 21. Part 3 of Hepatia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Hepatia by Charles Kingsley. 21. The Squire Bishop. Part 3. One cavalry skirmis must be very like another. A crash of horses. A flashing of sword blades. Five minutes of blind confusion. And then those who have not been knocked out of their saddles by their neighbors' knees and have not cut off their horses' heads instead of their enemies find themselves they know not how, either running away or being run away from. Not one blow in ten having taken effect on either side. And even so Raphael having made vain attempts to cut down several moves found himself standing on his head in an altogether undectified posture among innumerable horses' legs in all possible frantic motions. To avoid one was to get in the way of another. So he philosophically sat still, speculating on the sensation of having his brains kicked out till the crowd of legs vanished and he found himself kneeling abjectly opposite the nose of a mule on whose backside utterly unmoot a tall and reverent man in a episcopal costume. The stranger, instead of bursting out laughing as Raphael did solemnly lifted his hand and gave him his blessing. The Jews sprang to his feet heedless of all such courtesies and looking round saw the Azurians galloping off up the hill in scattered groups and Sunisius standing close by him wiping a bloody sword. Is the litter safe, were his first words. Safe and so are all. I gave you up for guilt when I saw you run through with that lance. Run through? I am as sound in the hide as a crocodile, said Raphael laughing. Probably the fellow took the butt instead of the point in his hurry. So goes a cavalry scuffle. I saw you hit three or four fellows running with the flat of your sword. Ah, that explains, said Raphael. Why, I thought myself once the best swordsman on the Armenian frontier. I suspect that you were thinking of someone besides the Moos, said Sunisius archly pointing to the litter. And Raphael, for the first time for many a year, blushed like a boy of fifteen and then turned hotly away and remounted his horse saying, Come, see fool that I was. Thank God rather that you have been kept from the shedding of blood, said the stranger bishop in a soft deliberate voice with a peculiarly clear and delicate enunciation. If God had given us the victory, why grudged he is having spared any other of his creatures besides ourselves? Because there are so many the more of them left to ravish, burn and slay, answered Sunisius. Nevertheless, I am not going to argue with Augustine. Augustine. Raphael looked intently at the man, a tall, delicate featured personage with lofty and narrow forehead scarred like his cheeks with a deep furrows of many a doubt and woe. Resolve, gentle but unbending, was expressed in his thin, close-set lips and his clear, quiet eye. But the calm of his mighty countenance was the calm of a worn-out volcano, over which centuries must pass before the earthquake rents be filled with kindly soil and the cinder slopes grow gay with grass and flowers. The Jews' thoughts, however, were soon turned into another channel by the hearty embraces of Majoricus and his son. We have caught you again, you true hand, said the young tribune. You could not escape us, you see after all. Aradle, said the father, we owe him a second death of gratitude for a second deliverance. We were right heart bested when you rode up. Oh, he brings nothing but good with him whenever he appears. And then he pretends to be a bird of ill omen, said the light-hearted tribune, putting his armor to rights. Raphael was in his secret heart not sorry to find that his old friends bore him no grats for his caprice. But all he answered was, pray thank anyone but me. I have as usual proved myself a fool. But what brings you here like guards a machina? It is contrary to all probabilities. One would not admit so astounding an incident even in the modern drama. Contrary to none whatsoever, my friend. We found Augustine at Berenice in act to set off to Cinesius. We, one of us, that is, were certain that you would be found with him. And we decided on acting as Augustine's guard for none of the death that Garrison dares to rout. One of us thought Raphael, which one? And conquering his pride he asked as carelessly as he could for Victoria. She is there in the letter, poor child, said his father in a serious tone. Surely not ill? Alas, either the over-throught excitement of months of heroism broke down when she found a safe at last, or some stroke from God. Who can tell what I may not have deserved? But she has been utterly prostrate in body and mind ever since we parted from you at Berenice. The blunt soldier little guessed the meaning of his own words. But Raphael, as he heard, felt a pang shoot through his heart. Too keen for him to discern whether it sprang for joy or from despair. Come, cried the cheerful voice of Cinesius, come, Benesra. You have knelt for Augustine's blessing already, and now you must enter into the fruition of it. Come, you two philosophers must know each other. Most holy, I entreat you to preach to this friend of mine, at once the visest and the foolishest of men. Only the latter, said Raphael, but open to any speech of Augustine's at least when we are safe home and game enough for Cinesius' new guest killed. And turning away, he rode silent and silent by the side of his companions, who began at once to consult together as to the plans of Majoricus and his soldiers. In spite of himself, Raphael soon became interested in Augustine's conversation. He entered into the subject of curian misrule and ruin as hurtily and shrewdly as any man of the world. And when all the rest were at loss, the prompt practical hint, which cleared up the difficulty, was certain to come from him. It was by his advice that Majoricus had brought his soldier a hither. It was his proposal that they should be employed for a fixed period in defending these remote southern boundaries of the province. He checked the impetusity of Cinesius, cheered the despair of Majoricus, appealed to the honor and the Christianity of the soldiers and seemed to have a word and that the right word for every man. And after a while, a benesra quite forgot the stiffness and deliberation of his manner and the quaint use of scripture text in far-fetched illustrations of every opinion which he propounded. It had seemed at first a mere affectation, but the arguments which it was employed to enforce were in themselves so moderate and so rational that Raphael began to feel little by little that his apparent pedantry was only the result of a wish to refer every matter, even the most vulgar to some deep and divine rule of right and wrong. But you forget all this while, my friends, said Majoricus at last, the danger which you incur by sheltering pro-claimed rebels. The king of kings has forgiven your rebellion in that while he has punished you by the loss of your lands and honors, he has given you your life for a prey in this city of refuge. It remains for you to bring forth worthy fruits of penitence, of which I know none better than those which John the Baptist commanded to the soldiery of old, do no violence to any man and be content with your wages. As for rebels and rebellion, said Cinesius, there are matters unknown among us. For where there is no king, there can be no rebellion. Whosoever will help us against Ausurians is loyal in our eyes. As for our political creed, it is simple enough, namely that the emperor never dies and that his name is Agamemnon, who fought at Troy, which any of my gurus will prove to you syllogistically enough to satisfy Augustine himself. As thus, Agamemnon was the greatest and the best of kings, the emperor is the greatest and the best of kings, therefore Agamemnon is the emperor and conversely. It had been well, said Augustine, with a grave smile, if some of our friends had held the same doctrine, even at the expense of their logic. Or if, answered Cinesius, they believed with us that the emperor's chamberlain is a clever old man with a bald head like my own Ulysses by name who was rewarded with the prefecture of all lands north of the Mediterranean for putting out the cyclops eye two years ago. However, enough of this. But you see, you are not in any extreme danger of informers and intrigues. The real difficulty is how you will be able to obey Augustine by being content with your wages, for you will get literally none. It will be as much as we deserve, said Young Tribune, but my fellows have a trick of eating. They are welcomed then to all dear and ostriches, which they can catch. But I am not only penniless, but reduced myself to live like the lies trigons on meat and nothing else, all crops and stocks for miles round being either burnt or carried off. Any hill on any hill, said Augustine, having nothing else to say. But here Raphael woke up on a sudden with, did the pentapolitan wheat ships go to Rome? No, Orestes stopped them when he stopped the Alexandrian convoy. Then the Jews have the wheat, trust them for it, and what they have I have. There are certain monies of mine lying at interest in the seaports, which will set that matter to rights for a month or two. Do you find an escort tomorrow and I will find wheat. But most generous friends, I can neither repay you interest nor principle. Be it so, I have spent so much money during the last 30 years in doing nothing but evil, that it is hard if I may not at last spend a little in doing good. Unless his holiness of hippo thinks it wrong for you to accept the good will of an infidel. Which of these three, said Augustine, was neighbor to him who fell among thieves, but he were a mercy on him. Veryly my friend Raphael a Benesra, though art not far from the kingdom of God. Of which God, asked Raphael's lily. Of the God of thy forefather Abraham, whom thou shalt hear as worship this evening, if he will. Sinesius, have you a church wherein I can perform the evening service and give a word of exhortation to these my children? Sinesius sighed. There is a ruin, which was last month a church. And is one still. Man didn't place there the presence of God, and man cannot expel it. And so sending out hunting parties right and left, in chase of everything which had animal life. And picking up before nightfall a tolerably abandoned supply of game, they went homewards, where Victoria was entrusted to the care of Sinesius's old stewardess. And the soldiery were marched straight into the church, while Sinesius's servants, to whom the Latin service would have been unintelligible, besied themselves in cooking the still warm game. Strangely enough it sounded to Raphael that evening to hear, among those smoke-grimped fillers and fallen rafters, the grand old here proof Psalms of his nations ring aloft, to the very chance too, which were said by the rabbi to have been used in the temple worship of Jerusalem. They, and the invocation, thanksgiving, blessings, the very outward ceremonial itself, were all Hebraic, redolent of the thoughts, the words of his own ancestors. The lesson from the book of Proverbs, which Augustine's Deacon was reading in Latin, the blood of the man who wrote these words was flowing in Ben Ezra's veins. Was it a mistake, an hypocrisy, or were they indeed worshipping, as they fancied, the ancient one who spoke face to face with his forefathers, the arch type of man, the friend of Abraham and of Israel. And now the sermon began, and as Augustine stood for a moment in prayer in front of the ruined altar, every furrow in his worn face lit up by a ray of moonlight, which streamed in through the broken roof, Raphael waited impatiently for his speech. What would he, the refined delectation, the ancient teacher of heathen rhetoric, the courtly and learned student, the ascetic celibate and the philosopher, have to say to these coarse, war-worn soldiers, Thracians and Markman, Gauls and Belgians, who sat watching there with those sad, earnest faces. What one thought or feeling in common could there be between Augustine and his congregation. At last, after signing himself with the cross, he began. The object was one of the pthorms which had just been read, a battle pthorm concerning Moab and Amalek and the old border wars of Palestine. What would he make of that? He seemed to start lamely enough, in spite of the exquisite grace of his voice and manner and language and the epigrammatic tersness of every sentence. He spent some minutes over the inscription of the pthorm, allegorized it, made it mean something which it never did mean in the writer's mind and which it, as Raphael well knew, never could mean for his interpretation was founded on a sheer mistranslation. He panned on the Latin version, derived the meaning of Hebrew words from Latin etymologies. And as he went on with the pthorm itself, the common sense of David seemed to evaporate in mysticism. The most fantastic and far-fetched illustrations drawn from the commonest objects alternated with mysterious Theosophic Dogma. Where was that learning for which he was so famed? Where was that reverence for the old Hebrew scriptures which he professed? Where was treating David as ill as Hepatia used to treat Homer? Worse even than Old Phileo did, when in the home life of the old patriarchs and in the mighty acts of Moses and Joshua he could find nothing but spiritual allegories wherewith to pamper the private experiences of the secluded Theosophist. And Raphael felt very much inclined to get up and go away and there's still more inclined to say with a smile in his face. All men are liars. And yet what an illustration that last one was. No mere fancy but a real deep glance into the working of the material universe as symbolic of the spiritual and unseen one. And not drawn as Hepatias were exclusively from some sublime or potentious phenomenon but from some dog or kettle or fish file with the homely insight worthy of old Socrates himself. How personal he was becoming too. No long bursts of declamation but dramatic dialogue and interrogation by hints and unexpected hits at one and the other most commonplace soldiers failing. And yet each fifth rebuke was put in a universal comprehensive form which made Raphael himself wins which might he thought have made any man or women either wins in like manner. Well whether or not Augustine knew throughs for all men he at least knew sins for all men and for himself as well as his hearers there was no denying that. He was a real man right or wrong what he rebuked in others he had felt in himself and then fought it to the death grip as the flash and quiver of that worn face proclaimed. But yet why were there edomites by an utterly mistaking pun on their names to signify one sort of sin and the ammonites another and the amalikites another. What had that to do with the old storm? What had it to do with the present auditory? Was not this the wildest and lowest form of that unreal subtilizing mystic pedantry of which he had sicked long ago in his spacious lecture room till he felled to brand the dog for honest practical realities. No. Gradually as Augustine's hints became more practical and orated Raphael saw that there was in his mind most real and organic connection through offalls that seemed at first mere arbitrary allegory. Amalikites personal since Osurian robbers and ravishers were to him only so many different forms of one and the same evil he who helped any of them fought against the writer's guard he who fought against them fought for that guard but he must conquer the amalikites within if he expected to conquer the amalikites without. Was the legionaries permanently put down the lust and greed around them while their own hearts were enslaved for lust and greed within? Would they not be helping it by example while they pretended to crush it by sword strokes? Was it not a mockery, an hypocrisy? Could God's blessing be on it? Could they restore unity and peace to the country while there was neither unity nor peace within them? What had produced the helplessness of the people the imbecility of the military but inward helplessness inward weakness? They were weak against Moos because they were weak against enemies more deadly than Moos. How could they fight for God outwardly while they were fighting against him inwardly? He would not go forth with their hosts. How could he when he was not among their hosts? He, a spirit, must dwell in their spirits and then the shout of a king would be among them and one of them should chase a thousand. Or if not if both people and soldiers required still further chastening and humbling what matter provided that they were chastened and humbled? What matter if their faces were confounded if they were thereby driven to seek his name who alone was the truth, the light and the life? What if they were slain? Let them have conquered the inward enemies. What matter to them if the outward enemies seemed to prevail for a moment? They should be recompensed at the resurrection of the just when the death was swallowed up in victory. It would be seen then who had really conquered in the eyes of the just God. They, God's ministers, the defenders of peace and justice or the Osurians, the enemies thereof. And then by some quaintest turn of fancy he introduced a word of pity and hope even for the wild Mooris robbers. It might be good for them to have succeeded thus far. They might learn from their Christian captives purified by affliction truths which those captives had forgotten in prosperity. And again it might be good for them as well as for Christians to be confounded and made like chaff before the wind so that they too might learn his name. And so on through and in spite of all conceits, allegories overstrain interpretations, Augustine went on evolving from the psalms and from the past and from the future the assertion of a living present God, the eternal enemy of discord, injustice and evil, the eternal helper and deliverer of those who were enslaved and crushed thereby in soul or body. It was almost strange to Raphael, strange in its utter unlikeness to any teaching, Platonist or Hebrew, which he had ever heard before and strange still in its agreement with those teachings in the instinctive ease with which it seemed to unite and justify them all by the talisman of some one idea and what that might be his Jewish prejudices could not prevent his seeing and yet would not allow him to acknowledge. But how so ever he might redden with Hebrew pride, how so ever he might long to persuade himself that Augustine was building up a sound and right practical structure on the foundation of a sheer lie. He could not help watching at first with envy and then with honest pleasure the faces of the rough soldiers as they are gradually lightened up into fixed attention into cheerful and solemn resolve. What wonder said Raphael to himself? What wonder after all? He has been speaking to these wild beasts as to sages and saints. He has been telling them that God is as much with them as with prophets and psalmists. I wonder if Hepatia with all her beauty could have touched their hearts as he has done. And when Raphael rose at the end of this strange discourse, he felt more like an old Hebrew than he had done since he sat upon his nurse's knee and heard legends about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. What if Augustine were right after all? What if the Jehovah of the Old Scriptures were not merely the national patron of the children of Abraham as the rabbis held? Not merely as Philo held the divine wisdom which inspired a few elect sages even among the heaven, but the Lord of the whole earth and of the nations thereof. And suddenly for the first time in his life passages from the psalms and prophets flashed across him which seemed to assert this. What else did the whole book of Daniel and the history of Nebuchadnezzar mean if not that? Philosophic Latudi Danianism had long ago cured him of the rabbinical notion of the Babylonian conqueror as an incarnate fiend devoted to Toveth like Sennacherib before him. He had long in private admired the man as a magnificent human character, a fairer one in his eyes than either Alexander or Julius Caesar. What if Augustine had given him a hint which might justify his admiration? But more. What if Augustine were right in going even further than Philo and Hepatia? What if this same Jehovah, wisdom, logos, call him what they might were actually the God of the spirits as well as of the bodies of all flesh? What if he was as near Augustine said that he was to the hearts of those wild markmen, Trakiens, as to Augustine's own heart? What if he were, Augustine said he was yearning after enlightening leading home to himself the souls of the poorest, the most brutal, the most sinful? What if he loved man as man and not merely one favored race or one favored class of minds? And in the light of that hypothesis that strange story of the cross of Calvary seemed not so impossible after all. But then celibacy and ascetism utterly non-human as they were what had they to do with the theory of a human God? And filled with many questionings Raphael was not sorry to have the matter brought to an issue that very evening in Cinesius' sitting room. Majoricus in his blunt soldier-like way said Raphael and Augustine at each other without circumlocation. And Raphael, after trying to smile and poo-poo away the subject, was tempted to make a jest on the seeming fallacious conceit of Augustines, found it more difficult than he thought to trip up the serious and very logician. Lost his temper a little, a sign perhaps of returning health in a skeptic and soon found himself fighting desperately with Cinesius backing him apparently for the mere pleasure of seeing a battle and Majoricus making him more and more cross by the implicit dogmatic faith with which he hewed at one gaudian knot after another till Augustine had to save himself from his friends by dripping the good prefix gently up and leaving him miles behind the disputants who argued on and on till broad daylight shone in and the sight of the desolation below recalled all parties to more material weapons and a stern warfare. But little thought Raphael Abenesra as he sat there calling up every resource of his wit and learning in the hope half malicious, half honestly cautious of upsetting the sage of Hippo and forgetting all heaven and earth in the delight of battle with his peers in a neighboring chamber her tender limbs outspread upon the floor her face buried in her dishevel locks lay Victoria restling all night long for him in prayer and bitter tears as the murmur of busy voices reached her eager ears longing in vain to catch the sense of words on which hung now her hopes and bliss. How utterly and entirely she let never yet confessed to herself though she did confess it to that son of man to whom she prayed as to one who felt with tenderness and insight beyond that of a brother, a father or even a mother for her maidens blushes and her maidens woes. End of chapter 21 Chapter 22 part 1 of Hipecia This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Hipecia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 22 Pandemonium part 1 But where was Philemon all that week? For the first day or two of his imprisonment he had raped like one wild beast entrapped. His newfound purpose and energy thus suddenly damped back and checked boiled up in a frantic rage. He tore at the bars of his prison. He rolled himself shrieking on the floor. He called in vain on Hipecia, on Pelagia, on Arsenius, on all but God. Pray he could not and dare not for to whom was he to pray to the stars, to the abysses and the eternities. Alas, as Augustine said once bitterly enough of his own Manichian teachers, Hipecia had taken away the living God and given him instead the four elements. And in other bewildment and hopeless terror he imploits a pity of every god and girl who passed along the corridor and conjured them as brothers, father's men to help him. Moved at once by his acuni and by his exceeding beauty the rough tracheans who knew enough of the employer's character to have little difficulty in believing his victim to be innocent, listened to him and questioned him. But when they offered the very help which he implored and asked him to tell his story the poor boy's tongue claved to the roof of his mouth. How could he publish his sister's shame? And yet she was about to publish it herself. And instead of words he met the condolences with fresh agonies till they gave him up as mad. And tired by his violence compelled him with blows and curses to remain quiet. And so the week wore out in dull and stupefied despair on the very edge of idiocy. Night and day were alike to him. The food which was thrust in through his great remained untasted. Hour after hour, day after day he sat upon the ground, his head buried in his hands, half dosing from the exhaustion of body and mind. Why should he care to stir, to eat, to live? He had but one purpose in heaven and earth and that one purpose was impossible. At last his cell door grated on his hinges. Up my mighty youth! Credo rough voice, up and thank the favor of the gods and the bounty of your noble perfect. Today he gives freedom to all prisoners. And I suppose a pretty boy like you will know about your business, as well as ugly rassals. Philharmon looked out in the careless face with a dim half-comprehension of his meaning. Do you hear? cried the man with a curse. You are free, jump up or reach out the door again and your one chance is over. And did she dance when you suddenly do your many? She who? My sister Pelagia. She never knows what she has not done in her time, but says she dances today once more. Quick, out! I shall not be ready in time for the sports. They begin on our ends. Free admissions into the theater today for all. Rugs and honnest men, Christians and Evans. Cursed boy he is as mad as ever. So indeed Philharmon seemed. For springing suddenly to his feet he rushed out past the girl, upsetting him into the corridor and fled finally from the prison among the crowd of liberated ruffians. Ran from the prison home, from home to the baths, from the baths to the theater and was soon pushing his way regardless of etiquette towards the lower tiers of penches. In order he hardly knew why to place himself as near as possible to the very sight which he dreaded and aboard. As fate would have it, the passage by which he had entered opened close to the perfect share of state where sat Orestes, gorgeous in his robes of office and by him to Philharmon's surprise and horror he pays her herself. More beautiful than ever, her forehead sparking like Juno's own with lofty teara of jewels, her white yonic robe half hidden by a crimson shore, there sat the vessel, the philosopher. What did she there? But the boys' eager eyes accustomed but too well to note every light and shade of feeling which crossed that phase. So in a moment her wand and hagard was its expression. She wore a look of constraint of half-terrified self-resolve as of matter and yet not an undoubt in matter for as Orestes turned his head at the stir of Philharmon's introduction and fleshing with anger at the sight motioned him firstly back he pays shatter too and as her eyes met her pupils she blushed crimson and started and seemed in act to motion him back also and then recollecting herself whispered something to Orestes which quieted his wrath and composed herself or rather sank into her place again as one who was determined to abide the worst. A note of gay young gentleman Philharmon's fellow students put him down among them with welcome and laughter and before he could collect his thoughts the curtain in front of the stage was blown and the spot began The scene represented a background of desert mountains and on the stage itself before a group of temporary huts stood huddling together the black Libian prisoners some 50 men, women and children bedisened with gaudy feathers and girls of tasseled leather brandishing their spears and targets and their eyes on the strange scene before them in childish awe and wonder Along the front of the stage a waddled bellman had been erected while below the hipposcanium had been painted to represent rocks thus completing the rough imitation of a village among the Libian hills amid breathless silence a herald advanced and proclaimed that these were prisoners of arms against the roman senate and people and therefore worthy of immediate death but that the prefect in his exceeding clemency toward them and his special anxiety to afford the greatest possible amusement to the obedient and loyal citizens of Alexandria had determined instead of giving them at once to the beasts to allow them to fight for their lives promising to the survivors to pardon if they acquitted themselves valiantly the poor brats is on the stage when this proclamation was translated to them set up a barbaric yell of joy and brandished their spears and targets more fiercely than ever but their joy was short the trumpets sounded the attack a body of gladiators equally numbered to the savages much out from one of the two great side passages made their obeisance to the applauding spectators and planting their scaling ladders against the front of the stage mounted to the attack the Libians fought like tigers yet from the first Hipecia and Philaman also could see that their promised chance of life was a mere mockery their light darts and naked limbs had no match for the heavy shells and a complete ammo of their brutal assailants who endured carelessly a storm of blows and thrusts on heads and faces protected by balsot helmets yet so fierce was the valor of the Libians that even they recalled twice and twice the scaling ladders were hurled down again while more than one gladiator lay below rolling in the death agony just forth the sleeping devil in the hearts of that great brutalist multitude yell upon yell of savage triumph and still more savage disappointment rang from every tire of that vast ring of seeds at each blow and parry onslaught and repulse and Philaman saw with horror and surprise that luxury refinement philosophic culture itself were no safeguards against the infection of blood-thirstiness gay and delicate ladies whom he had seen three days before simpering delight at Hipecia's heavenward aspirations and some too whom he seemed to recollect in Christian churches sprang from their seeds waved their hands and handkerchiefs and clapped and shouted to the gladiators for alas there was no doubt as to which side the favor of the spectators inclined with taunts, cheers, applause and treaties the hired ruffians were urged on to the work of blood the poor red she's had no voice raised in their favor nothing but contempt, hatred, eager lust of blood glade from those thousands of pitiless eyes and broken hearted, despairing they flacked and rubacked one by one a shout of triumph greeted the gladiators as they climbed over the battlement and gained a footing on the stage the reds blacks broke up and fled wildly from corner to corner looking mainly for an outlet and then began a butchery some 50 men, women and children moved together in that narrow space and yet his patience countenance did not falter why should it? what were their numbers besides the thousands who had perished year by year for centuries by that and far worse deaths in the amphitheaters of that empire for that faith which she was vowed to re-establish it was part of the great system and she must endure it not that she did not feel for she too was a woman and her heart raised far above the brutal excitement of the multitude lay calmly open to the most poignant stings of pity again and again she was in the act to entreat mercy for some shrieking woman or struggling child but before her lips could shape the words the blow had fallen or the wretch was furled away from her sight in the dense undistinguishable mass of slayers and slain yes, she had begun and she must follow to the end and after all what were the lives of those few semi-brutes returning thus a few years earlier to the clay from which they sprang compared with the regeneration of a world and it would be over in a few minutes more and that black writing heap be still forever and the curtain would fall and then for Venus Anadiomene and art and joy and peace and the graceful wisdom and beauty of the old Greek art calming and civilizing all hearts and softening them into pure devotion for the immortal myths the immortal deities who had inspired their forefathers in the glorious days of old but still the black heap writhed and she looked away up, down and round everywhere to avoid the sickening sight and her eye caught filaments gazing at her with looks of horror and disgust a thrill of shame rushed through her heart and blushing scarlet she sank her head and whispered to Orestes Have mercy, spare the rest Nay first, Vestel the mob has tasted blood and they must have their fill of it or they will turn onus for all I know nothing so dangerous as to check a brute whether he be horse, dog or mem when once his spirit is up Ha, there's a fugitive how well the little rascal runs as he spoke, a boy, the only survivor left from the stage and rushed across the orchestra towards them followed by a rough curdock you shall have this youth if he reaches us his pace sure was breathless the boy had just arrived at the altar in the center of the orchestra when he saw a gladiator close upon him the ruffian's arm was raised to strike when to the astonishment of the whole theater boy and dog turned valiantly to bay and leaping on the gladiator dragged him between them to the ground the triumph was momentary the uplifted hands, the shout of spare him came too late the man as he lay buried his sword in the splendor body of the child and then rising walked coolly back to the side passages while the poor ker stood over the little corpse licking his hands and face and making the whole building ring with his doleful cries the attendants entered and striking their hooks into corpse after corpse dragged them out of sight marking their path by long red furrows in the sand while the dog followed until his inauspicious holeings died away down distant passages filamon fell sick and giddy and half rose to escape but pelagia no, he must sit it out and see the worst if worse than this was possible he looked round the people were coolly sipping wine cakes while they chat admirably about the beauty of the great curtain which had fallen and hidden the stage and represented on a ground of deep blue sea Europa carried by the bull across the Bosphorus while narrates and treetons blade around a single flute within the curtain began to send forth luscious strains deaden and distant as if through far of glens and woodlands and from the side passages is suit three graces led by Pethel the goddess of persuasion bearing a herald staff in her hand she advanced to the altar in the center of the orchestra and informed the spectators that during the absence of Ares there was an aid of a certain great military expedition which was shortly to decide the diadem of Rome and the liberty, prosperity and supremacy of Egypt and Alexandria Pryretti had returned to her lawful allegiance and submitted for the time being to the commands of her husband Hifaistus and that he as the deity of artificers felt a peculiar interest in the welfare of the city of Alexandria the workshop of the work and had as a sign of his special favor prevailed upon his fair spires to exhibit for these ones her beauties to the assembled populace and in the unspoken poetry of motion to represent to them the emotions with which as she rose newborn from the sea she first surveyed that fair expanse of heaven and earth of which she now rind undispirit keen a shout of rapturous applause greeted this announcement and forthwith limped from the opposite slip the lame deity himself hammer and pincers on shoulder followed by a train of gigantic ziklops who bore on their shoulders various pieces of gilded metalwork Hifaistus, who was intended to supply the comic element in the vast pantomimic pageant shambled forward with studied ungoodness amid rows of laughter surveyed the altar with ludicrous content raised his mighty hammer shivered it to pieces with a single blow and beckoned to his attendance and replaced it with something more fitting for his august spouse with wonderful quickness the metal openwork was put in its place and fit together forming a frame of coral branches intermingled with dolphins, nereis and retons four gigantic ziklops then approach staggering under the fate of the circular slab of green marble polished to a perfect mirror which they placed on the framework the graces greeted its circumference with garlands of seaweed, shells and coral lines and the mimic sea was complete Petho and the graces retired a few steps and grouped themselves with the ziklops primed and brony limbs and hideous one-eyed masks throughout in striking contrast the delicate hue and grace of the beautiful maiden figures while hevaistos turned towards the curtain and seemed to await impatiently the forthcoming of the goddess every lip was breathless with expectations as the flute swelled louder and nearer the horns and cymbals took up the harmony and to a triumph at burst of music the curtain rose and a simultaneous shout of delight burst from ten thousand voices the scene behind represented a magnificent temple half hidden in an artificial wood of tropic trees and shrubs which filled the stage phones and dryers peaved laughing from among their stems and gorgeous birds tethered by unseen threads fluttered and sang among the rashes in the center an overarching avenue of palms led from the temple door to the front of the stage from which the mimic battlements had disappeared and had been replaced in those few moments by a broad slope of smooth greensward leading down into the orchestra and pinched with myrtels, roses, apple trees, poppies and crimson hyasins stains with the lifeblood of adonis the folding doors of the temple opened slowly the crash of instruments resounded from within and preceded by the musicians came for the triumph of Aphrodite and passed down the slope and down the outer ring of the orchestra a splendid car drawn by white oxen bore the rest and godiest of foreign flowers and fruits which young girls dressed as hours and seasons strewed in front of the procession and among the spectators a long line of beautiful youths and maidens ground with garlands and roped in scarves a purple course followed by two and two each pair carried or led a pair of wild animals captives to the conquering might of beauty foremost were born on the wrists of the actors the birds especially sacred to the goddess doves and sparrows rhinos and swallows and a pair of gigantic indian thought verses each ridden by a lovely nymph showed that Orestes had not forgotten one wish at least of his intended bride then followed strange birds from India parakeets, peacocks, pheasant silver and golden bastards and ostriches the latter best ridden each by a tiny cupid in golden laches followed by antelopes and oryxies irks from beyond the Danube four horned rams from the isles of the hyperborean ocean and the strange hybrid of the Libian hills believed by all spectators to be half bull, half horse and then a murmur of delighted oren through the theatre as bears and leopards, lions and tigers fettet in heavy chains of gold and made gentle for the occasions by narcotics paced sedately down the slope obedient to their beautiful guides while behind them the unwieldy bulk of two double horn rhinocerosies from the far south was overtopped by the long slender necks and large soft eyes of a pair of giraffes as had not been seen in Alexandria for more than 50 years End of Chapter 22, Part 1 Chapter 22, Part 2 of Hepatia This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Hepatia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 22, Pandemonium Part 2 A cry arose of Orestes Orestes hails to the illustrious prefect thanks for his bounty and a hired voice or two among the crowd cried hail to Orestes, hail Emperor of Africa but there was no response There else is still in the bud simple Orestes to Hepatia He rose, beckoned and bowed the crowd into silence Then after a short pantomimic exhibition of rapturous gratitude and humility pointed triumphantly to the Palm Avenue among the shadows of which appeared the wonder of the day the huge tusks and trunk of the white elephant himself there it was at last, not a doubt of it a real elephant and yet as white as snow sight never seen before in Alexandria never to be seen again O Thrice blessed men of Macedonia showed it some worthy on high the gods are bountiful to you this day and all mouths and eyes confirmed the opinion as they opened wider and yet wider to drink in the inexhaustible joy and glory On he paced solemnly while the whole theater resounded to his heavy tread and the thorns and dryers fled in terror A choir of nymphs swung round him hand in hand and sang as they danced along the conquering might of beauty the tamer of beasts and men and deities skirmasing parties of little winged cupids spread themselves over the orchestra from left to right and pelted the spectators with perfumed confids shot among them from their tiny bows arrows of fragrant sandalwood or swung smoking sensors which loaded the air with intoxicating odors the procession came down on the slope and the elephant approached the spectators his tusks were greeted with rose and myrtles his ears were pierced with splendid earrings a jeveled frontlet hung between his eyes Eros himself, a lovely winged boy sat on his neck and guided him with the point of a golden arrow but what precious thing was it which that shell-formed car upon his back contained the goddess Pelagia Aphrodite herself yes, whiter than the snow-white elephant more rosy than the pink-tipped shell in which she lay among crimson cushions and silver gauze there shone the goddess thrilling all hearts with those delicious smiles and glances of the bashful playful eyes and grateful waving of her tiny hand as the whole theater rose with one accord and ten thousand eyes were concentrated on the unequal loveliness beneath them twice the procession passed around the whole circumference of the orchestra and then returning from the foot of the slope towards the central group around Hephaistus deployed right and left in front of the stage the lions and tigers were led away into the side passages the youths and maidens combined themselves with the gentle animals into groups listening gradually from the center to the wings and stood expectant while the elephant came forward and knelt behind the platformed distant for the goddess the valves of the shell closed the crazies unloosed the fastenings of the car the elephant turned his trunk over his back and guided by the hands of the girls grasped the shell and lifting it high in air deposited on the steps at the back of the platform Hephaistus limped forward and with his most uncouth gestures signified the delight he had in bestowing such sight upon his faithful artisans of Alexandria and the unspeakable enjoyment which they were to expect from the mystic dance of the goddess and then retired leaving the graces to advance in front of the platform and with their arms twined round each other became a patient song of invocation as the first strophe died away the valves of the shell reopened and discovered Aphrodite grouching on one knee within she raised her head and gazed around the vast circle of seeds a mild surprise was on her countenance which quickened into a delightful wonder and bashfulness struggling with the sense of new enjoyment and new powers she glanced downward at herself and smiled as tonished at her own loveliness then upward at the sky and seemed ready with an awful joy to spring up into the boundless void her whole figure dilated she seemed to drink in strength from every object which met her in the great universe around and slowly from among the shells and sea beads she rose to her full height the mystic casestus glittering round her waist in deep festoons of emeralds and pearls and stepped forward upon the marble sea floor ringing the dripping perfume from her locks as Aphrodite rose of old for the first minute the crowd was too breathless with pleasure to think of applause but the goddess seemed to require due homage and when she folded her arms across her bosom and stood motionless for an instant as if to demand the worship of the universe every tongue was lost and the thunder clap of Aphrodite rang out across the roof of Alexandria and started Cyril in his chamber at the Serapaeum and weary muleteers on distant sandhills and dozing mariners far out at sea and then began a miracle of art such as was only possible among a people of the free and exquisite physical training and the delicate aesthetic perception of those old Greeks even in their most fallen days a dance in which every motion was a word and rest as eloquent as motion in which every attitude was a fresh motive for a sculptor of the purest school and the highest physical activity was manifested not as in the coarser comic pantomimes in fantastic bounds and unnatural distortions but in perpetual delicate modulations of a stately and self-restraining race the artist was for the moment transformed into the goddess the theater and Alexandria the culture's pageant beyond had vanished from her imagination and therefore from the imagination of the spectators under the constraining inspiration of her art and they and she alike saw nothing but the lonely sea around Kytheria and the goddess hovering above its emerald mirror saying forth on the sea and air beauty and joy and love Philharmon's eyes were bursting from his head with shame and horror and yet he could not hate her not even despise her he would have done so had there been the faintest trace of human feeling in her countenance to prove that some germ of moral sense lingered within but even the faint blush and the downcast eye with which she had entered the theater where gone and the only expression on her face was that of intense enjoyment of her own activity and skill and satisfied vanity as of a better child was she accountable reasonable soul capable of right and wrong at all he hoped not he would trust not and still Pelagia danced on and for a whole age of agony he could see nothing in heaven or earth but the bewildering maze of those white feet as they twinkled over the white image in the marble mirror at last it was over every limb suddenly collapsed and she stood drooping in soft self-satisfied fatigue awaiting the burst of applause which rang through Philharmon's ears proclaiming to heaven and earth as with a mighty trumpet blast his sister's shame the elephant rose and moved forward to the side of the slabs his back was covered with crimson cushions on which it seemed Aphrodite was to return without her shell she folded her arms across her bosom and stood smiling as the elephant gently breathed his trunk around her waist and lifted her slowly from the slab in act to place her on his back the little feet clinging half fearfully together had just risen from the marble the elephant started dropped his delicate burden heavily on the slab looked down, raised his forefoot and throwing his trunk into the air gave a shrill scream of terror and disgust the foot was red with blood the young boy's blood which was soaking and bubbling up through the fresh sand where the elephant had trodden in a round dark purple spot Philharmon could be no more another moment and he had hurled down through the dense mass of spectators clearing rank after rank of skits by the sheer strength of madness leaped the balustradin to the orchestra below and rushed across the space to the foot of the platform Pelagia, sister, my sister have mercy on me, on yourself I will hide you, save you and we will flee together out of this infernal place this world of divils I am your brother, come! she looked at him one moment with wide wild eyes the truth flashed on her brother and she sprang from the platform into his arms a vision of a lofty window in Athens looking out over far olive yards and gardens and the bright roofs and basins of the Piraeus and the broad blue sea with the purple peaks of Aegina beyond all and a dark-eyed boy with his arm around her neck pointed laughing to the twinkling marts in the far harbor and called her sister the dead soul woke within her and with a wild cry she recalled from him in an agony of shame and covering her face with both her hands sank down among the bloodstain sand a yell as if a hell broke loose rang along that vast circle down with him, away with him crucify the slave give the barbarian to the beasts to the beasts with him noble perfect a crowd of attendants rushed upon him and many of the spectators sprang from their seats and were on the point of leaping down into the orchestra Philamon turned upon them like a lion at bay and clear and loud his voice rose through the roar of the multitude I murder me as the Romans murdered Centile Marcus slaves as besorted and accursed as your besorted and accursed tyrants lower than the beasts whom you employ as your butchers murder and lust go fitly hand in hand and the throne of my sister shame is well built on the blood of innocents let my death end the devil's sacrifice and fill up the cup of your iniquity to the beasts make the elephant trample him to powder and the huge brood goaded on by the attendants rushed on the youth while Eros left from his neck and fled weeping up the slope he caught Philamon in his trunk and raised him high in air for an instant the great bellowing ocean of head spun round and round he tried to breathe one prayer and shut his eyes Pilagia's voice rang sweet and clear even in the shrillness of intense agony spare him, he is my brother forgive him men of Macedonia for Pilagia's sake, your Pilagia one boon, only this one and she stretched her arms imploringly towards the spectators and then clasping the huge knee of the elephant called madly to it in terms of passionate intrigue the man wavered the brood did not quietly he lowered his trunk and sat down Philamon on his feet the monk was saved breathless and dizzy he found himself hurried away by the attendants dragged through dark passages and hurled out into the street with curses, warnings and congratulations which fell on an unheeding ear but Pilagia kept her face still hidden in her hands and rising walked slowly back crushed by the weight of Saint Rebender's awe across the orchestra and up the slope and vanished among the palms and oleandas regardless of the applause and intrigues and cheers and threats and curses of that great multitude of sinful slaves for a moment all Orestes spells seemed broken by this unexpected catastrophe a cloud whether of disgust or disappointment hung upon every brow more than one Christian rose hastily to depart touched with real remorse and shame at the horrors of which they had been the willing witnesses the common people behind having gluttit their curiosity with all that there was to see began openly the murmur and the cruelty and heavenry of it Hepatia utterly unnerved hid her face in both her hands Orestes alone rose with the crisis now or never was the time for action and stepping forward with his most graceful obeisance vave his hand for silence and began his well-studied oration Let me not, all men of Macedonia suppose that you can be disturbed from that equinanimity which befits politicians by so light an accident as the caprice of a dancer the spectacle which I have had the honour and delight of exhibiting to you rose and applause from the liberated prisoners and the young gentlemen and on which it seemed to me you have tend to look with not all together unkindly eyes press applause in with the Christian mob relianting began to join is but a pleasant prelude to that more serious business for which I have drawn you here together other testimonials of my good intentions have not been wanting in the release of suffering innocence and in the largest of food the growth and natural property of Egypt destined by your late tyrants to pamper the luxury of a distant court why should I boast yet even now this head is wary these limbs fail me worn out in ceaseless efforts for your welfare and in the perpetual administration of the strictest justice for a time has come in which the Macedonian race whose boast is the gorgeous city of Alexander must rise again to the political preeminence which they held of old and becoming once more the masters of one third of the universe be treated by the rulers of freemen, citizens, heroes who have a right to choose and to employ their rulers rulers, did I say? let us forget the word and substitute in its place the more philosophic term of ministers to be your minister, the servant of you all to sacrifice my self, my leisure health life if need be to the one great object of securing the independence of Alexandria this is my work, my hope, my glory longed for through weary years now for the first time possible by the fall of the late puppet emperor of Rome men of Macedonia, remember that Honorius reigns no more an African sits on the throne of the Caesars Heraclean by one decisive victory has gained by the favor of heaven the imperial purple and a new era opens for the world let the conqueror of Rome balance his account with that Byzantine court so long the incubus of our transmediterranean wealth and civilization and let the free, independent and united Africa rally round the palaces and docks of Alexandria and find there its natural center of polity and prosperity the roar of higher applause interrupted him and not a few half for the sake of his compliments and fine words half from a natural wish to be on the right side namely the one which happened to be in the ascendant for the time being joined the city authorities were on the point of crying emperor Orestes, but thought better of it and waited for someone else to cry first, being respectable were on the prefect of the guards being a man of some presence of mind and also not in any wise respectable pricked up the prefect of the docks with the point of his dagger and beat him with a fearful threat take care how he played traitor the worthy burger roared incontinentally whether with pain or patriotism and the whole array of respect abilities having found a courthouse who would leap into the gulf joined in a unanimous chorus and saluted Orestes as emperor while Hypatia amid the shouts of her aristocrat scholars rose and knelt before him writing inwardly with shame and despair and entreated him to accept that tutelage of Greek commerce supremacy and philosophy which was forced on him by the unanimous vote of an adoring people it is false shouted the voice from the higher tiers appropriate to the women of the lower classes which made all turn their heads in bewilderment false, false, you are tricked he is tricked, Heraklian was utterly routed at Ostia and is fled to Kartag with the emperor's fleet in Chase she lies, drags the beast down, cried Orestes utterly thrown off his balance by the sudden check she, he, I, a monk brought the news Cyril has known it, every Jew in the delta has known it for a weak past, so perries all the enemies of the Lord caught in their own snare and bursting desperately through the women who surrounded him the monk vanished an awful silence fell on all who heard for a minute every man looked in his neighbor's face as if he longed to cut his throat and read of one witness at least of his treason and then arose a tumult which Orestes in vain attempted to subdue whether the populace believes the monk's words or not they were panic stricken at the mere possibility of their truth horse with denying, protesting, appealing the would be emperor had at last to summon his guards and make his way out of the theater as best he could while the multitude melted away like snow before the rain and poured out into the streets in eddying and roaring streams to find every church placarded by Cyril with the particulars of Heraklion's ruin End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of Hypatia This is the LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Lucy Perry in Bath on May 4th 2009 Hypatia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 23, Nemesis That evening was a hideous one in the Palace of Orestes His agonies of disappointment, rage and terror were at once so shameful and so fearful that none of his slaves dared approach him and it was not till late that his confidential secretary the Kaldian eunik, driven by terror of the exasperated Catholics venged into the Tiger's den and represented to him the immediate necessity for action What could he do? He was committed Cyril only knew how deeply What might not the Wiley Archbishop have discovered? What might not he pretend to have discovered? What accusations might he not send off on the spot to the Byzantine court? Let the gates be guarded and no one allowed to leave the city suggested the Kaldi Keeping monks as well keeping rats No, we must send off a counter report instantly What shall I say your excellency? Quote the ready scribe pulling out pen and in corn from his sash What do I care? Any lie which comes to hand? What in the devil's name are you here for at all but to invent a lie when I want one? True most noble and the worthy sat meekly down to his paper but did not proceed rapidly I don't see anything that would suit the emergency unless I stated with your august leave that Cyril and not you celebrated the gladiatorial exhibition which might hardly appear credible Orestes burst out laughing in spite of himself the sleek Kaldi smiled and purred in return the victory was won and Orestes somewhat more master of himself began to turn his full pine cunning to the one absorbing question of the saving of his worthless neck No, that would be too good right that we had discovered a plot on Cyril's part to incorporate the whole of the African churches mind and specify Carthage and Hippo under his own jurisdiction and to throw off allegiance to the patriarch of Constantinople in case of Heraklian's success the secretary purred delighted approval and scribbled away now with right good heart Heraklian's success, your excellency we of course desired by every means in our power to gratify the people of Alexandria and as was our duty to excite by every lawful method their loyalty towards the throne of Caesars never mind who sat on it at so critical a moment at so critical a moment but as faithful Catholics and are pouring even in the extremist need the sin of Azar we dread it to touch with the unsanctified hands of laymen the consecrated ark of the church even though for its preservation its preservation, your excellency we therefore as civil magistrates felt bound to confine ourselves to those means which were already allowed by law and custom to our jurisdiction and accordingly made use of those largesses spectacles and public execution of rebels which haven't happily appeared to his holiness the patriarch too ready perhaps to find a cause of complaint against faithful adherence of the Byzantine sea to partake of the nature of those gladiatorial exhibitions which are equally apparent to the spirit of the Catholic church and to the charity of the sainted emperors by whose pious edicts they have been long since abolished your excellency is indeed great but pardon your slaves remark my simplicity is of opinion that it may be asked why you did not inform the Augusta Pulcheria of Cyril's conspiracy say that we sent a messenger off three months ago but that make something happen to him stupid and save me the trouble shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighbourhood of Palmyra your excellency let me see no they may make inquiries there drown him at sea nobody can ask questions of the sharks founded between Tyre and Crete from which Sag Calamity only one man escaped on a raft and being picked up after three weeks exposure to the fury of the elements by a returning wheat ship by the bay most noble what am I to say about those wheat ships not having even sailed head of Augustus I forgot the mutterly say that the plague was making such ravages in the harbour quarter that we feared carrying the infection to the seat of the empire and let them sail tomorrow the secretary's face lengthened my fidelity is compelled to remark even at the risk of your just indignation that half of them have been unloaded again for your munificent largesses of the last two days Orestes wore a great oath oh that the mob had but one throat that I might give them animetic well we must buy more corn, that's all the secretary's face grew longer still the Jews most august what of them yelled the hapless prefect have they been for stalling my aciduity has discovered this afternoon that they have been buying up and exporting all the provisions which they could obtain scoundrels, they must have known of Heraklion's failure your sagacity has, I fear, divine the truth they have been betting largely against his success for the last week both in Canopus and Pelusium for the last week then Miriam betrayed me knowingly and Orestes broke forth again into a paroxism of fury here call the tribune of the guard a hundred gold pieces to the man who brings me the witch alive she will never be taken alive dead then in any way go you caldy hound what are you hesitating about most noble lord said the secretary prostrating himself upon the floor in kissing his master's feet in an agony of fear remember that if you touch one Jew you touch them all remember the bonds the, the your own most august reputation in short get up brute and don't grovel there but tell me what you mean like a human being if old Miriam is once dead her bonds die with her don't they alas my lord you do not know the customs of that accursed folk they have a damnable practice of treating each member of their nation as a brother and helping each freely and faithfully without reward whereby they are enabled to plunder all the rest of the world and thrive themselves from the least to the greatest I fancy that your bonds are in Miriam's hands they have been transferred months ago your real creditors may be in Carthage or Rome or Byzantium and they will attack you from thence while all you would find if you seized the old witch's property would be papers useless to you belonging to Jews all over the empire who would rise as one man in defence of their money I assure you it is a net without a bound if you touch one you touch all and besides my diligence expecting some such command has already taken the liberty of making inquiries as to Miriam's place of abode but it appears, I am sorry to say utterly unknown to any of your excellency's servants you lie, said Orestes I would much sooner believe that you have been warning the hag to keep out of the way Orestes had spoken, for once in his life the exact truth the secretary, who had his own private dealings with Miriam felt every particular atom of his skin shudder at those words and had he had hair on his head it would certainly have betrayed him by standing visibly on end but as he was, luckily for him, close shaven his turban remained in its proper place as he meekly replied alas, a faithful servant can feel no keen awo than the causeless suspicion of that son before whose race he daily prostrates his confound your peripheresis do you know where she is? no, cried the wretched secretary driven to the lie direct at last and confirmed the negation with such a string of oaths that Orestes stopped his volubility with a kick borrowed of him under threat of torture a thousand gold pieces as large as to the soldiery and ended by concentrating the stationaries round his own palace for the double purpose of protecting himself in case of a riot and of increasing the chances of said riot by leaving the distant quarters of the city without police if Cyril would but make a fool of himself now that he is in the full blown pride of victory Cyril, about that Ammonius or about Hypatia or anything else and give me a real handle against him after all, the truth works better than lying now and then oh that I could poison him but one can't bribe those ecclesiastics and as for the dagger one could not hire a man to be torn in pieces by monks no, I must just sit and see what fortunes dice may turn up well, your pedants like Orestedes or Epaminondas thank heaven the race of them had died out long ago might call this no very creditable piece of provincial legislation but after all, it is about as good as any now going or likely to be going till the world's end and one can't be expected to strike out a new path I shall stick to the wisdom of my predecessors and oh that Cyril may make a fool of himself tonight and Cyril did make a fool of himself that night for the first and last time in his life and suffers for it as wise men want to do when they are to this very day and hour much Orestes gained by his post false move cannot be decided till the end of this story perhaps not even then end of chapter 23 chapter 24 part 1 of Hypatia this is a Librivox recording or Librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org recording by Paul Stevens Hypatia by Charles Kingsley chapter 24 Lost Lambs part 1 and Philaman for a long while he stood in the street outside the theatre too much maddened to determine on any course of action and there he had recovered his self-possession the crowd began to pour from every outlet and filling the street swept him away in its stream then as he heard his sister's name in every tone of pity, contempt and horror mingle with their angry exclamations he awoke from his dream and bursting through the mob made straight for Pelagia's house it was fast closed and his repeated knocks at the gate brought only after a long waiting a surly negro face to a little wicket he asked eagerly and instinctively for Pelagia of course she had not yet returned for Wolf was not within and then he took his station close to the gateway while his heart beat loud with hope and dread at last the goss appeared forcing their way through the mob in a close column there were no litters with them where then were Pelagia and her girls where too was the hated figure of the Amal and Wolf and Smid the men came on led by Goderic and Agilmund with folded arms, knitted brows, downcast eyes a stern disgust not unmingled with shame on every countenance told Philaman afresh of his sister's infamy Goderic passed him close and Philaman summoned up courage to ask for Wolf Pelagia he had not courage to name out Greek hound we have seen enough of your accursed race today what are you trying to follow us in and the young man's sword flashed from his sheath so swiftly that Philaman had but just time enough to spring back into the street and wait there in an agony of disappointment and anxiety as the gates slid together again and the house was as silent as before for a miserable hour he waited while the mob thickened instead of flowing away and the scattered groups of chatterers began to form themselves into masses and parade the streets with shouts of down with the heathen, down with the idolaters vengeance on all blaspheming harlots at last the steady tramp of legionaries and in the midst of the glittering lines of armed men oh joy a string of litters he sprang forward and called Pelagia's name again and again once he fancied he heard an answer but the soldiers thrust him back she is safe here young fool and has seen and been seen quite enough today already back let me speak to her that is her business ours is now to see her home safe let me go in with you I beseech if you want to go in knock for yourself when we are gone if you have any business in the house they will open to you I suppose ouch you interfering puppy and a blow of the spear-butt in his chest sent him rolling back into the middle of the street while the soldiers having delivered up their charge returned with the same stolid indifference in vain filament returning knocked at the gate curses and threats from the negro were all the answer which he received and at last wear it into desperation he wandered away up one street and down another struggling in vain to form some plan of action for himself until the sun was set wearily he went homewards at last once the thought of Miriam crossed his mind it was a disgusting alternative to ask help of her the very author of his sister's shame but yet she at least could obtain for him a sight of palagia she had promised as much but then the condition which she had appended to her help to see his sister and yet to leave her as she was horrible contradiction but could he not employ Miriam for his own ends outwitter, deceive her for it came to that the temptation was intense but it lasted only a moment could he defile so pure a cause by falsehood and hurrying past the duesses door hardly daring to look at it lest the temptation should return he darted upstairs to his own little chamber hastily flung open the door and stopped short in astonishment a woman covered from head to foot in a large dark veil stood in the centre of the chamber who are you, this is no place for you cried he after a minutes pause she replied only by a shudder and a sob he caught sight beneath the folds of the veil he had known Saffron Shaw and springing upon her like the lion on the lamb clasped to his bosom, his sister the veil fell from her beautiful forehead she gazed into his eyes one moment with a look of terrified enquiry and saw nothing there but love and clinging heart to heart brother and sister mingled holy kisses and strained nearer and nearer still as if to satisfy their last lingering doubts of each other's kin many a minute passed in silent joy Filman dare not speak he dare not ask her what brought her thither dare not wake her to recollect the frightful present by questions of the past of his long forgotten parents their home, her history and after all was it not enough for him that he held her at last her thereby her own will the lost lamb returned to him and their tears mingled as their cheeks were pressed together at last she spoke I ought to have known you, I believe I did know you from the first day when they mentioned your likeness to me my heart lept up within me and a voice whispered but I would not hear it I was ashamed, ashamed to acknowledge my brother for whom I had sought and longed for years ashamed to think I had a brother ah God and ought I not to be ashamed and she broke from him again and threw herself on the floor trample upon me, curse me anything but part me from him Filman had not the heart to answer her but he made an involuntary gesture of sorrowful descent no, call me what I am what he called me just now but do not take me away strike me as he struck me anything but parting struck you, the curse of God beyond him ah do not curse him, not him it was not a blow, indeed only a push, a touch and it was my fault, all mine I angered him, I abraded him I was mad, oh why did he deceive me why did he let me dance, command me to dance command you he said that we must not break our words he would not hear me when I told him that we could deny having promised I said that promises made over the wine need never be kept, whoever heard of keeping them and arrestees was drunk too but he said that I might teach a goth to be what I liked, except a liar was not that a strange speech and wolf bade him be strong and blessed him for it he was right, sobbed Filman then I thought he would love me for obeying him though I loathed it, oh God how I loathed it but how could I fancy that he did not like my doing it whoever heard of anyone doing of their own will what they did not like Filman sobbed again as the poor civilized savage artlessly opened to him all her moral darkness what could he say he knew what to say the disease was so utterly patent that any of Cyril's school children could have supplied the remedy but how to speak it how to tell her before all things as he longed to do there was no hope of her marrying the Amal and therefore no peace for her till she left him then you did hate the the said he at last catching at some gleam of light hate it do I not belong body and soul to him him only and yet oh I must tell you all when I and the girls began to practice all the old feelings came back the love of being admired and applauded and cheered and dancing is so delicious I just feel that you were doing anything beautiful perfectly and better than everyone else and he saw that I liked it and despised me for it and deceitful he little guessed how much of the pains which I took were taken to please him to do my best before him to win admiration only that I might take it home and throw it all at his beloved feet and make the world say once more she has all Alexandria to worship her and yet she cares for that one goth more than four but he deceived me true man that he is he wished to enjoy my smiles to the last moment and then to cast me off but I had once given him an excuse too cowardly to up braid me he let me ruin myself to save him the trouble of ruining me oh men men all alike they love us for their own sakes and we love them for love's sake we live by love we die for love and yet we never find it but only selfishness dressed up in love's mask and then we take up with that poor, fond, self-blinded creatures that we are and in spite of the poisoned hearts around us persuade ourselves that our latest asps egg at least will hatch into a dove and that though all men are faithless our own tyrant can never change for he is more than man but he has deceived you you have found out your mistake leave him then as he deserves Pelagia looked up with something of a tender smile poor darling little do you know of love filament utterly bewildered by this newest and strangest phase of human passion could only gasp out but do you not love me too my sister do I not love you but not as I love him oh hush hush you cannot understand yet and Pelagia hid her face in her hands while convulsive shudderings ran through every limb I must do it I must I will dare everything stoop to everything for love's sake go to her to the wise woman to Hypatia she loves you I know that she loves you she will hear you though she will not me Hypatia do you know that she was sitting there unmoved at in the theatre she was forced a resties compelled her Miriam told me so and I saw it in her face as I passed beneath her I looked up as pale as ivory trembling in every limb there was a dark hollow round her eyes she had been weeping I saw and I sneered in my mad self conceit and said she looks as if she was going to be crucified not married but now now oh go to her tell her that I will give her all I have jewels, money, dresses, house tell her that I I entreat her pardon that I will crawl to her feet myself and ask it if she requires let her teach me teach me to be wise and good and honoured and respected as she is ask her to tell a poor broken hearted woman her secret she can make old wolf and him and a resties even and the magistrates respect her ask her to teach me how to be like her and to make him respect me again and I will give her all all Filman hesitated something within warned him as the demon used to warn Socrates that his errand would be bootless he thought of the theatre and of that firm compressed lip and forgot the hollow eye of misery which accompanied it in his wrath against his lately worshipped idol oh go go I tell you it was against her will she felt for me I saw it oh god when I did not feel for myself and I hated her because she seemed to despise me in my fools triumph she cannot despise me now in my misery go go or you will drive me to the agony of going myself there was but one thing to be done you will wait then here you will not leave me again yes but you must be quick if he finds out that I am away he may fancy let him kill me but never let him be jealous of me go now this moment take this as an earnest the cestus which I wore there horrid thing I hate the sight of it but I brought it with me on purpose or I would have thrown it into the canal this is an earnest only an earnest of what I will give her in ten minutes more Philemon was in Hypatia's hall the household seemed full of terror and disturbance the hall was full of soldiers at last Hypatia's favourite maid passed and knew him her mistress could not speak with anyone where was Theon then he too had shut himself up never mind Philemon must would speak with him and he pleaded so passionately and so sweetly that the soft-hearted damsel unable to resist so handsome or suppliant undertook his errand and led him up to the library where Theon pale as death was pacing to and fro apparently half beside himself with terror Philemon's breathless message fell at first upon unheeding ears a new pupil sir is this a time for pupils when my house my daughter's life is not safe wretch that I am and have I let her into the snare I with my vain ambition and covetousness oh my child my child my one treasure oh the double curse which will light upon me if she asks but for one interview with my daughter sir Pallagia will you insult me do you suppose even if her own pity should so far tempt her to degrade herself that I could allow her so to contaminate her purity your terror sir excuses your rudeness rudeness sir the rudeness lies in your intruding on us at such a moment then this perhaps may in your eyes at least excuse me in my turn and Philemon held out the cestus you are a better judge of its value than I but I am commissioned to say that it is only an earnest of what she will give willingly and at once even to the half of her wealth for the honor of becoming your daughter's pupil and he laid the jewel girdle on the table the old man halted in his walk the emeralds and pearls shone like the galaxy he looked at them and walked on again more slowly what might be their value what might it not be at least they would pay all his debts and after hovering to and fro for another minute before the bait he turned to Philemon if you would promise to mention the thing to no one I will promise and in case my daughter as I have a right to expect shall refuse let her keep the jewels their owner has learnt thank God to despise and hate them let her keep the jewels and my curse for God do so to me and more also if I ever see her face again the old man had not heard the latter part of Philemon's speech he had seized the bait as greedily as a crocodile and hurried off with it into Hypatius chamber while Philemon stood expectant possessed with a new and fearful doubt degrade herself contaminate her purity if that notion were to be the fruit of all her philosophy if selfishness, pride, Phariseism were all its outcome why had they not been its outcome already when had he seen her helping even pitying the poor, the outcast when had he heard from her one word of real sympathy for the sorrowing, for the sinful he was still lost in thought when Theon reentered bringing a letter from Hypatia to her well-beloved pupil I pity you, how should I not, and more I thank you for this sure request for it shows me that my unwilling presence at the hideous pageant of today has not alienated from me a soul of which I had cherished the noblest hopes for which I had sketched out the loftiest destiny but how shall I say it ask yourself whether a change, apparently impossible must not take place in her for whom you plead before she and I can meet I am not so inhuman as to blame you for having asked me I do not even blame her for being what she is she does but follow her nature who can be angry with her if destiny have informed so fair an animal with a too gross and earthly spirit why weep over her, dust she is and unto dust she will return while you, to whom a more divine spark was allotted at your birth must rise and unrepining leave below you one only connected with you by the unreal and fleeting bonds of fleshly kin filament crushed the letter together in his hand and strode from the house without a word the philosopher had no gospel then for the harlot no word for the sinner that degraded destiny forced sooth she was to follow her destiny and be base miserable self-condemmed she was to crush the voice of conscience and reason as often as it awoke within her and compel herself to believe that she was bound to be that which she knew herself bound not to be she was to shut her eyes to that present palpable misery which was preaching to her with the voice of God himself that the wages of sin are death dust she was and unto dust she will return oh glorious hope for her, for him who felt as if an eternity of bliss would be worthless if it parted him from his newfound treasure dust she was and unto dust she must return hapless hypatia if she must needs misapply after the fashion of her school a text or two here and there from the Hebrew scriptures what suicidal fantasy set her on quoting that one for now upon Filman's memory flashed up in letters of light old words forgotten for months and ere he was aware he found himself repeating a loud and passionately I believe in the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting and then clear and fair arose before him the vision of the God-man as he lay at meet in the Pharisee's house and of her who washed his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and from the depths of his agonised heart arose the prayer blessed Magdalene intercede for her so high he could rise but not beyond for the notion of that God-man was receding fast to more and more awful abysmal heights in the minds of a generation who were forgetting his love in his power and practically losing sight of his humanity in their eager doctrinal assertion of his divinity and Filman's heart re-echoed the spirit of his age when he felt that for an apostate like himself it were presumptious to entreat for any light or help from the fountain-head itself he who had denied his Lord he who had voluntarily cut himself off from the communion of the Catholic Church how could he restore himself how could he appease the wrath of him who died on the cross saved by years of bitter supplication and self-punishment fool vain and ambitious fool that I have been for this I threw away the faith of my childhood for this I listened to words at which I shuddered crushed down my own doubts and disgusts tried to persuade myself that I could reconcile them with Christianity that I could make a lie fit into the truth for this I puffed myself up in the vain hope of becoming what as other men are superior forsooth to my kind it was not enough for me to be a man made in the image of God but I must needs become a God myself knowing good and evil and here is the end I call upon my fine philosophy to help me once in one real practical human struggle and it folds its arms and sits serene and silent smiling upon my misery oh fool, fool thou art filled with the fruit of thy own devices back to the old faith home again then wanderer and yet how home are not the gates shut against me perhaps against her too what if she like me were a baptised Christian End of chapter 24 part 1