II
Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a particle of the philosopher’s stone—a slender outfit for a magician’s daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she do now? The great object of her life must henceforth be to avoid committing murder, especially murdering any handsome young man. It would have seemed most natural to retire into a convent, but, not to speak of her lack of vocation, she felt that her father would justly consider that she had disgraced her family, and she still looked forward to reconciliation with him. She might have taken a hermitage, but her instinct told her that a fair solitary can only keep young men off by strong measures; and she disliked the character of a hermitess with a bull-dog. She therefore went straight to the great city, took a house, and surrounded herself with attendants. In the choice of these she was particularly careful to select those only whose personal appearance was such as to discourage any approach to familiarity or endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty surrounded by such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked pages, and stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she loved beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel it right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course at first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious illness, but youth and a sound constitution pulled her through.
Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by love for thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by word nor deed? To pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume with vain yearnings for usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled by thy fellows for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If so, thou wilt pity poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate, but who, from the necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as possible all contact with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of solitude, and knew that she was regarded as a monster of pride and exclusiveness. She dared bestow no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any one, lest this small beginning should lead to the manifestation of her fatal power. Her own servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as their bodies, hated her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty disdain of them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without tenderness receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her own sex secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a providential set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced her as a—well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody else’s lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata’s severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths that flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold water thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep them from her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets doux; they stood before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran beside her litter when she was carried abroad, they assembled at night to serenade her, fighting desperately among themselves. They sought to gain admission as tradesmen, as errand boys, even as scullions male and female. To such lengths did they proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for the interposition of another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course. What was her horror on reviving to find herself in the arms of a young man of exquisite beauty and princely mien, sucking death from her lips with extraordinary relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made any unfeminine use of her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology. The youth reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in silent misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated her bosom also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake to dismiss the young man as it did to see him move away, slowly and languidly staggering to his doom.
For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to a youth dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually. She steadily refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she wrung her hands, she called for death and execrated her nurture. With that strange appetite for self-torment which almost seems to diminish the pangs of the wretched, she collected books on poisons, studied all the symptoms described, and fancied her hapless lover undergoing them all in turn. At length a message came which admitted of no evasion. The King commanded her presence. Admonished by past experience, she provided herself with a veil and mask, and repaired to the palace.
The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her with austerity, yet with kindness.
“Maiden,” he began, “thy unaccountable cruelty to my son——”
“Thy son!” she exclaimed, “The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for my disobedience!”
“Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate monsters. Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he has risked his life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy cruelty, and when a smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou wilt not bestow it.”
“Alas! great King,” she replied, “I know too well what your Majesty’s opinion of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight of me could effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son.”
“Of that I shall judge,” said the King, “when thou hast divested thyself of that veil and mask.”
Mithridata reluctantly complied.
“By Heaven!” exclaimed the King, “such a sight might recall the departing soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not yet too late.”
“O King,” urged Mithridata, “how could this countenance do thy son any good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?”
“I am not aware of that,” said the King.
“Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state of deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he not tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?”
“Not to my knowledge,” said the King. “The symptoms, as I understand, are not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a milder form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and incessantly calls upon thee.”
“This is most incomprehensible,” said Mithridata. “There was no drug in my father’s laboratory that could have produced such an effect.”
“The sum of the matter is,” continued the King, “that either thou wilt repair forthwith to my son’s chamber, and subsequently to church; or else unto the scaffold.”
“If it must be so, I choose the scaffold,” said Mithridata resolutely. “Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son’s chamber would but destroy whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond everything on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my soul.”
“Chamberlain,” cried the monarch, “bring me a strait waistcoat.”
Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King’s feet, taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her wretched history.
The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. “À bon chat bon rat!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. “So thou art the daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his craft, and, as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon antidotes. Never did any child in the world take an equal quantity of physic: but there is now no poison on earth can harm him. Ye are clearly made for each other; haste to his bedside, and, as the spell requires, rid thyself of thy venefic properties in his arms as expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be bidden to the wedding, and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught us that the kiss of Love is the remedy for every poison.”
NOTES
The first edition of these Tales was published in 1888. It contained sixteen stories, to which twelve are added in the present impression. Many originally appeared in periodicals, as will be found indicated in the annotations which the recondite character of some allusions has rendered it desirable to append, and which further provide an opportunity of tendering thanks to many friends for their assent to republication.
P. 5. The divine tongue of Greece was forgotten,—Hereby we may detect the error of those among the learned who have identified Caucasia with Armenia. “Hellenic letters,” says Mr. Capes, writing of Armenia in the fourth century, “were welcomed with enthusiasm, and young men of the slenderest means crowded to the schools of Athens” (“University Life in Ancient Athens,” p. 73).
P. 28. Who have discovered the Elixir of Immortality.—The belief in this elixir was general in China about the seventh century, A.D., and many emperors used great exertions to discover it. This fact forms the groundwork of Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Der Unsterblichkeitstrank,” which has furnished the conception, though not the incidents, of “The Potion of Lao-Tsze.”
P. 38. So she took the sceptre, and reigned gloriously.—In A.D. 683, the Dowager-Empress Woo How, upon her husband’s death, caused her son to be set aside, and ruled prosperously until her decease in 703. In our day we have seen China virtually governed by female sovereigns.
P. 50. Ananda the Miracle Worker.—This story was originally published in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1872. A French translation appeared in the Revue Britannique for November, 1872. Buddha’s prohibition to work miracles rests, so far as the present writer’s knowledge extends, on the authority of Professor Max Müller (“Lectures on the Science of Religion”). It should be needless to observe that Ananda, “the St. John of the Buddhist group,” is not recorded to have contravened this or any other of his master’s precepts.
P. 66. The City of Philosophers.—This story has been translated into French by M. Sarrazin.
P. 68. There to establish a philosophic commonwealth.—The petition was actually preferred, and would have been granted but for the disordered condition of the empire. Gallienus, though not the man to save a sinking state, possessed the accomplishments which would have adorned an age of peace and culture.
P. 82. The sword doubled up; it had neither point nor edge.—Gallienus was fond of such practical jocularity. “Quum quidam gemmas vitreas pro veris vendiderat ejus uxori, atque illa, re prodita, vindicari vellet, surripi quasi ad leonem venditorem jussit. Deinde e cavea caponem emittit, mirantibusque cunctis rem tam ridiculam, per curionem dici jussit, ‘Imposturam fecit et passus est’: deinde negotiatorem dimisit” (Trebellius in Gallieno, cap. xii.).
P. 100. Hypati, anthypati, &c.—Hypati and anthypati denote consuls and proconsuls, dignities of course merely titular at the court of Constantinople. Silentiarii were properly officers charged with maintaining order at court; but this duty, which was perhaps performed by deputy, seems to have been generally entrusted to persons of distinction. The protospatharius was the chief of the Imperial body-guard, of which the spatharocandidati constituted the élite.
P. 114. The Wisdom of the Indians.—Appeared in 1890 in The Universal Review. The idea was suggested by an incident in Dr. Bastian’s travels in Burma.
P. 124. The Dumb Oracle.—Appeared in the University Magazine for June, 1878. The legend on which it is founded, a mediaeval myth here transferred to classical times, is also the groundwork of Browning’s ballad, “The Boy and the Angel.”
P. 136. Duke Virgil.—The subject of this story is derived from Leopold Schefer’s novel, “Die Sibylle von Mantua,” though there is but little resemblance in the incidents. Schefer cites Friedrich von Quandt as his authority for the Mantuans having actually elected Virgil as their duke in the thirteenth century: but the notion seems merely founded upon the interpretation of the insignia accompanying a mediæval statue of the poet.
P. 138. To put the devil into a hole.—“Then sayd Virgilius, ‘Shulde ye well passe in to the hole that ye cam out of?’ ‘Yea, I shall well,’ sayd the devyl. ‘I holde the best plegge that I have, that ye shall not do it.’ ‘Well,’ sayd the devyll, ‘thereto I consent.’ And then the devyll wrange himselfe into the lytyll hole ageyne, and he was therein. Virgilius kyvered the hole ageyne with the borde close, and so was the devyll begyled, and myght nat there come out agen, but abideth shutte still therein” (“Romance of Virgilius”).
Ibid. Canst thou balance our city upon an egg?—“Than he thought in his mynde to founde in the middle of the sea a fayre towne, with great landes belongynge to it, and so he did by his cunnynge, and called it Napells. And the foundacyon of it was of eggs” (“Romance of Virgilius”).
P. 148. The Claw.—Originally published in The English Illustrated Magazine.
P. 151. Peter of Abano.—Pietro di Abano, who took his name from his birthplace, a village near Padua, was a physician contemporary with Dante, whose skill in medicine and astrology caused him to be accused of magic. It is nevertheless untrue that he was burned by the Inquisition or stoned by the populace; but after his death he was burned in effigy, his remains having been secretly removed by his friends. Honours were afterwards paid to his memory; and there seems no doubt that he was a man of great attainments, including a knowledge of Greek, and of unblemished character, if he had not sometimes sold his skill at too high a rate. For his authentic history, see the article in the Biographie Universelle by Ginguené; for the legendary, Tieck’s romantic tale, “Pietro von Abano” (1825), which has been translated into English.
P. 156. Alexander the Rat-catcher.—This story, to whose ground-work History and Rabelais have equally contributed, was first published in vol. xii. of The Yellow Book, January, 1897.
P. 157. Cardinal Barbadico.—This cardinal was actually entrusted by Alexander VIII. with the commission of suppressing the rats; an occasion upon which the “sardonic grin” imputed to the Pope by a detractor may be conjectured to have been particularly apparent. Barbadico was a remarkable instance of a man “kicked upstairs.” As Archbishop of Corfu he had had a violent dispute with the Venetian governor, and Innocent XI., equally unwilling to disown the representative of Papal authority or offend the Republic, recalled him to Rome and made him a Cardinal to keep him there.
P. 177. The Rewards of Industry.—Appeared originally in Atalanta for August, 1888.
P. 194. The Talismans.—First published in Atalanta for September, 1890.
P. 202. The Elixir of Life.—Published July, 1881, in the third number of a magazine entitled Our Times, which blasted the elixir’s character by expiring immediately afterwards.
P. 226. The Purple Head.—Appeared originally in Fraser’s Magazine for August, 1877.
P. 228. The purple of the emperor and the matrons appeared ashy grey in comparison. “Cineris specie decolorari videbantur caeterae divini comparatione fulgoris” (Vopiscus, in Vita Aureliani, cap. xxix.).
P. 230. All these sovereigns.—“Diligentissime et Aurelianus et Probus et proxime Diocletianus missis diligentissimis confectoribus requisiverunt tale genus purpurae, nec tamen invenire potuerunt” (Vopiscus, loc. cit.).
P. 241. Pan’s Wand.—Published originally in a Christmas number of The Illustrated London News.
P. 249. A Page from the Book of Folly.—Appeared in Temple Bar for 1871.
P. 282. The Philosopher and the Butterflies.—One of the contributions by various writers to “The New Amphion,” a little book prepared for sale at the Fancy Fair got up by the students of the University of Edinburgh in 1886.
P. 294. The Three Palaces.—Published originally on a similar occasion to the last story, in “A Volunteer Haversack,” an extensive repertory of miscellaneous contributions in prose and verse, printed and sold at Edinburgh for a benevolent purpose in 1902.
P. 300. New Readings in Biography.—Originally published in The Scots Observer in 1889.
P. 315. The Poison Maid.—The author wrote this tale in entire forgetfulness of Hawthorne’s “Rapaccinip’s Daughter,” which nevertheless he had certainly read.