And while Dan was thus conferring with his own thoughts he heard Joseph saying that if he were to keep the promise he had just given, not to see Jesus again, he must not remain in his neighbourhood. Yes, that is so, Joseph; go to Jerusalem. And the old man began to babble of the transport of figs from Jericho, till Joseph could not do else than ponder on the grip of habit on a man's heart, and ask himself if the news of his death would affect his father's health more than the news that there was no further demand in Damascus for his salt fish. He repented the thought as soon as it had passed through his mind, and he understood that, however much it would cost him, he must go away to Jerusalem. He dared not risk the accusation that would for ever echo in his heart: my father has no peace by day, nor rest at night, he is thinking always that a Zealot's knife is in my back. But after my father's death—His thoughts brought him back again to a sudden shame of himself. I am like that, he said, and shall always be as I am. And, not daring to think of himself any more, he jumped to his feet: I must tell my servant that I shall start soon after daybreak.
CHAP. XVI.
And on his arrival in Jerusalem Joseph stood for a moment before his camel thanking the beast for his great, rocking stride, which has given me, he said, respite from thinking for two whole days and part of two nights. But I cannot be always on the back of a camel, he continued, and must now rely on my business to help me to forget; and he strove to apply his mind to every count that came before him, but in the middle of every one his thoughts would fly away to Galilee, and the merchant waiting to receive the provisions he had come to fetch wondered of what the young man was thinking, and the cause of the melancholy that was in his face.
He was still less master of his thoughts when he sat alone, his ledger before him; and finding he could not add up the figures, he would abandon himself without restraint to his grief; and very often it was so deep that when the clerk opened the door it took Joseph some moments to remember that he was in his counting-house; and when the clerk spoke of the camel-drivers that were waiting in the yard behind the counting-house for orders, it was only by an effort of will that he collected his thoughts sufficiently to realise that the yard was still there, and that a caravan was waiting for orders to return to Jericho. The orders were forgotten on the way to the yard, and the clerk had to remind him, and sometimes to say: Master, if you'll allow me, I will settle this business for you.
Joseph was glad of his clerk's help, and he returned to the ledger, and, staring at figures which he did not see, he sat thinking of Jesus, of the night they walked by the lake's edge, of the day spent in the woods above Capernaum, and the various towns of Syria that they visited. It seemed to him that the good days had gone over for ever, and it was but a sad pleasure to remember the pagans that liked Jesus' miracles without being able to abandon their own gods. Only Peter could bring a smile into his face; a smile wandered round his lips, for it was impossible to think of Peter and not to smile. But the smile faded quickly and the old pain gripped his heart.
I have lost Jesus for ever, he said, and at that moment a sudden rap at his door awoke him from his reveries. He was angry with his clerk, but he tried to disguise his anger, for he was conscious that he must present a very ridiculous appearance to his clerk, unless, indeed, which was quite likely, his clerk was indifferent to anything but the business of the counting-house. Be this as it may, he was an old and confidential servant who made no comments and asked no questions. Joseph was grateful to his clerk for his assumed ignorance and an hour later Joseph bade him good-night. I shall see thee in the morning, to which Samuel answered: yes, sir; and Joseph was left alone in the crowded street of Jerusalem, staring at the passengers as they went, wondering if they were realities, everyone compelled by a business or a desire, or merely shadows, figments of his imagination and himself no more than a shadow, a something that moved and that must move across the valley of Jehoshaphat and up the Mount of Olives. Why that way more than any other way? he asked himself: because it is the shortest way. As if that mattered, he added, and as soon as he reached the top of the Mount of Olives he looked over the desert and was surprised by the smallness of the hills; like the people who lived among them, they seemed to him to have dwindled. The world is much smaller than I thought, he said. That is it, the world seems to have dwindled into a sort of ash-heap; life has become as tasteless as ashes. It can only end, he said to himself, by my discovering something that interests me, but nothing interests me except Jesus. Lack of desire, he said, is my burden, for, desiring one thing too much, I have lost desire for all else, and that is why life has come to me like an ash-heap.
As the days went by he began to feel life more oppressive and unendurable, till one evening the thought crossed his mind that change of scene might be a great benefit to him. If he were to go to Egypt, he would journey for fifteen days through the desert, the rocking stride of the camel would keep him from thinking, and he might arrive in Egypt eager to listen to the philosophers again. But the temptations that Egypt presented faded almost as soon as they had arisen, and he deemed that it might be better for him to choose a city oversea. A sea voyage, he thought, will cheer me more than a long journey across the desert, and Joppa is but a day's journey from Jerusalem. But the shipping is more frequent from Cæsarea, and it is not as far; and for a moment it seemed to him that he would like to be on board a ship watching the wind making the sail beautiful. But to what port should he be making for? he asked. Why not to Greece?—for there are philosophers as great or greater than those of Alexandria. But philosophers are out of my humour, he added, and, putting Athens aside, he bethought himself of Corinth, and the variegated world he would meet there. From every port ships come to Corinth, bringing different habits, customs, languages, religions; and for the better part of the evening Corinth seemed to be his destination.
Corinth was famous for its courtesans, and he remembered suddenly that the most celebrated were collected there; and it may have been the courtesans that kept him from this journey, and his thoughts turning from vice to marriage a bitterness rose up in his mind against his father for the persistency with which Dan reminded him in and out of season that every man's duty is to bring children into the world.
It had seemed to him that in asking him to take a wife to his discomfort his father was asking him too much, and he had put the question aside; but he was now without will to resist any memory that might befall him, and for the first time he allowed his thoughts to dwell on his father's implied regret that he had never caught his son near a servant girl's bed. His unwillingness to impugn his father's opinions kept him heretofore from pondering on his words, but feeling his life to be now broken and cast away, there seemed to arise some reasons for an examination of his father's words. They could not mean anything else than that a young man was following the natural instincts if he lingered about a young girl's room; and that to be without this instinct was almost a worse misfortune than to be possessed by it to the practical exclusion of other interests.