CHAPTER LV.
My grandfather was looking serious. Mr. Carter had come down from Richmond, and, next day, the great American Undulator and Boneless Vertebrate was to leave Elmington, taking with her Alice and Mary; and these notable Christmas holidays would come to an end.
It was late in the afternoon of one of those delicious days in February, which every year (in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave) delude us with the hope of an early spring (though we all know that we never have any spring, late or early); deceiving even yonder pair of bluebirds, who, warmed into forgetfulness of that March which lies between them and the abundant and nutritious worm of summer, go gallivanting up and down the orchard, chirruping eternal fidelity; peering into this old tree and into that, in quest of some hollow knot, so suggestive (to the bluebirdish mind) of matrimony.
Where Charley and Alice were on this bright afternoon does not much matter. No doubt they were together and happy; or, if wretched, wretched with that sweet wretchedness which makes the tearful partings of young lovers so truly delicious.
There’s your Araminta. Nineteen years of her life had she passed, ignorant of your existence. T’other day you met; and now, she who gave you not so much as a sigh during all those nineteen years, cannot hear you speak of a month’s absence but she distils upon your collar the briny tear! She has found out during the last few days, your Araminta, that she cannot breathe where you are not.
Absurd Araminta—but nice?
Wherever else they may have been, they were not in the Argo. The Don and Mary were there; and in the then infancy of naval architecture row-boats were not built large enough to hold, comfortably, two pairs of lovers.
Mary was seated in the boat, he lounging around it; now leaning against the gunwale, now stalking idly to and fro in the shining sand, rejoicing in his youth. They talked of the passing sea-gulls, the twittering bluebirds, the rippling waves, the rosy clouds, the generous sunlight,—of everything, of nothing, it mattered not; for love hath power to transfigure the plainest things.
Presently the Don said, standing with fingers interlaced behind his back, and looking far away down the River, “Do you know, it would be hard for me to live at a spot remote from salt water? All the great thoughts that have moved the world have arisen within sound of the sea-waves. She is the mother of civilization. It is the land which separates the peoples of the earth, not the water. It thrills me to think that, as I stand here, this river which splashes against my foot is part of that ocean which washes the shores of England, of France, of Italy, of Greece, of Palestine.”
Palestine! Strange word on the lips of a man who never went to church.
“Then, again,” continued he, with a smile, “I love the sea because it reminds me—I don’t mind telling you, since I have let you into my little secret—because it reminds me of Homer, and the epithets he has applied to it.”
“Ah, that reminds me of something! Have you forgotten your promise to talk to me about Homer? Have you that little copy of the Iliad in your pocket now?”
“Of course,” said he, tapping his vest.
“Will you not let me have it in my hand now?”
He shook his head, smiling. “No; but have you not the right to command me now? Speak, and I obey!”
“Ah! Then I command you, on your allegiance, to deliver that book into my hands.”
He hesitated for a moment, and his hand shook a little when he placed the book in hers. She took the left lid between finger and thumb; but his look of ill-suppressed agitation made her hesitate, and her hand began to tremble now, she knew not why.
“May I look?” she asked, in a rather shaky voice.
“If you will! But I warn you that that fly-leaf will tell you what you have forbidden me to reveal.”
“Oh!” cried she, with a start. And the book fell upon the shining sand.
He stooped and picked it up. “Have you had enough of it?”
“More than enough,—for the present, at least,” she replied, smiling faintly. “However,” she added, “I should like to look at the outside of it. How very old it looks,” said she, as she took it in her hand. “Why, the corners are worn perfectly round; you must know it all by heart.”
“Almost,” said he.
“And the back—what!” exclaimed she, with astonishment. “Why, this is not the Iliad! It is a copy of the New Testament!” And she held up the faded title before his eyes.
With a black look of annoyance, but without a word, the Don seized the book, thrust it into his pocket, and began striding to and fro. Presently he stopped in front of her.
“I put my hand into the wrong pocket,” said he, with obvious vexation.
“Why, yes. But what’s the harm?” said she, in a soothing voice. “Carrying a Testament in one’s pocket is nothing to be ashamed of, I hope?”
“Certainly not! But,” he added, with a half smile, “taking it out is different.”
“And so,” she began, feeling her way, “you carry the Iliad in one pocket and the Testament in the other.” But it was not now of the Iliad that she wished to hear him talk.
“Yes; a rather ill-assorted couple, you would say?”
“Very! One might suppose you either a—Greek professor in disguise—or—a—minister.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I never thought of that; so one might. We generally look too deep for motives. Truth is not often found in the bottom of a well. I carry these two books simply because—”
She looked up.
“Because,” he added, gravely, “they were given to me by—people that I—cared for.”
Constituted as she was, these few words affected Mary strongly. He had said so little, yet so much; revealing, in the unconscious simplicity of his nature, the very intensity of feeling that he strove to hide. And as she looked upon the two little volumes that he had carried all these years, saw how they had been worn away against his heart, a feeling of awe came over her. She found herself comparing, in her imaginative way, the man before her with one of the great, silent powers of nature,—the dark-floating tide, for instance, so noiseless when unresisted; or a black cloud charged with thunder, that seems, at first, but to mutter in its sleep, like a Cyclops in a battle-dream, but when yonder mountain dares to rear his crest in its path—
“You value them very highly on account of the givers,” put in Mary, as an entering wedge.
“Naturally; but not exclusively on that account.” And he drew the two little volumes from his pockets, and, placing them side by side, surveyed them lovingly.
Here was Mary’s opportunity. Painfully anxious as she had been as to her lover’s religious convictions, she had shrunk, hitherto, from a direct question. But it would be easy now, she saw, to lead him on to a full confession of his faith without seeming to interrogate him.
She began by drawing him out on Homer; but what he said she hardly heard, so tremulously eager was she to know what he thought of that other little book which he held in his hand. One thing struck her at the time, and she had cause to remember it afterwards: the strong admiration he evinced for the character of Achilles, the flinty-hearted captain of the Myrmidons.
Presently she said, in a low voice, “You hold them side by side; but could two books be more different?”
He laid the Iliad upon the seat beside him, and taking the other little volume in his hand, held it up before him. As he did so, there was something in his look that thrilled her with expectancy. While he had been indicating the clear-cut outlines of Homer’s marvellous creation, she had felt (though hardly hearing with more than her outward ear) that he spoke admirably, and remarked the high intellectuality that illumined his features; but now a sudden glow suffused his countenance, and strange, soft lights danced in his eyes. She hung upon his opening lips with deep suspense; for something told her that upon the words he was about to utter her own happiness depended.
The hour that followed was passed in a way which is probably rare with parting lovers.
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“No. I have never read Chateaubriand’s Genie du Christianisme, and,” added he, with an admiring glance, “I am glad of it; for otherwise I should not have heard your brilliant version of what he says. I am afraid, however, that, well as he puts it, I am hardly frank enough to admit that parts of the Old Testament are superior, as mere literature, to everything that the Greeks have left us. The truth is, however, that I know so little of the Old Testament that I have no right to an opinion; but this little book,” continued he, holding it up, “I know by heart. I mean the gospels,” he added, quickly; “and I don’t hesitate to say that in all literature you shall not find such a gem.”
The gospels a gem of literature! A weight seemed to press on Mary’s heart.
“Listen!” And he opened the book, and turning a few pages with nervous eagerness, found a passage. “Listen! Could anything be more beautiful?”
His lips parted; but, without reading a word, he closed the volume upon his forefinger. “Pardon me; but do you know, I fear you can hardly have more than a suspicion of how divinely beautiful this little book really is?”
She looked up, puzzled.
“You have heard it read, week after week, it is true, but read with a saintly snivel,—a holy whine.”
Mary would have protested, but a certain dark flash of bitter disdain that accompanied these words checked her; and she was silent.
“Let me read you,” said he, after a pause, “a few of my favorite passages, in the voice of a mere man.”
He read and commented, commented and read, for perhaps an hour; commented without rhetoric, read without art. He merely gave himself up to that wondrous story.
And what an hour for Mary! For weeks she had longed to know what he thought upon the one great subject which overshadowed all others in her mind. Yes, overshadowed,—for hers was not a blithe spirit. Had longed to know, yet feared to ask. And now that he had been reading and talking so long, did he—as she had so often and so fervently prayed that he should—did he think as she did? Alas, it was but too clear that he did not! But what did he think? That she could not tell, so strange and bewildering were the flashes that came from his words. Her Virginia theology gave her no clue. As though a mariner bore down upon a coast not to be found upon his chart: the lights are there, but have no meaning for him.
Equally bewildered was Mary. How did he regard the central figure of that wondrous drama? As he read and talked and talked and read, a will-o’-the-wisp danced before her eyes, leading her here, there, everywhere, but not to be seized!
How tender his voice now! borrowing pathos not from art, but from the narrative itself. A voice full of tears. And do not his eyes answer the fading sunlight with a dewy shimmer?
He was right, she thought, when he said she knew not the beauties of this little book. Not a month ago, and she had dozed under this very passage.
And now there rose before her—he read on but she heard him not (so the trooping fancies evoked by music have power to dull the mere outward ear)—rose before her soul a vision of ineffable softness,—a vision of one with a face full of sorrow, but a sun-lit head; and he beckoned to little children, and they followed him; and as he passed, the burdens of the heavy-laden grew lighter, and the weary smiled again and forgot their weariness, and rose and followed, they too. And as he passed (he read on but she heeded not)—as he passed along his stony path, violets seemed to spring from beneath his feet,—violets shedding perfume. And along the roadside lilies nodded. And sinners beat their breasts, but lifted up their hearts. And one of her own sex followed,—one who had loved much; and as she followed she dried her tears with her sunny hair—
“GENERATION OF VIPERS!”
She started from her seat and clutched the gunwale of the boat. As he towered above her, his nostrils breathed defiance, his white teeth glittered with scorn, his dark eyes gleamed, his whole figure was eloquent with indignation. ’Twas but a bunch of dry sea-weed that he held aloft, crushed in his right hand; but to her he seemed to brandish the serpent-thongs of Tisiphone; and the milksop ideal of Raphael and the rest vanished from her mind. In its stead there rose before her exalted imagination the heroic figure of a valiant young Jew. He stands before a mob that thirsts for his blood. Alone, but intrepid. He knows full well, O Jerusalem, that thou dost stone thy prophets (for what land doth not?), but though his face be pale beneath the shadow of approaching death, his brave spirit is undaunted. He is willing that the cup shall pass from him; but, being such as he is, he may turn neither to the right nor to the left. If he must drain it, then be it so. His mission is to live for man—and, if need be, to die for him.
But is this the vision of a manlike God? Is it not rather that of a godlike man?
The Argo stands firm in its bed of shining sand; but tempest-tossed is the soul of the young girl who sits therein, straining her eager eyes for a sight of land. Every now and then a glorious mirage seems to spring into the air, gladdening, for a moment, the darkening horizon, and then to fall as suddenly, dispersed by a word.
“Yes, Rousseau was right; Socrates did die like a philosopher, but Jesus like a God!”
Mary leaned forward and held her breath.
He clasped his hands, and uplifting his face that was pale with emotion: “My God,” cried he, in a voice that made her shiver—“my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
The mirage vanished,—for a mere tone may outline a whole system of theology. That cry, as he gave it, was one of bitter human anguish. In her lover’s eyes ’twas not a God that died, but a man,—godlike, but a man.
“With that cry” (he added), “the bitterest that ever broke from mortal lips—”
She heard but heeded not; she knew more than enough already.
“With that cry there burst the grandest heart that ever beat for mankind. Who can wonder that sixty generations of men have worshipped him as a God!”
Mary rose, and, descending from the Argo, took his arm. She needed its support.
Just before reaching the piazza, she stopped suddenly, and, wheeling in front of him, fixed her gaze upon his face. A gaze long, wistful, pitiful-tender. As though a mother learned by heart the features of her boy just going forth to battle, not knowing what may happen.
She tried to answer the smile that greeted this burst of feminine impulse; but the soulful eyes were swimming with tears.
The Pythia was a woman—and Cassandra—