CHAPTER XXVII: THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
About ten o'clock the next morning, as Hypatia, worn out with sleeplesssorrow, was trying to arrange her thoughts for the farewell lecture, herfavourite maid announced that a messenger from Synesius waited below. Aletter from Synesius? A gleam of hope flashed across her mind. From him,surely, might come something of comfort, of advice. Ah! if he only knewhow sorely she was bested!
'Let him send up his letter.'
'He refuses to deliver it to any one but yourself. And I think,'--addedthe damsel, who had, to tell the truth, at that moment in her pursea substantial reason for so thinking--'I think it might be worth yourladyship's while to see him.'
Hypatia shook her head impatiently.
'He seems to know you well, madam, though he refuses to tell his name:but he bade me put you in mind of a black agate--I cannot tell whathe meant--of a black agate, and a spirit which was to appear when yourubbed it.'
Hypatia turned pale as death. Was it Philammon again? She felt for thetalisman--it was gone! She must have lost it last night inMiriam's chamber. Now she saw the true purpose of the old hag'splot--....deceived, tricked, doubly tricked! And what new plot was this?
'Tell him to leave the letter, and begone.... My father? What? Who isthis? Who are you bringing to me at such a moment?'
And as she spoke, Theon ushered into the chamber no other than RaphaelAben-Ezra, and then retired.
He advanced slowly towards her, and falling on one knee, placed in herhand Synesius's letter.
Hypatia trembled from head to foot at the unexpected apparition....Well; at least he could know nothing of last night and its disgrace.But not daring to look him in the face, she took the letter and openedit.... If she had hoped for comfort from it, her hope was not realised.
'Synesius to the Philosopher:
'Even if Fortune cannot take from me all things, yet what she can takeshe will. And yet of two things, at least, she shall not rob me--toprefer that which is best, and to succour the oppressed. Heaven forbidthat she should overpower my judgment, as well as the rest of me!Therefore I do hate injustice; for that I can do: and my will is to stopit; but the power to do so is among the things of which she has bereavedme-before, too, she bereaved me of my children....
'"Once, in old times, Milesian men were strong."
And there was a time when I, too, was a comfort to my friends, andwhen you used to call me a blessing to every one except myself, as Isquandered for the benefit of others the favour with which the greatregarded me.... My hands they were--then.... But now I am left desolateof all: unless you have any power. For you and virtue I count amongthose good things, of which none can deprive me. But you always havepower, and will have it, surely, now--using it as nobly as you do.
'As for Nicaeus and Philolaus, two noble youths, and kinsmen of myown, let it be the business of all who honour you, both private men andmagistrates, to see that they return possessors of their just rights.'[Footnote: An authentic letter of Synesius to Hypatia.]
'Of all who honour me!' said she, with a bitter sigh: and then looked upquickly at Raphael, as if fearful of having betrayed herself. She turneddeadly pale. In his eyes was a look of solemn pity, which told her thathe knew--not all?--surely not all?
'Have you seen the--Miriam?' gasped she, rushing desperately at thatwhich she most dreaded.
'Not yet. I arrived but one hour ago; and Hypatia's welfare is stillmore important to me than my own.'
'My welfare? It is gone!'
'So much the better. I never found mine till I lost it.'
'What do you mean?'
Raphael lingered, yet without withdrawing his gaze, as if he hadsomething of importance to say, which he longed and yet feared to utter.At last--
'At least, you will confess that I am better drest than when we metlast. I have returned, you see, like a certain demoniac of Gadara, aboutwhom we used to argue, clothed--and perhaps also in my right mind....God knows!'
'Raphael! are you come here to mock me? You know--you cannot havebeen here an hour without knowing--that but yesterday I dreamed ofbeing'--and she drooped her eyes--'an empress; that to-day I am ruined;to-morrow, perhaps, proscribed. Have you no speech for me but your oldsarcasms and ambiguities?'
Raphael stood silent and motionless.
'Why do you not speak? What is the meaning of this sad, earnest look, sodifferent from your former self?.... You have something strange to tellme!'
'I have,' said he, speaking very slowly. 'What--what would Hypatiaanswer if, after all, Aben-Ezra said like the dying Julian, "TheGalilean has conquered"?'
'Julian never said it! It is a monkish calumny.'
'But I say it.'
'Impossible!'
'I say it!'
'As your dying speech? The true Raphael Aben-Ezra, then, lives no more!'
'But he may be born again.'
'And die to philosophy, that he may be born again into barbaricsuperstition! Oh worthy metempsychosis! Farewell, sir!' And she rose togo.
'Hear me!--hear me patiently this once, noble, beloved Hypatia! Onemore sneer of yours, and I may become again the same case-hardened fiendwhich you knew me of old--to all, at least, but you. Oh, do not thinkme ungrateful, forgetful! What do I not owe to you, whose pure and loftywords alone kept smouldering in me the dim remembrance that there wasa Right, a Truth, an unseen world of spirits, after whose pattern manshould aspire to live?'
She paused, and listened in wonder. What faith had she of her own? Shewould at least hear what he had found....
'Hypatia, I am older than you--wiser than you, if wisdom be the fruit ofthe tree of knowledge. You know but one side of the medal, Hypatia,and the fairer; I have seen its reverse as well as its obverse. Throughevery form of human thought, of human action, of human sin and folly,have I been wandering for years, and found no rest--as little in wisdomas in folly, in spiritual dreams as in sensual brutality. I could notrest in your Platonism--I will tell you why hereafter. I went on toStoicism, Epicurism, Cynicism, Scepticism, and in that lowest deep Ifound a lower depth, when I became sceptical of Scepticism itself.'
'There is a lower deep still,' thought Hypatia to herself, as sherecollected last night's magic; but she did not speak.
'Then in utter abasement, I confessed myself lower than the brutes, whohad a law, and obeyed it, while I was my own lawless God, devil,harpy, whirlwind.... I needed even my own dog to awaken in me the bruteconsciousness of my own existence, or of anything without myself. I tookher, the dog, for my teacher, and obeyed her, for she was wiser thanI. And she led me back--the poor dumb beast--like a God-sent andGod-obeying angel, to human nature, to mercy, to self-sacrifice, tobelief, to worship--to pure and wedded love.'
Hypatia started.... And in the struggle to hide her own bewilderment,answered almost without knowing it--
'Wedded love?.... Wedded love? Is that, then, the paltry bait by whichRaphael Aben-Ezra has been tempted to desert philosophy?'
'Thank Heaven!' said Raphael to himself. 'She does not care for me,then! If she had, pride would have kept her from that sneer.' Yes, mydear lady,' answered he aloud, 'to desert philosophy, to search afterwisdom; because wisdom itself had sought for me, and found me. But,indeed, I had hoped that you would have approved of my following yourexample for once in my life, and resolving, like you, to enter into theestate of wedlock.'
'Do not sneer at me!' cried she, in her turn, looking up at him withshame and horror, which made him repent of uttering the words. 'If youdo not know--you will soon, too soon! Never mention that hateful dreamto me, if you wish to have speech of me more!'
A pang of remorse shot through Raphael's heart. Who but he himself hadplotted that evil marriage? But she gave him no opportunity of answeringher, and went on hurriedly--
'Speak to me rather about yourself. What is this strange and suddenbetrothal? What has it to do with Christianity? I had thought that itwas rather by the glories of celibacy--gross and superstitious as theirnotions of it are--that the Galileans temp
ted their converts.'
'So had I, my dearest lady,' answered he, as, glad to turn the subjectfor a moment, and perhaps a little nettled by her contemptuous tone, heresumed something of his old arch and careless manner. 'But--there isno accounting for man's agreeable inconsistencies--one morning I foundmyself, to my astonishment, seized by two bishops, and betrothed,whether I chose or not, to a young lady who but a few days before hadbeen destined for a nunnery.'
'Two bishops?'
'I speak simple truth. The one was Synesius of course;--that mostincoherent and most benevolent of busybodies chose to betray me behindmy back:-but I will not trouble you with that part of my story. The realwonder is that the other episcopal match-maker was Augustine of Hippohimself!'
'Anything to bribe a convert,' said Hypatia contemptuously.
'I assure you, no. He informed me, and her also, openly and uncivillyenough, that he thought us very much to be pitied for so great afall.... But as we neither of us seemed to have any call for the higherlife of celibacy, he could not press it on us.... We should have troublein the flesh. But if we married we had not sinned. To which I answeredthat my humility was quite content to sit in the very lowest ranks, withAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob.... He replied by an encomium on virginity, inwhich I seemed to hear again the voice of Hypatia herself.'
'And sneered at it inwardly, as you used to sneer at me.'
'Really I was in no sneering mood at that moment; and whatsoever Imay have felt inclined to reply, he was kind enough to say for me andhimself the next minute.'
'What do you mean?'
'He went on, to my utter astonishment, by such a eulogium on wedlock asI never heard from Jew or heathen, and ended by advice to young marriedfolk so thoroughly excellent and to the point, that I could not helptelling him, when he stopped; what a pity I thought it that he hadnot himself married, and made some good woman happy by putting his ownrecipes into practice.... And at that, Hypatia, I saw an expression onhis face which made me wish for the moment that I had bitten out thisimpudent tongue of mine, before I so rashly touched some deep oldwound.... That man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of it.... Buthe turned the conversation instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as heis, by saying, with the sweetest smile, that though he had made it asolemn rule never to be a party to making up any marriage, yet in ourcase Heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, etc. etc.,that he could not refuse himself the pleasure.... and ended by ablessing as kindly as ever came from the lips of man.'
'You seem wonderfully taken with the sophist of Hippo,' said Hypatiaimpatiently; 'and forget, perhaps, that his opinions, especially when,as you confess, they are utterly inconsistent with themselves, are notquite as important to me as they seem to have become to you.'
'Whether he be consistent or not about marriage,' said Raphael, somewhatproudly, 'I care little. I went to him to tell me, not about therelation of the sexes, on which point I am probably as good a judge ashe--but about God and on that subject he told me enough to bring me backto Alexandria, that I might undo, if possible, somewhat of the wrongwhich I have done to Hypatia.'
'What wrong have you done me?.... You are silent? Be sure, at least,that whatsoever it may be, you will not wipe it out by trying to make aproselyte of me!'
'Be not too sure of that. I have found too great a treasure not to wishto share it with Theon's daughter.'
'A treasure?' said she, half scornfully.
'Yes, indeed. You recollect my last words, when we parted there below afew months ago?'
Hypatia was silent. One terrible possibility at which he had hintedflashed across her memory for the first time since;.... but she spurnedproudly from her the heaven-sent warning.
'I told you that, like Diogenes, I went forth to seek a man. Did I notpromise you, that when I had found one you should be the first to hearof him? And I have found a man.'
Hypatia waved her beautiful hand. 'I know whom you would say.... thatcrucified one. Be it so. I want not a man, but a god.'
'What sort of a god, Hypatia? A god made up of our own intellectualnotions, or rather of negations of them--of infinity and eternity,and invisibility, and impassibility--and why not of immortality, too,Hypatia? For I recollect we used to agree that it was a carnal degradingof the Supreme One to predicate of Him so merely human a thing asvirtue.'
Hypatia was silent.
'Now I have always had a sort of fancy that what we wanted, as thefirst predicate of our Absolute One, was that He was to be not merely aninfinite God--whatever that meant, which I suspect we did not always seequite clearly--or an eternal one--or an omnipotent one--or even merely aone God at all; none of which predicates, I fear, did we understand moreclearly than the first: but that he must be a righteous God:--orrather, as we used sometimes to say that He was to have nopredicate--Righteousness itself. And all along, I could not helpremembering that my old sacred Hebrew books told me of such a one; andfeeling that they might have something to tell me which--'
'Which I did not tell you! And this, then, caused your air of reserve,and of sly superiority over the woman whom you mocked by calling heryour pupil! I little suspected you of so truly Jewish a jealousy! Why,oh why, did you not tell me this?'
'Because I was a beast, Hypatia; and had all but forgotten what thisrighteousness was like; and was afraid to find out lest it shouldcondemn me. Because I was a devil, Hypatia; and hated righteousness, andneither wished to see you righteous, nor God righteous either, becausethen you would both have been unlike myself. God be merciful to me asinner!'
She looked up in his face. The man was changed as if by miracle--and yetnot changed. There was the same gallant consciousness of power, the samesubtle and humorous twinkle in those strong ripe Jewish features andthose glittering eyes; and yet every line in his face was softened,sweetened; the mask of sneering faineance was gone--imploring tendernessand earnestness beamed from his whole countenance. The chrysalis casehad fallen off, and disclosed the butterfly within. She sat lookingat him, and passed her hand across her eyes, as if to try whether theapparition would not vanish. He, the subtle!--he, the mocker!--he, theLucian of Alexandria!--he whose depth and power had awed her, even inhis most polluted days.... And this was the end of him....
'It is a freak of cowardly superstition.... Those Christians have beenfrightening him about his sins and their Tartarus.'
She looked again into his bright, clear, fearless face, and was ashamedof her own calumny. And this was the end of him--of Synesius--ofAugustine--of learned and unlearned, Goth and Roman .... The great floodwould have its way, then.... Could she alone fight against it?
She could! Would she submit?--She? Her will should stand firm, herreason free, to the last--to the death if need be.... And yet lastnight!--last night!
At last she spoke, without looking up.
'And what if you have found a man in that crucified one? Have you foundin him a God also?'
'Does Hypatia recollect Glaucon's definition of the perfectly righteousman?.... How, without being guilty of one unrighteous act, he mustlabour his life long under the imputation of being utterly unrighteous,in order that his disinterestedness may be thoroughly tested, and byproceeding in such a course, arrive inevitably, as Glaucon says, notonly in Athens of old, or in Judaea of old, but, as you yourself willagree, in Christian Alexandria at this moment, at--do you remember,Hypatia?--bonds, and the scourge, and lastly, at the cross itself.... IfPlato's idea of the righteous man be a crucified one, why may not minealso? If, as we both--and old Bishop Clemens, too--as good a Platonistas we, remember--and Augustine himself, would agree, Plato in speakingthose strange words, spoke not of himself, but by the Spirit of God,why should not others have spoken by the same Spirit when they spoke thesame words?'
'A crucified man.... Yes. But a crucified God, Raphael! I shudder at theblasphemy.'
'So do my poor dear fellow-countrymen. Are they the more righteous intheir daily doings, Hypatia, on account of their fancied reverence forthe glory of One who probably knows best how to
preserve and manifestHis own glory? But you assent to the definition? Take care!' said he,with one of his arch smiles, 'I have been fighting with Augustine, andhave become of late a terrible dialectician. Do you assent to it?'
'Of course--it is Plato's.'
'But do you assent merely because it is written in the book calledPlato's, or because your reason tells you that it is true?.... Youwill not tell me. Tell me this, then, at least. Is not the perfectlyrighteous man the highest specimen of men?'
'Surely,' said she half carelessly: but not unwilling, like aphilosopher and a Greek, as a matter of course, to embark in anythinglike a word-battle, and to shut out sadder thoughts for a moment.
'Then must not the Autanthropos, the archetypal and ideal man, who ismore perfect than any individual specimen, be perfectly righteous also?'
'Yes.'
'Suppose, then, for the sake of one of those pleasant old games ofours, an argument, that he wished to manifest his righteousness tothe world.... The only method for him, according to Plato, would beGlaucon's, of calumny and persecution, the scourge and the cross?'
'What words are these, Raphael? Material scourges and crosses for aneternal and spiritual idea?'
'Did you ever yet, Hypatia, consider at leisure what the archetype ofman might be like?'
Hypatia started, as at a new thought, and confessed--as everyNeo--Platonist would have done--that she had never done so.
'And yet our master, Plato, bade us believe that there was a substantialarchetype of each thing, from a flower to a nation, eternal in theheavens. Perhaps we have not been faithful Platonists enough heretofore,my dearest tutor. Perhaps, being philosophers, and somewhat of Phariseesto boot, we began all our lucubrations as we did our prayers, bythanking God that we were not as other men were; and so misread anotherpassage in the _Republic_, which we used in pleasant old days to be fondof quoting.'
'What was that?' asked Hypatia, who became more and more interestedevery moment.
'That philosophers were men.'
'Are you mocking me? Plato defines the philosopher as the man whoseeks after the objects of knowledge, while others seek after those ofopinion.'
'And most truly. But what if, in our eagerness to assert that whereinthe philosopher differed from other men, we had overlooked that in whichhe resembled other men; and so forgot that, after all, man was a genuswhereof the philosopher was only a species?'
Hypatia sighed.
'Do you not think, then, that as the greater contains the less, and thearchetype of the genus that of the species, we should have been wiser ifwe had speculated a little more on the archetype of man as man,before we meddled with a part of that archetype,--the archetype of thephilosopher?.... Certainly it would have been the easier course, forthere are more men than philosophers, Hypatia; and every man is a realman, and a fair subject for examination, while every philosopher is nota real philosopher--our friends the Academics, for instance, and even aNeo-Platonist or two whom we know? You seem impatient. Shall I cease?'
'You mistook the cause of my impatience,' answered she, looking up athim with her great sad eyes. 'Go on.'
'Now--for I am going to be terribly scholastic--is it not the verydefinition of man, that he is, alone of all known things, a spirittemporarily united to an animal body?'
'Enchanted in it, as in a dungeon, rather,' said she sighing.
'Be it so if you will. But--must we not say that the archetype--the veryman--that if he is the archetype, he too will be, or must have been,once at least, temporarily enchanted into an animal body?.... Youare silent. I will not press you.... Only ask you to consider at yourleisure whether Plato may not justify somewhat from the charge ofabsurdity the fisherman of Galilee, where he said that He in whoseimage man is made was made flesh, and dwelt with him bodily there by thelake-side at Tiberias, and that he beheld His Glory, the glory as of theonly-begotten of the Father.'
'That last question is a very different one. God made flesh! My reasonrevolts at it.'
'Old Homer's reason did not.'
Hypatia started, for she recollected her yesterday's cravings afterthose old, palpable, and human deities. And--'Go on,' she cried eagerly.
'Tell me, then--This archetype of man, if it exists anywhere, it mustexist eternally in the mind of God? At least, Plato would have so said?'
'Yes.'
'And derive its existence immediately from Him?'
'Yes.'
'But a man is one willing person, unlike to all others.'
'Yes.'
'Then this archetype must be such.'
'I suppose so.'
'But possessing the faculties and properties of all men in their highestperfection.'
'Of course.'
'How sweetly and obediently my late teacher becomes my pupil!'
Hypatia looked at him with her eyes full of tears.
'I never taught you anything, Raphael.'
'You taught me most, beloved lady, when you least thought of it. Buttell me one thing more. Is it not the property of every man to be ason? For you can conceive of a man as not being a father, but not as notbeing a son.'
'Be it so.'
'Then this archetype must be a son also.'
'Whose son, Raphael?'
'Why not of "Zeus, father of gods and men"? For we agreed that it--wewill call it he, now, having agreed that it is a person--could owe itsexistence to none but God Himself.'
'And what then?' said Hypatia, fixing those glorious eyes full on hisface, in an agony of doubt, but yet, as Raphael declared to his dyingday, of hope and joy.
'Well, Hypatia, and must not a son be of the same species as his father?"Eagles," says the poet, "do not beget doves." Is the word son anythingbut an empty and false metaphor, unless the son be the perfect and equallikeness of his father?'
'Heroes beget sons worse than themselves, says the poet.'
'We are not talking now of men as they are, whom Homer's Zeus calls themost wretched of all the beasts of the field; we are talking--are wenot?--of a perfect and archetypal Son, and a perfect and archetypalFather, in a perfect and eternal world, wherein is neither growth,decay, nor change; and of a perfect and archetypal generation, of whichthe only definition can be, that like begets its perfect like?....You are silent. Be so, Hypatia.... We have gone up too far into theabysses....
And so they both were silent for a while. And Raphael thought solemnthoughts about Victoria, and about ancient signs of Isaiah's, which wereto him none the less prophecies concerning The Man whom he had found,because he prayed and trusted that the same signs might be repeated tohimself, and a child given to him also, as a token that, in spite of allhis baseness, 'God was with him.'
But he was a Jew, and a man: Hypatia was a Greek, and a woman--and forthat matter, so were the men of her school. To her, the relationsand duties of common humanity shone with none of the awful and divinemeaning which they did in the eyes of the converted Jew, awakened forthe first time in his life to know the meaning of his own scriptures,and become an Israelite indeed. And Raphael's dialectic, too, though itmight silence her, could not convince her. Her creed, like those of herfellow-philosophers, was one of the fancy and the religious sentiment,rather than of the reason and the moral sense. All the brilliantcloud-world in which she had revelled for years,--cosmogonies,emanations, affinities, symbolisms, hierarchies, abysses, eternities,and the rest of it--though she could not rest in them, not even believein, them--though they had vanished into thin air at her most utterneed,--yet--they were too pretty to be lost sight of for ever; and,struggling against the growing conviction of her reason, she answered atlast--
'And you would have me give up, as you seem to have done, the sublime,the beautiful, the heavenly, for a dry and barren chain of dialectic--inwhich, for aught I know,--for after all, Raphael, I cannot cope withyou--I am a woman--a weak woman!'
And she covered her face with her hands.
'For aught you know, what?' asked Raphael gently.
'You may have made the worse appear th
e better reason.'
'So said Aristophanes of Socrates. But hear me once more, belovedHypatia. You refuse to give up the beautiful, the sublime, the heavenly?What if Raphael Aben-Ezra, at least, had never found them till now?Recollect what I said just now--what if our old Beautiful, and Sublime,and Heavenly, had been the sheerest materialism, notions spun by our ownbrains out of the impressions of pleasant things, and high things, andlow things, and awful things, which we had seen with our bodily eyes?What if I had discovered that the spiritual is not the intellectual, butthe moral; and that the spiritual world is not, as we used to make it,a world of our own intellectual abstractions, or of our own physicalemotions, religious or other, but a world of righteous or unrighteouspersons? What if I had discovered that one law of the spiritualworld, in which all others were contained, was righteousness; and thatdisharmony with that law, which we called unspirituality, was not beingvulgar, or clumsy, or ill-taught, or unimaginative, or dull, but simplybeing unrighteous? What if I had discovered that righteousness, and italone, was the beautiful righteousness, the sublime, the heavenly, theGodlike--ay, God Himself? And what if it had dawned on me, as by a greatsunrise, what that righteousness was like? What if I had seen a humanbeing, a woman, too, a young weak girl, showing forth the glory and thebeauty of God? Showing me that the beautiful was to mingle unshrinking,for duty's sake, with all that is most foul and loathsome; thatthe sublime was to stoop to the most menial offices, the mostoutwardly-degrading self-denials; that to be heavenly was to know thatthe commonest relations, the most vulgar duties, of earth, were God'scommands, and only to be performed aright by the help of the same spiritby which He rules the Universe; that righteousness was to love, to help,to suffer for--if need be, to die for--those who, in themselves, seemfitted to arouse no feelings except indignation and disgust? What if,for the first time, I trust not for the last time, in my life, I sawthis vision; and at the sight of it my eyes were opened, and I knew itfor the likeness and the glory of God? What if I, a Platonist, like Johnof Galilee, and Paul of Tarsus, yet, like them, a Hebrew of the Hebrews,had confessed to myself--If the creature can love thus, how much moreits archetype? If weak woman can endure thus, how much more a Son ofGod? If for the good of others, man has strength to sacrifice himself inpart, God will have strength to sacrifice Himself utterly. If He has notdone it, He will do it: or He will be less beautiful, less sublime, lessheavenly, less righteous than my poor conception of Him, ay, than thisweak playful girl! Why should I not believe those who tell me thatHe has done it already? What if their evidence be, after all, onlyprobability? I do not want mathematical demonstration to prove to methat when a child was in danger his father saved him--neither do I here.My reason, my heart, every faculty of me, except this stupid sensuousexperience, which I find deceiving me every moment, which cannot evenprove to me my own existence, accepts that story of Calvary as the mostnatural, most probable, most necessary of earthly events, assuming onlythat God is a righteous Person, and not some dream of an all-pervadingnecessary spirit-nonsense which, in its very terms, confesses its ownmaterialism.'
Hypatia answered with a forced smile.
'Raphael Aben-Ezra has deserted the method of the severe dialecticianfor that of the eloquent lover.'
'Not altogether,' said he, smiling in return. 'For suppose that I hadsaid to myself, We Platonists agree that the sight of God is the highestgood.'
Hypatia once more shuddered at last night's recollections.
'And if He be righteous, and righteousness be--as I know it tobe--identical with love, then He will desire that highest good for menfar more than they can desire it for themselves.... Then He will desireto show Himself and His own righteousness to them.... Will you makeanswer, dearest Hypatia, or shall I?....or does your silence giveconsent? At least let me go on to say this, that if God do desire toshow His righteousness to men, His only perfect method, according toPlato, will be that of calumny, persecution, the scourge, and the cross,that so He, like Glaucon's righteous man, may remain for ever free fromany suspicion of selfish interest, or weakness of endurance.... Am Ideserting the dialectic method now, Hypatia?.... You are still silent?You will not hear me, I see.... At some future day, the philosopher maycondescend to lend a kinder ear to the words of her greatest debtor ....Or, rather, she may condescend to hear, in her own heart, the voice ofthat Archetypal Man, who has been loving her, guiding her, heaping herwith every perfection of body and of mind, inspiring her with all pureand noble longings, and only asks of her to listen to her own reason,her own philosophy, when they proclaim Him as the giver of them, and toimpart them freely and humbly, as He has imparted them to her, to thepoor, and the brutish, and the sinful, whom He loves as well as He lovesher.... Farewell!'
'Stay!' said she, springing up: 'whither are you going?'
'To do a little good before I die, having done much evil. To farm,plant, and build, and rescue a little corner of Ormuzd's earth, as thePersians would say, out of the dominion of Ahriman. To fight Ausurianrobbers, feed Thracian mercenaries, save a few widows from starvation,and a few orphans from slavery.... Perhaps to leave behind me a son ofDavid's line, who will be a better Jew, because a better Christian,than his father.... We shall have trouble in the flesh, Augustine tellsus.... But, as I answered him, I really have had so little thereofyet, that my fair share may probably be rather a useful education thanotherwise. Farewell!'
'Stay!' said she. 'Come again!--again! And her.... Bring her.... I mustsee her! She must be noble, indeed, to be worthy of you.'
'She is many a hundred miles away.'
'Ah! Perhaps she might have taught something to me--me, the philosopher!You need not have feared me.... I have no heart to make convertsnow.... Oh, Raphael Aben-Ezra, why break the bruised reed? My plans arescattered to the winds, my pupils worthless, my fair name tarnished, myconscience heavy with the thought of my own cruelty.... If you do notknow all, you will know it but too soon .... My last hope, Synesius,implores for himself the hope which I need from him....And, over andabove it all.... You!.... Et tu, Brute! Why not fold my mantle round me,like Julius of old, and die!'
Raphael stood looking sadly at her, as her whole face sank into utterprostration. ...............
'Yes--come.... The Galilaean.... If He conquers strong men, can the weakmaid resist Him? Come soon.... This afternoon.... My heart is breakingfast.'
'At the eighth hour this afternoon?'
'Yes.... At noon I lecture.... take my farewell, rather, for ever ofthe schools....Gods! What have I to say?.... And tell me about Him ofNazareth. Farewell!'
'Farewell, beloved lady! At the ninth hour, you shall hear of Him ofNazareth.'
Why did his own words sound to him strangely pregnant, all but ominous?He almost fancied that not he, but some third person had spoken them.He kissed Hypatia's hand, it was as cold as ice; and his heart, too, inspite of all his bliss, felt cold and heavy, as he left the room.
As he went down the steps into the street, a young man sprang frombehind one of the pillars, and seized his arm.
'Aha! my young Coryphaeus of pious plunderers! What do you want withme?'
Philammon, for it was he, looked at him an instant, and recognised him.
'Save her! for the love of God, save her!'
'Whom?'
'Hypatia!'
'How long has her salvation been important to you, my good friend?'
'For God's sake,' said Philammon, 'go back and warn her! She will hearyou--you are rich--you used to be her friend--I know you--I have heardof you.... Oh, if you ever cared for her--if you ever felt for her athousandth part of what I feel--go in and warn her not to stir fromhome!'
'I must hear more of this,' said Raphael, who saw that the boy was inearnest. 'Come in with me, and speak to her father.'
'No! not in that house! Never in that house again! Do not ask me why:but go yourself. She will not hear me. Did you--did you prevent her fromlistening?'
'What do you mean?'
'I have been here--ages! I sent a note in by her m
aid, and she returnedno answer.'
Raphael recollected then, for the first time, a note which he had seenbrought to her during the conversation.
'I saw her receive a note. She tossed it away. Tell me your story. Ifthere is reason in it, I will bear your message myself. Of what is sheto be warned?'
'Of a plot--I know that there is a plot--against her among the monksand Parabolani. As I lay in bed this morning in Arsenius's room--theythought I was asleep--'
'Arsenius? Has that venerable fanatic, then, gone the way of allmonastic flesh, and turned persecutor?'
'God forbid! I heard him beseeching Peter the Reader to refrain fromsomething, I cannot tell what; but I caught her name.... I heard Petersay, "She that hindereth will hinder till she be taken out of the way."And when he went out into the passage I heard him say to another, "Thatthou doest, do quickly!...."'
'These are slender grounds, my friend.'
'Ah, you do not know of what those men are capable!'
'Do I not? Where did you and I meet last?'
Philammon blushed and burst forth again. 'That was enough for me. I knowthe hatred which they bear her, the crimes which they attribute toher. Her house would have been attacked last night had it not been forCyril.... And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too gently and softly not tomean something devilish. I watched all the morning for an opportunity ofescape, and here I am!--Will you take my message, or see her--'
'What?'
'God only knows, and the devil whom they worship instead of God.'
Raphael hurried back into the house--'Could he see Hypatia?' She hadshut herself up in her private room, strictly commanding that no visitorshould be admitted.... 'Where was Theon, then?' He had gone out by thecanal gate half an hour before, with a bundle of mathematical papersunder his arm, no one knew whither.... 'Imbecile old idiot!' and hehastily wrote on his tablet-- 'Do not despise the young monk's warning.I believe him to speak the truth. As you love yourself and your father,Hypatia, stir not out to-day.'
He bribed a maid to take the message upstairs; and passed his time inthe hall in warning the servants. But they would not believe him. It wastrue the shops were shut in some quarters, and the Museum gardens empty;people were a little frightened after yesterday. But Cyril, they hadheard for certain, had threatened excommunication only last night to anyChristian who broke the peace; and there had not been a monk to be seenin the streets the whole morning. And as for any harm happening to theirmistress--impossible! 'The very wild beasts would not tear her,' saidthe huge negro porter, 'if she was thrown into the amphitheatre.'
--Whereat a maid boxed his ears for talking of such a thing; and then,by way of mending it, declared that she knew for certain that hermistress could turn aside the lightning, and call legions of spirits tofight for her with a nod.... What was to be done with such idolaters?And yet who could help liking them the better for it?
At last the answer came down, in the old graceful, studied,self-conscious handwriting.
'It is a strange way of persuading me to your new faith, to bid mebeware, on the very first day of your preaching, of the wickedness ofthose who believe it. I thank you: but your affection for me makes youtimorous. I dread nothing. They will not dare. Did they dare now, theywould have dared long ago. As for that youth--to obey or to believe hisword, even to seem aware of his existence, were shame to me henceforth.Because he is insolent enough to warn me therefore I will go. Fear notfor me. You would not wish me, for the first time in my life, to fearfor myself. I must follow my destiny. I must speak the words whichI have to speak. Above all, I must let no Christian say, that thephilosopher dared less than the fanatic. If my Gods are Gods, then willthey protect me: and if not, let your God prove His rule as seems to Himgood.'
Raphael tore the letter to fragments.... The guards, at least, were notgone mad like the rest of the world. It wanted half an hour of the timeof her lecture. In the interval he might summon force enough to crushall Alexandria. And turning suddenly, he darted out of the room and outof the house.
'Quem Deus vult perdere-!' cried he to Philammon, with a gesture ofgrief. 'Stay here and stop her!--make a last appeal! Drag the horses'heads down, if you can! I will be back in ten minutes.' And he ran offfor the nearest gate of the Museum gardens.
On the other side of the gardens lay the courtyard of the palace. Therewere gates in plenty communicating between them. If he could but seeOrestes, even alarm the guard in time!....
And he hurried through the walks and alcoves, now deserted by thefearful citizens, to the nearest gate. It was fast, and barricadedfirmly on the outside.
Terrified, he ran on to the next; it was barred also. He saw the reasonin a moment, and maddened as he saw it. The guards, careless about theMuseum, or reasonably fearing no danger from the Alexandrian populace tothe glory and wonder of their city, or perhaps wishing wisely enoughto concentrate their forces in the narrowest space, had contentedthemselves with cutting off all communication with the gardens, and soconverting the lofty partition-wall into the outer enceinte of theirmarble citadel. At all events, the doors leading from the Museum itselfmight be open. He knew them every one, every hall, passage, statue,picture, almost every book in that vast treasure-house of ancientcivilisation. He found an entrance; hurried through well-known corridorsto a postern through which he and Orestes had lounged a hundred times,their lips full of bad words, their hearts of worse thoughts, gatheredin those records of the fair wickedness of old.... It was fast. He beatupon it but no one answered. He rushed on and tried another. No oneanswered there. Another--still silence and despair!.... He rushedupstairs, hoping that from the windows above he might be able to call tothe guard. The prudent soldiers had locked and barricaded the entrancesto the upper floors of the whole right wing, lest the palace courtshould be commanded from thence. Whither now? Back--and whither then?Back, round endless galleries, vaulted halls, staircases, doorways, somefast, some open, up and down, trying this way and that, losing himselfat whiles in that enormous silent labyrinth. And his breath failed him,his throat was parched, his face burned as with the simoom wind, hislegs were trembling under him. His presence of mind, usually so perfect,failed him utterly. He was baffled, netted; there was a spell upon him.Was it a dream? Was it all one of those hideous nightmares of endlesspillars beyond pillars, stairs above stairs, rooms within rooms,changing, shifting, lengthening out for ever and for ever before thedreamer, narrowing, closing in on him, choking him? Was it a dream? Washe doomed to wander for ever and for ever in some palace of the dead, toexpiate the sin which he had learnt and done therein? His brain, for thefirst time in his life, began to reel. He could recollect nothing butthat something dreadful was to happen--and that he had to prevent it,and could not.... Where was he now? In a little by-chamber.... He hadtalked with her there a hundred times, looking out over the Pharos andthe blue Mediterranean.... What was that roar below? A sea of welteringyelling heads, thousands on thousands, down to the very beach; and fromtheir innumerable throats one mighty war-cry--'God, and the motherof God!' Cyril's hounds were loose.... He reeled from the window, anddarted frantically away again.... whither, he knew not, and never knewuntil his dying day.
And Philammon?.... Sufficient for the chapter, as for the day, is theevil thereof.
Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face Page 28