Chapter 11
"Hyzlo," said the Jewish philosopher, in his slightly accented Greek, "I have long promised you that I would reveal to you my secret, my life work. I am downcast by sadness. Rome is full of warring cults, Greek, African, Babylonian, Buddhistic; the writings of the great teachers, the masters, Heraclitus, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Plato, Socrates, Epictetus, Seneca, are overlaid with heretical emendations. The religion of my fellow-countrymen is a fiery furnace, Jerusalem a den of warring thieves. The rulers of earth are weary and turn a deaf ear on their peoples. The time is ripe for revolt. Sick of the accursed luxury and debauchery, fearful of the threatening barbarians from Asia and the boreal regions, who are hemming the civilized world, waiting like vultures for the first sign of weakness to destroy everything, the slaves in revolt--all these impending terrors assure me that the end of the old order is at hand. But what will become of the new if there is no central belief to steady the ensanguined hands of furious mobs? For years I have bethought me of a drama, a gigantic world-drama which shall embody all the myths of mankind, all the noblest thoughts of the philosophers. I shall take the Buddha myth, surely the supreme myth, and transpose its characters to Jerusalem. A humble Jew shall be _my_ Buddha. He shall be my revenge on our conquerors; for my people have been trampled upon by the insolent Romans, and who knows--a Jewish God, a crucified God, may be worshipped in the stead of Jupiter and his vile pantheon of gods and goddesses! _One_ God, the son of Jahveh who comes upon earth to save mankind, is crucified and killed, is resurrected and like Elijah is caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot. But you know the usual style of these Asiatic legends! They are all alike; a virgin birth, a miraculous life, and transfiguration. That sums up myths from Adonis to Krishna, from Krishna to Buddha; though Monotheism comes from the Hebrews, the Trinity from the Indians, and the _logos_ was developed by Plato. Where I am original is that I make my hero a Jew--the Jews are still half-cracked enough to believe in the coming of a Messiah. And to compass a fine dramatic moment I have introduced an incident I once witnessed in Alexandria at the landing of King Agrippa, when the populace dressed up a vagabond named Karabas as a mock king and stuck upon his head papyrus leaves for a crown, in his hand a reed for a sceptre, and then saluted him as king. I shall make my Jew-God seized by the Jews, his own blood and kin, given over to the Romans, mocked, reviled, and set aside for some thief who shall be called Karabas. Then, rejected, he shall be crucified, he a god born of a virgin, by the very people who are looking for their Messiah. He is their Messiah; yet they know it not. They shall never know it. That shall be their tragedy, the tragedy of my race, which, notwithstanding the prophecies, turned its back upon the Messiah because he came not clothed in the purple of royalty. Is that not a magnificent idea for a drama?"
"Excellent," answered Hyzlo, in a critical tone; "but continue!"
"You seem without enthusiasm, Hyzlo. I tell you that Æschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides never conceived a story more infinitely dramatic or pathetic, or--thanks to my Hebraic blood--so suffused with tragic irony. I shall make a very effective tableau at the death; on some forbidding stony hill near Jerusalem I shall plant my crucified hero, and near him a converted courtesan--ah! what a master of the theatre I am!--in company with a handful of faithful disciples. The others have run away to save their cowardly skins in the tumult. The mobs that hailed him as King of the Jews now taunt him, after the manner of all mobs. His early life I shall borrow outright from the Buddha legends. He shall be born of a virgin; he shall live in the desert; as a child he shall confute learned doctors in the temple; and later in the desert he shall be tempted by a demon. All this is at hand. My chief point is the philosophies in which I shall submerge my characters.
"My hero shall be the _logos_ of Heraclitus with the superadded authority of the Hebrew high priest. You may recall the fact that I greatly admire the Essenes and their system. My deity is a pure essence; not Jehovah the protector or avenger. The _logos_, or mediator, I have borrowed from the writings of the Greek philosophers. This _logos_ returns to the bosom of God after the sacrifice. Greek philosophy combined with Hebraic moral principles! Ah! it is grand synthesis; Seneca with his conception of a perfected humanity, Lucretius, Manlius--who called, rightfully too, Epicurus a god--and Heraclitus with the first idea of a _logos_: all these ancient ideas I have worked into my romantic play, including the old cult of the Trinities; the Buddhistic: Buddha, Dharma, and Saingha; the Chinese: Heaven, Earth, and Emperor; the Babylonian: Ea, the father, Marduk, the son, and the Fire God, Gibil, who is also the Paraclete. So my philosophy is merely a continuation and modification of that taught by Heraclitus and Plato, but with a Jewish background--for _mine_ is the only moral nation. The wisdom of the Rabbis, their Monotheism and ethics, are all there." His eyes were ablaze.
"You are very erudite, Philo Judæus!" exclaimed his listener; "but, tell me, is there no actual foundation for your Jewish god?" Hyzlo eagerly awaited a reply, though he could not account for this curiosity.
"Yes," answered Philo, lightly, "there is, I freely acknowledge, a slight foundation. Some years ago in Jerusalem they arrested a poverty-stricken fanatic, the son of a Jewess. His father was said to have been an indigent and aged carpenter. This Joshua, or Ieshua, was driven out of Jerusalem, and he took refuge among a lot of poor fishermen on Lake Gennesareth. There he joined a sect called the Baptists, because their founder, a socialist named Ioakanaan, poured water on the heads of the converted. Ieshua never married and was suspected of idolatrous practices, which he had absorbed from hermits of the Egyptian Thebaïd. Josephus, a wise friend and companion of my youth, wrote me these details. He said that Ieshua disappeared after his mad attempt to take Jerusalem by storm, riding--as is depicted the Bona Dea--on the back of a humble animal. Yet, if you wish to appeal to the common folk, make your hero a deposed king or divinity, who walks familiarly among the poor, as walked the gods at the dawn of time with the daughters of men. I depict my protagonist as a half-cracked Jew. I call him Iesus Christos--after Krishna; and this poor man's god proposes to redeem the world, to place the lowly in the seats of the mighty--he is an Anarchos, as they would say in Athens. He promises the Kingdom of God to those who follow him; but only a few do. He is the friend of outcasts, prostitutes, criminals. And though he does not triumph on earth, nevertheless he is the spiritual ruler of earth; he is the Son of the Trinity which comprises the Father and Holy Ghost. The contending forces to my hero will be incarnated by Pontius Pilatus, the Roman governor, and Judas of Kerioth, a very dangerous and powerful Hebrew politician--a man of very liberal ideas, one who believed in the supremacy of the West. What a glorious play it will make! I have named it The Third Kingdom, Hyzlo. What a glorious idea it is, Hyzlo--the greatest drama the world has ever witnessed!"
III
THE DOVE
"The greatest drama the world has ever witnessed" ... mumbled his disciple.... The sun still shone on the cold stone flagging, and upon the wall facing him hung the crucifix. But the motes no longer danced merrily in the light. Evening was setting in apace, and Hyzlo, accepting one dream as equal in veracity with the other, crossed to the embrasure and, his elbows on the sill, watched the sun--looking like a sulphur-coloured cymbal--sink behind the sky-line. He was still in the same attitude when the blue of the heavens--ah! but not that gorgeous, hard Alexandrian blue--melted into peacock and cool saffron hues. He mused aloud:--
"By the very nature of his mental organs man can never grasp reality. It is always the sensation, never the real thing, he feels. The metaphysicians are right. We can never know the actual world outside of ourselves. We are imprisoned in a dream cage; the globe itself is a cage of echoes. Science, instead of contradicting religion, has but affirmed its truths. Matter is radiant energy--matter is electric phenomenon. The germ-plasma from which we stem--the red clay of Genesis--is eternal. The individual is sacrificed to the species. The species never dies. And how beautifully logical is the order of our ancestry as demonstrated by the science of embryology. Fish, batrachians, reptiles, mammals; in which latter are included the marsupials as well as lemurs, primates, Man. And after what struggles Man assumed an erect position and looked into the eyes of his mate! After Man? Nietzsche preaches that man is a link between the primate and Superman; Superman--the angels! But intelligence in man may be an accident caused by over-nutrition, the brain developing from rich phosphors. If this were so--how would fall to earth our house of pride! Are we so close to the animal? But Quinton proves that _after_ man in the zoölogical series comes the bird. Birds--half reptiles, half angels. Angels! Do evolution and revelation meet here on common ground? Or was Joachim, the Abbot of Flores, inspired when he wrote of the Third Kingdom, that Kingdom in which the empire of the flesh is swallowed up in the empire of the spirit; that Third Kingdom in which the twin-natured shall reign, as Ibsen declares; the Messiah--neither Emperor nor Redeemer, but the Emperor-God. The slime shall become sap and the sap become spirit! From gorilla to God! Man in the coming Third Kingdom may say: "I, too, am a god." But is this not blasphemous? And after the wheel of the universe has again revolved, will I see, as foresaw Nietzsche, the selfsame spider, the same moonlight? There is nothing new under the sun, says Ecclesiastes. Wretched man is never to know the entire truth but will be always at daggers drawn with his destiny. After classic Paganism came romantic Christianity; after the romantic will the pendulum swing back--or--alas! is there coming another horde of atheists with a new Attila at their head?"
He threw himself before the crucifix and sobbed.
"Lord Jesus, Our Christ! Thou art the real Christ and not the fiction of that supersubtle Greek-Jewish and boastful philosopher in Alexandria! Make for me, O God, a sign! Give me back in all its purity my faith; faith, noblest gift of all! Oh! to hear once more the thrilling of the harps divine, whereon the dawn plays, those precursors of the Eternal Harmony! _Gloria in Excelsis_." He remained prostrate, his heart no longer battered by doubts and swimming in blissful love for his crucified God. The celestial hurricane subsided in his bosom; he arose and again interrogated the heavens. The stars in the profound splendours of the sky stared at him like the naked eyes of _houris_. Suddenly a vast white cloud sailed over the edge of the horizon and as it approached his habitation assumed the shape of a monstrous dove, its fleecy wings moving in solemn rhythms. In the resurgence of his hopes this apparition was the coveted sign from the Almighty.
And flat upon the floor of his cell, his face abased in the dust, Hyzlo worshipped in epileptic frenzy, crying aloud, after the manner of the sad-tongued Preacher:--
"The thing that hath been, it _is_ that which shall be!"
XI
THE HAUNTED HARPSICHORD
[In the Style of Mock-Mediæval Fiction]
I told Michael to look sharply to his horse. It was dusk; a few bits of torn clouds, unresolved modulations of nebulous lace, trembled over the pink pit in the west, wherein had sunk the sun; and one evening star, silver pointed, told the tale of another spent day.
Michael was surly, I was impatient, and the groom, who lagged in the rear, whistled softly; but I knew that both men were tired and hungry, and so were the horses. The road, hard and free from dust, echoed the resilient hoof-falls of our beasts. The early evening was finely cool, for it was the month of September. We had lost our way. Green fields on either side, and before us the path declined down a steep slope, that lost itself in huddled foliage.
Michael spoke up:--
"We are astray. I knew this damnable excursion would lead to no good."
I gently chided him. "Pooh, you braggart! Even Arnold, who rides a brute a world too wide for him, has not uttered a complaint. Brave Michael, if her ladyship heard you now!"
His face grew hard as he muttered:--
"Her ladyship! may all the saints in the calendar watch over her ladyship! But I wish she had never taken you at your hot-headed word. Then we would not have launched upon this madcap adventure."
I grew stern. "Her ladyship, I bid you remember, my worthy man, is our mistress, and it ill behooves you to question her commands, especially in the presence of a groom."
Michael growled, and then the sudden turn in the road startled our horses on a gallop, and for a quarter of an hour we thrashed our way ahead in the twilight. We had entered a small thicket when an ejaculation from Arnold--who had been riding abreast--brought us all up to a sharp standstill.
"There's a light," said the groom, in a most tranquil manner, pointing his heavy crop stick to the left. How we had missed seeing the inn from the crest of the hill was strange. A hundred yards away stood a low, red-tiled house, with lights burning downstairs, and an unmistakable air of hostlery for man and beast. We veered at once in our course, and in a few minutes were hallooing for the host or the hostler.
"Now I hope that you are satisfied, my friend," I said exultantly to Michael, who only grunted as he swung off his animal. Arnold followed, and soon we were chatting with an amiable old man in a white cap and apron, who had run out of the house when we shouted.
"Amboise?" he answered me when I told him of our destination. "Amboise; why, sirrah, you are a good five leagues from Amboise! Step within and remain here for the night. I have plenty of convenience for you and your suite."
I glanced at Michael, but he was busily employed in loosening his pistols from the holster, and Arnold, in company with a lame man, led the horses to the stable. There was little use in vain regrets. The _other_ had the start of the half-day, and surely we could go no further that night. I gritted my teeth as the little fat landlord led us into the house.
In half an hour we were smoking our pipes before a lively fire--the night had grown chilly--and enjoying silent recollections of a round of beef and several bottles of fortifying burgundy.
Our groom had gone to bed, and I soon saw that I could get nothing out of Michael for the present. He stared moodily into the fire. I noticed that his pistols were handy. The host came in and asked my permission to join us. He felt lonely, he explained, for he was a widower, and his only son was away in the world somewhere. I was very glad to ease myself with gossip; my heart was not quite at peace with this expedition of ours. I knew what her ladyship asked of us was much, so much that only a bold spirit and a thirst for the unknown could pardon the folly of the chase.
I bade the innkeeper to take a seat at the fire, and soon we fell to chatting like ladies' maids. He was a Norman and curious as a cat. He opened his inquiries delicately.
"You have ridden far and fast to-day, my sir. Your horses were all but done for. Yet there is no cloud of war in the sky and you are too far from Paris to be honourable envoys. I hope you like our country?"
I dodged his tentative attempt at prying by asking him a question myself.
"You don't seem to have many guests, good host? Yet do I hardly wonder at it. You are all but swallowed up in the green and too far from the main travelled road."
The little man sighed and said in sad accents: "Too true, yet the Scarlet Dragon was once a thriving place, a fine money-breeding house. Before my son went away--"
I interrupted him. "Your son, what is he, and where is he now?"
The other became visibly agitated and puffed at his pipe some minutes before replying.
"Alas! worthy sir," he said at last in a lower key, "my son dare not return here for reasons I cannot divulge. Indeed, this was no cheerful house for the boy. He had his ambitions and he left me to pursue them."
"What does he do, this youngster?" interrupted Michael, in his gruffest tones. The landlord started.
"Indeed, good sir, I could not tell you, for I know not myself."
"Humph!" grunted my sullen companion; but I observed his suspicious little eyes fixed persistently on the man of the inn.
I turned the talk, which had threatened to languish. The old man did not relish the questions about his son, and began deploring the poor crops. At this juncture an indefinable feeling that we were losing time in stopping at this lonely place came over me. I am not superstitious, but I swear that I felt ill at ease and confused in my plans.
On bended knee I had sworn to my lady that I would bring back to her the fugitive unharmed, and I would never return to her empty-handed, confessing failure. Michael's queer behaviour disconcerted me. From the outset of the chase he had turned sour and inaccessible, and now he was so ill-tempered that I feared he would pick a quarrel at the slightest provocation with our host.
With a strange sinking at the heart I asked about our horses.
"They will be attended to, my sirs; my servant is a good boy. He is handy, although he can't get about lively, for he was thrown in a turnip field from our only donkey."
I was in no mood for this sort of chatter and quizzed the fellow as to our beds.
"We must be off early in the morning; we have important business to transact at Amboise before the sun sets to-morrow," I testily remarked.
"At Amboise--h'm, h'm! Well, I don't mind telling you that you can reach Amboise by stroke of noon; and so you have business at Amboise, eh?"
I saw Michael's brow lower at this wheedling little man's question, and answered rather hastily and imprudently:--
"Yes, business, my good man, important business, as you will see when we return this road to-morrow night with the prize we are after."
Michael jumped up and cried "Damnation!" and I at once saw my mistake. The landlord's manner instantly altered. He looked at me triumphantly and said:--
"Beds, beds! but, my honoured sirs, I have no beds in the house. I forgot to tell you that no guest has been upstairs in years, for certain reasons. Indeed, sirs, I am so embarrassed! I should have told you at once I have only a day trade. My regular customers would not dare to stop here over night, as the house,"--here a cunning, even sinister, look spread over the fellow's fat face--"the house bears an evil reputation."
Michael started and crossed himself, but not I. I suspected some deep devilry and determined to discover it.
"So ho? Haunted, eh? Well, ghosts and old women's stories shan't make me budge until dawn. Go fetch more wine and open it here, mine host of the Scarlet Dragon," I roared. The little man was nonplussed, hesitated a moment, and then trotted off.
I saw that Michael was at last aroused.
"What diabolical fooling is this? If the place is haunted, I'm off."
"I'm damned if I am," I said quite bravely, and more wine appeared. We both sat down.
The air had become nipping, and the blaze on the hearth was reassuring. Besides, the wind was querulous, and I didn't fancy a ride at midnight, even if my lady's quest were an urgent one.
Michael held his peace as the wine was poured out, and I insisted on the landlord drinking with us. We finished two bottles, and I sent for more. I foresaw that sleep was out of the question, and so determined to make a night of it.
"Touching upon this ghost," I began, when the other bade me in God's name not to jest. There were some things, he said, not to be broached in honest Christian company.
"A fig for your scruples!" I cried, emptying my glass; my head was hot and I felt bold. "A fig, I say, for your bogie-man nonsense! Tell me at what time doth this phantom choose to show itself." The landlord shivered and drew his seat closer to the fire.
"Oh, sir, do not jest! What I tell you is no matter for rude laughter. Begging your pardon for my offer, if you will be patient, I will relate to you the story, and how my misfortune came from this awful visitant."
Even Michael seemed placated, and after I nodded my head in token of assent the landlord related to us this story:--
* * * * *
Once upon a time, sirs, when the great and good Louis, sixteenth of his name, was King of France, this domain was the property of the Duke of Langlois. The duke was proud and rich, and prouder and haughtier was his duchess, who was born Berri. Ah! they were mighty folk then, before the Revolution came with its sharp axes to clip off their heads. This inn was the stable of the château, which stood off yonder in the woods. Alas! nothing remains of it to-day but a few blackened foundations, for it was burned to the earth by the red devils in '93. But at the time I speak of, the château was a big, rich palace, full of gay folk; all the nobility came there, and the duchess ruled the land.
She was crazy for music, and to such lengths did she go in her madness that she even invited as her guests celebrated composers and singers. The duke was old-fashioned and hated those crazy people who lived only to hum and strum. He would have none of them, and quarrels with his duchess were of daily occurrence. Indeed, sirs, so bad did it become that he swore that he would leave the house if Messire Gluck, or Messire Piccini, or any of the other strolling vagabonds--so the duke called them--entered his château. And he kept his word, did the duke. The Chevalier Gluck, a fine, shapely man, was invited down by the duchess and amused her and her guests by playing his wonderful tunes on the beautiful harpsichord in the great salon.
The duke would have none of this nonsense and went to Paris, where he amused himself gambling and throwing gold into his mistresses' laps. The duchess kept right on, and then the gossips of the neighbourhood began to wag their busy tongues. The lady of the château was getting very fine pleasure from the company of the handsome Austrian chevalier. It was whispered that the Queen Marie Antoinette had looked with favourable eyes upon the composer, and, furthermore, had lent him certain moneys to further his schemes for reforming the stage.
Reform, forsooth! all he cared for was the company of the duchess, and he vowed that he could make better music at the château than up in noisy Paris. On a fine afternoon it is said that it was no uncommon sight to see the chevalier, all togged up in his bravest court costume, sword and all, sitting at his harpsichord, playing ravishing music. This was out in the pretty little park back of the château, and the duchess would sit at Gluck's side and pour out champagne for him. All this may have been idle talk, but at last the duke got wind of the rumours, and one night he surprised the pair playing a duo at the harpsichord, and stabbed them both dead.
Since then the château was burned down, but the place has been haunted. I, myself, good gentlemen, have heard ghostly music, and I swear to you--
"Oh, my God, listen, listen!"
"What pagan nonsense!" blurted out Michael.
I cautioned silence, and we all listened. The old man had slid off his chair, and his face was chalky white. Michael's ugly mouth was half opened in his black beard, and I confess that I felt rather chilly.