IV
In
the course of the week Lucian again visited Caermaen. He wished to view the
amphitheatre more precisely, to note the exact position of the ancient walls,
to gaze up the valley from certain points within the town, to imprint minutely
and clearly on his mind the surge of the hills about the city, and the dark
tapestry of the hanging woods. And he lingered in the museum where the relics
of the Roman occupation had been stored; he was interested in the fragments of
tessellated floors, in the glowing gold of drinking cups, the curious beads of
fused and colored glass, the carved amber-work, the scent-flagons that still
retained the memory of unctuous odors, the necklaces, brooches, hair-pins of
gold and silver, and other intimate objects which had once belonged to Roman
ladies. One of the glass flagons, buried in damp earth for many hundred years,
had gathered in its dark grave all the splendors of the light, and now shone
like an opal with a moonlight glamour and gleams of gold and pale sunset green,
and imperial purple. Then there were the wine jars of red earthenware, the
memorial stones from graves, and the heads of broken gods, with fragments of
occult things used in the secret rites of Mithras. Lucian read on the labels
where all these objects were found: in the churchyard, beneath the turf of the
meadow, and in the old cemetery near the forest; and whenever it was possible
he would make his way to the spot of discovery, and imagine the long darkness
that had hidden gold and stone and amber. All these investigations were
necessary for the scheme he had in view, so he became for some time quite a
familiar figure in the dusty deserted streets and in the meadows by the river.
His continual visits to Caermaen were a tortuous puzzle to the inhabitants, who
flew to their windows at the sound of a step on the uneven pavements. They were
at a loss in their conjectures; his motive for coming down three times a week
must of course be bad, but it seemed undiscoverable. And Lucian on his side was
at first a good deal put out by occasional encounters with members of the
Gervase or Dixon or Colley tribes; he had often to stop and exchange a few
conventional expressions, and such meetings, casual as they were, annoyed and
distracted him. He was no longer infuriated or wounded by sneers of contempt or
by the cackling laughter of the young people when they passed him on the road
(his hat was a shocking one and his untidiness terrible), but such incidents
were unpleasant just as the smell of a drain was unpleasant, and threw the
strange mechanism of his thoughts out of fear for the time. Then he had been
disgusted by the affair of the boys and the little dog; the loathsomeness of it
had quite broken up his fancies. He had read books of modern occultism, and
remembered some of the experiments described. The adept, it was alleged, could
transfer the sense of consciousness from his brain to the foot or hand, he
could annihilate the world around him and pass into another sphere. Lucian
wondered whether he could not perform some such operation for his own benefit.
Human beings were constantly annoying him and getting in his way, was it not
possible to annihilate the race, or at all events to reduce them to wholly
insignificant forms? A certain process suggested itself to his mind, a work
partly mental and partly physical, and after two or three experiments he found
to his astonishment and delight that it was successful. Here, he thought, he
had discovered one of the secrets of true magic; this was the key to the
symbolic transmutations of the Eastern tales. The adept could, in truth, change
those who were obnoxious to him into harmless and unimportant shapes, not as in
the letter of the old stories, by transforming the enemy, but by transforming
himself. The magician puts men below him by going up higher, as one looks down
on a mountain city from a loftier crag. The stones on the road and such petty
obstacles do not trouble the wise man on the great journey, and so Lucian, when
obliged to stop and converse with his fellow-creatures, to listen to their poor
pretences and inanities, was no more inconvenienced than when he had to climb
an awkward stile in the course of a walk. As for the more unpleasant
manifestations of humanity; after all they no longer concerned him. Men intent
on the great purpose did not suffer the current of their thoughts to be broken
by the buzzing of a fly caught in a spider's web, so why should he be perturbed
by the misery of a puppy in the hands of village boys? The fly, no doubt,
endured its tortures; lying helpless and bound in those slimy bands, it cried
out in its thin voice when the claws of the horrible monster fastened on it;
but its dying agonies had never vexed the reverie of a lover. Lucian saw no
reason why the boys should offend him more than the spider, or why he should
pity the dog more than he pitied the fly. The talk of the men and women might
be wearisome and inept and often malignant; but he could not imagine an
alchemist at the moment of success, a general in the hour of victory, or a
financier with a gigantic scheme of swindling well on the market being annoyed
by the buzz of insects. The spider is, no doubt, a very terrible brute with a
hideous mouth and hairy tiger-like claws when seen through the microscope; but
Lucian had taken away the microscope from his eyes. He could now walk the
streets of Caermaen confident and secure, without any dread of interruption,
for at a moment's notice the transformation could be effected. Once Dr. Burrows
caught him and made him promise to attend a bazaar that was to be held in aid
of the Hungarian Protestants; Lucian assented the more willingly as he wished
to pay a visit to certain curious mounds on a hill a little way out of the
town, and he calculated on slinking off from the bazaar early in the afternoon.
Lord Beamys was visiting Sir Vivian Ponsonby, a local magnate, and had kindly
promised to drive over and declare the bazaar open. It was a solemn moment when
the carriage drew up and the great man alighted. He was rather an evil-looking
old nobleman, but the clergy and gentry, their wives and sons and daughters
welcomed him with great and unctuous joy. Conversations were broken off in
mid-sentence, slow people gaped, not realizing why their friends had so
suddenly left them, the Meyricks came up hot and perspiring in fear lest they
should be too late, Miss Colley, a yellow virgin of austere regard, smiled
largely, Mrs. Dixon beckoned wildly with her parasol to the "girls"
who were idly strolling in a distant part of the field, and the archdeacon ran
at full speed. The air grew dark with bows, and resonant with the genial laugh
of the archdeacon, the cackle of the younger ladies, and the shrill parrot-like
voices of the matrons; those smiled who had never smiled before, and on some
maiden faces there hovered that look of adoring ecstasy with which the old
maidens graced their angels. Then, when all the due rites had been performed,
the company turned and began to walk towards the booths of their small Vanity
Fair. Lord Beamys led the way with Mrs. Gervase, Mrs. Dixon followed with Sir
Vivian Ponsonby, and the multitudes that followed cried, saying, "What a
dear old man!" - "Isn't it kind of him to come all this way?" -
"What a sweet expression, isn't it?" - "I think he's an old
love" - "One of the good old sort" - "Real English
nobleman" - "Oh most correct, I assure you; if a girl gets into
trouble, notice to quit at once" - "Always stands by the Church"
- "Twenty livings in his gift" - "Voted for the Public Worship
Regulation Act" - "Ten thousand acres strictly preserved." The
old lord was leering pleasantly and muttering to himself: "Some fine gals
here. Like the looks of that filly with the pink hat. Ought to see more of her.
She'd give Lotty points."
The
pomp swept slowly across the grass: the archdeacon had got hold of Mr. Dixon,
and they were discussing the misdeeds of some clergyman in the rural deanery.
"I
can scarce credit it," said Mr. Dixon.
"Oh,
I assure you, there can be no doubt. We have witnesses. There can be no
question that there was a procession at Llanfihangel on the Sunday before
Easter; the choir and minister went round the church, carrying palm branches in
their hands."
"Very
shocking."
"It
has distressed the bishop. Martin is a hard-working man enough, and all that,
but those sort of things can't be tolerated. The bishop told me that he had set
his face against processions."
"Quite
right: the bishop is perfectly right. Processions are unscriptural."
"It's
the thin end of the wedge, you know, Dixon."
"Exactly.
I have always resisted anything of the kind here."
"Right.
Principiis obsta, you know. Martin is so imprudent. There's a way of doing
things."
The
"scriptural" procession led by Lord Beamys broke up when the stalls
were reached, and gathered round the nobleman as he declared the bazaar open.
Lucian
was sitting on a garden-seat, a little distance off, looking dreamily before
him. And all that he saw was a swarm of flies clustering and buzzing about a
lump of tainted meat that lay on the grass. The spectacle in no way interrupted
the harmony of his thoughts, and soon after the opening of the bazaar he went
quietly away, walking across the fields in the direction of the ancient mounds
he desired to inspect.
All
these journeys of his to Caermaen and its neighborhood had a peculiar object;
he was gradually leveling to the dust the squalid kraals of modern times, and
rebuilding the splendid and golden city of Siluria. All this mystic town was
for the delight of his sweetheart and himself; for her the wonderful villas,
the shady courts, the magic of tessellated pavements, and the hangings of rich
stuffs with their intricate and glowing patterns. Lucian wandered all day through
the shining streets, taking shelter sometimes in the gardens beneath the dense
and gloomy ilex trees, and listening to the plash and trickle of the fountains.
Sometimes he would look out of a window and watch the crowd and color of the
market-place, and now and again a ship came up the river bringing exquisite
silks and the merchandise of unknown lands in the Far East. He had made a
curious and accurate map of the town he proposed to inhabit, in which every
villa was set down and named. He drew his lines to scale with the gravity of a
surveyor, and studied the plan till he was able to find his way from house to
house on the darkest summer night. On the southern slopes about the town there
were vineyards, always under a glowing sun, and sometimes he ventured to the
furthest ridge of the forest, where the wild people still lingered, that he
might catch the golden gleam of the city far away, as the light quivered and
scintillated on the glittering tiles. And there were gardens outside the city
gates where strange and brilliant flowers grew, filling the hot air with their
odor, and scenting the breeze that blew along the streets. The dull modern life
was far away, and people who saw him at this period wondered what was amiss;
the abstraction of his glance was obvious, even to eyes not over-sharp. But men
and women had lost all their power of annoyance and vexation; they could no
longer even interrupt his thought for a moment. He could listen to Mr. Dixon
with apparent attention, while he was in reality enraptured by the entreating
music of the double flute, played by a girl in the garden of Avallaunius, for
that was the name he had taken. Mr. Dixon was innocently discoursing
archeology, giving a brief résumé of the view expressed by Mr. Wyndham at the
last meeting of the antiquarian society.
"There
can be no doubt that the temple of Diana stood there in pagan times," he
concluded, and Lucian assented to the opinion, and asked a few questions which
seemed pertinent enough. But all the time the flute notes were sounding in his
ears, and the ilex threw a purple shadow on the white pavement before his
villa. A boy came forward from the garden; he had been walking amongst the
vines and plucking the ripe grapes, and the juice had trickled down over his
breast. Standing beside the girl, unashamed in the sunlight, he began to sing
one of Sappho's love songs. His voice was as full and rich as a woman's, but
purged of all emotion; he was an instrument of music in the flesh. Lucian
looked at him steadily; the white perfect body shone against the roses and the
blue of the sky, clear and gleaming as marble in the glare of the sun. The
words he sang burned and flamed with passion, and he was as unconscious of
their meaning as the twin pipes of the flute. And the girl was smiling. The
vicar shook hands and went on, well pleased with his remarks on the temple of
Diana, and also with Lucian's polite interest.
"He
is by no means wanting in intelligence," he said to his family. "A
little curious in manner, perhaps, but not stupid."
"Oh,
papa," said Henrietta, "don't you think he is rather silly? He can't
talk about anything - anything interesting, I mean. And he pretends to know a
lot about books, but I heard him say the other day he had never read The Prince
of the House of David or Ben-Hur. Fancy!"
The
vicar had not interrupted Lucian. The sun still beat upon the roses, and a
little breeze bore the scent of them to his nostrils together with the smell of
grapes and vine-leaves. He had become curious in sensation, and as he leant
back upon the cushions covered with glistening yellow silk, he was trying to
analyze a strange ingredient in the perfume of the air. He had penetrated far
beyond the crude distinctions of modern times, beyond the rough: "there's
a smell of roses," "there must be sweetbriar somewhere." Modern
perceptions of odor were, he knew, far below those of the savage in delicacy.
The degraded black fellow of Australia could distinguish odors in a way that
made the consumer of "damper" stare in amazement, but the savage's
sensations were all strictly utilitarian. To Lucian as he sat in the cool
porch, his feet on the marble, the air came laden with scents as subtly and
wonderfully interwoven and contrasted as the harmonica of a great master. The
stained marble of the pavement gave a cool reminiscence of the Italian
mountain, the blood-red roses palpitating in the sunlight sent out an odor
mystical as passion itself, and there was the hint of inebriation in the
perfume of the trellised vines. Besides these, the girl's desire and the unripe
innocence of the boy were as distinct as benzoin and myrrh, both delicious and
exquisite, and exhaled as freely as the scent of the roses. But there was
another element that puzzled him, an aromatic suggestion of the forest. He
understood it at last; it was the vapor of the great red pines that grew beyond
the garden; their spicy needles were burning in the sun, and the smell was as
fragrant as the fume of incense blown from far. The soft entreaty of the flute
and the swelling rapture of the boy's voice beat on the air together, and
Lucian wondered whether there were in the nature of things any true distinction
between the impressions of sound and scent and color. The violent blue of the
sky, the one mystery than distinct entities. He could almost imagine that the
boy's innocence was indeed a perfume, and that the palpitating roses had become
a sonorous chant.
In
the curious silence which followed the last notes, when the boy and girl had
passed under the purple ilex shadow, he fell into a reverie. The fancy that
sensations are symbols and not realities hovered in his mind, and led him to
speculate as to whether they could not actually be transmuted one into another.
It was possible, he thought, that a whole continent of knowledge had been undiscovered;
the energies of men having been expended in unimportant and foolish directions.
Modern ingenuity had been employed on such trifles as locomotive engines,
electric cables, and cantilever bridges; on elaborate devices for bringing
uninteresting people nearer together; the ancients had been almost as foolish,
because they had mistaken the symbol for the thing signified. It was not the
material banquet which really mattered, but the thought of it; it was almost as
futile to eat and take emetics and eat again as to invent telephones and
high-pressure boilers. As for some other ancient methods of enjoying life, one
might as well set oneself to improve calico printing at once.
"Only
in the garden of Avallaunius," said Lucian to himself, "is the true and
exquisite science to be found."
He
could imagine a man who was able to live in one sense while he pleased; to
whom, for example, every impression of touch, taste, hearing, or seeing should
be translated into odor; who at the desired kiss should be ravished with the
scent of dark violets, to whom music should be the perfume of a rose-garden at
dawn.
When,
now and again, he voluntarily resumed the experience of common life, it was
that he might return with greater delight to the garden in the city of refuge.
In the actual world the talk was of Nonconformists, the lodger franchise, and
the Stock Exchange; people were constantly reading newspapers, drinking
Australian Burgundy, and doing other things equally absurd. They either looked
shocked when the fine art of pleasure was mentioned, or confused it with going
to musical comedies, drinking bad whisky, and keeping late hours in
disreputable and vulgar company. He found to his amusement that the profligate
were by many degrees duller than the pious, but that the most tedious of all
were the persons who preached promiscuity, and called their system of
"pigging" the "New Morality."
He
went back to the city lovingly, because it was built and adorned for his love.
As the metaphysicians insist on the consciousness of the ego as the implied
basis of all thought, so he knew that it was she in whom he had found himself,
and through whom and for whom all the true life existed. He felt that Annie had
taught him the rare magic which had created the garden of Avallaunius. It was
for her that he sought strange secrets and tried to penetrate the mysteries of
sensation, for he could only give her wonderful thoughts and a wonderful life,
and a poor body stained with the scars of his worship.
It
was with this object, that of making the offering of himself a worthy one, that
he continually searched for new and exquisite experiences. He made lovers come
before him and confess their secrets; he pried into the inmost mysteries of
innocence and shame, noting how passion and reluctance strive together for the
mastery. In the amphitheatre he sometimes witnessed strange entertainments in
which such tales as Daphnis and Chloe and The Golden Ass were performed before
him. These shows were always given at nighttime; a circle of torch-bearers
surrounded the stage in the center, and above, all the tiers of seats were
dark. He would look up at the soft blue of the summer sky, and at the vast dim
mountain hovering like a cloud in the west, and then at the scene illumined by
a flaring light, and contrasted with violent shadows. The subdued mutter of
conversation in a strange language rising from bench after bench, swift hissing
whispers of explanation, now and then a shout or a cry as the interest
deepened, the restless tossing of the people as the end drew near, an arm
lifted, a cloak thrown back, the sudden blaze of a torch lighting up purple or
white or the gleam of gold in the black serried ranks; these were impressions
that seemed always amazing. And above, the dusky light of the stars, around,
the sweet-scented meadows, and the twinkle of lamps from the still city, the
cry of the sentries about the walls, the wash of the tide filling the river,
and the salt savor of the sea. With such a scenic ornament he saw the tale of
Apuleius represented, heard the names of Fotis and Byrrhaena and Lucius
proclaimed, and the deep intonation of such sentences as Ecce Veneris hortator
et armiger Liber advenit ultro. The tale went on through all its marvelous
adventures, and Lucian left the amphitheatre and walked beside the river where
he could hear indistinctly the noise of voices and the singing Latin, and note
how the rumor of the stage mingled with the murmur of the shuddering reeds and
the cool lapping of the tide. Then came the farewell of the cantor, the thunder
of applause, the crash of cymbals, the calling of the flutes, and the surge of
the wind in the great dark wood.
At
other times it was his chief pleasure to spend a whole day in a vineyard
planted on the steep slope beyond the bridge. A grey stone seat had been placed
beneath a shady laurel, and here he often sat without motion or gesture for
many hours. Below him the tawny river swept round the town in a half circle; he
could see the swirl of the yellow water, its eddies and miniature whirlpools,
as the tide poured up from the south. And beyond the river the strong circuit
of the walls, and within, the city glittered like a charming piece of mosaic.
He freed himself from the obtuse modern view of towns as places where human
beings live and make money and rejoice or suffer, for from the standpoint of
the moment such facts were wholly impertinent. He knew perfectly well that for
his present purpose the tawny sheen and shimmer of the tide was the only fact
of importance about the river, and so he regarded the city as a curious work in
jewelry. Its radiant marble porticoes, the white walls of the villas, a dome of
burning copper, the flash and scintillation of tiled roofs, the quiet red of
brickwork, dark groves of ilex, and cypress, and laurel, glowing rose-gardens,
and here and there the silver of a fountain, seemed arranged and contrasted
with a wonderful art, and the town appeared a delicious ornament, every cube of
color owing its place to the thought and inspiration of the artificer. Lucian,
as he gazed from his arbour amongst the trellised vines, lost none of the
subtle pleasures of the sight; noting every nuance of color, he let his eyes
dwell for a moment on the scarlet flash of poppies, and then on a glazed roof
which in the glance of the sun seemed to spout white fire. A square of vines
was like some rare green stone; the grapes were massed so richly amongst the
vivid leaves, that even from far off there was a sense of irregular flecks and
stains of purple running through the green. The laurel garths were like cool
jade; the gardens, where red, yellow, blue and white gleamed together in a mist
of heat, had the radiance of opal; the river was a band of dull gold. On every
side, as if to enhance the preciousness of the city, the woods hung dark on the
hills; above, the sky was violet, specked with minute feathery clouds, white as
snowflakes. It reminded him of a beautiful bowl in his villa; the ground was of
that same brilliant blue, and the artist had fused into the work, when it was
hot, particles of pure white glass.
For
Lucian this was a spectacle that enchanted many hours; leaning on one hand, he
would gaze at the city glowing in the sunlight till the purple shadows grew
down the slopes and the long melodious trumpet sounded for the evening watch.
Then, as he strolled beneath the trellises, he would see all the radiant facets
glimmering out, and the city faded into haze, a white wall shining here and
there, and the gardens veiled in a dim glow of color. On such an evening he
would go home with the sense that he had truly lived a day, having received for
many hours the most acute impressions of beautiful color.
Often
he spent the night in the cool court of his villa, lying amidst soft cushions
heaped upon the marble bench. A lamp stood on the table at his elbow, its light
making the water in the cistern twinkle. There was no sound in the court except
the soft continual plashing of the fountain. Throughout these still hours he
would meditate, and he became more than ever convinced that man could, if he
pleased, become lord of his own sensations. This, surely, was the true meaning
concealed under the beautiful symbolism of alchemy. Some years before he had
read many of the wonderful alchemical books of the later Middle Ages, and had
suspected that something other than the turning of lead into gold was intended.
This impression was deepened when he looked into Lumen de Lumine by Vaughan,
the brother of the Silurist, and he had long puzzled himself in the endeavor to
find a reasonable interpretation of the hermetic mystery, and of the red
powder, "glistening and glorious in the sun." And the solution shone
out at last, bright and amazing, as he lay quiet in the court of Avallaunius.
He knew that he himself had solved the riddle, that he held in his hand the
powder of projection, the philosopher's stone transmuting all it touched to
fine gold; the gold of exquisite impressions. He understood now something of
the alchemical symbolism; the crucible and the furnace, the "Green
Dragon," and the "Son Blessed of the Fire" had, he saw, a
peculiar meaning. He understood, too, why the uninitiated were warned of the
terror and danger through which they must pass; and the vehemence with which
the adepts disclaimed all desire for material riches no longer struck him as
singular. The wise man does not endure the torture of the furnace in order that
he may be able to compete with operators in pork and company promoters; neither
a steam yacht, nor a grouse-moor, nor three liveried footmen would add at all
to his gratifications. Again Lucian said to himself:
"Only
in the court of Avallaunius is the true science of the exquisite to be
found."
He
saw the true gold into which the beggarly matter of existence may be transmuted
by spagyric art; a succession of delicious moments, all the rare flavors of
life concentrated, purged of their lees, and preserved in a beautiful vessel.
The moonlight fell green on the fountain and on the curious pavements, and in
the long sweet silence of the night he lay still and felt that thought itself
was an acute pleasure, to be expressed perhaps in terms of odor or color by the
true artist.
And
he gave himself other and even stranger gratifications. Outside the city walls,
between the baths and the amphitheatre, was a tavern, a place where wonderful
people met to drink wonderful wine. There he saw priests of Mithras and Isis
and of more occult rites from the East, men who wore robes of bright colours,
and grotesque ornaments, symbolizing secret things. They spoke amongst
themselves in a rich jargon of colored words, full of hidden meanings and the
sense of matters unintelligible to the uninitiated, alluding to what was
concealed beneath roses, and calling each other by strange names. And there
were actors who gave the shows in the amphitheatre, officers of the legion who
had served in wild places, singers, and dancing girls, and heroes of strange
adventure.
The
walls of the tavern were covered with pictures painted in violent hues; blues
and reds and greens jarring against one another and lighting up the gloom of
the place. The stone benches were always crowded, the sunlight came in through
the door in a long bright beam, casting a dancing shadow of vine leaves on the
further wall. There a painter had made a joyous figure of the young Bacchus driving
the leopards before him with his ivy-staff, and the quivering shadow seemed a
part of the picture. The room was cool and dark and cavernous, but the scent
and heat of the summer gushed in through the open door. There was ever a full
sound, with noise and vehemence, there, and the rolling music of the Latin
tongue never ceased.
"The
wine of the siege, the wine that we saved," cried one.
"Look
for the jar marked Faunus; you will be glad."
"Bring
me the wine of the Owl's Face."
"Let
us have the wine of Saturn's Bridge."
The
boys who served brought the wine in dull red jars that struck a charming note
against their white robes. They poured out the violet and purple and golden
wine with calm sweet faces as if they were assisting in the mysteries, without
any sign that they heard the strange words that flashed from side to side. The
cups were all of glass; some were of deep green, of the color of the sea near
the land, flawed and specked with the bubbles of the furnace. Others were of
brilliant scarlet, streaked with irregular bands of white, and having the
appearance of white globules in the molded stem. There were cups of dark
glowing blue, deeper and more shining than the blue of the sky, and running
through the substance of the glass were veins of rich gamboge yellow, twining
from the brim to the foot. Some cups were of a troubled and clotted red, with
alternating blotches of dark and light, some were variegated with white and
yellow stains, some wore a film of rainbow colours, some glittered, shot with
gold threads through the clear crystal, some were as if sapphires hung
suspended in running water, some sparkled with the glint of stars, some were
black and golden like tortoiseshell.
A
strange feature was the constant and fluttering motion of hands and arms.
Gesture made a constant commentary on speech; white fingers, whiter arms, and
sleeves of all colours, hovered restlessly, appeared and disappeared with an
effect of threads crossing and re-crossing on the loom. And the odor of the
place was both curious and memorable; something of the damp cold breath of the
cave meeting the hot blast of summer, the strangely mingled aromas of rare
wines as they fell plashing and ringing into the cups, the drugged vapor of the
East that the priests of Mithras and Isis bore from their steaming temples;
these were always strong and dominant. And the women were scented, sometimes
with unctuous and overpowering perfumes, and to the artist the experiences of
those present were hinted in subtle and delicate nuances of odor.
They
drank their wine and caressed all day in the tavern. The women threw their
round white arms about their lover's necks, they intoxicated them with the
scent of their hair, the priests muttered their fantastic jargon of Theurgy.
And through the sonorous clash of voices there always seemed the ring of the
cry:
"Look
for the jar marked Faunus; you will be glad."
Outside,
the vine tendrils shook on the white walls glaring in the sunshine; the breeze
swept up from the yellow river, pungent with the salt sea savor.
These
tavern scenes were often the subject of Lucian's meditation as he sat amongst
the cushions on the marble seat. The rich sound of the voices impressed him
above all things, and he saw that words have a far higher reason than the
utilitarian office of imparting a man's thought. The common notion that
language and linked words are important only as a means of expression he found
a little ridiculous; as if electricity were to be studied solely with the view
of "wiring" to people, and all its other properties left unexplored,
neglected. Language, he understood, was chiefly important for the beauty of its
sounds, by its possession of words resonant, glorious to the ear, by its
capacity, when exquisitely arranged, of suggesting wonderful and indefinable
impressions, perhaps more ravishing and farther removed from the domain of
strict thought than the impressions excited by music itself. Here lay hidden
the secret of the sensuous art of literature; it was the secret of suggestion,
the art of causing delicious sensation by the use of words. In a way,
therefore, literature was independent of thought; the mere English listener, if
he had an ear attuned, could recognize the beauty of a splendid Latin phrase.
Here
was the explanation of the magic of Lycidas. From the standpoint of the formal
understanding it was an affected lament over some wholly uninteresting and
unimportant Mr. King; it was full of nonsense about "shepherds" and
"flocks" and "muses" and such stale stock of poetry; the
introduction of St Peter on a stage thronged with nymphs and river gods was
blasphemous, absurd, and, in the worst taste; there were touches of greasy
Puritanism, the twang of the conventicle was only too apparent. And Lycidas was
probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in existence; because every
word and phrase and line were sonorous, ringing and echoing with music.
"Literature,"
he re-enunciated in his mind, "is the sensuous art of causing exquisite
impressions by means of words."
And
yet there was something more; besides the logical thought, which was often a
hindrance, a troublesome though inseparable accident, besides the sensation,
always a pleasure and a delight, besides these there were the indefinable
inexpressible images which all fine literature summons to the mind. As the
chemist in his experiments is sometimes astonished to find unknown, unexpected
elements in the crucible or the receiver, as the world of material things is
considered by some a thin veil of the immaterial universe, so he who reads
wonderful prose or verse is conscious of suggestions that cannot be put into
words, which do not rise from the logical sense, which are rather parallel to
than connected with the sensuous delight. The world so disclosed is rather the
world of dreams, rather the world in which children sometimes live, instantly
appearing, and instantly vanishing away, a world beyond all expression or
analysis, neither of the intellect nor of the senses. He called these fancies
of his "Meditations of a Tavern," and was amused to think that a
theory of letters should have risen from the eloquent noise that rang all day
about the violet and golden wine.
"Let
us seek for more exquisite things," said Lucian to himself. He could
almost imagine the magic transmutation of the senses accomplished, the strong
sunlight was an odor in his nostrils; it poured down in the white marble and
the palpitating roses like a flood. The sky was a glorious blue, making the
heart joyous, and the eyes could rest in the dark green leaves and purple
shadow of the ilex. The earth seemed to burn and leap beneath the sun, he
fancied he could see the vine tendrils stir and quiver in the heat, and the
faint fume of the scorching pine needles was blown across the gleaming garden
to the seat beneath the porch. Wine was before him in a cup of carved amber; a
wine of the color of a dark rose, with a glint as of a star or of a jet of
flame deep beneath the brim; and the cup was twined about with a delicate
wreath of ivy. He was often loath to turn away from the still contemplation of such
things, from the mere joy of the violent sun, and the responsive earth. He
loved his garden and the view of the tessellated city from the vineyard on the
hill, the strange clamor of the tavern, and white Fotis appearing on the
torch-lit stage. And there were shops in the town in which he delighted, the
shops of the perfume makers, and jewelers, and dealers in curious ware. He
loved to see all things made for ladies' use, to touch the gossamer silks that
were to touch their bodies, to finger the beads of amber and the gold chains
which would stir above their hearts, to handle the carved hairpins and
brooches, to smell odors which were already dedicated to love.
But
though these were sweet and delicious gratifications, he knew that there were
more exquisite things of which he might be a spectator. He had seen the folly
of regarding fine literature from the standpoint of the logical intellect, and
he now began to question the wisdom of looking at life as if it were a moral
representation. Literature, he knew, could not exist without some meaning, and
considerations of right and wrong were to a certain extent inseparable from the
conception of life, but to insist on ethics as the chief interest of the human
pageant was surely absurd. One might as well read Lycidas for the sake of its
denunciation of "our corrupted Clergy," or Homer for "manners
and customs." An artist entranced by a beautiful landscape did not greatly
concern himself with the geological formation of the hills, nor did the lover
of a wild sea inquire as to the chemical analysis of the water. Lucian saw a
colored and complex life displayed before him, and he sat enraptured at the
spectacle, not concerned to know whether actions were good or bad, but content
if they were curious.
In
this spirit he made a singular study of corruption. Beneath his feet, as he sat
in the garden porch, was a block of marble through which there ran a scarlet
stain. It began with a faint line, thin as a hair, and grew as it advanced,
sending out offshoots to right and left, and broadening to a pool of brilliant
red. There were strange lives into which he looked that were like the block of
marble; women with grave sweet faces told him the astounding tale of their
adventures, and how, they said, they had met the faun when they were little
children. They told him how they had played and watched by the vines and the
fountains, and dallied with the nymphs, and gazed at images reflected in the
water pools, till the authentic face appeared from the wood. He heard others
tell how they had loved the satyrs for many years before they knew their race;
and there were strange stories of those who had longed to speak but knew not
the word of the enigma, and searched in all strange paths and ways before they
found it.
He
heard the history of the woman who fell in love with her slave-boy, and tempted
him for three years in vain. He heard the tale from the woman's full red lips,
and watched her face, full of the ineffable sadness of lust, as she described
her curious stratagems in mellow phrases. She was drinking a sweet yellow wine
from a gold cup as she spoke, and the odor in her hair and the aroma of the
precious wine seemed to mingle with the soft strange words that flowed like an
unguent from a carven jar. She told how she bought the boy in the market of an
Asian city, and had him carried to her house in the grove of fig-trees.
"Then," she went on, "he was led into my presence as I sat
between the columns of my court. A blue veil was spread above to shut out the
heat of the sun, and rather twilight than light shone on the painted walls, and
the wonderful colours of the pavement, and the images of Love and the Mother of
Love. The men who brought the boy gave him over to my girls, who undressed him
before me, one drawing gently away his robe, another stroking his brown and
flowing hair, another praising the whiteness of his limbs, and another
caressing him, and speaking loving words in his hear. But the boy looked
sullenly at them all, striking away their hands, and pouting with his lovely and
splendid lips, and I saw a blush, like the rosy veil of dawn, reddening his
body and his cheeks. Then I made them bathe him, and anoint him with scented
oils from head to foot, till his limbs shone and glistened with the gentle and
mellow glow of an ivory statue. Then I said: 'You are bashful, because you
shine alone amongst us all; see, we too will be your fellows.' The girls began
first of all, fondling and kissing one another, and doing for each other the
offices of waiting-maids. They drew out the pins and loosened the bands of
their hair, and I never knew before that they were so lovely. The soft and
shining tresses flowed down, rippling like sea-waves; some had hair golden and
radiant as this wine in my cup, the faces of others appeared amidst the blackness
of ebony; there were locks that seemed of burnished and scintillating copper,
some glowed with hair of tawny splendor, and others were crowned with the
brightness of the sardonyx. Then, laughing, and without the appearance of
shame, they unfastened the brooches and bands which sustained their robes, and
so allowed silk and linen to flow swiftly to the stained floor, so that one
would have said there was a sudden apparition of the fairest nymphs. With many
festive and jocose words they began to incite each other to mirth, praising the
beauties that shone on every side, and calling the boy by a girl's name, they
invited him to be their playmate. But he refused, shaking his head, and still
standing dumb-founded and abashed, as if he saw a forbidden and terrible
spectacle. Then I ordered the women to undo my hair and my clothes, making them
caress me with the tenderness of the fondest lover, but without avail, for the
foolish boy still scowled and pouted out his lips, stained with an imperial and
glorious scarlet."
She
poured out more of the topaz-colored wine in her cup, and Lucian saw it glitter
as it rose to the brim and mirrored the gleam of the lamps. The tale went on,
recounting a hundred strange devices. The woman told how she had tempted the
boy by idleness and ease, giving him long hours of sleep, and allowing him to
recline all day on soft cushions, that swelled about him, enclosing his body.
She tried the experiment of curious odors: causing him to smell always about
him the oil of roses, and burning in his presence rare gums from the East. He
was allured by soft dresses, being clothed in silks that caressed the skin with
the sense of a fondling touch. Three times a day they spread before him a
delicious banquet, full of savor and odor and color; three times a day they
endeavored to intoxicate him with delicate wine.
"And
so," the lady continued, "I spared nothing to catch him in the
glistening nets of love; taking only sour and contemptuous glances in return.
And at last in an incredible shape I won the victory, and then, having gained a
green crown, fighting in agony against his green and crude immaturity, I
devoted him to the theatre, where he amuse the people by the splendor of his
death."
On
another evening he heard the history of the man who dwelt alone, refusing all
allurements, and was at last discovered to be the lover of a black statue. And
there were tales of strange cruelties, of men taken by mountain robbers, and
curiously maimed and disfigured, so that when they escaped and returned to the
town, they were thought to be monsters and killed at their own doors. Lucian
left no dark or secret nook of life unvisited; he sat down, as he said, at the
banquet, resolved to taste all the savors, and to leave no flagon unvisited.
His
relations grew seriously alarmed about him at this period. While he heard with
some inner ear the suave and eloquent phrases of singular tales, and watched
the lamp-light in amber and purple wine, his father saw a lean pale boy, with
black eyes that burnt in hollows, and sad and sunken cheeks.
"You
ought to try and eat more, Lucian," said the parson; "and why don't
you have some beer?"
He
was looking feebly at the roast mutton and sipping a little water; but he would
not have eaten or drunk with more relish if the choicest meat and drink had
been before him.
His
bones seemed, as Miss Deacon said, to be growing through his skin; he had all
the appearance of an ascetic whose body has been reduced to misery by long and
grievous penance. People who chanced to see him could not help saying to one
another: "How ill and wretched that Lucian Taylor looks!" They were
of course quite unaware of the joy and luxury in which his real life was spent,
and some of them began to pity him, and to speak to him kindly.
It
was too late for that. The friendly words had as much lost their meaning as the
words of contempt. Edward Dixon hailed him cheerfully in the street one day:
"Come
in to my den, won't you, old fellow?" he said. "You won't see the
pater. I've managed to bag a bottle of his old port. I know you smoke like a
furnace, and I've got some ripping cigars. You will come, won't you! I can tell
you the pater's booze is first rate."
He
gently declined and went on. Kindness and unkindness, pity and contempt had
become for him mere phrases; he could not have distinguished one from the
other. Hebrew and Chinese, Hungarian and Pushtu would be pretty much alike to
an agricultural laborer; if he cared to listen he might detect some general
differences in sound, but all four tongues would be equally devoid of
significance.
To
Lucian, entranced in the garden of Avallaunius, it seemed very strange that he
had once been so ignorant of all the exquisite meanings of life. Now, beneath
the violet sky, looking through the brilliant trellis of the vines, he saw the
picture; before, he had gazed in sad astonishment at the squalid rag which was
wrapped about it.
