Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley (e book reader TXT) 📗
- Author: Charles Kingsley
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Cyril was still silent; whilst Peter’s brow clouded fast. At last he answered—
‘The cause wants martyrs. Send the boy to me.’
Peter went down with a shrug, and an expression of face which looked but too like envy, and ushered up the trembling youth, who dropped on his knees as soon as he entered.
‘So you wish to go into the heathen woman’s lecture-room, and defy her? Have you courage for it?’
‘God will give it me.’
‘You will be murdered by her pupils.’
‘I can defend myself,’ said Philammon, with a pardonable glance downward at his sinewy limbs. ‘And if not: what death more glorious than martyrdom?’
Cyril smiled genially enough. ‘Promise me two things.’
‘Two thousand, if you will.’
‘Two are quite difficult enough to keep. Youth is rash in promises, and rasher in forgetting them. Promise me that, whatever happens, you will not strike the first blow.’
‘I do.’
‘Promise me again, that you will not argue with her.’
‘What then?’
‘Contradict, denounce, defy. But give no reasons. If you do, you are lost. She is subtler than the serpent, skilled in all the tricks of logic, and you will become a laughing-stock, and run away in shame. Promise me.’
‘I do.’
‘Then go.’
‘When?’
‘The sooner the better. At what hour does the accursed woman lecture to-morrow, Peter?’
‘We saw her going to the Museum at nine this morning.’
‘Then go at nine to-morrow. There is money for you.’
‘What is this for?’ asked Philammon, fingering curiously the first coins which he ever had handled in his life.
‘To pay for your entrance. To the philosopher none enters without money. Not so to the Church of God, open all day long to the beggar and the slave. If you convert her, well. And if not’.... And he added to himself between his teeth, ‘And if not, well also—perhaps better.’
‘Ay!’ said Peter bitterly, as he ushered Philammon out. ‘Go up to Ramoth Gilead, and prosper, young fool! What evil spirit sent you here to feed the noble patriarch’s only weakness?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Philammon, as fiercely as he dare.
‘The fancy that preachings, and protestations, and martyrdoms can drive out the Canaanites, who can only be got rid of with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. His uncle Theophilus knew that well enough. If he had not, Olympiodorus might have been master of Alexandria, and incense burning before Serapis to this day. Ay, go, and let her convert you! Touch the accursed thing, like Achan, and see if you do not end by having it in your tent. Keep company with the daughters of Midian, and see if you do not join yourself to Baal poor, and eat the offerings of the dead!’
And with this encouraging sentence, the two parted for the night.
CHAPTER VIII: THE EAST WIND
As Hypatia went forth the next morning, in all her glory, with a crowd of philosophers and philosophasters, students, and fine gentlemen, following her in reverend admiration across the street to her lecture-room, a ragged beggar-man, accompanied by a huge and villainous-looking dog, planted himself right before her, and extending a dirty hand, whined for an alms.
Hypatia, whose refined taste could never endure the sight, much less the contact, of anything squalid and degraded, recoiled a little, and bade the attendant slave get rid of the man with a coin. Several of the younger gentlemen, however, considered themselves adepts in that noble art of ‘upsetting’ then in vogue in the African universities, to which we all have reason enough to be thankful, seeing that it drove Saint Augustine from Carthage to Rome; and they, in compliance with the usual fashion of tormenting any simple creature who came in their way by mystification and insult, commenced a series of personal witticisms, which the beggar bore stoically enough. The coin was offered him, but he blandly put aside the hand of the giver, and keeping his place on the pavement, seemed inclined to dispute Hypatia’s farther passage.
‘What do you want? Send the wretch and his frightful dog away, gentlemen!’ said the poor philosopher in some trepidation.
‘I know that dog,’ said one of them; ‘it is Aben-Ezra’s. Where did you find it before it was lost, you rascal.’
‘Where your mother found you when she palmed you off upon her goodman, my child—in the slave-market. Fair Sybil, have you already forgotten your humblest pupil, as these young dogs have, who are already trying to upset their master and instructor in the angelic science of bullying?’
And the beggar, lifting his broad straw hat, disclosed the features of Raphael Aben-Ezra. Hypatia recoiled with a shriek of surprise.
‘Ah! you are astonished. At what, I pray?’
‘To see you, sir, thus!’
‘Why, then? You have been preaching to us all a long time the glory of abstraction from the allurements of sense. It augurs ill, surely, for your estimate either of your pupils or of your own eloquence, if you are so struck with consternation because one of them has actually at last obeyed you.’
‘What is the meaning of this masquerade, most excellent sir?’ asked Hypatia and a dozen voices beside.
‘Ask Cyril. I am on my way to Italy, in the character of the New Diogenes, to look, like him, for a man. When I have found one, I shall feel great pleasure in returning to acquaint you with the amazing news. Farewell! I wished to look once more at a certain countenance, though I have turned, as you see, Cynic; and intend henceforth to attend no teacher but my dog, who will luckily charge no fees for instruction; if she did, I must go untaught, for my ancestral wealth made itself wings yesterday morning. You are aware, doubtless, of the Plebiscitum against the Jews, which was carried into effect under the auspices of a certain holy tribune of the people?’
‘Infamous!’
‘And dangerous, my dear lady. Success is inspiriting.... and Theon’s house is quite as easily sacked, as the Jews’ quarter.... Beware.’
‘Come, come, Aben-Ezra,’ cried the young men; ‘you are far too good company for us to lose you for that rascally patriarch’s fancy. We will make a
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