CHAPTER XXX. THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA
It was with no small astonishment young Massy heard that he and his faithful follower were not alone restored to liberty, but that an order of his Highness had assigned them a residence in a portion of the palace, and a promise of future employment.
“This smacks of Turkish rather than of European rule,” said the youth. “In prison yesterday,—in a palace to-day. My own fortunes are wayward enough, Heaven knows, not to require any additional ingredient of uncertainty. What think you, Traynor?”
“I'm thinkin',” said Billy, gravely, “that as the bastes of the field are guided by their instincts to objects that suit their natures, so man ought, by his reason, to be able to pilot himself in difficulties,—choosin' this, avoidin' that; seein' by the eye of prophecy where a road would lead him, and makin' of what seem the accidents of life, steppin'-stones to fortune.”
“In what way does your theory apply here?” cried the other. “How am I to guess whither this current may carry me?”
“At all events, there's no use wastin' your strength by swimmin' against it,” rejoined Billy.
“To be the slave of some despot's whim,—the tool of a caprice that may elevate me to-day, and to-morrow sentence me to the gallows. The object I have set before myself in life is to be independent. Is this, then, the road to it?”
“You 're tryin' to be what no man ever was, or will be, to the world's end, then,” said Billy. “Sure it's the very nature and essence of our life here below that we are dependent one on the other for kindness, for affection, for material help in time of difficulty, for counsel in time of doubt. The rich man and the poor one have their mutual dependencies; and if it was n't so, cowld-hearted and selfish as the world is, it would be five hundred times worse.”
“You mistake my meaning,” said Massy, sternly, “as you often do, to read me a lesson on a text of your own. When I spoke of independence, I meant freedom from the serfdom of another's charity. I would that my life here, at least, should be of my own procuring.”
“I get mine from you,” said Traynor, calmly, “and never felt myself a slave on that account.”
“Forgive me, my dear, kind friend. I could hate myself if I gave you a moment's pain. This temper of mine does not improve by time.”
“There's one way to conquer it. Don't be broodin' on what's within. Don't be magnifyin' your evil fortunes to your own heart till you come to think the world all little, and yourself all great. Go out to your daily labor, whatever it be, with a stout spirit to do your best, and a thankful, grateful heart that you are able to do it. Never let it out of your mind that if there's many a one your inferior, winnin' his way up to fame and fortune before you, there's just as many better than you toilin' away unseen and unnoticed, wearin' out genius in a garret, and carryin' off a Godlike intellect to an obscure grave!”
“You talk to me as though my crying sin were an overweening vanity,” said the youth, half angrily.
“Well, it's one of them,” said Billy; and the blunt frankness of the avowal threw the boy into a fit of laughing.
“You certainly do not intend to spoil me, Billy,” said he, still laughing.
“Why would I do what so many is ready to do for nothing? What does the crowd that praise the work of a young man of genius care where they 're leading him to? It's like people callin' out to a strong swimmer, 'Go out farther and farther,—out to the open say, where the waves is rollin' big, and the billows is roughest; that's worthy of you, in your strong might and your stout limbs. Lave the still water and the shallows to the weak and the puny. Your course is on the mountain wave, over the bottomless ocean.' It's little they think if he's ever to get back again. 'T is their boast and their pride that they said, 'Go on;' and when his cold corpse comes washed to shore, all they have is a word of derision and scorn for one who ventured beyond his powers.”
“How you cool down one's ardor; with what pleasure you check every impulse that nerves one's heart for high daring!” said the youth, bitterly. “These eternal warnings—these never-ending forebodings of failure—are sorry stimulants to energy.”
“Is n't it better for you to have all your reverses at the hands of a crayture as humble as me?” said Billy, while the tears glistened in his eyes. “What good am I, except for this?”
In a moment the boy's arms were around him, while he cried out,—
“There, forgive me once more, and let me try if I cannot amend a temper that any but yourself had grown weary of correcting. I'll work—I'll labor—I'll submit—I'll accept the daily rubs of life, as others take them, and you shall be satisfied with me. We shall go back to all our old pursuits, my dear Billy. I'll join all your ecstasies over Æschylus, and believe as much as I can of Herodotus, to please you. You shall lead me to all the wonders of the stars, and dazzle me with the brightness of visions that my intellect is lost in; and in revenge I only ask that you should sit with me in the studio, and read to me some of those songs of Horace that move the heart like old wine. Shall I own to you what it is which sways me thus uncertainly,—jarring every chord of my existence, making life a sea of stormy conflict? Shall I tell you?”
He grasped the other's hand with both his own as he spoke, and, while his lips quivered in strong emotion, went on:—
“It is this, then. I cannot forget, do all that I will, I cannot root out of my heart what I once believed myself to be. You know what I mean. Well, there it is still, like the sense of a wrong or foul injustice, as though I had been robbed and cheated of what never was mine! This contrast between the life my earliest hopes had pictured, and that which I am destined to, never leaves me. All your teachings—and I have seen how devotedly you have addressed yourself to this lesson—have not eradicated from my nature the proud instincts that guided my childhood. Often and often have you warmed my blood by thoughts of a triumph to be achieved by me hereafter,—how men should recognize me as a genius, and elevate me to honors and rewards; and yet would I barter such success, ten thousand times told, for an hour of that high station that comes by birth alone, independent of all effort,—the heirloom of deeds chronicled centuries back, whose actors have been dust for ages. That is real pride,” cried he, enthusiastically, “and has no alloy of the petty vanity that mingles with the sense of a personal triumph.”
Traynor hung his head heavily as the youth spoke, and a gloomy melancholy settled on his features; the sad conviction came home to him of all his counsels being fruitless, all his teachings in vain; and as the boy sat wrapped in a wild, dreamy revery of ancestral greatness, the humble peasant brooded darkly over the troubles such a temperament might evoke.
“It is agreed, then,” cried Massy, suddenly, “that we are to accept of this great man's bounty, live under his roof, and eat his bread. Well, I accede,—as well his as another's. Have you seen the home they destine for us?”
“Yes, it's a real paradise, and in a garden that would beat Adam's now,” exclaimed Traynor; “for there's marble fountains, and statues, and temples, and grottos in it; and it's as big as a prairie, and as wild as a wilderness. And, better than all, there's a little pathway leads to a private stair that goes up into the library of the palace,—a spot nobody ever enters, and where you may study the whole day long without hearin' a footstep. All the books is there that ever was written, and manuscripts without end besides; and the Minister says I'm to have my own kay, and go in and out whenever I plaze. 'And if there's anything wantin',' says be, 'just order it on a slip of paper and send it to me, and you 'll have it at once.' When I asked if I ought to spake to the librarian himself, he only laughed, and said, 'That's me; but I'm never there. Take my word for it, Doctor, you 'll have the place to yourself.'”
He spoke truly. Billy Traynor had it, indeed, to himself. There, the gray dawn of morning, and the last shadows of evening, ever found him, seated in one of those deep, cell-like recesses of the windows; the table, the seats, the very floor littered with volumes which, revelling in the luxury of wealth, he had accumulated around him. His greedy avidity for knowledge knew no bounds. The miser's thirst for gold was weak in comparison with that intense craving that seized upon him. Historians, critics, satirists, poets, dramatists, metaphysicians, never came amiss to a mind bent on acquiring. The life he led was like the realization of a glorious dream,—the calm repose, the perfect stillness of the spot, the boundless stores that lay about him; the growing sense of power, as day by day his intellect expanded; new vistas opened themselves before him, and new and unproved sources of pleasure sprang up in his nature. The never-ending variety gave a zest, too, to his labors that averted all weariness; and at last he divided his time ingeniously, alternating grave and difficult subjects with lighter topics,—making, as he said himself, “Aristophanes digest Plato.”
And what of young Massy all this while? His life was a dream, too, but of another and very different kind. Visions of a glorious future alternated with sad and depressing thoughts; high darings, and hopeless views of what lay before him, came and went, and went and came again. The Duke, who had just taken his departure for some watering-place in Germany, gave him an order for certain statues, the models for which were to be ready by his return,—at least, in that sketchy state of which clay is even more susceptible than canvas. The young artist chafed and fretted under the restraint of an assigned task. It was gall to his haughty nature to be told that his genius should accept dictation, and his fancy be fettered by the suggestions of another. If he tried to combat this rebellious spirit, and addressed himself steadily to labor, he found that his imagination grew sluggish, and his mind uncreative. The sense of servitude oppressed him; and though he essayed to subdue himself to the condition of an humble artist, the old pride still rankled in his heart, and spirited him to a haughty resistance. His days thus passed over in vain attempts to work, or still more unprofitable lethargy. He lounged through the deserted garden, or lay, half-dreamily, in the long, deep grass, listening to the cicala, or watching the emerald-backed lizards as they lay basking in the sun. He drank in all the soft voluptuous influences of a climate which steeps the senses in a luxurious stupor, making the commonest existence a toil, but giving to mere indolence all the zest of a rich enjoyment. Sometimes he wandered into the library, and noiselessly drew nigh the spot where Billy sat deeply busied in his books. He would gaze silently, half curiously, at the poor fellow, and then steal noiselessly away, pondering on the blessings of that poor peasant's nature, and wondering what in his own organization had denied him the calm happiness of this humble man's life.