Tuesday, 20 March 2018

Tuesday's Serial: "BEN-HUR: a tale of the Christ." by Lew Wallace - X (in English)


CHAPTER V
                The young Israelite proceeded then, and rehearsed his conversation with Messala, dwelling with particularity upon the latter's speeches in contempt of the Jews, their customs, and much pent round of life.
                Afraid to speak the while, the mother listened, discerning the matter plainly. Judah had gone to the palace on the Market-place, allured by love of a playmate whom he thought to find exactly as he had been at the parting years before; a man met him, and, in place of laughter and references to the sports of the past, the man had been full of the future, and talked of glory to be won, and of riches and power. Unconscious of the effect, the visitor had come away hurt in pride, yet touched with a natural ambition; but she, the jealous mother, saw it, and, not knowing the turn the aspiration might take, became at once Jewish in her fear. What if it lured him away from the patriarchal faith? In her view, that consequence was more dreadful than any or all others. She could discover but one way to avert it, and she set about the task, her native power reinforced by love to such degree that her speech took a masculine strength and at times a poet's fervor.
                "There never has been a people," she began, "who did not think themselves at least equal to any other; never a great nation, my son, that did not believe itself the very superior. When the Roman looks down upon Israel and laughs, he merely repeats the folly of the Egyptian, the Assyrian, and the Macedonian; and as the laugh is against God, the result will be the same."
                Her voice became firmer.
                "There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or at the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history. If I were called upon to symbolize God and man in the simplest form, I would draw a straight line and a circle, and of the line I would say, 'This is God, for he alone moves forever straightforward,' and of the circle, 'This is man - such is his progress.' I do not mean that there is no difference between the careers of nations; no two are alike. The difference, however, is not, as some say, in the extent of the circle they describe or the space of earth they cover, but in the sphere of their movement, the highest being nearest God.
                "To stop here, my son, would be to leave the subject where we began. Let us go on. There are signs by which to measure the height of the circle each nation runs while in its course. By them let us compare the Hebrew and the Roman.
                "The simplest of all the signs is the daily life of the people. Of this I will only say, Israel has at times forgotten God, while the Roman never knew him; consequently comparison is not possible.
                "Your friend - or your former friend - charged, if I understood you rightly, that we have had no poets, artists, or warriors; by which he meant, I suppose, to deny that we have had great men, the next most certain of the signs. A just consideration of this charge requires a definition at the commencement. A great man, O my boy, is one whose life proves him to have been recognized, if not called, by God. A Persian was used to punish our recreant fathers, and he carried them into captivity; another Persian was selected to restore their children to the Holy Land; greater than either of them, however, was the Macedonian through whom the desolation of Judea and the Temple was avenged. The special distinction of the men was that they were chosen by the Lord, each for a divine purpose; and that they were Gentiles does not lessen their glory. Do not lose sight of this definition while I proceed.
                "There is an idea that war is the most noble occupation of men, and that the most exalted greatness is the growth of battle-fields. Because the world has adopted the idea, be not you deceived. That we must worship something is a law which will continue as long as there is anything we cannot understand. The prayer of the barbarian is a wail of fear addressed to Strength, the only divine quality he can clearly conceive; hence his faith in heroes. What is Jove but a Roman hero? The Greeks have their great glory because they were the first to set Mind above Strength. In Athens the orator and philosopher were more revered than the warrior. The charioteer and the swiftest runner are still idols of the arena; yet the immortelles are reserved for the sweetest singer. The birthplace of one poet was contested by seven cities. But was the Hellene the first to deny the old barbaric faith? No. My son, that glory is ours; against brutalism our fathers erected God; in our worship, the wail of fear gave place to the Hosanna and the Psalm. So the Hebrew and the Greek would have carried all humanity forward and upward. But, alas! the government of the world presumes war as an eternal condition; wherefore, over Mind and above God, the Roman has enthroned his Caesar, the absorbent of all attainable power, the prohibition of any other greatness.
                "The sway of the Greek was a flowering time for genius. In return for the liberty it then enjoyed, what a company of thinkers the Mind led forth? There was a glory for every excellence, and a perfection so absolute that in everything but war even the Roman has stooped to imitation. A Greek is now the model of the orators in the Forum; listen, and in every Roman song you will hear the rhythm of the Greek; if a Roman opens his mouth speaking wisely of moralities, or abstractions, or of the mysteries of nature, he is either a plagiarist or the disciple of some school which had a Greek for its founder. In nothing but war, I say again, has Rome a claim to originality. Her games and spectacles are Greek inventions, dashed with blood to gratify the ferocity of her rabble; her religion, if such it may be called, is made up of contributions from the faiths of all other peoples; her most venerated gods are from Olympus - even her Mars, and, for that matter, the Jove she much magnifies. So it happens, O my son, that of the whole world our Israel alone can dispute the superiority of the Greek, and with him contest the palm of original genius.
                "To the excellences of other peoples the egotism of a Roman is a blindfold, impenetrable as his breastplate. Oh, the ruthless robbers! Under their trampling the earth trembles like a floor beaten with flails. Along with the rest we are fallen - alas that I should say it to you, my son! They have our highest places, and the holiest, and the end no man can tell; but this I know - they may reduce Judea as an almond broken with hammers, and devour Jerusalem, which is the oil and sweetness thereof; yet the glory of the men of Israel will remain a light in the heavens overhead out of reach: for their history is the history of God, who wrote with their hands, spake with their tongues, and was himself in all the good they did, even the least; who dwelt with them, a Lawgiver on Sinai, a Guide in the wilderness, in war a Captain, in government a King; who once and again pushed back the curtains of the pavilion which is his resting-place, intolerably bright, and, as a man speaking to men, showed them the right, and the way to happiness, and how they should live, and made them promises binding the strength of his Almightiness with covenants sworn to everlastingly. O my son, could it be that they with whom Jehovah thus dwelt, an awful familiar, derived nothing from him? - that in their lives and deeds the common human qualities should not in some degree have been mixed and colored with the divine? that their genius should not have in it, even after the lapse of ages, some little of heaven?"
                For a time the rustling of the fan was all the sound heard in the chamber.
                "In the sense which limits art to sculpture and painting, it is true," she next said, "Israel has had no artists."
                The admission was made regretfully, for it must be remembered she was a Sadducee, whose faith, unlike that of the Pharisees, permitted a love of the beautiful in every form, and without reference to its origin.
                "Still he who would do justice," she proceeded, "will not forget that the cunning of our hands was bound by the prohibition, 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything;' which the Sopherim wickedly extended beyond its purpose and time. Nor should it be forgotten that long before Daedalus appeared in Attica and with his wooden statues so transformed sculpture as to make possible the schools of Corinth and AEgina, and their ultimate triumphs the Poecile and Capitolium - long before the age of Daedalus, I say, two Israelites, Bezaleel and Aholiab, the master-builders of the first tabernacle, said to have been skilled 'in all manner of workmanship,' wrought the cherubim of the mercy-seat above the ark. Of gold beaten, not chiseled, were they; and they were statues in form both human and divine. 'And they shall stretch forth their wings on high, .... and their faces shall look one to another.' Who will say they were not beautiful? or that they were not the first statues?"
                "Oh, I see now why the Greek outstripped us," said Judah, intensely interested. "And the ark; accursed be the Babylonians who destroyed it!"
                "Nay, Judah, be of faith. It was not destroyed, only lost, hidden away too safely in some cavern of the mountains. One day - Hillel and Shammai both say so - one day, in the Lord's good time, it will be found and brought forth, and Israel dance before it, singing as of old. And they who look upon the faces of the cherubim then, though they have seen the face of the ivory Minerva, will be ready to kiss the hand of the Jew from love of his genius, asleep through all the thousands of years."
                The mother, in her eagerness, had risen into something like the rapidity and vehemence of a speech-maker; but now, to recover herself, or to pick up the thread of her thought, she rested awhile.
                "You are so good, my mother," he said, in a grateful way. "And I will never be done saying so. Shammai could not have talked better, nor Hillel. I am a true son of Israel again."
                "Flatterer!" she said. "You do not know that I am but repeating what I heard Hillel say in an argument he had one day in my presence with a sophist from Rome."
                "Well, the hearty words are yours."
                Directly all her earnestness returned.
                "Where was I? Oh yes, I was claiming for our Hebrew fathers the first statues. The trick of the sculptor, Judah, is not all there is of art, any more than art is all there is of greatness. I always think of great men marching down the centuries in groups and goodly companies, separable according to nationalities; here the Indian, there the Egyptian, yonder the Assyrian; above them the music of trumpets and the beauty of banners; and on their right hand and left, as reverent spectators, the generations from the beginning, numberless. As they go, I think of the Greek, saying, 'Lo! The Hellene leads the way.' Then the Roman replies, 'Silence! what was your place is ours now; we have left you behind as dust trodden on.' And all the time, from the far front back over the line of march, as well as forward into the farthest future, streams a light of which the wranglers know nothing, except that it is forever leading them on - the Light of Revelation! Who are they that carry it? Ah, the old Judean blood! How it leaps at the thought! By the light we know them. Thrice blessed, O our fathers, servants of God, keepers of the covenants! Ye are the leaders of men, the living and the dead. The front is thine; and though every Roman were a Caesar, ye shall not lose it!"
                Judah was deeply stirred.
                "Do not stop, I pray you," he cried. "You give me to hear the sound of timbrels. I wait for Miriam and the women who went after her dancing and singing."
                She caught his feeling, and, with ready wit, wove it into her speech.
                "Very well, my son. If you can hear the timbrel of the prophetess, you can do what I was about to ask; you can use your fancy, and stand with me, as if by the wayside, while the chosen of Israel pass us at the head of the procession. Now they come - the patriarchs first; next the fathers of the tribes. I almost hear the bells of their camels and the lowing of their herds. Who is he that walks alone between the companies? An old man, yet his eye is not dim, nor his natural force abated. He knew the Lord face to face! Warrior, poet, orator, lawgiver, prophet, his greatness is as the sun at morning, its flood of splendor quenching all other lights, even that of the first and noblest of the Caesars. After him the judges. And then the kings - the son of Jesse, a hero in war, and a singer of songs eternal as that of the sea; and his son, who, passing all other kings in riches and wisdom, and while making the Desert habitable, and in its waste places planting cities, forgot not Jerusalem which the Lord had chosen for his seat on earth. Bend lower, my son! These that come next are the first of their kind, and the last. Their faces are raised, as if they heard a voice in the sky and were listening. Their lives were full of sorrows. Their garments smell of tombs and caverns. Hearken to a woman among them - 'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously!' Nay, put your forehead in the dust before them! They were tongues of God, his servants, who looked through heaven, and, seeing all the future, wrote what they saw, and left the writing to be proven by time. Kings turned pale as they approached them, and nations trembled at the sound of their voices. The elements waited upon them. In their hands they carried every bounty and every plague. See the Tishbite and his servant Elisha! See the sad son of Hilkiah, and him, the seer of visions, by the river of Chebar! And of the three children of Judah who refused the image of the Babylonian, lo! that one who, in the feast to the thousand lords, so confounded the astrologers. And yonder - O my son, kiss the dust again! - yonder the gentle son of Amoz, from whom the world has its promise of the Messiah to come!"
                In this passage the fan had been kept in rapid play; it stopped now, and her voice sank low.
                "You are tired," she said.
                "No," he replied, "I was listening to a new song of Israel."
                The mother was still intent upon her purpose, and passed the pleasant speech.
                "In such light as I could, my Judah, I have set our great men before you - patriarchs, legislators, warriors, singers, prophets. Turn we to the best of Rome. Against Moses place Caesar, and Tarquin against David; Sylla against either of the Maccabees; the best of the consuls against the judges; Augustus against Solomon, and you are done: comparison ends there. But think then of the prophets - greatest of the great."
                She laughed scornfully.
                "Pardon me. I was thinking of the soothsayer who warned Caius Julius against the Ides of March, and fancied him looking for the omens of evil which his master despised in the entrails of a chicken. From that picture turn to Elijah sitting on the hill-top on the way to Samaria, amid the smoking bodies of the captains and their fifties, warning the son of Ahab of the wrath of our God. Finally, O my Judah - if such speech be reverent - how shall we judge Jehovah and Jupiter unless it be by what their servants have done in their names? And as for what you shall do -”
                She spoke the latter words slowly, and with a tremulous utterance.
                "As for what you shall do, my boy - serve the Lord, the Lord God of Israel, not Rome. For a child of Abraham there is no glory except in the Lord's ways, and in them there is much glory."
                "I may be a soldier then?" Judah asked.
                "Why not? Did not Moses call God a man of war?"
                There was then a long silence in the summer chamber.
                "You have my permission," she said, finally; "if only you serve the Lord instead of Caesar."
                He was content with the condition, and by-and-by fell asleep. She arose then, and put the cushion under his head, and, throwing a shawl over him and kissing him tenderly, went away.


CHAPTER VI
                The good man, like the bad, must die; but, remembering the lesson of our faith, we say of him and the event, "No matter, he will open his eyes in heaven." Nearest this in life is the waking from healthful sleep to a quick consciousness of happy sights and sounds.
                When Judah awoke, the sun was up over the mountains; the pigeons were abroad in flocks, filling the air with the gleams of their white wings; and off southeast he beheld the Temple, an apparition of gold in the blue of the sky. These, however, were familiar objects, and they received but a glance; upon the edge of the divan, close by him, a girl scarcely fifteen sat singing to the accompaniment of a nebel, which she rested upon her knee, and touched gracefully. To her he turned listening; and this was what she sang:

THE SONG.
"Wake not, but hear me, love!
     Adrift, adrift on slumber's sea,
     Thy spirit call to list to me.
Wake not, but hear me, love!
     A gift from Sleep, the restful king,
     All happy, happy dreams I bring.

"Wake not, but hear me, love!
     Of all the world of dreams 'tis thine
     This once to choose the most divine.
So choose, and sleep, my love!
     But ne'er again in choice be free,
     Unless, unless - thou dream'st of me."

She put the instrument down, and, resting her hands in her lap, waited for him to speak. And as it has become necessary to tell somewhat of her, we will avail ourselves of the chance, and add such particulars of the family into whose privacy we are brought as the reader may wish to know.
                The favors of Herod had left surviving him many persons of vast estate. Where this fortune was joined to undoubted lineal descent from some famous son of one of the tribes, especially Judah, the happy individual was accounted a Prince of Jerusalem - a distinction which sufficed to bring him the homage of his less favored countrymen, and the respect, if nothing more, of the Gentiles with whom business and social circumstance brought him into dealing. Of this class none had won in private or public life a higher regard than the father of the lad whom we have been following. With a remembrance of his nationality which never failed him, he had yet been true to the king, and served him faithfully at home and abroad. Some offices had taken him to Rome, where his conduct attracted the notice of Augustus, who strove without reserve to engage his friendship. In his house, accordingly, were many presents, such as had gratified the vanity of kings - purple togas, ivory chairs, golden pateroe - chiefly valuable on account of the imperial hand which had honorably conferred them. Such a man could not fail to be rich; yet his wealth was not altogether the largess of royal patrons. He had welcomed the law that bound him to some pursuit; and, instead of one, he entered into many. Of the herdsmen watching flocks on the plains and hill-sides, far as old Lebanon, numbers reported to him as their employer; in the cities by the sea, and in those inland, he founded houses of traffic; his ships brought him silver from Spain, whose mines were then the richest known; while his caravans came twice a year from the East, laden with silks and spices. In faith he was a Hebrew, observant of the law and every essential rite; his place in the synagogue and Temple knew him well; he was thoroughly learned in the Scriptures; he delighted in the society of the college-masters, and carried his reverence for Hillel almost to the point of worship. Yet he was in no sense a Separatist; his hospitality took in strangers from every land; the carping Pharisees even accused him of having more than once entertained Samaritans at his table. Had he been a Gentile, and lived, the world might have heard of him as the rival of Herodes Atticus: as it was, he perished at sea some ten years before this second period of our story, in the prime of life, and lamented everywhere in Judea. We are already acquainted with two members of his family - his widow and son; the only other was a daughter - she whom we have seen singing to her brother.
                Tirzah was her name, and as the two looked at each other, their resemblance was plain. Her features had the regularity of his, and were of the same Jewish type; they had also the charm of childish innocency of expression. Home-life and its trustful love permitted the negligent attire in which she appeared. A chemise buttoned upon the right shoulder, and passing loosely over the breast and back and under the left arm, but half concealed her person above the waist, while it left the arms entirely nude. A girdle caught the folds of the garment, marking the commencement of the skirt. The coiffure was very simple and becoming - a silken cap, Tyrian-dyed; and over that a striped scarf of the same material, beautifully embroidered, and wound about in thin folds so as to show the shape of the head without enlarging it; the whole finished by a tassel dropping from the crown point of the cap. She had rings, ear and finger; anklets and bracelets, all of gold; and around her neck there was a collar of gold, curiously garnished with a network of delicate chains, to which were pendants of pearl. The edges of her eyelids were painted, and the tips of her fingers stained. Her hair fell in two long plaits down her back. A curled lock rested upon each cheek in front of the ear. Altogether it would have been impossible to deny her grace, refinement, and beauty.
                "Very pretty, my Tirzah, very pretty!" he said, with animation.
                "The song?" she asked.
                "Yes - and the singer, too. It has the conceit of a Greek. Where did you get it?"
                "You remember the Greek who sang in the theatre last month? They said he used to be a singer at the court for Herod and his sister Salome. He came out just after an exhibition of wrestlers, when the house was full of noise. At his first note everything became so quiet that I heard every word. I got the song from him."
                "But he sang in Greek."
                "And I in Hebrew."
                "Ah, yes. I am proud of my little sister. Have you another as good?"
                "Very many. But let them go now. Amrah sent me to tell you she will bring you your breakfast, and that you need not come down. She should be here by this time. She thinks you sick - that a dreadful accident happened you yesterday. What was it? Tell me, and I will help Amrah doctor you. She knows the cures of the Egyptians, who were always a stupid set; but I have a great many recipes of the Arabs who -”
                "Are even more stupid than the Egyptians," he said, shaking his head.
                "Do you think so? Very well, then," she replied, almost without pause, and putting her hands to her left ear. "We will have nothing to do with any of them. I have here what is much surer and better - the amulet which was given to some of our people - I cannot tell when, it was so far back - by a Persian magician. See, the inscription is almost worn out."
                She offered him the earring, which he took, looked at, and handed back, laughing.
                "If I were dying, Tirzah, I could not use the charm. It is a relic of idolatry, forbidden every believing son and daughter of Abraham. Take it, but do not wear it any more."
                "Forbidden! Not so," she said. "Our father's mother wore it I do not know how many Sabbaths in her life. It has cured I do not know how many people - more than three anyhow. It is approved - look, here is the mark of the rabbis."
                "I have no faith in amulets."
                She raised her eyes to his in astonishment.
                "What would Amrah say?"
                "Amrah's father and mother tended sakiyeh for a garden on the Nile."
                "But Gamaliel!"
                "He says they are godless inventions of unbelievers and Shechemites."
                Tirzah looked at the ring doubtfully.
                "What shall I do with it?"
                "Wear it, my little sister. It becomes you - it helps make you beautiful, though I think you that without help."
                Satisfied, she returned the amulet to her ear just as Amrah entered the summer chamber, bearing a platter, with wash-bowl, water, and napkins.
                Not being a Pharisee, the ablution was short and simple with Judah. The servant then went out, leaving Tirzah to dress his hair. When a lock was disposed to her satisfaction, she would unloose the small metallic mirror which, as was the fashion among her fair countrywomen, she wore at her girdle, and gave it to him, that he might see the triumph, and how handsome it made him. Meanwhile they kept up their conversation.
                "What do you think, Tirzah? - I am going away."
                She dropped her hands with amazement.
                "Going away! When? Where? For what?"
                He laughed.
                "Three questions, all in a breath! What a body you are!" Next instant he became serious. "You know the law requires me to follow some occupation. Our good father set me an example. Even you would despise me if I spent in idleness the results of his industry and knowledge. I am going to Rome."
                "Oh, I will go with you."
                "You must stay with mother. If both of us leave her she will die."
                The brightness faded from her face.
                "Ah, yes, yes! But - must you go? Here in Jerusalem you can learn all that is needed to be a merchant - if that is what you are thinking of."
                "But that is not what I am thinking of. The law does not require the son to be what the father was."
                "What else can you be?"
                "A soldier," he replied, with a certain pride of voice.
                Tears came into her eyes.
                "You will be killed."
                "If God's will, be it so. But, Tirzah, the soldiers are not all killed."
                She threw her arms around his neck, as if to hold him back.
                "We are so happy! Stay at home, my brother."
                "Home cannot always be what it is. You yourself will be going away before long."
                "Never!"
                He smiled at her earnestness.
                "A prince of Judah, or some other of one of the tribes, will come soon and claim my Tirzah, and ride away with her, to be the light of another house. What will then become of me?"
                She answered with sobs.
                "War is a trade," he continued, more soberly. "To learn it thoroughly, one must go to school, and there is no school like a Roman camp."
                "You would not fight for Rome?" she asked, holding her breath.
                "And you - even you hate her. The whole world hates her. In that, O Tirzah, find the reason of the answer I give you - Yes, I will fight for her, if, in return, she will teach me how one day to fight against her."
                "When will you go?"
                Amrah's steps were then heard returning.
                "Hist!" he said. "Do not let her know of what I am thinking."
                The faithful slave came in with breakfast, and placed the waiter holding it upon a stool before them; then, with white napkins upon her arm, she remained to serve them. They dipped their fingers in a bowl of water, and were rinsing them, when a noise arrested their attention. They listened, and distinguished martial music in the street on the north side of the house.
                "Soldiers from the Praetorium! I must see them," he cried, springing from the divan, and running out.
                In a moment more he was leaning over the parapet of tiles which guarded the roof at the extreme northeast corner, so absorbed that he did not notice Tirzah by his side, resting one hand upon his shoulder.
                Their position - the roof being the highest one in the locality - commanded the house-tops eastward as far as the huge irregular Tower of Antonia, which has been already mentioned as a citadel for the garrison and military headquarters for the governor. The street, not more than ten feet wide, was spanned here and there by bridges, open and covered, which, like the roofs along the way, were beginning to be occupied by men, women, and children, called out by the music. The word is used, though it is hardly fitting; what the people heard when they came forth was rather an uproar of trumpets and the shriller litui so delightful to the soldiers.
                The array after a while came into view of the two upon the house of the Hurs. First, a vanguard of the light-armed - mostly slingers and bowmen - marching with wide intervals between their ranks and files; next a body of heavy-armed infantry, bearing large shields, and hastoe longoe, or spears identical with those used in the duels before Ilium; then the musicians; and then an officer riding alone, but followed closely by a guard of cavalry; after them again, a column of infantry also heavy-armed, which, moving in close order, crowded the streets from wall to wall, and appeared to be without end.
                The brawny limbs of the men; the cadenced motion from right to left of the shields; the sparkle of scales, buckles, and breastplates and helms, all perfectly burnished; the plumes nodding above the tall crests; the sway of ensigns and iron-shod spears; the bold, confident step, exactly timed and measured; the demeanor, so grave, yet so watchful; the machine-like unity of the whole moving mass - made an impression upon Judah, but as something felt rather than seen. Two objects fixed his attention - the eagle of the legion first - a gilded effigy perched on a tall shaft, with wings outspread until they met above its head. He knew that, when brought from its chamber in the Tower, it had been received with divine honors.
                The officer riding alone in the midst of the column was the other attraction. His head was bare; otherwise he was in full armor. At his left hip he wore a short sword; in his hand, however, he carried a truncheon, which looked like a roll of white paper. He sat upon a purple cloth instead of a saddle, and that, and a bridle with a forestall of gold and reins of yellow silk broadly fringed at the lower edge, completed the housings of the horse.
                While the man was yet in the distance, Judah observed that his presence was sufficient to throw the people looking at him into angry excitement. They would lean over the parapets or stand boldly out, and shake their fists at him; they followed him with loud cries, and spit at him as he passed under the bridges; the women even flung their sandals, sometimes with such good effect as to hit him. When he was nearer, the yells became distinguishable -”Robber, tyrant, dog of a Roman! Away with Ishmael! Give us back our Hannas!"
                When quite near, Judah could see that, as was but natural, the man did not share the indifference so superbly shown by the soldiers; his face was dark and sullen, and the glances he occasionally cast at his persecutors were full of menace; the very timid shrank from them.
                Now the lad had heard of the custom, borrowed from a habit of the first Caesar, by which chief commanders, to indicate their rank, appeared in public with only a laurel vine upon their heads. By that sign he knew this officer - VALERIUS GRATUS, THE NEW PROCURATOR OF JUDEA!
                To say truth now, the Roman under the unprovoked storm had the young Jew's sympathy; so that when he reached the corner of the house, the latter leaned yet farther over the parapet to see him go by, and in the act rested a hand upon a tile which had been a long time cracked and allowed to go unnoticed. The pressure was strong enough to displace the outer piece, which started to fall. A thrill of horror shot through the youth. He reached out to catch the missile. In appearance the motion was exactly that of one pitching something from him. The effort failed - nay, it served to push the descending fragment farther out over the wall. He shouted with all his might. The soldiers of the guard looked up; so did the great man, and that moment the missile struck him, and he fell from his seat as dead.
                The cohort halted; the guards leaped from their horses, and hastened to cover the chief with their shields. On the other hand, the people who witnessed the affair, never doubting that the blow had been purposely dealt, cheered the lad as he yet stooped in full view over the parapet, transfixed by what he beheld, and by anticipation of the consequences flashed all too plainly upon him.
                A mischievous spirit flew with incredible speed from roof to roof along the line of march, seizing the people, and urging them all alike. They laid hands upon the parapets and tore up the tiling and the sunburnt mud of which the house-tops were for the most part made, and with blind fury began to fling them upon the legionaries halted below. A battle then ensued. Discipline, of course, prevailed. The struggle, the slaughter, the skill of one side, the desperation of the other, are alike unnecessary to our story. Let us look rather to the wretched author of it all.
                He arose from the parapet, his face very pale.
                "O Tirzah, Tirzah! What will become of us?"
                She had not seen the occurrence below, but was listening to the shouting and watching the mad activity of the people in view on the houses. Something terrible was going on, she knew; but what it was, or the cause, or that she or any of those dear to her were in danger, she did not know.
                "What has happened? What does it all mean?" she asked, in sudden alarm.
                "I have killed the Roman governor. The tile fell upon him."
                An unseen hand appeared to sprinkle her face with the dust of ashes - it grew white so instantly. She put her arm around him, and looked wistfully, but without a word, into his eyes. His fears had passed to her, and the sight of them gave him strength.
                "I did not do it purposely, Tirzah - it was an accident," he said, more calmly.
                "What will they do?" she asked.
                He looked off over the tumult momentarily deepening in the street and on the roofs, and thought of the sullen countenance of Gratus. If he were not dead, where would his vengeance stop? And if he were dead, to what height of fury would not the violence of the people lash the legionaries? To evade an answer, he peered over the parapet again, just as the guard were assisting the Roman to remount his horse.
                "He lives, he lives, Tirzah! Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers!"
                With that outcry, and a brightened countenance, he drew back and replied to her question.
                "Be not afraid, Tirzah. I will explain how it happened, and they will remember our father and his services, and not hurt us."
                He was leading her to the summer-house, when the roof jarred under their feet, and a crash of strong timbers being burst away, followed by a cry of surprise and agony, arose apparently from the court-yard below. He stopped and listened. The cry was repeated; then came a rush of many feet, and voices lifted in rage blent with voices in prayer; and then the screams of women in mortal terror. The soldiers had beaten in the north gate, and were in possession of the house. The terrible sense of being hunted smote him. His first impulse was to fly; but where? Nothing but wings would serve him. Tirzah, her eyes wild with fear, caught his arm.
                "O Judah, what does it mean?"
                The servants were being butchered - and his mother! Was not one of the voices he heard hers? With all the will left him, he said, "Stay here, and wait for me, Tirzah. I will go down and see what is the matter, and come back to you."
                His voice was not steady as he wished. She clung closer to him.
                Clearer, shriller, no longer a fancy, his mother's cry arose. He hesitated no longer.
                "Come, then, let us go."
                The terrace or gallery at the foot of the steps was crowded with soldiers. Other soldiers with drawn swords ran in and out of the chambers. At one place a number of women on their knees clung to each other or prayed for mercy. Apart from them, one with torn garments, and long hair streaming over her face, struggled to tear loose from a man all whose strength was tasked to keep his hold. Her cries were shrillest of all; cutting through the clamor, they had risen distinguishably to the roof. To her Judah sprang - his steps were long and swift, almost a winged flight -”Mother, mother!" he shouted. She stretched her hands towards him; but when almost touching them he was seized and forced aside. Then he heard some one say, speaking loudly,
                "That is he!"
                Judah looked, and saw - Messala.
                "What, the assassin - that?" said a tall man, in legionary armor of beautiful finish. "Why, he is but a boy."
                "Gods!" replied Messala, not forgetting his drawl. "A new philosophy! What would Seneca say to the proposition that a man must be old before he can hate enough to kill? You have him; and that is his mother; yonder his sister. You have the whole family."
                For love of them, Judah forgot his quarrel.
                "Help them, O my Messala! Remember our childhood and help them. I - Judah - pray you."
                Messala affected not to hear.
                "I cannot be of further use to you," he said to the officer. "There is richer entertainment in the street. Down Eros, up Mars!"
                With the last words he disappeared. Judah understood him, and, in the bitterness of his soul, prayed to Heaven.
                "In the hour of thy vengeance, O Lord," he said, "be mine the hand to put it upon him!"
                By great exertion, he drew nearer the officer.
                "O sir, the woman you hear is my mother. Spare her, spare my sister yonder. God is just, he will give you mercy for mercy."
                The man appeared to be moved.
                "To the Tower with the women!" he shouted, "but do them no harm. I will demand them of you." Then to those holding Judah, he said, "Get cords, and bind his hands, and take him to the street. His punishment is reserved."
                The mother was carried away. The little Tirzah, in her home attire, stupefied with fear, went passively with her keepers. Judah gave each of them a last look, and covered his face with his hands, as if to possess himself of the scene fadelessly. He may have shed tears, though no one saw them.
                There took place in him then what may be justly called the wonder of life. The thoughtful reader of these pages has ere this discerned enough to know that the young Jew in disposition was gentle even to womanliness - a result that seldom fails the habit of loving and being loved. The circumstances through which he had come had made no call upon the harsher elements of his nature, if such he had. At times he had felt the stir and impulses of ambition, but they had been like the formless dreams of a child walking by the sea and gazing at the coming and going of stately ships. But now, if we can imagine an idol, sensible of the worship it was accustomed to, dashed suddenly from its altar, and lying amidst the wreck of its little world of love, an idea may be had of what had befallen the young Ben-Hur, and of its effect upon his being. Yet there was no sign, nothing to indicate that he had undergone a change, except that when he raised his head, and held his arms out to be bound, the bend of the Cupid's bow had vanished from his lips. In that instant he had put off childhood and become a man.
                A trumpet sounded in the court-yard. With the cessation of the call, the gallery was cleared of the soldiery; many of whom, as they dared not appear in the ranks with visible plunder in their hands, flung what they had upon the floor, until it was strewn with articles of richest virtu. When Judah descended, the formation was complete, and the officer waiting to see his last order executed.
                The mother, daughter, and entire household were led out of the north gate, the ruins of which choked the passageway. The cries of the domestics, some of whom had been born in the house, were most pitiable. When, finally, the horses and all the dumb tenantry of the place were driven past him, Judah began to comprehend the scope of the procurator's vengeance. The very structure was devoted. Far as the order was possible of execution, nothing living was to be left within its walls. If in Judea there were others desperate enough to think of assassinating a Roman governor, the story of what befell the princely family of Hur would be a warning to them, while the ruin of the habitation would keep the story alive.
                The officer waited outside while a detail of men temporarily restored the gate.
                In the street the fighting had almost ceased. Upon the houses here and there clouds of dust told where the struggle was yet prolonged. The cohort was, for the most part, standing at rest, its splendor, like its ranks, in nowise diminished. Borne past the point of care for himself, Judah had heart for nothing in view but the prisoners, among whom he looked in vain for his mother and Tirzah.
                Suddenly, from the earth where she had been lying, a woman arose and started swiftly back to the gate. Some of the guards reached out to seize her, and a great shout followed their failure. She ran to Judah, and, dropping down, clasped his knees, the coarse black hair powdered with dust veiling her eyes.
                "O Amrah, good Amrah," he said to her, "God help you; I cannot."
                She could not speak.
                He bent down, and whispered, "Live, Amrah, for Tirzah and my mother. They will come back, and -”
                A soldier drew her away; whereupon she sprang up and rushed through the gateway and passage into the vacant court-yard.
                "Let her go," the officer shouted. "We will seal the house, and she will starve."
                The men resumed their work, and, when it was finished there, passed round to the west side. That gate was also secured, after which the palace of the Hurs was lost to use.
                The cohort at length marched back to the Tower, where the procurator stayed to recover from his hurts and dispose of his prisoners. On the tenth day following, he visited the Market-place.

Saturday, 17 March 2018

Good Readings: "Os Anjos da Meia Noite" by Castro Alves (in Portuguese)


Quando a insônia, qual lívido vampiro,
Como o arcanjo da guarda do Sepulcro,
Vela à noite por nós,
E banha-se em suor o travesseiro,
E além geme nas franças do pinheiro
Da brisa a longa voz ...

Quando sangrenta a luz no alampadário
Estala, cresce, expira, após ressurge,
Como uma alma a penar;
E canta aos quizos rubros da loucura
A febre - a meretriz da sepultura
A rir e a soluçar ...

Quando tudo vacila e se evapora,
Muda e se anima, vive e se transforma.
Cambaleia e se esvai...
E da sala na mágica penumbra
Um mundo em trevas rápido se obumbra...
E outro das trevas sai. . .
 
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 Então... nos brancos mantos que arregaçam
Da meia-noite os Anjos alvos passam
Em longa procissão!
E eu murmuro ao fitá-los assombrado:
São os Anjos de amor de meu passado
Que desfilando vão ...

Almas, que um dia no meu peito ardente
Derramastes dos sonhos a semente,
Mulheres, que eu amei!
Anjos louros do céu! virgens serenas!
Madonas, Querubins ou Madalenas!
Surgi! aparecei!

Vinde, fantasmas! Eu vos amo ainda;
Acorde-se a harmonia à noite infinda
Ao roto bandolim ...

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E, no éter, que em notas se perfuma,
As visões s'alteando uma por uma...
Vão desfilando assim!...



1a SOMBRA


MARIETA
Como o gênio da noite, que desata
O véu de , rendas sobre a espádua nua,
Ela solta os cabelos... Bate a lua
Nas alvas dobras de um lençol de prata

O seio virginal que a mão recata,
Embalde o prende a mão... cresce, flu
Sonha a moça ao relento... Além na
Preludia um violão na serenata!...

... Furtivos passos morrem no lajedo...
Resvala a escada do balcão discreta...
Matam lábios os beijos em segredo...

Afoga-me os suspiros, Marieta!
Oh surpresa! oh palor! oh pranto! oh medo!
Ai! noites de Romeu e Julieta. . .



2a SOMBRA

BÁRBARA
Erguendo o cálix que o Xerez perfuma.
Loura a trança alastrando-lhe os joelhos,
Dentes níveos em lábios tão vermelhos,
Como boiando em purpurina escuma;

Um dorso de Valquíria... alvo de bruma,
Pequenos pés sob infantis artelhos,
Olhos vivos, tão vivos, como espelhos,
Mas como eles também sem chama alguma;

Garganta de um palor alabastrino,
Que harmonias e músicas respira...
No lábio - um beijo... no beijar - um hino;

Harpa eólia a esperar que o vento a fira,
— Um pedaço de mármore divino...
— É o retrato de Bárbara - a Hetaira. —


3a SOMBRA

ESTER
Vem! no teu peito cálido e brilhante
O nardo oriental melhor transpira!
Enrola-te na longa cachemira,
Como as judias moles do Levante,

Alva a clâmide aos ventos - roçagante...
Túmido o lábio, onde o saltério gira...
Ó musa de Israel! pega da lira...
Canta os martírios de teu povo errante!

Mas não... brisa da pátria além revoa,
E ao delamber-lhe o braço de alabastro,
Falou-lhe de partir... e parte... e voa. . .

Qual nas algas marinhas desce um astro...
Linda Ester! teu perfil se esvai... s'escoa...
Só me resta um perfume... um canto... um rastro...


4a SOMBRA

FABÍOLA
Como teu riso dói... como na treva
Os lêmures respondem no infinito:
Tens o aspecto do pássaro maldito,
Que em sânie de cadáveres se ceva!
 
Filha da noite! A ventania leva
Um soluço de amor pungente, aflito...
Fabíola!... É teu nome!... Escuta é um grito,
Que lacerante para os céus s'eleva!...

E tu folgas, Bacante dos amores,
E a orgia que a mantilha te arregaça,
Enche a noite de horror, de mais horrores...

É sangue, que referve-te na taça!
É sangue, que borrifa-te estas flores!
E este sangue é meu sangue... é meu... Desgraça!


5a e 6a SOMBRAS

CÂNDIDA E LAURA
Como no tanque de um palácio mago,
Dous alvos cisnes na bacia lisa,
Como nas águas que o barqueiro frisa,
Dous nenúfares sobre o azul do lago,
 
Como nas hastes em balouço vago
Dous lírios roxos que acalenta a brisa,
Como um casal de juritis que pisa
O mesmo ramo no amoroso afago....

Quais dous planetas na cerúlea esfera,
Como os primeiros pâmpanos das vinhas,
Como os renovos nos ramais da hera,

Eu vos vejo passar nas noites minhas,
Crianças que trazeis-me a primavera...
Crianças que lembrais-me as andorinhas! ...


7a SOMBRA
 
DULCE
Se houvesse ainda talismã bendito
Que desse ao pântano - a corrente pura,
Musgo - ao rochedo, festa - à sepultura,
Das águias negras - harmonia ao grito...,
 
Se alguém pudesse ao infeliz precito
Dar lugar no banquete da ventura...
E tocar-lhe o velar da insônia escura
No poema dos beijos - infinito...,

 Certo. . . serias tu, donzela casta,
Quem me tomasse em meio do Calvário
A cruz de angústias que o meu ser arrasta!. . .
 
Mas ,se tudo recusa-me o fadário,
Na hora de expirar, ó Dulce, basta
Morrer beijando a cruz de teu rosário!...


8a SOMBRA

ÚLTIMO FANTASMA
Quem és tu, quem és tu, vulto gracioso,
Que te elevas da noite na orvalhada?
Tens a face nas sombras mergulhada...
Sobre as névoas te libras vaporoso ...

Baixas do céu num vôo harmonioso!...
Quem és tu, bela e branca desposada?
Da laranjeira em flor a flor nevada
Cerca-te a fronte, ó ser misterioso! ...
 
Onde nos vimos nós? És doutra esfera ?
És o ser que eu busquei do sul ao norte. . .
Por quem meu peito em sonhos desespera?

Quem és tu? Quem és tu? - És minha sorte!
És talvez o ideal que est'alma espera!
És a glória talvez! Talvez a morte!
 
(Santa Isabel, agosto de 1870.)

Friday, 16 March 2018

Friday's Sung Word: "Ao Voltar do Samba ou Arlequim de Bronze" by Synval Silva (in Portuguese)

Oh Deus, eu me acho tão cansada
Ao voltar da batucada
Que tomei parte lá na praça onze
Ganhei no samba um arlequim de bronze
Minha sandália quebrou o salto
E eu perdi o meu mulato lá no asfalto

Eu não me interessei saber
Alguém veio me dizer
Que encontrou você se lastimando
Com lágrimas nos olhos, chorando
Chora, mulato meu prazer é de te ver sofrer
Para saber quanto eu te amei e
Quanto eu sofri para te esquecer

Eu tive amizade a você
Eu mesmo não sei por quê
Eu conheci você na roda sambando
Com o tamborim na mão marcando
Agora, mulato, por você não faço desacato
Eu vou à forra e comigo tem
Ou este ano ou p'ro ano que vem


You can listen "Ao Voltar do Samba ou Arlequim de Bronze" sung by Carmen Miranda here.


You can listen "Ao Voltar do Samba ou Arlequim de Bronze" sung by Clara Nunes here.

Thursday, 15 March 2018

Thursday's Serial: "The Golden Age" by Keneth Grahame (in English) - the end



“LUSISTI SATIS”

Among the many fatuous ideas that possessed the Olympian noddle, this one was pre-eminent; that, being Olympians, they could talk quite freely in our presence on subjects of the closest import to us, so long as names, dates, and other landmarks were ignored. We were supposed to be denied the faculty for putting two and two together; and, like the monkeys, who very sensibly refrain from speech lest they should be set to earn their livings, we were careful to conceal our capabilities for a simple syllogism. Thus we were rarely taken by surprise, and so were considered by our disappointed elders to be apathetic and to lack the divine capacity for wonder.
                Now the daily output of the letter-bag, with the mysterious discussions that ensued thereon, had speedily informed us that Uncle Thomas was intrusted with a mission,—a mission, too, affecting ourselves. Uncle Thomas’s missions were many and various; a self-important man, one liking the business while protesting that he sank under the burden, he was the missionary, so to speak, of our remote habitation. The matching a ribbon, the running down to the stores, the interviewing a cook,—these and similar duties lent constant colour and variety to his vacant life in London and helped to keep down his figure. When the matter, however, had in our presence to be referred to with nods and pronouns, with significant hiatuses and interpolations in the French tongue, then the red flag was flown, the storm-cone hoisted, and by a studious pretence of inattention we were not long in plucking out the heart of the mystery.
                To clinch our conclusion, we descended suddenly and together on Martha; proceeding, however, not by simple inquiry as to facts,—that would never have done,—but by informing her that the air was full of school and that we knew all about it, and then challenging denial. Martha was a trusty soul, but a bad witness for the defence, and we soon had it all out of her. The word had gone forth, the school had been selected; the necessary sheets were hemming even now; and Edward was the designated and appointed victim.
                It had always been before us as an inevitable bourne, this strange unknown thing called school; and yet—perhaps I should say consequently—we had never seriously set ourselves to consider what it really meant. But now that the grim spectre loomed imminent, stretching lean hands for one of our flock, it behoved us to face the situation, to take soundings in this uncharted sea and find out whither we were drifting. Unfortunately, the data in our possession were absolutely insufficient, and we knew not whither to turn for exact information. Uncle Thomas could have told us all about it, of course; he had been there himself, once, in the dim and misty past. But an unfortunate conviction, that Nature had intended him for a humourist, tainted all his evidence, besides making it wearisome to hear. Again, of such among our contemporaries as we had approached, the trumpets gave forth an uncertain sound. According to some, it meant larks, revels, emancipation, and a foretaste of the bliss of manhood. According to others,—the majority, alas!—it was a private and peculiar Hades, that could give the original institution points and a beating. When Edward was observed to be swaggering round with a jaunty air and his chest stuck out, I knew that he was contemplating his future from the one point of view. When, on the contrary, he was subdued and unaggressive, and sought the society of his sisters, I recognised that the other aspect was in the ascendant. “You can always run away, you know,” I used to remark consolingly on these latter occasions; and Edward would brighten up wonderfully at the suggestion, while Charlotte melted into tears before her vision of a brother with blistered feet and an empty belly, passing nights of frost ‘neath the lee of windy haystacks.
                It was to Edward, of course, that the situation was chiefly productive of anxiety; and yet the ensuing change in my own circumstances and position furnished me also with food for grave reflexion. Hitherto I had acted mostly to orders. Even when I had devised and counselled any particular devilry, it had been carried out on Edward’s approbation, and—as eldest—at his special risk. Henceforward I began to be anxious of the bugbear Responsibility, and to realise what a soul-throttling thing it is. True, my new position would have its compensations.
                Edward had been masterful exceedingly, imperious, perhaps a little narrow; impassioned for hard facts, and with scant sympathy for make-believe. I should now be free and untrammelled; in the conception and carrying out of a scheme, I could accept and reject to better artistic purpose.
                It would, moreover, be needless to be a Radical any more. Radical I never was, really, by nature or by sympathy. The part had been thrust on me one day, when Edward proposed to foist the House of Lords on our small Republic. The principles of the thing he set forth learnedly and well, and it all sounded promising enough, till he went on to explain that, for the present at least, he proposed to be the House of Lords himself. We others were to be the Commons. There would be promotions, of course, he added, dependent on service and on fitness, and open to both sexes; and to me in especial he held out hopes of speedy advancement. But in its initial stages the thing wouldn’t work properly unless he were first and only Lord. Then I put my foot down promptly, and said it was all rot, and I didn’t see the good of any House of Lords at all. “Then you must be a low Radical!” said Edward, with fine contempt. The inference seemed hardly necessary, but what could I do? I accepted the situation, and said firmly, Yes, I was a low Radical. In this monstrous character I had been obliged to masquerade ever since; but now I could throw it off, and look the world in the face again.
                And yet, did this and other gains really out-balance my losses? Henceforth I should, it was true, be leader and chief; but I should also be the buffer between the Olympians and my little clan. To Edward this had been nothing; he had withstood the impact of Olympus without flinching, like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved. But was I equal to the task? And was there not rather a danger that for the sake of peace and quietness I might be tempted to compromise, compound, and make terms? sinking thus, by successive lapses, into the Blameless Prig? I don’t mean, of course, that I thought out my thoughts to the exact point here set down. In those fortunate days of old one was free from the hard necessity of transmuting the vague idea into the mechanical inadequate medium of words. But the feeling was there, that I might not possess the qualities of character for so delicate a position.
                The unnatural halo round Edward got more pronounced, his own demeanour more responsible and dignified, with the arrival of his new clothes. When his trunk and play-box were sent in, the approaching cleavage between our brother, who now belonged to the future, and ourselves, still claimed by the past, was accentuated indeed. His name was painted on each of them, in large letters, and after their arrival their owner used to disappear mysteriously, and be found eventually wandering round his luggage, murmuring to himself, “Edward——,” in a rapt, remote sort of way. It was a weakness, of course, and pointed to a soft spot in his character; but those who can remember the sensation of first seeing their names in print will not think hardly of him.
                As the short days sped by and the grim event cast its shadow longer and longer across our threshold, an unnatural politeness, a civility scarce canny, began to pervade the air. In those latter hours Edward himself was frequently heard to say “Please,” and also “Would you mind fetchin’ that ball?” while Harold and I would sometimes actually find ourselves trying to anticipate his wishes. As for the girls, they simply grovelled. The Olympians, too, in their uncouth way, by gift of carnal delicacies and such-like indulgence, seemed anxious to demonstrate that they had hitherto misjudged this one of us. Altogether the situation grew strained and false, and I think a general relief was felt when the end came.
                We all trooped down to the station, of course; it is only in later years that the farce of “seeing people off” is seen in its true colours. Edward was the life and soul of the party; and if his gaiety struck one at times as being a trifle overdone, it was not a moment to be critical. As we tramped along, I promised him I would ask Farmer Larkin not to kill any more pigs till he came back for the holidays, and he said he would send me a proper catapult,—the real lethal article, not a kid’s plaything. Then suddenly, when we were about half-way down, one of the girls fell a-snivelling.
                The happy few who dare to laugh at the woes of sea-sickness will perhaps remember how, on occasion, the sudden collapse of a fellow-voyager before their very eyes has caused them hastily to revise their self-confidence and resolve to walk more humbly for the future. Even so it was with Edward, who turned his head aside, feigning an interest in the landscape. It was but for a moment; then he recollected the hat he was wearing,—a hard bowler, the first of that sort he had ever owned. He took it off, examined it, and felt it over. Something about it seemed to give him strength, and he was a man once more.
                At the station, Edward’s first care was to dispose his boxes on the platform so that every one might see the labels and the lettering thereon. One did not go to school for the first time every day! Then he read both sides of his ticket carefully; shifted it to every one of his pockets in turn; and finally fell to chinking of his money, to keep his courage up. We were all dry of conversation by this time, and could only stand round and stare in silence at the victim decked for the altar. And, as I looked at Edward, in new clothes of a manly cut, with a hard hat upon his head, a railway ticket in one pocket and money of his own in the other,—money to spend as he liked and no questions asked!—I began to feel dimly how great was the gulf already yawning betwixt us. Fortunately I was not old enough to realise, further, that here on this little platform the old order lay at its last gasp, and that Edward might come back to us, but it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could things ever be the same again.
                When the train steamed up at last, we all boarded it impetuously with the view of selecting the one peerless carriage to which Edward might be intrusted with the greatest comfort and honour; and as each one found the ideal compartment at the same moment, and vociferously maintained its merits, he stood some chance for a time of being left behind. A porter settled the matter by heaving him through the nearest door; and as the train moved off, Edward’s head was thrust out of the window, wearing on it an unmistakable first-quality grin that he had been saving up somewhere for the supreme moment. Very small and white his face looked, on the long side of the retreating train. But the grin was visible, undeniable, stoutly maintained; till a curve swept him from our sight, and he was borne away in the dying rumble, out of our placid backwater, out into the busy world of rubs and knocks and competition, out into the New Life.
                When a crab has lost a leg, his gait is still more awkward than his wont, till Time and healing Nature make him totus teres atque rotundus once more. We straggled back from the station disjointedly; Harold, who was very silent, sticking close to me, his last slender props while the girls in front, their heads together, were already reckoning up the weeks to the holidays. Home at last, Harold suggested one or two occupations of a spicy and contraband flavour, but though we did our manful best there was no knocking any interest out of them. Then I suggested others, with the same want of success. Finally we found ourselves sitting silent on an upturned wheelbarrow, our chins on our fists, staring haggardly into the raw new conditions of our changed life, the ruins of a past behind our backs.
                And all the while Selina and Charlotte were busy stuffing Edward’s rabbits with unwonted forage, bilious and green; polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved and swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting materials for new bows and arrows, whips, boats, guns, and four-in-hand harness, against the return of Ulysses. Little did they dream that the hero, once back from Troy and all its onsets, would scornfully condemn their clumsy but laborious armoury as rot and humbug and only fit for kids! This, with many another like awakening, was mercifully hidden from them. Could the veil have been lifted, and the girls permitted to see Edward as he would appear a short three months hence, ragged of attire and lawless of tongue, a scorner of tradition and an adept in strange new physical tortures, one who would in the same half-hour dismember a doll and shatter a hallowed belief,—in fine, a sort of swaggering Captain, fresh from the Spanish Main,—could they have had the least hint of this, well, then perhaps—. But which of us is of mental fibre to stand the test of a glimpse into futurity? Let us only hope that, even with certain disillusionment ahead, the girls would have acted precisely as they did.
                And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as children and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear, not only to others, but to ourselves, a very short time hence. So we pass, with a gusto and a heartiness that to an onlooker would seem almost pathetic, from one droll devotion to another misshapen passion; and who shall care to play Rhadamanthus, to appraise the record, and to decide how much of it is solid achievement, and how much the merest child’s play?