CHAPTER XIII.
“It would be a great help to me if I could hear the language spoken in a longer discourse, so as to get the swing of it,” Tacita said one day to Iona, after having taken a lesson of her. “In conversation all my attention is occupied in listening to the sound of the words, and thinking of their meaning.”
“You can have to-morrow just what you want,” her teacher said. “Some of the college boys go up to Professor Pearlstein’s cottage with their compositions. He criticises both style and thought. Some of the compositions, if not all, will be in San Salvadorian. They will go up at eight o’clock in the morning. When you see them come across the town, follow them. You can do so freely. My brother Ion is one of the boys; and I sometimes go up to hear them. The cottage is a little above the Arcade, toward the north, and has a red roof. Half way up, the pathway branches. Turn to the right, and you will come to a little boudoir in the rocks from which you can hear perfectly.”
The next morning, therefore, Tacita followed the boys as directed, and presently found herself in a charming mossy nook with a roof, and a thick grapevine hanging between her and the little terrace where the professor sat before his cottagedoor with half a dozen boys in a semicircle before him.
Professor Pearlstein was a striking figure. His handsome face was calm and pallid, his hair and beard were white; and he wore a long robe of white wool with a scarlet sash, and a scarlet skull-cap like a cardinal’s. He was carefully dressed, even to the scarlet straps of his russet sandals; and an air of peace and orderliness hung like a perfume about him and his small domain.
Tacita, screened by her vine-leaves, listened for half an hour, eager to catch the thoughts through the veil of this beautiful language which was so sonorous and so musical, and was spoken with little motions of head, throat, and shoulders, like a singing bird.
Then a boy addressed his master in French.
“I considered the ways of a tree,” he said, holding his manuscript in hand, but without looking at it. “As soon as the seed wakes, it sends out two shoots. One goes down into the dark earth, seeking to fix itself firmly and find nourishment. The other rises into the light, putting up two little leaves, like praying hands, laid palm to palm. The root searches in that chemical laboratory, which is the earth, and is itself a chemist, and the tree sucks up its ichor, and increases. The tree also searches for food and color in sun and air. The root feels the ever increasing weight which rests upon it, and clings hard to rocks, and strikes deeper when it feels the strain of a storm in itsfibres. It does not know what the sun is, except as an unknown power that sends a gentle warmth down into the dark, and calls its juices upward. It does not know that of the particles of air which here and there give it such a delicate touch as seems a miracle, a fathomless and boundless sea exists above where all its gatherings go to build the tree. It does not know what beautiful thing it is building there, all flowers and fruit and rustling music. It crawls and gathers with the worm and the ant, obedient to the law of its being, and draws sweetness out of corruption, and clasps a rock for a friend.
“Master, I could not be content to think that there is no more than this visible tree to reward such labor, and that anything so beautiful as the tree should be meant only to please the eye, gratify the palate, and then return to chaos.
“May there not be yet a third stage of this creature, some indestructible tree of Paradise, all ethereal music, perfume, and sweetness? That beauty would be not in its mere existence, but in the good that it has done; in the shade and refreshment it has given to man; in shelter to nestling birds, and to all the little wild creatures which fly to it for protection; in the music of its playing with the breeze and with the tempest.
“When it drops off the perishable part which was but the instrument of its perfection, the humble instinct in the root understands at last for what and with what it labored.
“I remembered, O my master, that we in the flesh are but the root of our higher selves, our sense feeding our intelligence, which works visibly; while above the body and the studious mind rises some quintessence of intelligence which the spark of life was sent to elaborate out of the universe on which it feeds, a being all pure, all beautiful, which at last gathers itself up into the light of Paradise, dropping off corruption.”
“The picture-book of nature has given thee a fair lesson, Provence,” said Professor Pearlstein, smiling kindly on the boy; and then, with a few suggestions and verbal corrections, allowed him to resume his seat.
Tacita did not need to be told that the boy who rose next was Iona’s brother. He was graceful and proud-looking, with an oval olive face, black eyes and dark hair tossed back in locks that had the look of plumes. He spoke in Italian, which he pronounced exquisitely, with fullness and deliberation.
“I have been haunted by a circle and a whirling and a wheel,” he began, looking downward, his head slightly bowed, as if in confusion. “I meant to draw a lesson from the life of water. But when I had followed a drop only half its course, a great machine, all wheels and whirling, caught me up and tore my thoughts to fragments.
“I remembered having read somewhere that men and women are but the separated parts of wheelshapes, or circles which had been their united formin a more perfect state of being. Then I saw the Hindu walking seven times around the object of his sacred love, as the Mohammedan at the CordovanCeca, till his footsteps wear a pathway in the stone. I remembered Plutarch’s story of the siege of Alesia. When the city had to capitulate, the general came out on his finest charger and dressed in his finest armor, to surrender it. He rode round and round the tribune on which sat Cæsar with his officers, circled round and round them, then dismounted, disarmed himself, and sat down silently at Cæsar’s feet. That revolution had some meaning. I remembered the whirling dervish, a clod with a planetary instinct, and the Persian hell peopled with beings which whirl forever in a ceaseless circle, whirling and circling, the right hand of each pressed to his burning heart. That naturally recalls to mind the strange idea that the planets are sentient beings, whirling forever with their hearts on fire, like those accursed ones in the Hall of Eblis.
“The planetary idea is in all this circling and whirling.
“All the old nations have a legend of some great supernatural battle in the past, where rebel and loyal angels, gods and Titans, good and evil spirits fought with each other. Those legends must all be the reflection of a real event. I have wondered if Chaos may not have been the crash and ruin of such a combat, and Creation, as we have read its story, a restoration only, instead of beingthe original establishment of order. Is not all this whirl the search of scattered fragments for their supplementary parts?
“It might be, then, that there is no absolute evil, but only an evil of wrong associations. There are substances, as chemists know, which are deadly in some combinations and wholesome in others. There is the brute creation, which, perhaps, is but a false humanity unmasked. Look at the trees. Cut down an oak-tree and a pine-tree grows in its place. Why not say, cut down a cruel man and a wolf is born? And from that wolf downward through fierce and gnawing generations, each losing some fang and fire, what wore the shape of man may become mud again. What if the real grandeur of Christ’s mission may have been to release allmen of good-willfrom this primeval expiation. First comes the figure, then the substance.Let there be Light!said the Creator. And said Christ,I am the Light of the world.Shone upon by the sun, the foul and hateful may produce the exquisite. From mud and dung we have the lily and the rose. From this divine sun shining onmen of good will, we have the perfect man released from a long captivity. The hell we hear of, theouter darkness, of which the King’s Majesty spoke, might be this going downward in the scale of being of creatures which had arrived at humanity, but were unworthy of it.
“Here, then, would begin another movement, the Divine way of heaven.
“It is all a whirl! Master, it makes me dizzy!”
Half laughing, the boy pressed his hands to his temples.
“Ion,” said the master quietly, “it is well to observe natural phenomena with the hope of drawing some guidance from them in the supernatural. Nature is like our sweet-toned bell in C. The material stroke at the base brings out the keynote; but if you listen higher up where the band of lilies runs, you will hear the dominant whispering. This is our limit. If the universe should propound its riddle to me, I would lay my hand on my mouth and my mouth in the dust.”
“I would die guessing, or knowing!” cried the boy. Then, with a quick change of expression, he bowed lowly, and said in a quiet tone:—
“I considered the ways of water. It springs out of the dark earth, is a rivulet, a brook, a river. It labors, and never ceases to be useful till, laden with impurities which are not its own, it falls into the ocean. It has wet the lips of fever, washed the stains of labor, helped to bear malaria from the crowded city, revived the drooping plant, quenched the devouring flame, sung its little song along the roof and eaves, stretched its little film to soften a sunbeam in the hot noon. It rests. No, it rests not. It climbs into the sky only to return, and go over it all again. It was depressing to think that we may come again to go through the same round. But who knows that the drop of water makes the same round a second time? The variety may beinfinite. And so, I thought, the soul may come and come, till it learns to sympathize with all. May we not guess who has made many upward-growing circles by saying, he can sympathize with people in circumstances which have never surrounded his apparent life, he can be compassionate where others condemn, he can stand firm where others fail, he is not moved by clamor?”
“Who can say?” said the master, passing his hand across his forehead. “It is wiser not to ask.”
“Is it forbidden to speculate?” asked the boy in a low tone.
“It is not forbidden, Ion. But to spend the present in speculating on the unrecallable past and the unknown future is to throw away a treasure. What happens when you try to look at the sun at midday? You see nothing but a palpitating fire that scorches your brain. Turn your eyes to earth again, and do you see it as it is? No: everything is discolored, and over it all are floating livid disks that mimic the sun’s shape and slander his color, the only souvenirs of an attempt to strain a power beyond its limits. Do not try to read the poetry and philosophy of a language till you shall have learned its alphabet and grammar.”
“Yet I learned German so, and was at the head of my class,” said Ion boldly. “I opened a book with Goethe’s name on the title-page, and turned the leaves till I saw a poem that was as clearly shaped for music as a bird is. I took the first letter and learned its name and sound, and then thenext and the next, till I had a word. I learned that word, and the next in the same way, till I had a verse and a thought. O master, what delight when the dark shadows slid off that thought, and it shone out like a star from under a cloud! When, thought by thought, I had got the whole poem out, every phrase perfect, and each delicate grace with its own curves, then I knew German! I plunged into the sea and learned to swim!”
He laughed with joyous triumph, and lifting his arms, crossed them above his head, bending backward for a moment, as if to draw a full breath from the zenith.
The old man smiled.
“Thou hast an answer ever ready,” he said, “and thou art not all wrong, boy. I would not clip thy wings. I like thy life and courage. But I would that thou hadst something also of Holy Fear.”
“I like not the name of fear,” the boy said, clouding over.
“Yes; if a man fear to do right,” said the master. “But there is a noble fear of presumption, and of setting a bad example. You have quoted from our highly-honored Plutarch. Do you remember what he tells of Alexander on the vigil of the battle of Abela? He stood on the height and saw over against him Darius reviewing his troops by torchlight. They marched interminably out of the darkness into the glare and out into darkness. Those moving shadows on the morrow would becometo him and to his army showers of arrows and shock of spears, and trampling hoofs, and crushing chariot-wheels, an avalanche of fierce death to bear them down.
“Then Alexander called his soothsayer, and they set up an altar before the king’s tent; and there, with the torch-lighted hosts of the foe before them, they sacrificed to Holy Fear.
“When the hour of battle came, did Alexander therefore fail? No! The next day’s sun shone on his victory; and ere it set poor Darius was a fugitive, and his conquerer proclaimed Emperor of Asia.
“Ion, thy danger is in rashness and in passion. Guard thyself, boy! To-night, I pray thee, ere thou sleep, go out alone on to the topmost terrace of the college, and there in silence gaze for a little while into the cloudless sky and consider the torchlights of God’s great invisible encampment, cycles and cycles of being, a measureless life of which we know not the figure nor the language. And when, so gazing, the fever of thy soul shall be somewhat cooled, do thou also sacrifice to Holy Fear!”
Ion listened at first with downcast eyes, then looking earnestly at the speaker; and when the exhortation was ended, before taking his seat, he went to kiss respectfully the fringe of the master’s sash.
Into the pause that followed there broke a sudden clash of bells all struck together.
The master and pupils glanced at each other and all rose, uncovering their heads.
Tacita recognized the familiarà mortoof Italy. It signified here that some one was dying.
The clash changed to a melody, and they all sang together the hymn that had been sung that night in Venice:—
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We cry to thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We cry to thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We cry to thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,
We cry to thee!”
singing the hymn through.
When it was ended, Tacita, perceiving that the lesson of the boys would not continue longer, hastened down the path before them.
She had scarcely reached the level when Ion overtook her.
“May I speak to you, Tacita Mora?” he asked, cap in hand. “The master gave me permission to follow you.”
“Surely!” she answered, blushing. “But tell me first for whom the bells were ringing.”
“It must be Leila, one of the school-girls. She was very sick last night. And this morning her brother did not come to the college, so I knew that she must be worse.”
“Did not I see you at the assembly?” asked Tacita. “I had but a glimpse; but I think that it was you.”
“Yes,” said Ion. “It was my first admission. I was sixteen years old the day before. We go there at my age, and the ladies teach us politeness. It is proper and kind for any lady to tell us if we commit agaucherie. They tell us gently in a whisper. Pardon me if I still am awkward. Iam but a school-boy. I wanted to kiss the fringe of your sash that night, and did not dare to.”
He bent to take her sash end, kissed it lightly, and still held it for a moment as they walked. There was something caressing and fascinating in his voice and manner.
Looking down at the silken fringe, and letting it slip tuft by tuft, he asked suddenly, “Do you love my sister?”
“I admire her,” Tacita replied. “I have a sense of subjection in her presence which forbids me to use such a familiar word as love.”
“She builds up that barrier in spite of herself!” the brother exclaimed. “She wishes to see if any one will throw it down in order to get nearer to her. She would sometimes be glad if it were down. I know Iona.”
“You can approach her nearly,” Tacita said. “But who else would push down a barrier that she raises round herself?”
“I want you to,” Ion said earnestly. “I want Iona to have some one to whom she can unveil her mind more than she would to me even. Her relations with our people are fixed. Half by her own motion, and half with their help, she has been got on to a pedestal. She is on a pedestal even to Dylar. And there she must remain till some one helps her down. See why I am so anxious about it now.”
He took her sash end again, and held it, his fingers trembling as he went on with growing passion.
“Next year some of our young men are going out to take their places in the world. They are all two or three years older than I; but I am a century more impatient than all of them put together. Naturally I should be expected to wait. If I insist, I can go; only I am afraid it would give pain to Iona. But if you love her, you can take my place to her. She is sure to love you. I feel your sweetness all about you in the air. At the assembly a lady quoted something pretty about you:
‘Why, a stranger, when he sees herIn the street even, smileth stilly,Just as you would at a lily.’
‘Why, a stranger, when he sees herIn the street even, smileth stilly,Just as you would at a lily.’
‘Why, a stranger, when he sees herIn the street even, smileth stilly,Just as you would at a lily.’
‘Why, a stranger, when he sees her
In the street even, smileth stilly,
Just as you would at a lily.’
Don’t let this barrier grow up between you and Iona! Try to get inside of it, and help me.”
“I will do what I can, Ion,” Tacita said, beginning to feel as if she had found a brother. “May I speak of it to Dylar? I think that she would show her mind more freely to him.”
“I leave it all to you, and thank you,” the boy said, warmly. “I shall die if I do not go! But don’t tell them that I said so. I have such a longing! Last year I climbed that southern mountain we call the Dome. From the top I caught a glimpse between the higher mountains of the outside world. Oh, how it stretched away! Our plain was as the palm of my hand compared with that vast outspread of land. There were small blue spots, so small that if I held two fingers up at arm’s length, they were hidden. Yet they were mountains like these. There were trees so distantthat they looked a mere green leaf dropped on the ground. I saw where the sun rises over the rim of the round earth, and where it sinks again. How I breathed! This is a dear home, I know. I have seen men and women fall on their knees and thank God, weeping with joy, that they were permitted to return after having been long away. But I cannot love San Salvador as it deserves till I have seen something different.”
Tacita took in hers the boy’s trembling hand.
“Be comforted!” she said. “I will do all that I can, and you are sure to go. It will not be long to wait. Now, when you go about, look at San Salvador and all that it contains with the thought that you are taking leave of it. On the eve of saying farewell, even a mere acquaintance seems a friend.”
They were at the door of the Arcade. Ion took a grateful, graceful leave.
“Addio, O Queen of golden Silence!” he said.
“Poor little Leila is dead!” said Elena, coming in later. “I was with her. It was she who gave you the white rose when we were at the school. You can now give one back.”