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St. Elmo

<h2 id="id00893" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XII.</h2> "I do not wish to interrupt you. There is certainly room enough in this library for both, and my entrance need not prove the signal for your departure." Mr. Murray closed the door as he came in, and walking up to the book-cases, stood carefully examining the titles of the numerous volumes. It was a cold, dismal morning, and sobbing wintry winds and the ceaseless pattering of rain made the outer world seem dreary in comparison with the genial atmosphere and the ruddy glow of the cosy, luxurious library, where choice exotics breathed their fragrance and early hyacinths exhaled their rich perfume. In the centre of the morocco-covered table stood a tall glass bowl, filled with white camellias, and from its scalloped edges drooped a fringe of scarlet fuchsias; while near the window was a china statuette, in whose daily adornment Edna took unwearied interest. It was a lovely Flora, whose slender fingers held aloft small tulip-shaped vases, into which fresh blossoms were inserted every morning. The head was so arranged as to contain water, and thus preserve the wreath of natural flowers which crowned the goddess. To-day golden crocuses nestled down on the streaming hair, and purple pansies filled the fairy hands, while the tiny, rosy feet sank deep in the cushion of fine, green mosses, studded with double violets. Edna had risen to leave the room when the master of the house entered, but at his request resumed her seat and continued reading. After searching the shelves unavailingly, he glanced over his shoulder and asked: "Have you seen my copy of De Guerin's 'Centaur' anywhere about the house? I had it a week ago." "I beg your pardon, sir, for causing such a fruitless search; here is the book. I picked it up on the front steps, where you were reading a few afternoons since, and it opened at a passage that attracted my attention." She closed the volume and held it toward him, but he waved it back. "Keep it if it interests you. I have read it once, and merely wished to refer to a particular passage. Can you guess what sentence most frequently recurs to me? If so, read it to me." He drew a chair close to the hearth and lighted his cigar. Hesitatingly Edna turned the leaves. "I am afraid, sir, that my selection would displease you." "I will risk it, as, notwithstanding your flattering opinion to the contrary, I am not altogether so unreasonable as to take offense at a compliance with my own request." Still she shrank from the task he imposed, and her fingers toyed with the scarlet fuchsias; but after eyeing her for a while, he leaned forward and pushed the glass bowl beyond her reach. "Edna, I am waiting." "Well, then, Mr. Murray, I should think that these two passages would impress you with peculiar force." Raising the book she read with much emphasis: "Thou pursuest after wisdom, O Melampus! which is the science of the will of the gods; AND THOU ROAMEST FROM PEOPLE TO PEOPLE, LIKE A MORTAL DRIVEN BY THE DESTINIES. In the times when I kept my night-watches before the caverns, I have sometimes believed that I was about to surprise the thoughts of the sleeping Cybele, and that the mother of the gods, betrayed by her dreams, would let fall some of her secrets. But I have never yet made out more than sounds which faded away in the murmur of night, of words inarticulate as the bubbling of the rivers. * * * * * * * "Seekest thou to know the gods, O Macareus! and from what source men, animals, and the elements of the universal fire have their origin? The aged ocean, the father of all things, keeps locked within his own breast these secrets; and the nymphs who stand around sing as they weave their eternal dance before him, to cover any sound which might escape from his lips, half opened by slumber. Mortals dear to the gods for their virtue have received from their hands lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds of new plants to make him rich, but from their inexorable lips—nothing!" "Mr. Murray, am I correct in my conjecture?" "Quite correct," he answered, smiling grimly. Taking the book from her hand he threw it on the table, and tossed his cigar into the grate, adding in a defiant, challenging tone: "The mantle of Solomon did not fall at Le Cayla on the shoulders of Maurice de Guerin. After all, he was a wretched hypochondriac, and a tinge of le cahier vert doubtless crept into his eyes." "Do you forget, sir, that he said, 'When one is a wanderer, one feels that one fulfills the true condition of humanity'? and that among his last words are these, 'The stream of travel is full of delight. Oh! who will set me adrift on this Nile?'" "Pardon me if I remind you, par parenthese, of the preliminary and courteous En garde! which should be pronounced before a thrust. De Guerin felt starved in Languedoc, and no wonder! But had he penetrated every nook and cranny of the habitable globe, and traversed the vast zaarahs which science accords the universe, he would have died at last as hungry as Ugolino. I speak advisedly, for the true Io gad-fly, ennui, has stung me from hemisphere to hemisphere, across tempestuous oceans, scorching deserts, and icy mountain ranges. I have faced alike the bourrans of the steppes and the Samieli of Shamo, and the result of my vandal life is best epitomized in those grand but grim words of Bossuet: 'On trouve au fond de tout le vide et le neant.' Nineteen years ago, to satisfy my hunger, I set out to hunt the daintiest food this world could furnish, and, like other fools, have learned finally, that life is but a huge, mellow, golden Osher, that mockingly sifts its bitter dust upon our eager lips. Ah! truly, on trouve au fond de tout le vide et le neant!" "Mr. Murray, if you insist upon your bitter Osher smile, why shut your eyes to the palpable analogy suggested? Naturalists assert that the Solanum, or apple of Sodom, contains in its normal state neither dust nor ashes, unless it is punctured by an insect (the Tenthredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without any loss of color. Human life is as fair and tempting as the fruit of 'Ain Jidy,' till stung and poisoned by the Tenthredo of sin." All conceivable suaviter in modo characterized his mocking countenance and tone, as he inclined his haughty head and asked: "Will you favor me by lifting on the point of your dissecting-knife this stinging sin of mine to which you refer? The noxious brood swarm so teasingly about my ears that they deprive me of your cool, clear, philosophic discrimination. Which particular Tenthredo of the buzzing swarm around my spoiled apple of life would you advise me to select for my anathema maranatha?" "Of your history, sir, I am entirely ignorant; and even if I were not, I should not presume to levy a tax upon it in discussions with you; for, however vulnerable you may possibly be, I regard an argumentum ad hominem as the weakest weapon in the armory of dialectics—a weapon too often dipped in the venom of personal malevolence. I merely gave expression to my belief that miserable, useless lives are sinful lives; that when God framed the world, and called the human race into it, he made most munificent provision for all healthful hunger, whether physical, intellectual, or moral; and that it is a morbid, diseased, distorted nature that wears out its allotted years on earth in bitter carping and blasphemous dissatisfaction. The Greeks recognized this immemorial truth—wrapped it in classic traditions, and the myth of Tantalus constituted its swaddling-clothes. You are a scholar, Mr. Murray; look back and analyze the derivation and significance of that fable. Tantalus, the son of Pluto, or Wealth, was, according to Pindar, 'a wanderer from happiness,' and the name represents a man abounding in wealth, but whose appetite was so insatiable, even at the ambrosial feast of the gods, that it ultimately doomed him to eternal unsatisfied thirst and hunger in Tartarus. The same truth crops out in the legend of Midas, who found himself starving while his touch converted all things to gold." "Doubtless you have arrived at the charitable conclusion that, as I am endowed with all the amiable idiosyncrasies of ancient cynics, I shall inevitably join the snarling Dives Club in Hades, and swell the howling chorus. Probably I shall not disappoint your kind and eminently Christian expectations; nor will I deprive you of the gentle satisfaction of hissing across the gulf of perdition, which will then divide us, that summum bonum of feminine felicity, 'I told you so!'" The reckless mockery of his manner made Edna shiver, and a tremor crept across her beautiful lips as she answered sadly: "You torture my words into an interpretation of which I never dreamed, and look upon all things through the distorting lenses of your own moodiness. It is worse than useless for us to attempt an amicable discussion, for your bitterness never slumbers, your suspicions are ever on the qui vive." She rose, but he quickly laid his hand on her shoulder, and pressed her back into the chair. "You will be so good as to sit still, and hear me out. I have a right to all my charming, rose-colored views of this world. I have gone to and fro on the earth, and life has proved a Barmecide's banquet of just thirty-eight years' duration." "But, sir, you lacked the patience and resolution of Shacabac, or, like him, you would have finally grasped the splendid realities. The world must be conquered, held in bondage to God's law and man's reason, before we can hope to levy tribute that will support our moral and mental natures; and it is only when humanity finds itself in the inverted order of serfdom to the world, that it dwarfs its capacities, and even then dies of famine." The scornful gleam died out of his eyes, and mournful compassion stole in. "Ah! how impetuously youth springs to the battlefield of life! Hope exorcises the gaunt spectre of defeat, and fancy fingers unwon trophies and fadeless bays; but slow-stepping experience, pallid, blood-stained, spent with toil, lays her icy hand on the rosy veil that floats before bright, brave, young eyes, and lo' the hideous wreck, the bleaching bones, the grinning, ghastly horrors that strew the scene of combat! No burnished eagles nor streaming banners, neither spoils of victory nor paeans of triumph, only silence and gloom and death—slow-sailing vultures—and a voiceless desolation! Oh, child! if you would find a suitable type of that torn and trampled battlefield—the human heart—when vice and virtue, love and hate, revenge and remorse, have wrestled fiercely for the mastery—go back to your Tacitus, and study there the dismal picture of that lonely Teutoburgium, where Varus and his legions went down in the red burial of battle! You talk of 'conquering the world—holding it in bondage!' What do you know of its perils and subtle temptations—of the glistening quicksands whose smooth lips already gape to engulf you? The very vilest fiend in hell might afford to pause and pity your delusion ere turning to machinations destined to rouse you rudely from your silly dreams. Ah! you remind me of a little innocent, happy child, playing on some shining beach, when the sky is quiet, the winds are hushed, and all things wrapped in rest, save 'The water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds'— a fair, fearless child, gathering polished pearly shells with which to build fairy palaces, and suddenly, as she catches the mournful murmur of the immemorial sea, that echoes in the flushed and folded chambers of the stranded shells, her face pales with awe and wonder—the childish lips part, the childish eyes are strained to discover the mystery; and while the whispering monotone admonishes of howling storms and sinking argosies, she smiles and listens, sees only the glowing carmine of the fluted reels, hears only the magic music of the sea sirens—and the sky blackens, the winds leap to their track of ruin, the great deep rises wrathful and murderous, bellowing for victims, and Cyclone reigns? Thundering waves sweep over and bear away the frail palaces that decked the strand, and even while the shell symphony still charms the ear, the child's rosy feet are washed from their sandy resting-place; she is borne on howling billows far out to a lashed and maddened main, strewn with human drift; and numb with horror she sinks swiftly to a long and final rest among purple algae! Even so, Edna, you stop your ears with shells, and my warning falls like snow-flakes that melt and vanish on the bosom of a stream. "No, sirs I am willing to be advised. Against what would you warn me?" "The hollowness of life, the fatuity of your hopes, the treachery of that human nature of which you speak so tenderly and reverently. So surely as you put faith in the truth and nobility of humanity, you will find it as soft-lipped and vicious as Paolo Orsini, who folded his wife, Isabella de Medici, most lovingly in his arms, and while he tenderly pressed her to his heart, slipped a cord around her neck and strangled her." "I know, sir, that human nature is weak, selfish, sinful—that such treacherous monsters as Ezzolino and the Visconti have stained the annals of our race with blood-blotches, which the stream of time will never efface; but the law of compensation operates here as well as in other departments, and brings to light a 'fidus Achates' and Antoninus. I believe that human nature is a curious amalgam of meanness, malice and magnanimity, and that an earnest, loving Christian charity is the only safe touchstone, and furnishes (if you will tolerate the simile) the only elective affinity in moral chemistry. Because ingots are not dug out of the earth, is it not equally unwise and ungrateful to ridicule and denounce the hopeful, patient, tireless laborers who handle the alloy and ultimately disintegrate the precious metal? Even if the world were bankrupt in morality and religion—which, thank God, it is not—one grand shining example, like Mr. Hammond, whose unswerving consistency, noble charity, and sublime unselfishness all concede and revere, ought to leaven the mass of sneering cynics, and win them to a belief in their capacity for rising to pure, holy, almost perfect lives." "Spare me a repetition of the rhapsodies of Madame Guyon! I am not surprised that such a novice as you prove yourself should, in the stereotyped style of orthodoxy, swear by the hoary Tartuffe, that hypocritical wolf, Allan Hammond—" "Stop, Mr. Murray! You must not, shall not use such language in my presence concerning one whom I love and revere above all other human beings! How dare you malign that noble Christian, whose lips daily lift your name to God, praying for pardon and for peace? Oh! how ungrateful, how unworthy you are of his affection and his prayers!" She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her hand, and stood regarding him with an expression of indignation and detestation. "I neither possess nor desire his affection or his prayers." "Sir, you know that you do not deserve, but you most certainly have both." "How did you obtain your information?" "Accidentally, when he was so surprised and grieved to hear that you had started on your long voyage to Oceanica." "He availed himself of that occasion to acquaint you with all my heinous sins, my youthful crimes and follies, my—" "No, sir! he told me nothing, except that you no longer loved him as in your boyhood; that you had become estranged from him; and then he wept, and added, 'I love him still; I shall pray for him as long as I live.'" "Impossible! You can not deceive me! In the depths of his heart he hates and curses me. Even a brooding dove—pshaw! Allan Hammond is but a man, and it would be unnatural—utterly impossible that he could still think kindly of his old pupil. Impossible!" Mr. Murray rose and stood before the grate with his face averted, and his companion seized the opportunity to say in a low, determined tone: "Of the causes that induced your estrangement I am absolutely ignorant. Nothing has been told me, and it is a matter about which I have conjectured little. But, sir, I have seen Mr. Hammond every day for four years, and I know what I say when I tell you that he loves you as well as if you were his own son. Moreover, he—" "Hush! you talk of what you do not understand. Believe in him if you will, but be careful not to chant his praises in my presence; not to parade your credulity before my eyes, if you do not desire that I shall disenchant you. Just now you are duped—so was I at your age. Your judgment slumbers, experience is in its swaddling-clothes; but I shall bide my time, and the day will come ere long when these hymns of hero-worship shall be hushed, and you stand clearer-eyed, darker-hearted, before the mouldering altar of your god of clay." "From such an awakening may God preserve me! Even if our religion were not divine, I should clasp to my heart the system and the faith that make Mr. Hammond's life serene and sublime. Oh! that I may be 'duped' into that perfection of character which makes his example beckon me ever onward and upward. If you have no gratitude, no reverence left, at least remember the veneration with which I regard him, and do not in my hearing couple his name with sneers and insults." "'Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone!'" muttered the master of the house, with one of those graceful, mocking bows that always disconcerted the orphan. She was nervously twisting Mr. Leigh's ring around her finger, and as it was too large, it slipped off, rang on the hearth, and rolled to Mr. Murray's feet. Picking it up he examined the emerald, and repeating the inscription, asked: "Do you understand these words?" "I only know that they have been translated, 'Peace be with thee, or upon thee.'" "How came Gordon Leigh's ring on your hand? Has Tartuffe's Hebrew scheme succeeded so soon and so thoroughly?" "I do not understand you, Mr. Murray." "Madame ma mere proves an admirable ally in this clerical matchmaker's deft hands, and Gordon's pathway is widened and weeded. Happy Gordon! blessed with such able coadjutors!" The cold, sarcastic glitter of his eyes wounded and humiliated the girl, and her tone was haughty and defiant— "You deal in innuendoes which I cannot condescend to notice. Mr. Leigh is my friend, and gave me this ring as a birthday present. As your mother advised me to accept it, and indeed placed it on my finger, her sanction should certainly exempt me from your censure." "Censure! Pardon me! It is no part of my business; but I happen to know something of gem symbols, and must be allowed to suggest that this selection is scarcely comme il faut for a betrothal ring." Edna's face crimsoned, and the blood tingled to her fingers' ends. "As it was never intended as such, your carping criticism loses its point." He stood with the jewel between his thumb and fore-finger, eyeing her fixedly, and on his handsome features shone a smile, treacherous and chilling as arctic snowblink. "Pliny's injunction to lapidaries to spare the smooth surface of emeralds seems to have been forgotten when this ring was fashioned. It was particularly unkind, nay, cruel to put it on the hand of a woman, who of course must and will follow the example of all her sex, and go out fishing most diligently in the matrimonial sea; for if you have chanced to look into gem history, you will remember what befell the fish on the coast of Cyprus, where the emerald eyes of the marble lion glared down so mercilessly through the nets, that the fishermen could catch nothing until they removed the jewels that constituted the eyes of the lion. Do you recollect the account?" "No, sir, I never read it." "Indeed! How deplorably your education has been neglected! I thought your adored Dominie Sampson down yonder at the parsonage was teaching you a prodigious amount?" "Give me my ring, Mr. Murray, and I will leave you." "Shall I not enlighten you on the subject of emeralds?" "Thank you, sir, I believe not, as what I have already heard does not tempt me to prosecute the subject." "You think me insufferably presumptuous?" "That is a word which I should scarcely be justified in applying to you." "You regard me as meddlesome and tyrannical?" She shook her head. "I generally prefer to receive answers to my questions. Pray, what do you consider me?" She hesitated a moment, and said sadly and gently: "Mr. Murray, is it generous in you to question me thus in your own house?" "I do not claim to be generous, and the world would indignantly defend me from such an imputation! Generous? On the contrary, I declare explicitly that, unlike some 'whited supulchres' of my acquaintance, I do not intend to stand labeled with patent virtues! Neither do I parade mezuzoth on my doors. I humbly beg you to recollect that I am not a carefully-printed perambulating advertisement of Christianity." Raising her face, Edna looked steadfastly at him, and pain, compassion, shuddering dread filled her soft, sad eyes. "Well, you are reading me. What is the verdict?" A long, heavily-drawn sigh was the only response. "Will you be good enough to reply to my questions?" "No, Mr. Murray. In lieu of perpetual strife and biting words, let there be silence between us. We can not be friends, and it would be painful to wage war here under your roof; consequently, I hope to disarm your hostility by assuring you that in future I shall not attempt to argue with you, shall not pick up the verbal gauntlets you seem disposed to throw down to me. Surely, sir, if not generous you are at least sufficiently courteous to abstain from attacks which you have been notified will not be resisted?" "You wish me to understand that hereafter I, the owner and ruler of this establishment, shall on no account presume to address my remarks to Aaron Hunt's grandchild?" "My words were very clear, Mr. Murray, and I meant what I said, and said what I meant. But one thing I wish to add: while I remain here, if at any time I can aid or serve you, Aaron Hunt's grandchild will most gladly do so. I do not flatter myself that you will ever require or accept my assistance in anything, nevertheless I would cheerfully render it should occasion arise." He bowed and returned the emerald, and Edna turned to leave the library. "Before you go, examine this bauble." He took from his vest pocket a velvet case containing a large ring, which he laid in the palm of her hand. It was composed of an oval jacinth, with a splendid scarlet fire leaping out as the light shone on it, and the diamonds that clustered around it were very costly and brilliant. There was no inscription, but upon the surface of the jacinth was engraved a female head crowned with oak leaves, among which serpents writhed and hissed, and just beneath the face grinned a dog's head. The small but exquisitely carved human face was savage, sullen, sinister, and fiery rays seemed to dart from the relentless eyes. "Is it a Medusa?" "No." "It is certainly very beautiful, but I do not recognize the face. Interpret for me." "It is Hecate, Brimo, Empusa—all phases of the same malignant power; and it remains a mere matter of taste which of the titles you select. I call it Hecate." "I have never seen you wear it." "You never will." "It is exceedingly beautiful." Edna held it toward the grate, flashed the flame now on this side, now on that, and handed it back to the owner. "Edna, I bought this ring in Naples, intending to ask your acceptance of it, in token of my appreciation of your care of that little gold key, provided I found you trustworthy. After your pronunciamento uttered a few minutes since, I presume I may save myself the trouble of offering it to you. Beside, Gordon might object to having his emerald over-shadowed by my matchless jacinth. Of course, your tender conscience will veto the thought of your wearing it?" "I thank you, Mr. Murray; the ring is, by far, the most beautiful I have ever seen, but I certainly can not accept it." "Bithus contra Bacchium!" exclaimed Mr. Murray, with a short, mirthless laugh that made his companion shrink back a few steps. Holding the ring at arm's length above his head, he continued: "To the 'infernal flames,' your fit type, I devote you, my costly Queen of Samothrace!" Leaning over the grate, he dropped the jewel in the glowing coals. "Oh, Mr. Murray! save it from destruction!" She seized the tongs and sprang forward, but he put out his arm and held her back. "Stand aside, if you please. Cleopatra quaffed liquid pearl in honor of Antony, Nero shivered his precious crystal goblets, and Suger pounded up sapphires to color the windows of old St. Denis! Chacun a son gout! If I choose to indulge myself in a diamond cremation in honor of my tutelary goddess Brimo, who has the right to expostulate? True, such costly amusements have been rare since the days of the 'Cyranides' and the 'Seven Seals' of Hermes Trismegistus. See what a tawny, angry glare leaps from my royal jacinth! Old Hecate holds high carnival down there in her congenial flames." He stood with one arm extended to bar Edna's approach, the other rested on the mantel; and a laughing, reckless demon looked out of his eyes, which were fastened on the fire. Before the orphan could recover from her sorrowful amazement the library door opened and Henry looked in. "Mr. Leigh is in the parlor, and asked for Miss Edna." Perplexed, irresolute, and annoyed, Edna stood still, watching the red coals; and after a brief silence, Mr. Murray smiled, and turned to look at her. "Pray, do not let me detain you, and rest assured that I understand your decree. You have entrenched yourself in impenetrable silence, and hung out your banner, 'noli me tangere!' Withdraw your pickets; I shall attempt neither siege nor escalade. Good morning. Leave my De Guerin on the table; it will be at your disposal after to-day." He stooped to light a cigar, and she walked away to her own room. As the door closed behind her, he laughed and reiterated the favorite proverb that often crossed his lips, "Bithus contra Bacchium!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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