The Child of the Dawn

by Arthur Christopher Benson

XXVII

I had somehow never expected to be used with positive violence in the world of spirits, and least of all in that lazy and good-natured place. Considering, too, the errand on which I had come, not for my own convenience but for the sake of another, my treatment seemed to me very hard. What was still more humiliating was the fact that my spirit seemed just as powerless in the hands of these ruffians as my body would have been on earth. I was pushed, hustled, insulted, hurt. I could have summoned Amroth to my aid, but I felt too proud for that; yet the thought of the cragmen, and the possibility of the second death, did visit my mind with dismal iteration. I did not at all desire a further death; I felt very much alive, and full of interest and energy. Worst of all was my sense that Cynthia had gone over to the enemy. I had been so loftily kind with her, that I much resented having appeared in her sight as feeble and ridiculous. It is difficult to preserve any dignity of demeanour or thought, with a man's hand at one's neck and his knee in one's back: and I felt that Lucius had displayed a really Satanical malignity in using this particular means of degrading me in Cynthia's sight, and of regaining his own lost influence.

I was thrust and driven before my captors along an alley in the garden, and what added to my discomfiture was that a good many people ran together to see us pass, and watched me with decided amusement. I was taken finally to a little pavilion of stone, with heavily barred windows, and a flagged marble floor. The room was absolutely bare, and contained neither seat nor table. Into this I was thrust, with some obscene jesting, and the door was locked upon me.

The time passed very heavily. At intervals I heard music burst out among the alleys, and a good many people came to peep in upon me with an amused curiosity. I was entirely bewildered by my position, and did not see what I could have done to have incurred my punishment. But in the solitary hours that followed I began to have a suspicion of my fault. I had found myself hitherto the object of so much attention and praise, that I had developed a strong sense of complacency and self-satisfaction. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that there was even more behind, but I could not, by interrogating my mind and searching out my spirits, make out clearly what it was; yet I felt I was having a sharp lesson; and this made me resolve that I would ask for no kind of assistance from Amroth or any other power, but that I would try to meet whatever fell upon me with patience, and extract the full savour of my experience.

I do not know how long I spent in the dismal cell. I was in some discomfort from the handling I had received, and in still greater dejection of mind. Suddenly I heard footsteps approaching. Three of my captors appeared, and told me roughly to go with them. So, a pitiable figure, I limped along between two of them, the third following behind, and was conducted through the central piazza of the place, between two lines of people who gave way to the most undisguised merriment, and even shouted opprobrious remarks at me, calling me spy and traitor and other unpleasant names. I could not have believed that these kind-mannered and courteous persons could have exhibited, all of a sudden, such frank brutality, and I saw many of my own acquaintance among them, who regarded me with obvious derision.

I was taken into a big hall, in which I had often sat to hear a concert of music. On the dais at the upper end were seated a number of dignified persons, in a semicircle, with a very handsome and stately old man in the centre on a chair of state, whose face was new to me. Before this Court I was formally arraigned; I had to stand alone in the middle of the floor, in an open space. Two of my captors stood on each side of me; while the rest of the court was densely packed with people, who greeted me with obvious hostility.

When silence was procured, the President said to me, with a show of great courtesy, that he could not disguise from himself that the charge against me was a serious one; but that justice would be done to me, fully and carefully. I should have ample opportunity to excuse myself. He then called upon one of those who sat with him to state the case briefly, and call witnesses and after that he promised I might speak for myself.

A man rose from one of the seats, and, pleading somewhat rhetorically, said that the object of the great community, to which so many were proud to belong, was to secure to all the utmost amount of innocent enjoyment, and the most entire peace of mind; that no pressure was put upon any one who decided to stay there, and to observe the quiet customs of the place; but that it was always considered a heinous and ill-disposed thing to attempt to unsettle any one's convictions, or to attempt, by using undue influence, to bring about the migration of any citizen to conditions of which little was known, but which there was reason to believe were distinctly undesirable.

"We are, above all," he said, "a religious community; our rites and our ceremonies are privileges open to all; we compel no one to attend them; all that we insist is that no one, by restless innovation or cynical contempt, should attempt to disturb the emotions of serene contemplation, distinguished courtesy, and artistic feeling, for which our society has been so long and justly celebrated."

This was received with loud applause, indulgently checked by the President. Some witnesses were then called, who testified to the indifference and restlessness which I had on many occasions manifested. It was brought up against me that I had provoked a much-respected member of the community, Charmides, to utter some very treasonous and unpleasant language, and that it was believed that the rash and unhappy step, which he had lately taken, of leaving the place, had been entirely or mainly the result of my discontented and ill-advised suggestion.