Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ
So all our ideal Solomons have fair faces, and hair and beard chestnut
in the shade, and of the tint of gold in the sun. Such, we are also
made believe, were the locks of Absalom the beloved. And, in the
absence of authentic history, tradition has dealt no less lovingly by
her whom we are now following down to the native city of the ruddy
king.
She was not more than fifteen. Her form, voice, and manner belonged to
the period of transition from girlhood. Her face was perfectly oval,
her complexion more pale than fair. The nose was faultless; the lips,
slightly parted, were full and ripe, giving to the lines of the mouth
warmth, tenderness, and trust; the eyes were blue and large, and shaded
by drooping lids and long lashes; and, in harmony with all, a flood of
golden hair, in the style permitted to Jewish brides, fell unconfined
down her back to the pillion on which she sat. The throat and neck had
the downy softness sometimes seen which leaves the artist in doubt
whether it is an effect of contour or color. To these charms of feature
and person were added others more indefinable—an air of purity which
only the soul can impart, and of abstraction natural to such as think
much of things impalpable. Often, with trembling lips, she raised her
eyes to heaven, itself not more deeply blue; often she crossed her
hands upon her breast, as in adoration and prayer; often she raised her
head like one listening eagerly for a calling voice. Now and then,
midst his slow utterances, Joseph turned to look at her, and, catching
the expression kindling her face as with light, forgot his theme, and
with bowed head, wondering, plodded on.
So they skirted the great plain, and at length reached the elevation
Mar Elias; from which, across a valley, they beheld Bethlehem, the old,
old House of Bread, its white walls crowning a ridge, and shining above
the brown scumbling of leafless orchards. They paused there, and
rested, while Joseph pointed out the places of sacred renown; then they
went down into the valley to the well which was the scene of one of the
marvellous exploits of David’s strong men. The narrow space was crowded
with people and animals. A fear came upon Joseph—a fear lest, if the
town were so thronged, there might not be house-room for the gentle
Mary. Without delay, he hurried on, past the pillar of stone marking
the tomb of Rachel, up the gardened slope, saluting none of the many
persons he met on the way, until he stopped before the portal of the
khan that then stood outside the village gates, near a junction of
roads.
CHAPTER IX
To understand thoroughly what happened to the Nazarene at the khan, the
reader must be reminded that Eastern inns were different from the inns
of the Western world. They were called khans, from the Persian, and, in
simplest form, were fenced enclosures, without house or shed, often
without a gate or entrance. Their sites were chosen with reference to
shade, defence, or water. Such were the inns that sheltered Jacob when
he went to seek a wife in Padan-Aram. Their like may been seen at this
day in the stopping-places of the desert. On the other hand, some of
them, especially those on the roads between great cities, like
Jerusalem and Alexandria, were princely establishments, monuments to
the piety of the kings who built them. In ordinary, however, they were
no more than the house or possession of a sheik, in which, as in
headquarters, he swayed his tribe. Lodging the traveller was the least
of their uses; they were markets, factories, forts; places of
assemblage and residence for merchants and artisans quite as much as
places of shelter for belated and wandering wayfarers. Within their
walls, all the year round, occurred the multiplied daily transactions
of a town.
The singular management of these hostelries was the feature likely to
strike a Western mind with most force. There was no host or hostess; no
clerk, cook, or kitchen; a steward at the gate was all the assertion of
government or proprietorship anywhere visible. Strangers arriving
stayed at will without rendering account. A consequence of the system
was that whoever came had to bring his food and culinary outfit with
him, or buy them of dealers in the khan. The same rule held good as to
his bed and bedding, and forage for his beasts. Water, rest, shelter,
and protection were all he looked for from the proprietor, and they
were gratuities. The peace of synagogues was sometimes broken by
brawling disputants, but that of the khans never. The houses and all
their appurtenances were sacred: a well was not more so.
The khan at Bethlehem, before which Joseph and his wife stopped, was a
good specimen of its class, being neither very primitive nor very
princely. The building was purely Oriental; that is to say, a
quadrangular block of rough stones, one story high, flat-roofed,
externally unbroken by a window, and with but one principal entrance—a
doorway, which was also a gateway, on the eastern side, or front. The
road ran by the door so near that the chalk dust half covered the
lintel. A fence of flat rocks, beginning at the northeastern corner of
the pile, extended many yards down the slope to a point from whence it
swept westwardly to a limestone bluff; making what was in the highest
degree essential to a respectable khan—a safe enclosure for animals.
In a village like Bethlehem, as there was but one sheik, there could
not well be more than one khan; and, though born in the place, the
Nazarene, from long residence elsewhere, had no claim to hospitality in
the town. Moreover, the enumeration for which he was coming might be
the work of weeks or months; Roman deputies in the provinces were
proverbially slow; and to impose himself and wife for a period so
uncertain upon acquaintances or relations was out of the question. So,
before he drew nigh the great house, while he was yet climbing the
slope, in the steep places toiling to hasten the donkey, the fear that
he might not find accommodations in the khan became a painful anxiety;
for he found the road thronged with men and boys who, with great ado,
were taking their cattle, horses, and camels to and from the valley,
some to water, some to the neighboring caves. And when he was come
close by, his alarm was not allayed by the discovery of a crowd
investing the door of the establishment, while the enclosure adjoining,
broad as it was, seemed already full.
“We cannot reach the door,” Joseph said, in his slow way. “Let us stop
here, and learn, if we can, what has happened.”
The wife, without answering, quietly drew the wimple aside. The look of
fatigue at first upon her face changed to one of interest. She found
herself at the edge of an assemblage that could not be other than a
matter of curiosity to her, although it was common enough at the khans
on any of the highways which the great caravans were accustomed to
traverse. There were men on foot, running hither and thither, talking
shrilly and in all the tongues of Syria; men on horseback screaming to
men on camels; men struggling doubtfully with fractious cows and
frightened sheep; men peddling bread and wine; and among the mass a
herd of boys apparently in chase of a herd of dogs. Everybody and
everything seemed to be in motion at the same time. Possibly the fair
spectator was too weary to be long attracted by the scene; in a little
while she sighed, and settled down on the pillion, and, as if in search
of peace and rest, or in expectation of some one, looked off to the
south, and up to the tall cliffs of the Mount of Paradise, then faintly
reddening under the setting sun.
While she was thus looking, a man pushed his way out of the press, and,
stopping close by the donkey, faced about with an angry brow. The
Nazarene spoke to him.
“As I am what I take you to be, good friend—a son of Judah—may I ask
the cause of this multitude?”
The stranger turned fiercely; but, seeing the solemn countenance of
Joseph, so in keeping with his deep, slow voice and speech, he raised
his hand in half-salutation, and replied,
“Peace be to you, Rabbi! I am a son of Judah, and will answer you. I
dwell in Beth-Dagon, which, you know, is in what used to be the land of
the tribe of Dan.”
“On the road to Joppa from Modin,” said Joseph.
“Ah, you have been in Beth-Dagon,” the man said, his face softening yet
more. “What wanderers we of Judah are! I have been away from the
ridge—old Ephrath, as our father Jacob called it—for many years. When
the proclamation went abroad requiring all Hebrews to be numbered at
the cities of their birth— That is my business here, Rabbi.”
Joseph’s face remained stolid as a mask, while he remarked, “I have
come for that also—I and my wife.”
The stranger glanced at Mary and kept silence. She was looking up at
the bald top of Gedor. The sun touched her upturned face, and filled
the violet depths of her eyes, and upon her parted lips trembled an
aspiration which could not have been to a mortal. For the moment, all
the humanity of her beauty seemed refined away: she was as we fancy
they are who sit close by the gate in the transfiguring light of
Heaven. The Beth-Dagonite saw the original of what, centuries after,
came as a vision of genius to Sanzio the divine, and left him immortal.
“Of what was I speaking? Ah! I remember. I was about to say that when I
heard of the order to come here, I was angry. Then I thought of the old
hill, and the town, and the valley falling away into the depths of
Cedron; of the vines and orchards, and fields of grain, unfailing since
the days of Boaz and Ruth, of the familiar mountains—Gedor here, Gibeah
yonder, Mar Elias there—which, when I was a boy, were the walls of the
world to me; and I forgave the tyrants and came—I, and Rachel, my wife,
and Deborah and Michal, our roses of Sharon.”
The man paused again, looking abruptly at Mary, who was now looking at
him and listening. Then he said, “Rabbi, will not your wife go to mine?
You may see her yonder with the children, under the leaning olive-tree
at the bend of the road. I tell you”—he turned to Joseph and spoke
positively—“I tell you the khan is full. It is useless to ask at the
gate.”
Joseph’s will was slow, like his mind; he hesitated, but at length
replied, “The offer is kind. Whether there be room for us or not in the
house, we will go see your people. Let me speak to the gate-keeper
myself. I will return quickly.”
And, putting the leading-strap in the stranger’s hand, he pushed into
the stirring crowd.
The keeper sat on a great cedar block outside the gate. Against the
wall behind him leaned a javelin. A dog squatted on the block by his
side.
“The peace of Jehovah be with you,” said Joseph, at last confronting
the keeper.
“What you give, may you find again; and, when found, be it many times
multiplied to you and yours,” returned the watchman, gravely, though
without moving.
“I am a Bethlehemite,” said Joseph, in his most deliberate way. “Is
there not room for—”
“There is not.”
“You may have heard of me—Joseph of Nazareth. This is the house of my
fathers. I am of the line of David.”
These words held the Nazarene’s hope. If they failed him, further
appeal was idle, even that of the offer of many shekels. To be a son of
Judah was one thing—in the tribal opinion a great thing; to be of the
house of David was yet another; on the tongue of a Hebrew there could
be no higher boast. A thousand years and more had passed since the
boyish shepherd became the successor of Saul and founded a royal
family. Wars, calamities, other kings, and the countless obscuring
processes of time had, as respects fortune, lowered his descendants to
the common Jewish level; the bread they ate came to them of toil never
more humble; yet they had the benefit of history sacredly kept, of