Читать книгу Ardath - Marie Corelli - Страница 27

It was no light or easy journey he had thus rashly undertaken on the faith of a dream,—for dream he still believed it to be. Many weary days and nights were consumed in the comfortless tedium of travel, . . and though he constantly told himself what unheard-of folly it was to pursue an illusive chimera of his own imagination,—a mere phantasm which had somehow or other taken possession of his brain at a time when that brain must have been acted upon (so he continued to think) by strong mesmeric or magnetic influence, he went on his way all the same with a sort of dogged obstinacy which no fatigue could daunt or lessen. He never lay down to rest without the faint hope of seeing once again, if only in sleep, the radiant Being whose haunting words had sent him on this quest of "Ardath,"—but herein his expectations were not realized. No more flower-crowned angels floated before him—no sweet whisper of love, encouragement, or promise came mysteriously on his ears in the midnight silences,—his slumbers were always profound and placid as those of a child and utterly dreamless.

One consolation he had however, … he could write. Not a day passed without his finding some new inspiration … some fresh, quaint, and lovely thought, that flowed of itself into most perfect and rhythmical utterance,—glorious lines of verse glowing with fervor and beauty seemed to fall from his pencil without any effort on his part,—and if he had had reason in former times to doubt the strength of his poetical faculty, it was now very certain he could do so longer. His mind was as a fine harp newly strung, attuned, and quivering with the consciousness of the music pent-up within it,—and as he remembered the masterpiece of poesy he had written in his seeming trance, the manuscript of which would soon be in the hands of the London publishers, his heart swelled with a growing and irrepressible sense of pride. For he knew and felt—with an undefinable yet positive certainty—that however much the public or the critics might gainsay him, his fame as a poet of the very highest order would ere long be asserted and assured. A deep tranquillity was in his soul … a tranquillity that seemed to increase the further he went onward,—the restless weariness that had once possessed him was past, and a vaguely sweet content pervade his being like the odor of early roses pervading warm air … he felt, he hoped, he loved! … and yet his feelings, hopes, and longings turned to something altogether undeclared and indefinite, as softly dim and distant as the first faint white cloud-signal wafted from the moon in heaven, when, on the point of rising, she makes her queenly purpose known to her waiting star-attendants.

Practically considered, his journey was tedious and for the most part dull and uninteresting. In these Satan-like days of "going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it" travelling has lost much of its old romantic charm, . . the idea of traversing long distances no more fills the expectant adventurer with a pleasurable sense of uncertainty and mystery—he knows exactly what to anticipate.. it is all laid out for him plainly on the level lines of the commonplace, and nothing is left to his imagination. The Continent of Europe has been ransacked from end to end by tourists who have turned it into a sort of exhausted pleasure-garden, whereof the various entertainments are too familiarly known to arouse any fresh curiosity,—the East is nearly in the same condition,—hordes of British and American sight-seers scamper over the empire-strewn soil of Persia and Syria with the unconcerned indifference of beings to whom not only a portion of the world's territory, but the whole world itself, belongs,—and soon there will not be an inch of ground left on the narrow extent of our poor planet that has not been trodden by the hasty, scrambling, irreverent footsteps of some one or other of the ever-prolific, all-spreading English-speaking race.

On his way Alwyn met many of his countrymen,—travellers who, like himself, had visited the Caucasus and Armenia and were now en route, some for Damascus, some for Jerusalem and the Holy Land—others again for Cairo and Alexandria, to depart from thence homeward by the usual Mediterranean line, . . but among these birds-of-passage acquaintance he chanced upon none who were going to the Ruins of Babylon. He was glad of this—for the peculiar nature of his enterprise rendered a companion altogether undesirable,—and though on one occasion he encountered a gentleman-novelist with a note-book, who was exceedingly anxious to fraternize with him and discover whither he vas bound, he succeeded in shaking off this would-be incubus at Mosul, by taking him to a wonderful old library in that city where there were a number of French translations of Turkish and Syriac romances. Here the gentleman-novelist straightway ascended to the seventh heaven of plagiarism, and began to copy energetically whole scenes and descriptive passages from dead-and-gone authors, unknown to English critics, for the purpose of inserting them hereafter into his own "original" work of fiction—and in this congenial occupation he forgot all about the "dark handsome man, with the wide brows of a Marc Antony and the lips of a Catullus," as he had already described Alwyn in the note-book before-mentioned. While in Mosul, Alwyn himself picked up a curiosity in the way of literature,—a small quaint volume entitled "The Final Philosophy Of Algazzali The Arabian." It was printed in two languages—the original Arabic on one page, and, facing it, the translation in very old French. The author, born A.D. 1058, described himself as "a poor student striving to discern the truth of things"—and his work was a serious, incisive, patiently exhaustive inquiry into the workings of nature, the capabilities of human intelligence, and the deceptive results of human reason. Reading it, Alwyn was astonished to find that nearly all the ethical propositions offered for the world's consideration to-day by the most learned and cultured minds, had been already advanced and thoroughly discussed by this same Algazzali. One passage in particular arrested his attention as being singularly applicable to his own immediate condition, . . it ran as follows,—

"I began to examine the objects of sensation and speculation to see if they could possibly admit of doubt. Then, doubts crowded upon me in such numbers that my incertitude became complete. Whence results the confidence I have in sensible things? The strongest of all our senses is sight,—yet if we look at the stars they seem to be as small as money-pieces—but mathematical proofs convince us that they are larger than the earth. These and other things are judged by the SENSES, but rejected by REASON as false. I abandoned the senses therefore, having seen my confidence in their ABSOLUTE TRUTH shaken. Perhaps, said I, there is no assurance but in the notions of reason? … that is to say, first principles, as that ten is more than three? Upon this the SENSES replied: What assurance have you that your confidence in REASON is not of the same nature as your confidence in US? When you relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie,—had not reason been there you would have continued to rely on us. Well, nay there not exist some other judge SUPERIOR to reason who, if he appeared, would refute the judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted us? The non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence…. I strove to answer this objection, and my difficulties increased when I came to reflect on sleep. I said to myself: During sleep you give to visions a reality and consistence, and on awakening you are made aware that they were nothing but visions. What assurance have you that all you feel and know does actually exist? It is all true as respects your condition at the moment,—but it is nevertheless possible that another condition should present itself which should be to your awakened state, that which your awakened state is now to your sleep,—SO THAT, AS RESPECTS THIS HIGHER CONDITION YOUR WAKING IS BUT SLEEP."

Over and over again Alwyn read these words and pondered on the deep and difficult problems they suggested, and he was touched to an odd sense of shamed compunction, when at the close of the book he came upon Algazzali's confession of utter vanquishment and humility thus simply recorded:

"I examined my actions and found the best were those relating to instruction and education, and even there I saw myself given up to unimportant sciences all useless in another world. Reflecting on the aim of my teaching, I found it was not pure in the sight of the Lord. And that all my efforts were directed toward the acquisition of glory to myself. Having therefore distributed my wealth I left Bagdad and retired into Syria, where I remained in solitary struggle with my soul, combating my passions and exercising myself in the purification of my heart and in preparation for the other world."

This ancient philosophical treatise, together with the mystical passage from the original text of Esdras and the selected verses from the Apocrypha, formed all Alwyn's stock of reading for the rest of his journey,—the rhapsodical lines of the Prophet he knew by heart, as one knows a favorite poem, and he often caught himself unconsciously repeating the strange words: "Behold the field thou thoughtest barren: how great a glory hath the moon unveiled!

"And I beheld, and was sore amazed, for I was no longer myself but another.

"And the sword of death was in that other's soul: and yet that other was but myself, in pain.

"And I knew not the things that were once familiar and my heart failed within me for very fear…"

What did they mean, he wondered? or had they any meaning at all beyond the faint, far-off suggestions of thought that may occasionally and with difficulty be discerned through obscure and reckless ecstasies of language which, "full of sound and fury, signify nothing"? Was there, could there, be anything mysterious or sacred in this "wiste field" anciently known as "Ardath"? These questions flitted hazily from time to time through his brain, but he made no attempt to answer them either by refutation or reason, … indeed sober, matter-of-fact reason, he was well aware, played no part in his present undertaking.

It was late in the afternoon of a sultry parching day when he at last arrived at Hillah. This dull little town, built at the beginning of the twelfth century out of the then plentifully scattered fragments of Babylon, has nothing to offer to the modern traveller save various annoyances in the shape of excessive heat, dust, or rather fine blown sand,—dirt, flies, bad food, and general discomfort; and finding the aspect of the place not only untempting, but positively depressing, Alwyn left his surplus luggage at a small and unpretentious hostelry kept by a Frenchman, who catered specially for archaeological tourists and explorers, and after an hour's rest, set out alone and on foot for the "eastern quarter" of the ruins,—namely those which are considered by investigators to begin about two miles above Hillah. A little beyond them and close to the river-bank, according to the deductions he had received, dwelt the religious recluse for whom he brought the letter of introduction from Heliobas,—a letter bearing on its cover a superscription in Latin which translated ran thus:—"To the venerable and much esteemed Elzear of Melyana, at the Hermitage, near Hillah. In faith, peace, and good-will. Greeting." Anxious to reach Elzear's abode before nightfall, he walked on as briskly as the heat and heaviness of the sandy soil would allow, keeping to the indistinctly traced path that crossed and re-crossed at intervals the various ridges of earth strewn with pulverized fragments of brick, bitumen, and pottery, which are now the sole remains of stately buildings once famous in Babylon.

A low red sun was sinking slowly on the edge of the horizon, when, pausing to look about him, he perceived in the near distance, the dark outline of the great mound known as Birs-Nimroud, and realized with a sort of shock that he was actually surrounded on all sides by the crumbled and almost indistinguishable ruins of the formerly superb all-dominant Assyrian city that had been "as a golden cup in the Lord's hand," and was now no more in very truth than a "broken and an empty vessel." For the words, "And Babylon shall become heaps," have certainly been verified with startling exactitude—"heaps" indeed it has become,—nothing BUT heaps,—heaps of dull earth with here and there a few faded green tufts of wild tamarisk, which while faintly relieveing the blankness of the ground, at the same time intensify its monotonous dreaminess. Alwyn, beholding the mournful desolation of the scene, felt a strong sense of disappointment,—he had expected something different,—his imagination had pictured these historical ruins as being of larger extent and more imposing character. His eyes rested rather wearily on the slow, dull gleam of the Euphrates, as it wound past the deserted spaces where "the mighty city the astonishment of nations" had once stood, … and poet though he was to the very core of his nature, he could see nothing poetical in these spectral mounds and stone heaps, save in the significant remembrance they offered of the old Scriptual prophecy—"Babylon is fallen—is fallen! Her princes, her wise men, her captains, her rulers, and her mighty men shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the King who is the Lord of Hosts." And truly it seemed as if the curse which had blighted the city's bygone splendor had doomed even its ruins to appear contemptible.

Just then the glow of the disappearing sun touched the upper edge of Birs-Nimroud, giving it for one instant a weird effect, as though the ghost of some Babylonian watchman were waving a lit torch from its summit,—but the lurid glare soon faded and a dead gray twilight settled solemnly down over the melancholy landscape. With a sudden feeling of dejection and lassitude upon him, Alwyn, heaving a deep sigh, went onward, and soon perceived, lying a little to the north of the river, a small, roughly erected tenement with a wooden cross on its roof. Rightly concluding that this must be Elzear of Melyana's hermitage, he quickly made his way thither and knocked at the door.

It was opened to him at once by a white-haired, picturesque old man, who received him with a mute sign of welcome, and who at the same time laid one hand lightly but expressively on his own lips to signify that he was dumb. This was Elzear himself. He was attired in the same sort of flowing garb as that worn by the monks of Dariel, and with his tall, spare figure, long, silvery beard and deep-sunken yet still brilliant dark eyes, he might have served as a perfect model for one of the inspired prophets of bygone ancient days. Though Nature had deprived him of speech, his serene countenance spoke eloquently in his favor, its mild benevolent expression betokening that inward peace of the heart which so often renders old age more beautiful than youth. He perused with careful slowness the letter Alwyn presented to him,—and then, inclining his head gravely, he made a courteous and comprehensive gesture, to intimate that himself and all that his house contained were at the service of the newcomer. He proceeded to testify the sincerity of this assurance at once by setting a plentiful supply of food and wine before his guest, waiting upon him, moreover, while he ate and drank, with a respectful humility which somewhat embarrassed Alwyn, who wished to spare him the trouble of such attendance and told him so many times with much earnestness. But all to no purpose—Elzear only smiled gently and continued to perform the duties of hospitality in his own way … it was evidently no use interfering with him. Later on he showed his visitor a small cell-like apartment containing a neat bed, together with a table, a chair, and a large Crucifix, which latter object was suspended against the wall, . . and indicating by eloquent signs that here the weariest traveller might find good repose, he made a low salutation and departed altogether for the night.

What a still place the "Hermitage" was, thought Alwyn, as soon as Elzear's retreating steps had died away into silence. There was not a sound to be heard anywhere, … not even the faint rustle of leaves stirred by the wind. And what a haunting, grave, wistfully tender expression filled the face of that sculptured Image on the Cross, which in intimate companionship with himself seemed to possess the little room! He could not bear the down-drooping appealing, penetrating look in those heavenly-kind yet piteous Eyes, … turning abruptly away he opened the narrow window, and folding his arms on the sill surveyed the scene before him. The full moon was rising slowly, … round and large, she hung like a yellow shield on the dark, dense wall of the sky. The Rums of Babylon were plainly visible.. the river shone like a golden ribbon,—the outline of Birs-Nimoud was faintly rimmed with light, and had little streaks of amber radiance wandering softly up and down its shadowy slopes.

"'AND I WENT INTO THE FIELD CALLED ARDATH AND THERE I SAT AMONG THE FLOWERS!'" mused Alwyn half aloud, his dreamy gaze fixed on the gradually brightening heavens … "Why not go there at once … NOW!"