, then with herself, for being weak enough to think of her. Was it not positive defilement of her mind to be haunted by the image of so defiled a being? She would purify her thoughts by prayer and meditation. But to whom of all the G.o.ds should she address herself? To her chosen favourite, Athene? She who had promised to be present at that spectacle? Oh, how weak she had been to yield! And yet she had been snared into it. Snared-there was no doubt of it-by the very man whom she had fancied that she could guide and mould to her own purposes. He had guided and moulded her now against her self-respect, her compa.s.sion, her innate sense of right. Already she was his tool. True, she had submitted to be so for a great purpose. But suppose she had to submit again hereafter-always henceforth? And what made the thought more poignant was, her knowledge that he was right; that he knew what to do, and how to do it. She could not help admiring him for his address, his quickness, his clear practical insight: and yet she despised, mistrusted, all but hated him. But what if his were the very qualities which were destined to succeed? What if her purer and loftier aims, her resolutions-now, alas! broken-never to act but on the deepest and holiest principles and by the most sacred means, were destined never to exert themselves in practice, except conjointly with miserable stratagems and cajoleries such as these? What if statecrafts and not philosophy and religion, were the appointed rulers of mankind? Hideous thought! And yet-she who had all her life tried to be self-dependent, originative, to face and crush the hostile mob of circ.u.mstance and custom, and do battle single-handed with Christianity and a fallen age-how was it that in her first important and critical opportunity of action she had been dumb, irresolute, pa.s.sive, the victim, at last, of the very corruption which she was to exterminate? She did not know yet that those who have no other means for regenerating a corrupted time than dogmatic pedantries concerning the dead and unreturning past, must end, in practice, by borrowing insincerely, and using clumsily, the very weapons of that novel age which they deprecate, and 'sewing new cloth into old garments,' till the rent become patent and incurable. But in the meanwhile, such meditations as these drove from her mind for that day both Athene, and the ode, and philosophy, and all things but-Pelagia the wanton.

In the meanwhile, Alexandrian politics flowed onward in their usual pure and quiet course. The public buildings were placarded with the news of Heraclian's victory; and groups of loungers expressed, loudly enough, their utter indifference as to who might rule at Rome-or even at Byzantium. Let Heraclian or Honorius be emperor, the capitals must be fed; and while the Alexandrian wheat-trade was uninjured, what matter who received the tribute? Certainly, as some friends of Orestes found means to suggest, it might not be a bad thing for Egypt, if she could keep the tribute in her own treasury, instead of sending it to Rome without any adequate return, save the presence of an expensive army.... Alexandria had been once the metropolis of an independent empire.... Why not again? Then came enormous largesses of corn, proving, more satisfactorily to the mob than to the shipowners, that Egyptian wheat was better employed at home than abroad. Nay, there were even rumours of a general amnesty for all prisoners; and as, of course, every evil-doer had a kind of friend, who considered him an injured martyr, all parties were well content, on their own accounts at least, with such a move.

And so Orestes's bubble swelled, and grew, and glittered every day with fresh prismatic radiance; while Hypatia sat at home, with a heavy heart, writing her ode to Venus Urania, and submitting to Orestes's daily visits.

One cloud, indeed, not without squalls of wind and rain, disfigured that sky which the Prefect had invested with such serenity by the simple expedient, well known to politicians, of painting it bright blue, since it would not a.s.sume that colour of its own accord. For, a day or two after Ammonius's execution, the Prefect's guards informed him that the corpse of the crucified man, with the cross on which it hung, had vanished. The Nitrian monks had come down in a body, and carried them off before the very eyes of the sentinels. Orestes knew well enough that the fellows must have been bribed to allow the theft; but he dare not say so to men on whose good humour his very life might depend; so, stomaching the affront as best he could, he vowed fresh vengeance against Cyril, and went on his way. But, behold!-within four-and-twenty hours of the theft, a procession of all the rascality, followed by all the piety, of Alexandria,-monks from Nitria counted by the thousand,-priests, deacons, archdeacons, Cyril himself, in full pontificals, and borne aloft in the midst, upon a splendid bier, the missing corpse, its nail-pierced hands and feet left uncovered for the pitying gaze of the Church.

Under the very palace windows, from which Orestes found it expedient to retire for the time being, out upon the quays, and up the steps of the Caesareum, defiled that new portent; and in another half-hour a servant entered, breathlessly, to inform the shepherd of people that his victim was lying in state in the centre of the nave, a martyr duly canonised-Ammonius now no more, but henceforth Thaumasius the wonderful, on whose heroic virtues and more heroic faithfulness unto the death, Cyril was already descanting from the pulpit, amid thunders of applause at every allusion to Sisera at the brook Kishon, Sennacherib in the house of Nisroch, and the rest of the princes of this world who come to nought.

Here was a storm! To order a cohort to enter the church and bring away the body was easy enough: to make them do it, in the face of certain death, not so easy. Besides, it was too early yet for so desperate a move as would be involved in the violation of a church .... So Orestes added this fresh item to the long column of accounts which he intended to settle with the patriarch; cursed for half an hour in the name of all divinities, saints, and martyrs, Christian and Pagan; and wrote off a lamentable history of his wrongs and sufferings to the very Byzantine court against which he was about to rebel, in the comfortable a.s.surance that Cyril had sent, by the same post, a counter-statement, contradicting it in every particular.... Never mind.... In case he failed in rebelling, it was as well to be able to prove his allegiance up to the latest possible date; and the more completely the two statements contradicted each other, the longer it would take to sift the truth out of them; and thus so much time was gained, and so much the more chance, meantime, of a new leaf being turned over in that Sibylline oracle of politicians-the Chapter of Accidents. And for the time being, he would make a pathetic appeal to respectability and moderation in general, of which Alexandria, wherein some hundred thousand tradesmen and merchants had property to lose, possessed a goodly share.

Respectability responded promptly to the appeal; and loyal addresses and deputations of condolence flowed in from every quarter, expressing the extreme sorrow with which the citizens had beheld the late disturbances of civil order, and the contempt which had been so unfortunately evinced for the const.i.tuted authorities: but taking, nevertheless, the liberty to remark, that while the extreme danger to property which might ensue from the further exasperation of certain cla.s.ses, prevented their taking those active steps on the side of tranquillity to which their feelings inclined them, the known piety and wisdom of their esteemed patriarch made it presumptuous in them to offer any opinion on his present conduct, beyond the expression of their firm belief that he had been unfortunately misinformed as to those sentiments of affection and respect which his excellency the Prefect was well known to entertain towards him. They ventured, therefore, to express a humble hope that, by some mutual compromise, to define which would be an unwarrantable intrusion on their part, a happy reconciliation would be effected, and the stability of law, property, and the Catholic Faith ensured. All which Orestes heard with blandest smiles, while his heart was black with curses; and Cyril answered by a very violent though a very true and practical harangue on the text, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven.'

So respectability and moderation met with their usual hapless fate, and, soundly cursed by both parties, in the vain attempt to please both, wisely left the upper powers to settle their own affairs, and went home to their desks and counters, and did a very brisk business all that week on the strength of the approaching festival. One hapless innkeeper only tried to carry out in practice the principles which the deputation from his guild had so eloquently advocated; and being convicted of giving away bread in the morning to the Nitrian monks, and wine in the evening to the Prefect's guards, had his tavern gutted, and his head broken by a joint plebiscitum of both the parties whom he had conciliated, who afterwards fought a little together, and then, luckily for the general peace, mutually ran away from each other.

Cyril in the meanwhile, though he was doing a foolish thing, was doing it wisely enough. Orestes might curse, and respectability might deplore, those nightly sermons, which shook the mighty arcades of the Caesareum, but they could not answer them. Cyril was right and knew that he was right. Orestes was a scoundrel, hateful to G.o.d, and to the enemies of G.o.d. The middle cla.s.ses were lukewarm covetous cowards: the whole system of government was a swindle and an injustice; all men's hearts were mad with crying, 'Lord, how long?' The fierce bishop had only to thunder forth text on text, from every book of scripture, old and new, in order to array on his side not merely the common sense and right feeling, but the bigotry and ferocity of the ma.s.ses.

In vain did the good a.r.s.enius represent to him not only the scandal but the unrighteousness of his new canonisation. 'I must have fuel, my good father,' was his answer, 'wherewith to keep alight the flame of zeal. If I am to be silent as to Heraclian's defeat, I must give them some other irritant, which will put them in a proper temper to act on that defeat, when they are told of it. If they hate Orestes, does he not deserve it? Even if he is not altogether as much in the wrong in this particular case as they fancy he is, are there not a thousand other crimes of his which deserve their abhorrence even more? At all events, he must proclaim the empire, as you yourself say, or we shall have no handle against him. He will not dare to proclaim it if he knows that we are aware of the truth. And if we are to keep the truth in reserve, we must have something else to serve meanwhile as a subst.i.tute for it.'

And poor a.r.s.enius submitted with a sigh, as he saw Cyril making a fresh step in that alluring path of evil-doing that good might come, which led him in after years into many a fearful sin, and left his name disgraced, perhaps for ever, in the judgment of generations, who know as little of the pandemonium against which he fought, as they do of the intense belief which sustained him in his warfare; and who have therefore neither understanding nor pardon for the occasional outrages and errors of a man no worse, even if no better, than themselves.

CHAPTER XXI: THE SQUIRE-BISHOP

In a small and ill-furnished upper room of a fortified country house, sat Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene.

A goblet of wine stood beside him, on the table, but it was untasted. Slowly and sadly, by the light of a tiny lamp, he went on writing a verse or two, and then burying his face in his hand, while hot tears dropped between his fingers on the paper; till a servant entering, announced Raphael Aben-Ezra.

Synesius rose, with a gesture of surprise, and hurried towards the door. 'No, ask him to come hither to me. To pa.s.s through those deserted rooms at night is more than I can bear.' And he waited for his guest at the chamber door, and as he entered, caught both his hands in his, and tried to speak; but his voice was choked within him.

'Do not speak,' said Raphael gently, leading him to his chair again. 'I know all.'

'You know all? And are you, then, so unlike the rest of the world, that you alone have come to visit the bereaved and the deserted in his misery?'

'I am like the rest of the world, after all; for I came to you on my own selfish errand, to seek comfort. Would that I could give it instead! But the servants told me all, below.'

'And yet you persisted in seeing me, as if I could help you? Alas! I can help no one now. Here I am at last, utterly alone, utterly helpless. As I came from my mother's womb, so shall I return again. My last child-my last and fairest-gone after the rest!-Thank G.o.d, that I have had even a day's peace wherein to lay him by his mother and his brothers; though He alone knows how long the beloved graves may remain unrifled. Let it have been shame enough to sit here in my lonely tower and watch the ashes of my Spartan ancestors, the sons of Hercules himself, my glory and my pride, sinful fool that I was! cast to the winds by barbarian plunderers.... When wilt thou make an end, O Lord, and slay me?'

'And how did the poor boy die?' asked Raphael, in hope of soothing sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in words.

'The pestilence.-What other fate can we expect, who breathe an air tainted with corpses, and sit under a sky darkened with carrion birds? But I could endure even that, if I could work, if I could help. But to sit here, imprisoned now for months between these hateful towers; night after night to watch the sky, red with burning homesteads; day after day to have my ears ring with the shrieks of the dying and the captives-for they have begun now to murder every male down to the baby at the breast-and to feel myself utterly fettered, impotent, sitting here like some palsied idiot, waiting for my end! I long to rush out, and fall fighting, sword in hand: but I am their last, their only hope. The governors care nothing for our supplications. In vain have I memorialised Gennadius and Innocent, with what little eloquence my misery has not stunned in me. But there is no resolution, no unanimity left in the land. The soldiery are scattered in small garrisons, employed entirely in protecting the private property of their officers. The Ausurians defeat them piecemeal, and, armed with their spoils, actually have begun to beleaguer fortified towns; and now there is nothing left for us, but to pray that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured the last. What am I doing? I am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows, instead of listening to yours.'

'Nay, friend, you are talking of the sorrows of your country, not of your own. As for me, I have no sorrow-only a despair: which, being irremediable, may well wait. But you-oh, you must not stay here. Why not escape to Alexandria?'

'I will die at my post as I have lived, the father of my people. When the last ruin comes, and Cyrene itself is besieged, I shall return thither from my present outpost, and the conquerors shall find the bishop in his place before the altar. There I have offered for years the unb.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice to Him, who will perhaps require of me a b.l.o.o.d.y one, that so the sight of an altar polluted by the murder of His priest, may end the sum of Pentapolitan woe, and arouse Him to avenge His slaughtered sheep! There, we will talk no more of it. This, at least, I have left in my power, to make you welcome. And after supper you shall tell me what brings you hither.'

And the good bishop, calling his servant, set to work to show his guest such hospitality as the invaders had left in his power.

Raphael's usual insight had not deserted him when, in his utter perplexity, he went, almost instinctively, straight to Synesius. The Bishop of Cyrene, to judge from the charming private letters which he has left, was one of those many-sided, volatile, restless men, who taste joy and sorrow, if not deeply or permanently, yet abundantly and pa.s.sionately. He lived, as Raphael had told Orestes, in a whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and toiling for the mere pleasure of action; and as soon as there was nothing to be done, which, till lately, had happened seldom enough with him, paid the penalty for past excitement in fits of melancholy. A man of magniloquent and flowery style, not without a vein of self-conceit; yet withal of overflowing kindliness, racy humour, and unflinching courage, both physical and moral; with a very clear practical faculty, and a very muddy speculative one-though, of course, like the rest of the world, he was especially proud of his own weakest side, and professed the most pa.s.sionate affection for philosophic meditation; while his detractors hinted, not without a show of reason, that he was far more of an adept in soldiering and dog-breaking than in the mysteries of the unseen world.

To him Raphael betook himself, he hardly knew why; certainly not for philosophic consolation; perhaps because Synesius was, as Raphael used to say, the only Christian from whom he had ever heard a hearty laugh; perhaps because he had some wayward hope, unconfessed even to himself, that he might meet at Synesius's house the very companions from whom he had just fled. He was fluttering round Victoria's new and strange brilliance like a moth round the candle, as he confessed, after supper, to his host; and now he was come hither, on the chance of being able to singe his wings once more.

Not that his confession was extracted without much trouble to the good old man, who, seeing at once that Raphael had some weight upon his mind, which he longed to tell, and yet was either too suspicious or too proud to tell, set himself to ferret out the secret, and forgot all his sorrows for the time, as soon as he found a human being to whom he might do good. But Raphael was inexplicably wayward and unlike himself. All his smooth and shallow persiflage, even his shrewd satiric humour, had vanished. He seemed parched by some inward fever; restless, moody, abrupt, even peevish; and Synesius's curiosity rose with his disappointment, as Raphael went on obstinately declining to consult the very physician before whom he presented himself as patient.

'And what can you do for me, if I did tell you?'

'Then allow me, my very dear friend, to ask this. As you deny having visited me on my own account, on what account did you visit me?'

'Can you ask? To enjoy the society of the most finished gentleman of Pentapolis.'