Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
the passion is a disease of the heart which climbs up, up to the brain,
and feeds itself on both alike.”
In this question, Simonides for the first time showed signs of feeling;
he spoke with rapid utterance, and with clenched hands and the
eagerness of a man illustrating the disease he described.
“Good my master,” Malluch replied, “one of my reasons for believing the
young man a Jew is the intensity of his hate. It was plain to me he had
himself under watch, as was natural, seeing how long he has lived in an
atmosphere of Roman jealousy; yet I saw it blaze—once when he wanted to
know Ilderim’s feeling towards Rome, and again when I told him the
story of the sheik and the wise man, and spoke of the question, ‘Where
is he that is born King of the Jews?’”
Simonides leaned forward quickly.
“Ah, Malluch, his words—give me his words; let me judge the impression
the mystery made upon him.”
“He wanted to know the exact words. Were they TO BE or BORN TO BE? It
appeared he was struck by a seeming difference in the effect of the two
phrases.”
Simonides settled back into his pose of listening judge.
“Then,” said Malluch, “I told him Ilderim’s view of the mystery—that
the king would come with the doom of Rome. The young man’s blood rose
over his cheeks and forehead, and he said earnestly, ‘Who but a Herod
can be king while Rome endures?’”
“Meaning what?”
“That the empire must be destroyed before there could be another rule.”
Simonides gazed for a time at the ships and their shadows slowly
swinging together in the river; when he looked up, it was to end the
interview.
“Enough, Malluch,” he said. “Get you to eat, and make ready to return
to the Orchard of Palms; you must help the young man in his coming
trial. Come to me in the morning. I will send a letter to Ilderim.”
Then in an undertone, as if to himself, he added, “I may attend the
Circus myself.”
When Malluch after the customary benediction given and received was
gone, Simonides took a deep draught of milk, and seemed refreshed and
easy of mind.
“Put the meal down, Esther,” he said; “it is over.”
She obeyed.
“Here now.”
She resumed her place upon the arm of the chair close to him.
“God is good to me, very good,” he said, fervently. “His habit is to
move in mystery, yet sometimes he permits us to think we see and
understand him. I am old, dear, and must go; but now, in this eleventh
hour, when my hope was beginning to die, he sends me this one with a
promise, and I am lifted up. I see the way to a great part in a
circumstance itself so great that it shall be as a new birth to the
whole world. And I see a reason for the gift of my great riches, and
the end for which they were designed. Verily, my child, I take hold on
life anew.”
Esther nestled closer to him, as if to bring his thoughts from their
far-flying.
“The king has been born” he continued, imagining he was still speaking
to her, “and he must be near the half of common life. Balthasar says he
was a child on his mother’s lap when he saw him, and gave him presents
and worship; and Ilderim holds it was twenty-seven years ago last
December when Balthasar and his companions came to his tent asking a
hiding-place from Herod. Wherefore the coming cannot now be long
delayed. To-night—to-morrow it may be. Holy fathers of Israel, what
happiness in the thought! I seem to hear the crash of the falling of
old walls and the clamor of a universal change—ay, and for the
uttermost joy of men, the earth opens to take Rome in, and they look up
and laugh and sing that she is not, while we are;” then he laughed at
himself. “Why, Esther, heard you ever the like? Surely, I have on me
the passion of a singer, the heat of blood and the thrill of Miriam and
David. In my thoughts, which should be those of a plain worker in
figures and facts, there is a confusion of cymbals clashing and
harp-strings loud beaten, and the voices of a multitude standing around
a new-risen throne. I will put the thinking by for the present; only,
dear, when the king comes he will need money and men, for as he was a
child born of woman he will be but a man after all, bound to human ways
as you and I are. And for the money he will have need of getters and
keepers, and for the men leaders. There, there! See you not a broad
road for my walking, and the running of the youth our master?—and at
the end of it glory and revenge for us both?—and—and”—he paused, struck
with the selfishness of a scheme in which she had no part or good
result; then added, kissing her, “And happiness for thy mother’s
child.”
She sat still, saying nothing. Then he remembered the difference in
natures, and the law by which we are not permitted always to take
delight in the same cause or be equally afraid of the same thing. He
remembered she was but a girl.
“Of what are you thinking, Esther?” he said, in his common home-like
way. “If the thought have the form of a wish, give it me, little one,
while the power remains mine. For power, you know, is a fretful thing,
and hath its wings always spread for flight.”
She answered with a simplicity almost childish,
“Send for him, father. Send for him to-night, and do not let him go
into the Circus.”
“Ah!” he said, prolonging the exclamation; and again his eyes fell upon
the river, where the shadows were more shadowy than ever, since the
moon had sunk far down behind Sulpius, leaving the city to the
ineffectual stars. Shall we say it, reader? He was touched by a twinge
of jealousy. If she should really love the young master! Oh no! That
could not be; she was too young. But the idea had fast grip, and
directly held him still and cold. She was sixteen. He knew it well. On
the last natal day he had gone with her to the shipyard where there was
a launch, and the yellow flag which the galley bore to its bridal with
the waves had on it “Esther;” so they celebrated the day together. Yet
the fact struck him now with the force of a surprise. There are
realizations which come to us all painfully; mostly, however, such as
pertain to ourselves; that we are growing old, for instance; and, more
terrible, that we must die. Such a one crept into his heart, shadowy as
the shadows, yet substantial enough to wring from him a sigh which was
almost a groan. It was not sufficient that she should enter upon her
young womanhood a servant, but she must carry to her master her
affections, the truth and tenderness and delicacy of which he the
father so well knew, because to this time they had all been his own
undividedly. The fiend whose task it is to torture us with fears and
bitter thoughts seldom does his work by halves. In the pang of the
moment, the brave old man lost sight of his new scheme, and of the
miraculous king its subject. By a mighty effort, however, he controlled
himself, and asked, calmly, “Not go into the Circus, Esther? Why,
child?”
“It is not a place for a son of Israel, father.”
“Rabbinical, rabbinical, Esther! Is that all?”
The tone of the inquiry was searching, and went to her heart, which
began to beat loudly—so loudly she could not answer. A confusion new
and strangely pleasant fell upon her.
“The young man is to have the fortune,” he said, taking her hand, and
speaking more tenderly; “he is to have the ships and the shekels—all,
Esther, all. Yet I did not feel poor, for thou wert left me, and thy
love so like the dead Rachel’s. Tell me, is he to have that too?”
She bent over him, and laid her cheek against his head.
“Speak, Esther. I will be the stronger of the knowledge. In warning
there is strength.”
She sat up then, and spoke as if she were Truth’s holy self.
“Comfort thee, father. I will never leave thee; though he take my love,
I will be thy handmaid ever as now.”
And, stooping, she kissed him.
“And more,” she said, continuing: “he is comely in my sight, and the
pleading of his voice drew me to him, and I shudder to think of him in
danger. Yes, father, I would be more than glad to see him again. Still,
the love that is unrequited cannot be perfect love, wherefore I will
wait a time, remembering I am thy daughter and my mother’s.”
“A very blessing of the Lord art thou, Esther! A blessing to keep me
rich, though all else be lost. And by his holy name and everlasting
life, I swear thou shalt not suffer.”
At his request, a little later, the servant came and rolled the chair
into the room, where he sat for a time thinking of the coming of the
king, while she went off and slept the sleep of the innocent.
CHAPTER XII
The palace across the river nearly opposite Simonides’ place is said to
have been completed by the famous Epiphanes, and was all such a
habitation can be imagined; though he was a builder whose taste ran to
the immense rather than the classical, now so called—an architectural
imitator, in other words, of the Persians instead of the Greeks.
The wall enclosing the whole island to the waters edge, and built for
the double purpose of bulwark against the river and defence against the
mob, was said to have rendered the palace unfit for constant occupancy,
insomuch that the legates abandoned it and moved to another residence
erected for them on the western ridge of Mount Sulpius, under the
Temple of Jupiter. Persons were not wanting, however, who flatly denied
the bill against the ancient abode. They said, with shrewdness at
least, that the real object of the removal of the legates was not a
more healthful locality, but the assurance afforded them by the huge
barracks, named, according to the prevalent style, citadel, situated
just over the way on the eastern ridge of the mount. And the opinion
had plausible showing. Among other pertinent things, it was remarked
that the palace was kept in perpetual readiness for use; and when a
consul, general of the army, king, or visiting potentate of any kind
arrived at Antioch, quarters were at once assigned him on the island.
As we have to do with but one apartment in the old pile, the residue of
it is left to the reader’s fancy; and as pleases him, he may go through
its gardens, baths, halls, and labyrinth of rooms to the pavilions on
the roof, all furnished as became a house of fame in a city which was
more nearly Milton’s “gorgeous East” than any other in the world.
At this age the apartment alluded to would be termed a saloon. It was
quite spacious, floored with polished marble slabs, and lighted in the
day by skylights in which colored mica served as glass. The walls were
broken by Atlantes, no two of which were alike, but all supporting a
cornice wrought with arabesques exceedingly intricate in form, and more
elegant on account of superadditions of color—blue, green, Tyrian
purple, and gold. Around the room ran a continuous divan of Indian
silks and wool of Cashmere. The furniture consisted of tables and
stools of Egyptian patterns grotesquely carved. We have left Simonides
in his chair perfecting his scheme in aid of the miraculous king, whose
coming he has decided is so close at hand. Esther is asleep; and now,
having crossed the river by the bridge, and made way through the
lion-guarded gate and a number of Babylonian halls and courts, let us
enter the gilded saloon.
There are five chandeliers hanging by sliding bronze chains from the
ceiling—one in each corner, and in the centre one—enormous pyramids of
lighted lamps, illuminating even the demoniac faces of the Atlantes and
the complex tracery of the cornice. About the tables, seated or
standing, or moving restlessly from one to another, there are probably
a hundred persons, whom we must study at least for a moment.
They are all young, some of them little more than boys. That they are
Italians and mostly Romans is past doubt. They all speak Latin in
purity, while each one appears in the in-door dress of the great