Hypatia - Charles Kingsley (best books to read for students txt) 📗

‘Welcome! I have expected you. You could not surprise old Miriam. The teraph told me last night that you would be here….’

Did she see the smile of incredulity upon Raphael’s face, or was it some sudden pang of conscience which made her cry out—

‘.... No! I did not! I never expected you! I am a liar, a miserable old liar, who cannot speak the truth, even if I try! Only look kind! Smile at me, Raphael!—Raphael come back at last to his poor, miserable, villainous old mother! Smile on me but once, my beautiful, my son! my son!’

And springing to him, she clasped him in her arms.

‘Your son?’

‘Yes, my son! Safe at last! Mine at last! I can prove it now! The son of my womb, though not the son of my vows!’ And she laughed hysterically. ‘My child, my heir, for whom I have toiled and hoarded for three-and-thirty years! Quick! here are my keys. In that cabinet are all my papers—all I have is yours. Your jewels are safe—buried with mine. The negro-woman, Eudaimon’s wife, knows where. I made her swear secrecy upon her little wooden idol, and, Christian as she is, she has been honest. Make her rich for life. She hid your poor old mother, and kept her safe to see her boy come home. But give nothing to her little husband: he is a bad fellow, and beats her.—Go, quick! take your riches, and away! .... No; stay one moment just one little moment—that the poor old wretch may feast her eyes with the sight of her darling once more before she dies!’

‘Before you die? Your son? God of my fathers, what is the meaning of all this, Miriam? This morning I was the son of Ezra the merchant of Antioch!’

‘His son and heir, his son and heir! He knew all at last. We told him on his death-bed! I swear that we told him, and he adopted you!’

‘We! Who?’

‘His wife and I. He craved for a child, the old miser, and we gave him one—a better one than ever came of his family. But he loved you, accepted you, though he did know all. He was afraid of being laughed at after he was dead—afraid of having it known that he was childless, the old dotard! No—he was right—true Jew in that, after all!’

‘Who was my father, then?’ interrupted Raphael, in utter bewilderment.

The old woman laughed a laugh so long and wild, that Raphael shuddered.

‘Sit down at your mother’s feet. Sit down …. just to please the poor old thing! Even if you do not believe her, just play at being her child, her darling, for a minute before she dies; and she will tell you all …. perhaps there is time yet!’

And he sat down …. ‘What if this incarnation of all wickedness were really my mother? .... And yet—why should I shrink thus proudly from the notion? Am I so pure myself as to deserve a purer source?’ .... And the old woman laid her hand fondly on his head, and her skinny fingers played with his soft locks, as she spoke hurriedly and thick.

‘Of the house of Jesse, of the seed of Solomon; not a rabbi from Babylon to Rome dare deny that! A king’s daughter I am, and a king’s heart I had, and have, like Solomon’s own, my son! .... A kingly heart …. It made me dread and scorn to be a slave, a plaything, a soul-less doll, such as Jewish women are condemned to be by their tyrants, the men. I craved for wisdom, renown, power—power—power! and my nation refused them to me; because, forsooth, I was a woman! So I left them. I went to the Christian priests …. They gave me what I asked …. They gave me more …. They pampered my woman’s vanity, my pride, my self-will, my scorn of wedded bondage, and bade me be a saint, the judge of angels and archangels, the bride of God! Liars! liars! And so—if you laugh, you kill me, Raphael—and so Miriam, the daughter of Jonathan—Miriam, of the house of David— Miriam, the descendant of Ruth and Rachab, of Rachel and Sara, became a Christian nun, and shut herself up to see visions, and dream dreams, and fattened her own mad self-conceit upon the impious fancy that she was the spouse of the Nazarene, Joshua Bar-Joseph, whom she called Jehovah Ishi—Silence! If you stop me a moment, it may be too late. I hear them calling me already; and I made them promise not to take me before I had told all to my son—the son of my shame!’

‘Who calls you?’ asked Raphael; but after one strong shudder she ran on, unheeding—

‘But they lied, lied, lied! I found them out that day …. Do not look up at me, and I will tell you all. There was a riot—a fight between the Christian devils and the Heathen devils—and the convent was sacked, Raphael, my son .... Then I found out their blasphemy …. Oh God! I shrieked to Him, Raphael! I called on Him to rend His heavens and come down—to pour out His thunderbolts upon them—to cleave the earth and devour them—to save the wretched helpless girl who adored Him, who had given up father, mother, kinsfolk, wealth, the light of heaven, womanhood itself, for Him— who worshipped, meditated over Him, dreamed of Him night and day …. And, Raphael, He did not hear me …. He did not hear me! .... did not hear the! .... And then I knew it all for a lie! a lie!’

‘And you knew it for what it is!’ cried Raphael through his sobs, as he thought of Victoria, and felt every vein burning with righteous wrath.

—‘There was no mistaking that test, was there? .... For nine months I was mad. And then your voice, my baby, my joy, my pride that brought me to myself once more! And I shook off the dust of my feet against those Galilean priests, and went back to my own nation, where God had set me from the beginning. I made them—the Rabbis, my father, my kin—I made them all receive me. They could not stand before my eye. I can stake people do what I will, Raphael! I could—I could make you emperor now, if I had but time left! I went back. I palmed you off on Ezra as his son, I and his wife, and made him believe that you had been born to him while he was in Byzantium …. And then—to live for you! And I did live for you. For you I travelled from India to Britain, seeking wealth. For you I toiled, hoarded, lied, intrigued, won money by every means, no matter how base—for was it not for you? And I have conquered! You are the richest Jew south of the Mediterranean, you, my son! And you deserve your wealth. You have your mother’s soul in you, my boy! I watched you, gloried in you—in your cunning, your daring, your learning, your contempt for these Gentile hounds. You felt the royal blood of Solomon within you! You felt that you were a young lion of Judah, and they the jackals who followed to feed upon your leavings! And now, now! Your only danger is past! The cunning woman is gone—the sorceress who tried to take my young lion in her pitfall, and has fallen into the midst of it herself; and he is safe, and returned to take the nations for a prey, and grind their bones to powder, as it is written, “He couched like a lion, he lay down like a lioness’s whelp, and who dare rouse him up?”’

‘Stop!’ said Raphael, ‘I must speak! Mother! I must! As you love me, as you expect me to love you, answer! Had you a hand in her death? Speak!’

‘Did I not tell you that I was no more a Christian? Had I remained one—who can tell what I might not have done? All I, the Jewess, dare do was—Fool that I am! I have forgotten all this time the proof—the proof—’

‘I need no proof, mother. Your words are enough,’ said Raphael, as he clasped her hand between his own, and pressed it to his burning forehead. But the old woman hurried on ‘See! See the black agate which you gave her in your madness!’

‘How did you obtain that?’

‘I stole it—stole it, my son; as thieves steal, and are crucified for stealing. What was the chance of the cross to a mother yearning for her child?—to a mother who put round her baby’s neck, three- and-thirty black years ago, that broken agate, and kept the other half next her own heart by day and night? See! See how they fit! Look, and believe your poor old sinful mother! Look, I say!’ and she thrust the talisman into his hands.

‘Now, let me die! I vowed never to tell this secret but to you: never to tell it to you, until the night I died. Farewell, my son! Kiss me but once—once, my child, my joy! Oh, this makes up for all! Makes up even for that day, the last on which I ever dreamed myself the bride of the Nazarene!’

Raphael felt that he must speak, now or never. Though it cost him the loss of all his wealth, and a mother’s curse, he must speak. And not daring to look up, he said gently—

‘Men have lied to you about Him, mother: but has He ever lied to you about Himself? He did not lie to me when He sent me out into the world to find a man, and sent me back again to you with the good news that The Man is born into the world.’

But to his astonishment, instead of the burst of bigoted indignation which he had expected, Miriam answered in a low, confused, abstracted voice—

‘And did He send you hither? Well—that was more like what I used to fancy Him….A grand thought it is after all—a Jew the king of heaven and earth! .... Well—I shall know soon …. I loved Him once, .... and perhaps….perhaps….’

Why did her head drop heavily upon his shoulder? He turned—a dark stream of blood was flowing from her lips! He sprang to his feet. The girls rushed in. They tore open her shawl, and saw the ghastly wound, which she had hidden with such iron resolution to the last. But it was too late. Miriam the daughter of Solomon was gone to her own place.

...............

Early the next morning, Raphael was standing in Cyril’s anteroom, awaiting an audience. There were loud voices within; and after a while a tribune—whom he knew well hurried out, muttering curses—

‘What brings you here, friend?‘said Raphael.

‘The scoundrel will not give them up,’ answered he, in an undertone.

‘Give up whom?’

‘The murderers. They are in sanctuary now at the Caesareum. Orestes sent me to demand them: and this fellow defies him openly!’ And the tribune hurried out.

Raphael, sickened with disgust, half-turned to follow him: but his better angel conquered, and he obeyed the summons of the deacon who