The Last Days of Pompeii Page 8

  Chapter VIII

  ARBACES COGS HIS DICE WITH PLEASURE AND WINS THE GAME.

  THE evening darkened over the restless city as Apaecides took his way tothe house of the Egyptian. He avoided the more lighted and populousstreets; and as he strode onward with his head buried in his bosom, andhis arms folded within his robe, there was something startling in thecontrast, which his solemn mien and wasted form presented to thethoughtless brows and animated air of those who occasionally crossed hispath.

  At length, however, a man of a more sober and staid demeanor, and whohad twice passed him with a curious but doubting look, touched him onthe shoulder.

  'Apaecides!' said he, and he made a rapid sign with his hands: it wasthe sign of the cross.

  'Well, Nazarene,' replied the priest, and his face grew paler; 'whatwouldst thou?'

  'Nay,' returned the stranger, 'I would not interrupt thy meditations;but the last time we met, I seemed not to be so unwelcome.'

  'You are not unwelcome, Olinthus; but I am sad and weary: nor am I ablethis evening to discuss with you those themes which are most acceptableto you.'

  'O backward of heart!' said Olinthus, with bitter fervor; and art thousad and weary, and wilt thou turn from the very springs that refresh andheal?'

  'O earth!' cried the young priest, striking his breast passionately,'from what regions shall my eyes open to the true Olympus, where thygods really dwell? Am I to believe with this man, that none whom for somany centuries my fathers worshipped have a being or a name? Am I tobreak down, as something blasphemous and profane, the very altars whichI have deemed most sacred? or am I to think with Arbaces--what?' Hepaused, and strode rapidly away in the impatience of a man who strivesto get rid of himself. But the Nazarene was one of those hardy,vigorous, and enthusiastic men, by whom God in all times has worked therevolutions of earth, and those, above all, in the establishment and inthe reformation of His own religion--men who were formed to convert,because formed to endure. It is men of this mould whom nothingdiscourages, nothing dismays; in the fervor of belief they are inspiredand they inspire. Their reason first kindles their passion, but thepassion is the instrument they use; they force themselves into men'shearts, while they appear only to appeal to their judgment. Nothing isso contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the tale ofOrpheus--it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius ofsincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.

  Olinthus did not then suffer Apaecides thus easily to escape him. Heovertook and addressed him thus:

  'I do not wonder, Apaecides, that I distress you; that I shake all theelements of your mind: that you are lost in doubt; that you drift hereand there in the vast ocean of uncertain and benighted thought. Iwonder not at this, but bear with me a little; watch and pray--thedarkness shall vanish, the storm sleep, and God Himself, as He came ofyore on the seas of Samaria, shall walk over the lulled billows, to thedelivery of your soul. Ours is a religion jealous in its demands, buthow infinitely prodigal in its gifts! It troubles you for an hour, itrepays you by immortality.'

  'Such promises,' said Apaecides, sullenly, 'are the tricks by which manis ever gulled. Oh, glorious were the promises which led me to theshrine of Isis!'

  'But,' answered the Nazarene, 'ask thy reason, can that religion besound which outrages all morality? You are told to worship your gods.What are those gods, even according to yourselves? What their actions,what their attributes? Are they not all represented to you as theblackest of criminals? yet you are asked to serve them as the holiest ofdivinities. Jupiter himself is a parricide and an adulterer. What arethe meaner deities but imitators of his vices? You are told not tomurder, but you worship murderers; you are told not to commit adultery,and you make your prayers to an adulterer! Oh! what is this but amockery of the holiest part of man's nature, which is faith? Turn nowto the God, the one, the true God, to whose shrine I would lead you. IfHe seem to you too sublime, two shadowy, for those human associations,those touching connections between Creator and creature, to which theweak heart clings--contemplate Him in His Son, who put on mortality likeourselves. His mortality is not indeed declared, like that of yourfabled gods, by the vices of our nature, but by the practice of all itsvirtues. In Him are united the austerest morals with the tenderestaffections. If He were but a mere man, He had been worthy to become agod. You honour Socrates--he has his sect, his disciples, his schools.But what are the doubtful virtues of the Athenian, to the bright, theundisputed, the active, the unceasing, the devoted holiness of Christ?I speak to you now only of His human character. He came in that as thepattern of future ages, to show us the form of virtue which Platothirsted to see embodied. This was the true sacrifice that He made forman; but the halo that encircled His dying hour not only brightenedearth, but opened to us the sight of heaven! You are touched--you aremoved. God works in your heart. His Spirit is with you. Come, resistnot the holy impulse; come at once--unhesitatingly. A few of us are nowassembled to expound the word of God. Come, let me guide you to them.You are sad, you are weary. Listen, then, to the words of God: "Come tome", saith He, "all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!"'

  'I cannot now,' said Apaecides; 'another time.'

  'Now--now!' exclaimed Olinthus, earnestly, and clasping him by the arm.

  But Apaecides, yet unprepared for the renunciation of that faith--thatlife, for which he had sacrificed so much, and still haunted by thepromises of the Egyptian, extricated himself forcibly from the grasp;and feeling an effort necessary to conquer the irresolution which theeloquence of the Christian had begun to effect in his heated andfeverish mind, he gathered up his robes and fled away with a speed thatdefied pursuit.

  Breathless and exhausted, he arrived at last in a remote and sequesteredpart of the city, and the lone house of the Egyptian stood before him.As he paused to recover himself, the moon emerged from a silver cloud,and shone full upon the walls of that mysterious habitation.

  No other house was near--the darksome vines clustered far and wide infront of the building and behind it rose a copse of lofty forest trees,sleeping in the melancholy moonlight; beyond stretched the dim outlineof the distant hills, and amongst them the quiet crest of Vesuvius, notthen so lofty as the traveler beholds it now.

  Apaecides passed through the arching vines, and arrived at the broad andspacious portico. Before it, on either side of the steps, reposed theimage of the Egyptian sphinx, and the moonlight gave an additional andyet more solemn calm to those large, and harmonious, and passionlessfeatures, in which the sculptors of that type of wisdom united so muchof loveliness with awe; half way up the extremities of the stepsdarkened the green and massive foliage of the aloe, and the shadow ofthe eastern palm cast its long and unwaving boughs partially over themarble surface of the stairs.

  Something there was in the stillness of the place, and the strangeaspect of the sculptured sphinxes, which thrilled the blood of thepriest with a nameless and ghostly fear, and he longed even for an echoto his noiseless steps as he ascended to the threshold.

  He knocked at the door, over which was wrought an inscription incharacters unfamiliar to his eyes; it opened without a sound, and a tallEthiopian slave, without question or salutation, motioned to him toproceed.

  The wide hall was lighted by lofty candelabra of elaborate bronze, andround the walls were wrought vast hieroglyphics, in dark and solemncolors, which contrasted strangely with the bright hues and gracefulshapes with which the inhabitants of Italy decorated their abodes. Atthe extremity of the hall, a slave, whose countenance, though notAfrican, was darker by many shades than the usual color of the south,advanced to meet him.

  'I seek Arbaces,' said the priest; but his voice trembled even in hisown ear. The slave bowed his head in silence, and leading Apaecides toa wing without the hall, conducted him up a narrow staircase, and thentraversing several rooms, in which the stern and thoughtful beauty ofthe sphinx still made the chief and most impressive object of thepriest's notice, Apaecides f
ound himself in a dim and half-lightedchamber, in the presence of the Egyptian.

  Arbaces was seated before a small table, on which lay unfolded severalscrolls of papyrus, impressed with the same character as that on thethreshold of the mansion. A small tripod stood at a little distance,from the incense in which the smoke slowly rose. Near this was a vastglobe, depicting the signs of heaven; and upon another table lay severalinstruments, of curious and quaint shape, whose uses were unknown toApaecides. The farther extremity of the room was concealed by acurtain, and the oblong window in the roof admitted the rays of themoon, mingling sadly with the single lamp which burned in the apartment.

  'Seat yourself, Apaecides,' said the Egyptian, without rising.

  The young man obeyed.

  'You ask me,' resumed Arbaces, after a short pause, in which he seemedabsorbed in thought--'You ask me, or would do so, the mightiest secretswhich the soul of man is fitted to receive; it is the enigma of lifeitself that you desire me to solve. Placed like children in the dark,and but for a little while, in this dim and confined existence, we shapeour spectres in the obscurity; our thoughts now sink back into ourselvesin terror, now wildly plunge themselves into the guideless gloom,guessing what it may contain; stretching our helpless hands here andthere, lest, blindly, we stumble upon some hidden danger; not knowingthe limits of our boundary, now feeling them suffocate us withcompression, now seeing them extend far away till they vanish intoeternity. In this state all wisdom consists necessarily in the solutionof two questions: "What are we to believe? and What are we to reject?"These questions you desire me to decide.'

  Apaecides bowed his head in assent.

  'Man must have some belief,' continued the Egyptian, in a tone ofsadness. 'He must fasten his hope to something: is our common naturethat you inherit when, aghast and terrified to see that in which youhave been taught to place your faith swept away, you float over a drearyand shoreless sea of incertitude, you cry for help, you ask for someplank to cling to, some land, however dim and distant, to attain. Well,then, have not forgotten our conversation of to-day?'

  'Forgotten!'

  'I confessed to you that those deities for whom smoke so many altarswere but inventions. I confessed to you that our rites and ceremonieswere but mummeries, to delude and lure the herd to their proper good. Iexplained to you that from those delusions came the bonds of society,the harmony of the world, the power of the wise; that power is in theobedience of the vulgar. Continue we then these salutary delusions--ifman must have some belief, continue to him that which his fathers havemade dear to him, and which custom sanctifies and strengthens. Inseeking a subtler faith for us, whose senses are too spiritual for thegross one, let us leave others that support which crumbles fromourselves. This is wise--it is benevolent.'

  'Proceed.'

  'This being settled,' resumed the Egyptian, 'the old landmarks beingleft uninjured for those whom we are about to desert, we gird up ourloins and depart to new climes of faith. Dismiss at once from yourrecollection, from your thought, all that you have believed before.Suppose the mind a blank, an unwritten scroll, fit to receiveimpressions for the first time. Look round the world--observe itsorder--its regularity--its design. Something must have created it--thedesign speaks a designer: in that certainty we first touch land. Butwhat is that something?--A god, you cry. Stay--no confusedand confusing names. Of that which created the world, we know,we can know, nothing, save these attributes--power and unvaryingregularity--stern, crushing, relentless regularity--heeding noindividual cases--rolling--sweeping--burning on; no matter whatscattered hearts, severed from the general mass, fall ground andscorched beneath its wheels. The mixture of evil with good--theexistence of suffering and of crime--in all times have perplexed thewise. They created a god--they supposed him benevolent. How then camethis evil? why did he permit it--nay, why invent, why perpetuate it? Toaccount for this, the Persian creates a second spirit, whose nature isevil, and supposes a continual war between that and the god of good. Inour own shadowy and tremendous Typhon, the Egyptians image a similardemon. Perplexing blunder that yet more bewilders us!--folly that arosefrom the vain delusion that makes a palpable, a corporeal, a humanbeing, of this unknown power--that clothes the Invisible with attributesand a nature similar to the Seen. No: to this designer let us give aname that does not command our bewildering associations, and the mysterybecomes more clear--that name is NECESSITY. Necessity, say the Greeks,compels the gods. Then why the gods?--their agency becomesunnecessary--dismiss them at once. Necessity is the ruler of all wesee--power, regularity--these two qualities make its nature. Would youask more?--you can learn nothing: whether it be eternal--whether itcompel us, its creatures, to new careers after that darkness which wecall death--we cannot tell. There leave we this ancient, unseen,unfathomable power, and come to that which, to our eyes, is the greatminister of its functions. This we can task more, from this we can learnmore: its evidence is around us--its name is NATURE. The error of thesages has been to direct their researches to the attributes ofnecessity, where all is gloom and blindness. Had they confined theirresearches to Nature--what of knowledge might we not already haveachieved? Here patience, examination, are never directed in vain. Wesee what we explore; our minds ascend a palpable ladder of causes andeffects. Nature is the great agent of the external universe, andNecessity imposes upon it the laws by which it acts, and imparts to usthe powers by which we examine; those powers are curiosity andmemory--their union is reason, their perfection is wisdom. Well, then,I examine by the help of these powers this inexhaustible Nature. Iexamine the earth, the air, the ocean, the heaven: I find that all havea mystic sympathy with each other--that the moon sways the tides--thatthe air maintains the earth, and is the medium of the life and sense ofthings--that by the knowledge of the stars we measure the limits of theearth--that we portion out the epochs of time--that by their pale lightwe are guided into the abyss of the past--that in their solemn lore wediscern the destinies of the future. And thus, while we know not thatwhich Necessity is, we learn, at least, her decrees. And now, whatmorality do we glean from this religion?--for religion it is. I believein two deities--Nature and Necessity; I worship the last by reverence,the first by investigation. What is the morality my religion teaches?This--all things are subject but to general rules; the sun shines forthe joy of the many--it may bring sorrow to the few; the night shedssleep on the multitude--but it harbors murder as well as rest; theforests adorn the earth--but shelter the serpent and the lion; the oceansupports a thousand barks--but it engulfs the one. It is only thus forthe general, and not for the universal benefit, that Nature acts, andNecessity speeds on her awful course. This is the morality of the dreadagents of the world--it is mine, who am their creature. I wouldpreserve the delusions of priestcraft, for they are serviceable to themultitude; I would impart to man the arts I discover, the sciences Iperfect; I would speed the vast career of civilizing lore: in this Iserve the mass, I fulfill the general law, I execute the great moralthat Nature preaches. For myself I claim the individual exception; Iclaim it for the wise--satisfied that my individual actions are nothingin the great balance of good and evil; satisfied that the product of myknowledge can give greater blessings to the mass than my desires canoperate evil on the few (for the first can extend to remotest regionsand humanize nations yet unborn), I give to the world wisdom, to myselffreedom. I enlighten the lives of others, and I enjoy my own. Yes; ourwisdom is eternal, but our life is short: make the most of it while itlasts. Surrender thy youth to pleasure, and thy senses to delight. Sooncomes the hour when the wine-cup is shattered, and the garlands shallcease to bloom. Enjoy while you may. Be still, O Apaecides, my pupiland my follower! I will teach thee the mechanism of Nature, her darkestand her wildest secrets--the lore which fools call magic--and the mightymysteries of the stars. By this shalt thou discharge thy duty to themass; by this shalt thou enlighten thy race. But I will lead thee alsoto pleasures of which the vulgar do not dream; and the day which thougivest to men
shall be followed by the sweet night which thousurrenderest to thyself.'

  As the Egyptian ceased there rose about, around, beneath, the softestmusic that Lydia ever taught, or Iona ever perfected. It came like astream of sound, bathing the senses unawares; enervating, subduing withdelight. It seemed the melodies of invisible spirits, such as theshepherd might have heard in the golden age, floating through the valesof Thessaly, or in the noontide glades of Paphos. The words which hadrushed to the lip of Apaecides, in answer to the sophistries of theEgyptian, died tremblingly away. He felt it as a profanation to breakupon that enchanted strain--the susceptibility of his excited nature,the Greek softness and ardour of his secret soul, were swayed andcaptured by surprise. He sank on the seat with parted lips andthirsting ear; while in a chorus of voices, bland and melting as thosewhich waked Psyche in the halls of love, rose the following song:

  THE HYMN OF EROS

  By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows, A voice sail'd trembling down the waves of air; The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian's rose, The doves couch'd breathless in their summer lair;

  While from their hands the purple flowerets fell, The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky;-- From Pan's green cave to AEgle's haunted cell, Heaved the charm'd earth in one delicious sigh.

  Love, sons of earth! I am the Power of Love! Eldest of all the gods, with Chaos born; My smile sheds light along the courts above, My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn.

  Mine are the stars--there, ever as ye gaze, Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes; Mine is the moon--and, mournful if her rays, 'Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies.

  The flowers are mine--the blushes of the rose, The violet--charming Zephyr to the shade; Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows, And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade.

  Love, sons of earth--for love is earth's soft lore, Look where ye will--earth overflows with ME; Learn from the waves that ever kiss the shore, And the winds nestling on the heaving sea.

  'All teaches love!'--The sweet voice, like a dream, Melted in light; yet still the airs above, The waving sedges, and the whispering stream, And the green forest rustling, murmur'd 'LOVE!'As the voices died away, the Egyptian seized the hand of Apaecides, andled him, wandering, intoxicated, yet half-reluctant, across the chambertowards the curtain at the far end; and now, from behind that curtain,there seemed to burst a thousand sparkling stars; the veil itself,hitherto dark, was now lighted by these fires behind into the tenderestblue of heaven. It represented heaven itself--such a heaven, as in thenights of June might have shone down over the streams of Castaly. Hereand there were painted rosy and aerial clouds, from which smiled, by thelimner's art, faces of divinest beauty, and on which reposed the shapesof which Phidias and Apelles dreamed. And the stars which studded thetransparent azure rolled rapidly as they shone, while the music, thatagain woke with a livelier and lighter sound, seemed to imitate themelody of the joyous spheres.

  'Oh! what miracle is this, Arbaces,' said Apaecides in falteringaccents. 'After having denied the gods, art thou about to reveal tome...'

  'Their pleasures!' interrupted Arbaces, in a tone so different from itsusual cold and tranquil harmony that Apaecides started, and thought theEgyptian himself transformed; and now, as they neared the curtain, awild--a loud--an exulting melody burst from behind its concealment.With that sound the veil was rent in twain--it parted--it seemed tovanish into air: and a scene, which no Sybarite ever more than rivalled,broke upon the dazzled gaze of the youthful priest. A vast banquet-roomstretched beyond, blazing with countless lights, which filled the warmair with the scents of frankincense, of jasmine, of violets, of myrrh;all that the most odorous flowers, all that the most costly spices coulddistil, seemed gathered into one ineffable and ambrosial essence: fromthe light columns that sprang upwards to the airy roof, hung draperiesof white, studded with golden stars. At the extremities of the room twofountains cast up a spray, which, catching the rays of the roseatelight, glittered like countless diamonds. In the centre of the room asthey entered there rose slowly from the floor, to the sound of unseenminstrelsy, a table spread with all the viands which sense ever devotedto fancy, and vases of that lost Myrrhine fabric, so glowing in itscolors, so transparent in its material, were crowned with the exotics ofthe East. The couches, to which this table was the centre, were coveredwith tapestries of azure and gold; and from invisible tubes the vaultedroof descended showers of fragrant waters, that cooled the deliciousair, and contended with the lamps, as if the spirits of wave and firedisputed which element could furnish forth the most delicious odorous.And now, from behind the snowy draperies, trooped such forms as Adonisbeheld when he lay on the lap of Venus. They came, some with garlands,others with lyres; they surrounded the youth, they led his steps to thebanquet. They flung the chaplets round him in rosy chains. Theearth--the thought of earth, vanished from his soul. He imaginedhimself in a dream, and suppressed his breath lest he should wake toosoon; the senses, to which he had never yielded as yet, beat in hisburning pulse, and confused his dizzy and reeling sight. And while thusamazed and lost, once again, but in brisk and Bacchic measures, rose themagic strain:

  ANACREONTIC

  In the veins of the calix foams and glows The blood of the mantling vine, But oh! in the bowl of Youth there glows A Lesbian, more divine! Bright, bright, As the liquid light, Its waves through thine eyelids shine!

  Fill up, fill up, to the sparkling brim, The juice of the young Lyaeus; The grape is the key that we owe to him From the gaol of the world to free us. Drink, drink! What need to shrink, When the lambs alone can see us?

  Drink, drink, as I quaff from thine eyes The wine of a softer tree; Give the smiles to the god of the grape--thy sighs, Beloved one, give to me. Turn, turn, My glances burn, And thirst for a look from thee!As the song ended, a group of three maidens, entwined with a chain ofstarred flowers, and who, while they imitated, might have shamed theGraces, advanced towards him in the gliding measures of the Ioniandance: such as the Nereids wreathed in moonlight on the yellow sands ofthe AEgean wave--such as Cytherea taught her handmaids in themarriage-feast of Psyche and her son.

  Now approaching, they wreathed their chaplet round his head; nowkneeling, the youngest of the three proffered him the bowl, from whichthe wine of Lesbos foamed and sparkled. The youth resisted no more, hegrasped the intoxicating cup, the blood mantled fiercely through hisveins. He sank upon the breast of the nymph who sat beside him, andturning with swimming eyes to seek for Arbaces, whom he had lost in thewhirl of his emotions, he beheld him seated beneath a canopy at theupper end of the table, and gazing upon him with a smile that encouragedhim to pleasure. He beheld him, but not as he had hitherto seen, withdark and sable garments, with a brooding and solemn brow: a robe thatdazzled the sight, so studded was its whitest surface with gold andgems, blazed upon his majestic form; white roses, alternated with theemerald and the ruby, and shaped tiara-like, crowned his raven locks.He appeared, like Ulysses, to have gained the glory of a secondyouth--his features seemed to have exchanged thought for beauty, and hetowered amidst the loveliness that surrounded him, in all the beamingand relaxing benignity of the Olympian god.

  'Drink, feast, love, my pupil!' said he, 'blush not that thou artpassionate and young. That which thou art, thou feelest in thy veins:that which thou shalt be, survey!'

  With this he pointed to a recess, and the eyes of Apaecides, followingthe gesture, beheld on a pedestal, placed between the statues of Bacchusand Idalia, the form of a skeleton.

  'Start not,' resumed the Egyptian; 'that friendly guest admonishes usbut of the shortness of life.
From its jaws I hear a voice that summonsus to ENJOY.'

  As he spoke, a group of nymphs surrounded the statue; they laid chapletson its pedestal, and, while the cups were emptied and refilled at thatglowing board, they sang the following strain:

  BACCHIC HYMNS TO THE IMAGE OF DEATH

  I

  Thou art in the land of the shadowy Host, Thou that didst drink and love: By the Solemn River, a gliding ghost, But thy thought is ours above! If memory yet can fly, Back to the golden sky, And mourn the pleasures lost! By the ruin'd hall these flowers we lay, Where thy soul once held its palace; When the rose to thy scent and sight was gay, And the smile was in the chalice, And the cithara's voice Could bid thy heart rejoice When night eclipsed the day.

  Here a new group advancing, turned the tide of the music into a quickerand more joyous strain.

  II

  Death, death is the gloomy shore Where we all sail-- Soft, soft, thou gliding oar; Blow soft, sweet gale! Chain with bright wreaths the Hours; Victims if all Ever, 'mid song and flowers, Victims should fall!

  Pausing for a moment, yet quicker and quicker danced the silver-footedmusic:

  Since Life's so short, we'll live to laugh, Ah! wherefore waste a minute! If youth's the cup we yet can quaff, Be love the pearl within it!

  A third band now approached with brimming cups, which they poured inlibation upon that strange altar; and once more, slow and solemn, rosethe changeful melody:

  III

  Thou art welcome, Guest of gloom, From the far and fearful sea! When the last rose sheds its bloom, Our board shall be spread with thee! All hail, dark Guest! Who hath so fair a plea Our welcome Guest to be, As thou, whose solemn hall At last shall feast us all In the dim and dismal coast? Long yet be we the Host! And thou, Dead Shadow, thou, All joyless though thy brow, Thou--but our passing GUEST!

  At this moment, she who sat beside Apaecides suddenly took up the song:

  IV

  Happy is yet our doom, The earth and the sun are ours! And far from the dreary tomb Speed the wings of the rosy Hours-- Sweet is for thee the bowl, Sweet are thy looks, my love; I fly to thy tender soul, As bird to its mated dove! Take me, ah, take! Clasp'd to thy guardian breast, Soft let me sink to rest: But wake me--ah, wake! And tell me with words and sighs, But more with thy melting eyes, That my sun is not set-- That the Torch is not quench'd at the Urn That we love, and we breathe, and burn, Tell me--thou lov'st me yet!

  BOOK THE SECOND