CHAPTER LXI

_A Steward’s Narrative_

To me, the prison and the palace were the same. No believer in fate, and a strong believer in the doctrine that in the infinite majority of cases the unlucky have to thank only themselves, I was yet irresistibly conscious of my own stern exception. That there was an influence hanging over me I deeply knew; that I might as well strive with the winds was the fruit of my whole experience; and with the loftiest calculation of the wonders that human energy may work, I abandoned myself on principle to the chances of the hour. I was the weed upon the wave, and whether above or below the surface, I knew that the wave would roll on, and that I must roll on along with it. I was the atom in the air, and whether I should float unseen forever or be brought into sight by the gilding of some chance sunbeam, my destiny was to float and quiver up and down. I was the vapor, and whether, like the evening cloud, my after-years were to evolve into glorious shapes and colors, or I should creep along the pools and valleys of fortune till the end of time—yet there I was, still in existence, and that existence bound by laws incapable of the choice or the caprices of man.

[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Burden]

I had yet to learn the true burden of my great malediction, for the circumstances of my life were adverse to its fated solitude of soul; its bitter conviction that there was not a being under the canopy of heaven whose heart was toward me. I was still in the very tumult of life and battling with the boldest. Public cares, personal interests, glowing attachments, the whole vigorous activity of the citizen and the soldier were mine. I was still husband, father, friend, and champion; my task was difficult and grave, but it was ardent, proud, and animating. I was made for this energy of the whole man; master of a powerful frame that defied fatigue, and was proof against the sharpest visitations of nature; and of an intellect which, whatever might be its rank, rejoiced in tasking itself with labors that appalled the multitude.

Idle as I knew the praise of man, and sovereign as was my scorn for the meanness which stoops to the vulgar purchase of popularity, I felt and honored the true fame—that renown whose statue is devoted, not by suspicious and clamorous flattery of the time, but by the solemn and voluntary homage of the future, whose splendor, like that of a new-born star, if it take ages to reach mankind, is sure to reach them at last, and shines for ages after its fount is extinguished; whose essential power, if it be coerced and obscured, like that of a man while his earthly tenement still shuts him in, is thenceforth to develop itself from strength to strength—the mortal putting on immortality.

[Sidenote: The Fetters of a Soul]

In the whirl of such thoughts I was often carried away, to the utter oblivion of my peculiar fate, for the man and his associations were strong within me, in defiance of the command. The gloom often passed away from my soul, as the darkness does from the midnight ocean in the dash and foam of its own waters. Nature is perpetual and drives the affections, sleeping or waking, as it drives the blood through the old channels. It was only at periods, produced by strong circumstance, that I felt the fetter, but then the iron entered into my soul! To this partial pressure belongs the singular combination of such a fate as mine with an interest in the world, with my loves and hates, my thirst of human fame, my reluctance at the prospect of the common ills and injuries of life. I was a man, and this is the whole solution of the problem. For one remote evidence that I was distinct from mankind, I had ten thousand, direct and constant, that I was the same. But for the partiality of the pressure there was a lofty reason.

The man who feels himself above the common fate is instantly placed above the common defenses of mankind. He may calumniate and ruin; he may burn and plunder; he may be the rebel and the murderer. Fear is, after all, the great defense. But what earthly power could intimidate him? What were chains or the scaffold to him who felt instinctively that time was not made for his being; that the scaffold was impotent; that he should yet trample on the grave of his judge, on the moldered throne of his king, on the dead sovereignty of his nation? With his impassiveness, his experience, his knowledge, and his passions, concocted and blackened by ages, what breast could be safe against the dagger of this tremendous exile? What power be secure against the rebel machination or the open hostility of a being invested with the strength of immortal evil? What was to hinder a man made familiar with every mode of influencing human passions—the sage, the sorcerer, the fount of tradition, the friend of their worshiped ancestors—from maddening the multitude at whose head he willed to march, clothed in the attributes of almost a divinity?

But I was precluded or saved from this fearful career by the providential feeling of the common repugnances, hopes, and fears of human nature. Pain and disease were instinctively as much shunned by me as if I held my life on the frailest tenure; death was as formidable as my natural soldiership would suffer it to be; and even when the thought occurred that I might defy extinction, it threw but a darker shade over the common terrors, to conceive that I must undergo the suffering of death without the peace of the grave. Man bears his agony for once, and it is done. Mine might be borne to the bitterest extremity, but must be borne with the keener bitterness of the knowledge that it was in vain.

[Sidenote: A Message from Septimius]

I was recalled from those reveries to the world by a paper dropped through a crevice in the rafters above my head. On seeing its signature, “Septimius,” my first impulse was to tear it in pieces, but Esther’s name struck me, and I read it through.

“You must not think me a villain, tho I confess appearances are much in favor of the supposition. But I had no choice between denying that I knew you and being instantly beheaded. This comes of discipline. Titus is a disciplinarian of the first order, and the consequence is that no man dares acknowledge any little irregularity before him: so far, his morality propagates knaves. But I must clear myself of the charge of having acted disingenuously by your daughter. I take every power that binds the soul to witness that I know not what is become of her; nay, I am in the deepest anxiety to know the fate of one so lovely, so innocent, and so high-minded.

[Sidenote: A Lover’s Confession]

“And now, prince, that I am out of the reach of your frown, let me have courage to disburden my heart. I have long known Esther, and as long loved her. From the time when I was first received within your palace in Naphtali—and I have not forgotten that to your hospitality I then owed my life—I was struck with her talents and her beauty. When the war separated us and I returned to Rome, neither in Rome nor in the empire could I see her equal. To solicit our union I gave up the honors and pleasures of the court for the campaign in your hazardous country. I searched Judea in vain, and it was chiefly in the vague hope of obtaining some intelligence of Esther that I solicited the command of our unfortunate mission. There I felt all hazard more than repaid by her sight, to me lovelier than ever. I will acknowledge that I prolonged my confinement to have the opportunity of obtaining her hand. But her religious scruples were unconquerable. I implored her leave to explain myself to you. Even this, too, she refused, ‘from her knowledge of your decision.’ What then was I to do? Loving to excess, bewildered by passion, oppressed with disappointment, and seeing but one object on earth, my evil genius prompted me to act the dissembler.

“Under pretext of disclosing some secrets connected with your safety I induced her to meet me, for the first and the last time, on the battlements. There I besought her to fly with me—to be my bride—to enjoy the illustrious rank and life that belonged to the imperial blood; and when we were once wedded, to solicit the approval of her family. I was sincere; I take the gods to witness I was sincere. But my entreaty was in vain; she repelled me with resolute scorn; she charged me with treachery to you, to her, to faith, and to sacred hospitality. I knelt to her—she spurned me. In distraction, and knowing only that to live without her was wretchedness, I was bearing her away to the gate when we were surrounded by armed men. My single attendant fled; I was overpowered, and I saw Esther, my lovely and beloved Esther, no more.”

There was an honesty in this full confession that did more for the writer’s cause than subtler language. The young Roman had been severely tried, and who could expect from a soldier the self-denial that it might have been hard to find under the brow of philosophy? Stern as time and trial had made me, I was not petrified into a contempt for the generous weaknesses of earlier years; and to love a being like Esther—what was it but to be just? While I honored the high sense of duty which repelled a lover so dangerous to a woman’s heart, I pitied and forgave the violence of a passion lighted by unrivaled loveliness of form and mind.

It was growing late, and the steward, who made a virtue of showing me the more respect the more I was treated with severity, came in to arrange my couch for the night; he would suffer no inferior hands to approach the person of one of the leaders of his fallen country.

“In truth,” said he, “if I were not permitted to be your attendant to-night, my prince might have been forgotten, for every human being but myself is busy in the banquet-gallery.”

Sounds of instruments and voices arose.

[Sidenote: Titus Gives a Banquet]

“There,” said he, “you may hear the music. Titus gives a supper in honor of the Emperor’s birthday, and the palace will be kept awake until daylight, for the Romans, with all their gravity, are great lovers of the table, and Titus is renowned for late sittings. Would you wish to see the banquet?”

So saying, he unbarred the shutters of a casement, commanding a view along the gallery, of which every door and window was thrown open for the breeze.

If an ancient Roman could start from his slumber into the midst of European life, he must look with scorn on its absence of grace, elegance, and fancy. But it is in its festivities, and most of all in its banquets, that he would feel the incurable barbarism of the Gothic blood. Contrasted with the fine displays that made the table of the Roman noble a picture and threw over the indulgence of appetite the colors of the imagination, with what eyes must he contemplate the tasteless and commonplace dress, the coarse attendants, the meager ornament, the want of mirth, music, and intellectual interest—the whole heavy machinery that converts the feast into the mere drudgery of devouring!

[Sidenote: Salathiel Views the Scene]

The guests before me were fifty or sixty splendidly attired men, attended by a crowd of domestics equipped with scarcely less splendor, for no man thought of coming to the banquet in the robes of ordinary life. The embroidered couch, itself a striking object, allowed the ease of position, at once delightful in the relaxing climates of the south and capable of combining with every grace of the human figure. At a slight distance the table, loaded with plate, glittering under a profusion of lamps and surrounded by couches covered with rich draperies, was like a central source of light radiating in broad shafts of every brilliant hue. All that belonged to the ornament of the board was superb. The wealth of the patricians and their perpetual intercourse with Greece made them masters of the finest performances of the arts. The sums expended on plate were enormous, but its taste and beauty were essential to the refined enjoyment of the banquet. Copies of the most famous statues and groups of sculpture in the precious metals, exquisite trophies of Greek and Roman victory, models of the celebrated temples, mingled with vases of flowers and burning perfumes; and covering and coloring all was a vast scarlet canopy, which combined the groups beneath the eye, and threw the whole scene into the light that a painter would love.

But yet finer skill was shown in the constant prevention of that want of topic which turns conversation into weariness. There was a rapid succession of new excitements. Even the common changes of the table were made to assist this purpose. The entrance of each course was announced by music, and the attendants were preceded by a procession of minstrels, chaplet-crowned, and playing Grecian melodies. Between the courses a still higher entertainment was offered in the recitations, dramas, and pleasantries, read or acted by a class of professional satirists, of the absurdities of the day.

[Sidenote: The Amusements of a Feast]

It is easy to imagine how fertile a source of interest this must have been made by the subtle and splenetic Italian moving through Roman life; the most various, animating, and fantastic scene in which society ever shone. The recitations were always looked to as the charm of the feast. They were often severe, but their severity was reserved for public men and matters. The court supplied the most tempting and popular ridicule, but the reciter was a privileged person, and all the better-humored Cæsars bore the castigation without a murmur. No man in the empire was more laughed at than Vespasian, and no man oftener joined in the laugh.

One of this morning’s sports was to collect the burlesques of the night before, give them new pungency by a touch of the imperial pen, and then despatch them to make their way through the world. The strong-headed sovereign knew the value of an organ of public opinion, and used to call their perusal, “sitting for his picture.” The picture was sometimes so strong that the courtiers trembled. But the veteran, who had borne thirty years of battle, laid it up among “his portraits,” laughed the insult away, and repeated his popular saying, “that when he was old enough to come to years of discretion and give up the emperor, he should become reciter himself and have his turn with the world.”

The recitations again were varied by a sportive lottery, in which the guests drew prizes—sometimes of value, gems and plate—sometimes merely an epigram, or a caricature. The banquet generally closed with a theatric dance by the chief public performers of the day, and the finest forms and the most delicate art of Greece and Ionia displayed the story of Theseus and Ariadne, the flight of Jason, the fate of Semele, or some other of their brilliant fictions. In the presence of this vivid display sat, tempering its sportiveness by the majesty of religion, the three great tutelar idols of Rome—Jove, Juno, and Minerva, of colossal height, throned at the head of the hall; completing, false as they were, the most singular and dazzling combination that man ever saw, of the delight of the senses with the delight of the mind.

To me human delight was always a source of enjoyment, and in the sounds of the harps and flutes and the pleasant murmur of cheerful voices I was not unwilling to forget the spot from which I listened. But the prisoner can not long forget his cell, and closing the casement I walked away.

[Sidenote: The Steward Tells of Matthan]

“Little I ever thought,” sighed the old steward, “of seeing that sight. But all nations have fallen in their time, and perhaps the only wonder is that Israel should have stood so long. It is still stranger to my eyes to see that gallery as it is to-night. It is fifteen years this very day since I saw the light of lamp or the foot of man within those casements.”

“Yet,” said I, “the great Ananus lived as became his rank, and there were then no dangers to disturb him in the midst of his people.”

“But there was one terrible event which made those walls unhallowed; nay, even in this spot I would not remain alone through the night to have the palace for my own.”

A rich strain of music that ushered in some change in the displays of the banquet interrupted my question, while the old man’s countenance assumed something of the alarm which he described.

“That sound,” said he, shuddering, “goes to my heart. It is the same that I heard on the night of death. On that night Matthan, the only son of my great master, was to be wedded to the daughter of the prince of Hebron, and that gallery was laid out for the wedding-feast. All the leaders of Jerusalem were there, all the noble women, all the chief priesthood; all the grandeur, wealth, and beauty of our tribe. But Matthan was not the son of his father’s mind. He had fled from his father’s roof years before, and taken refuge in the mountains. The caravan passing through Galilee dreaded the name of Matthan, for he was bold; the chief of the hills saw his followers flying from his side, for deadly was the spear of Matthan; but he was generous, and often the slave rejoiced in the breaking of his chains, and the peasant saw his flocks cover the valley again by the arm and the bounty of Matthan.

[Sidenote: A Countenance of Wrath and Wo]

“I saw him on the day when he returned; danger or sorrow had wrought a change in him like the passing from youth to age. His strength was gone, and his voice was broken, like the voice of him that treads on the brink of the timely grave. His noble father wept over him, but gave him welcome; and the palace was filled with rejoicing for the coming back of the first-born. Yet he took no delight in the feast, neither in the praises of men nor in the voice of the singer. He wandered through his father’s halls, even as the leopard, chained and longing to escape to the desert and the prey again. Disturbances were beginning to be heard in Jerusalem, and he fell into the hands of the evil one. Onias, the man of blood, betrayed him into the secret ways of conspiracy against our conquerors. His heart was bold and his temper high, and he was easily drawn into the desperate game by a villain who stirred up the generous spirit of our nobles, only to sell their blood to Rome.

“He grew more lonely day by day; withdrew from the amusements of his rank, and shut himself up in the wing of the palace, ending in this tower. In this room I have seen his lamp burning through the livelong winter nights, and grieved over the sleeplessness that showed he was among the unhappy.

[Sidenote: The Strangeness of a Bridegroom]

“At last a change was wrought upon him. He went forth; he took delight in the horse and the chariot, in the chase, and the feast, and the die. His father, that he might bless his posterity before he died, counseled him to take to wife Thamar, the noblest of the daughters of Hebron. The day of the marriage was appointed. On that day I saw him come from the council-hall, after receiving the congratulations of his friends. I saw him passing along to his chamber, but I dared not cross him on his way. He thought that he was alone, and then he gave way to his agony. Never did I behold such a countenance of wrath and wo. It was bloated with prodigal living, and it was now flushed with wine. He raved, he rent his bridal raiment and cast it from him; he wept; he knelt and cursed the hour he was born. I remained in my refuge, yet more in fear of his countenance than of his sword. He took letters from his bosom, read them, and then scattered their fragments in the air. He tottered toward me, and I dreaded his rage, but I saw at a glance that his mind was gone. He was talking to the air; he clasped his hands wildly; his face was covered with tears; he implored for mercy, and fell. I hastened to bear him to a couch; he saw me not, but cried out against himself as a betrayer and a murderer, the fugitive from honor, the criminal marked by the hand of Heaven.

“I called for help. His mountaineers rushed in; they repulsed me; and chiding him in their barbarian tongue, and seeming accustomed to those fits of sorrow, carried away in their arms the noble Matthan, crying like a child.

“The evening fell, and I saw him ride forth at the head of his kindred to bring home the bride. The wretchedness of the day had passed, and those who looked only on the lofty bearing and heard the joyous language of the leader of that train would have thought that sorrow had never touched his heart. I watched for his return with anxiety, for I deemed him unhallowed.

[Sidenote: The Coming of a Bride]

“But all was well; the bridal train returned. Matthan, glittering in jewels, came proudly, reining a steed white as the snow. The harp and trumpet, the chorus of the singers, the light of the torches, and the glitter of the youths and maidens who danced before the bride made me forget everything but the joy of seeing peace among us once more. But at the banquet the wonder of all was the bridegroom himself. Loud as the guests’ voices were, his voice was the loudest; he laughed at everything, as if he had never known a care in the world, or was never to know one again. The jest was never out of his lips; and when he pledged the cup to the health of the company or the fair bride—and often he pledged it that evening—he always said something that raised shouts of applause. I once or twice passed near him, but he had wiped every sign of grief from his features, and if he seemed to be mad with anything, it was with joy. The gallery rang with admiration, and not less with surprise, for he had shut himself up so long from the people that he was almost unknown, and the world is generally good-natured enough to invent a character for those who will take no trouble to make one for themselves. Some had set him down for intolerable haughtiness; others for fear of mixing in the growing tumults; others for a dealer in the black arts; and still others for a mere fool. But now opinions were altered, and every voice of his tribe was loud in wonder at the talents he had so long hid in retirement.

“I was standing in the train of the High Priest, near the central casement, through which you may now see the throne of Titus. My eyes, I know not why, strayed to this tower; I marked a feeble lamp, a form rushing backward and forward in gestures of violent sorrow. A foot beside me made me turn. There stood Matthan with his eyes fixed upon the tower. But his mind was gone. He looked like a man stricken into stone. He saw me not; he saw not the guests; he saw nothing but the feeble lamp, the hurrying form.

“The chorus of the singing women announced that the bride was about to come. I looked up at the tower; the lamp was twinkling its last, and the form was still seen wringing its hands. The hymn began that denotes the veiling of the bride; but my eyes were fixed on the dying light and the form, which now held a cup in its hand. A shriek was heard, so wild that the guests sprang from their seats in alarm and astonishment. My eye turned upon Matthan, but he had summoned up his strength, and tho I saw him shake in every limb, his proud lip wore a smile.

“Clasping his hand upon his brow, he abruptly turned from the window and demanded why the bridal attendants delayed the coming of the princess of Hebron. The lamp had now disappeared, and the tower was in darkness again. The portals were at length thrown open and the bride was led up to the canopy beneath which the bridegroom stood. He raised the veil. His countenance was instantly transformed into horror. He uttered no cry, but stood gazing. The bride let fall the veil again, and taking his hand, led him slowly and without a word down the hall.

[Sidenote: Matthan’s Death]

“None checked this strange ceremony; none dared to check it. We were deprived of all power by astonishment. The High Priest himself stood with his venerable hands lifted up to heaven, as if he felt that evil was come upon his house. The wedded pair walked in silence through the long range of chambers to the tower, and as they passed, the numberless attendants felt themselves bound by mysterious awe. But our senses at length returned, and Ananus, in the full dread of misfortune, yet bold to his dying hour, suffered none to go before him. We found the door of the tower barred, and long summoned Matthan to come forth and relieve our fears lest some desperate invention of sorcery had been played upon him. No answer was returned, and we forced the door.

“What a sight was there! Two corpses lay side by side. The blood still trickled from the bosom of the unfortunate Matthan. I raised the veil of the bride; the hue of poison was upon the lips, but they were not the lips of the princess of Hebron. The countenance was Arabian, and of exceeding beauty, but wan and wasted by sorrow.”

“Who, then, was his strange companion in the hall?” I asked.

The answer was given with a shudder. “I know not, but it seemed scarcely a being of this world. A new confusion arose. The mountaineers, on hearing of the death of their lord and still more of that noble creature in whom they honored the race of their chieftains, demanded vengeance: they were too fierce to listen to reason, and our attempts to explain the unhappy truth only kindled their rage. Simitars were drawn, blood was shed, and tho the barbarians were repelled, yet they plundered the wing of the palace and bore off the infant offspring of their dead mistress, the last scion of an illustrious tree that was itself so soon to feel the ax.

“I saw the unfortunate and guilty Matthan laid in the sepulcher of his fathers—the last that ever slept there, for his great sire, worthy of being laid in the monument of kings, was denied the honors of the grave by his murderers. Yet he sleeps in the noblest of all graves; his memory is treasured in the love and sorrows of his country.

[Sidenote: The Arabian Stranger]

“It was discovered that Matthan, during his wanderings in the desert, had wedded the daughter of a sheik. He loved her with the violence of his nature, but the prospects which opened to him on his return to his country made him shrink from the acknowledgment of his Arabian bride. Yet to live without her he found impossible, and he brought her to the tower. Surrounded by his mountaineers, this portion of the palace was inaccessible. His solitude and the lights seen through the casements were often thought to imply studies of the strange philosophy or evil superstitions that had begun to infect the noble youth of Palestine.

“But the necessity of sustaining his ambition by an illustrious marriage drove his fickle heart at last to treachery. The Arabian knew the intended marriage, and pined away before his eyes. Remorse and ambition alternately distracted him. The bridal procession was seen by the unhappy wife, and she swallowed poison. The rest is beyond my power to account for. But it is rumored among the attendants that strange sights have since been seen and sounds of a bridal throng heard in the chambers through which their last melancholy procession was made; tho, whether it be truth or the common fear of the peasantry, I know not, nor indeed wish too curiously to inquire.”