Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness of declining life by seeing
thousands labouring without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon
another. Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition,
imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or
riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications,
survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE PRINCESS MEETS WITH AN UNEXPECTED MISFORTUNE.
THEY rose up, and returned through the cavity at which they had entered;
and the Princess prepared for her favourite a long narrative of dark
labyrinths and costly rooms, and of the different impressions which the
varieties of the way had made upon her. But when they came to their
train, they found every one silent and dejected: the men discovered shame
and fear in their countenances, and the women were weeping in their
tents.
What had happened they did not try to conjecture, but immediately
inquired. “You had scarcely entered into the Pyramid,” said one of the
attendants, “when a troop of Arabs rushed upon us: we were too few to
resist them, and too slow to escape. They were about to search the
tents, set us on our camels, and drive us along before them, when the
approach of some Turkish horsemen put them to flight: but they seized the
Lady Pekuah with her two maids, and carried them away: the Turks are now
pursuing them by our instigation, but I fear they will not be able to
overtake them.”
The Princess was overpowered with surprise and grief. Rasselas, in the
first heat of his resentment, ordered his servants to follow him, and
prepared to pursue the robbers with his sabre in his hand. “Sir,” said
Imlac, “what can you hope from violence or valour? The Arabs are mounted
on horses trained to battle and retreat; we have only beasts of burden.
By leaving our present station we may lose the Princess, but cannot hope
to regain Pekuah.”
In a short time the Turks returned, having not been able to reach the
enemy. The Princess burst out into new lamentations, and Rasselas could
scarcely forbear to reproach them with cowardice; but Imlac was of
opinion that the escape of the Arabs was no addition to their misfortune,
for perhaps they would have killed their captives rather than have
resigned them.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THEY RETURN TO CAIRO WITHOUT PEKUAH.
THERE was nothing to be hoped from longer stay. They returned to Cairo,
repenting of their curiosity, censuring the negligence of the government,
lamenting their own rashness, which had neglected to procure a guard,
imagining many expedients by which the loss of Pekuah might have been
prevented, and resolving to do something for her recovery, though none
could find anything proper to be done.
Nekayah retired to her chamber, where her women attempted to comfort her
by telling her that all had their troubles, and that Lady Pekuah had
enjoyed much happiness in the world for a long time, and might reasonably
expect a change of fortune. They hoped that some good would befall her
wheresoever she was, and that their mistress would find another friend
who might supply her place.
The Princess made them no answer; and they continued the form of
condolence, not much grieved in their hearts that the favourite was lost.
Next day the Prince presented to the Bassa a memorial of the wrong which
he had suffered, and a petition for redress. The Bassa threatened to
punish the robbers, but did not attempt to catch them; nor indeed could
any account or description be given by which he might direct the pursuit.
It soon appeared that nothing would be done by authority. Governors
being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more
wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate
negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the
petitioner.
Imlac then endeavoured to gain some intelligence by private agents. He
found many who pretended to an exact knowledge of all the haunts of the
Arabs, and to regular correspondence with their chiefs, and who readily
undertook the recovery of Pekuah. Of these, some were furnished with
money for their journey, and came back no more; some were liberally paid
for accounts which a few days discovered to be false. But the Princess
would not suffer any means, however improbable, to be left untried.
While she was doing something, she kept her hope alive. As one expedient
failed, another was suggested; when one messenger returned unsuccessful,
another was despatched to a different quarter.
Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing had been heard; the
hopes which they had endeavoured to raise in each other grew more
languid; and the Princess, when she saw nothing more to be tried, sunk
down inconsolable in hopeless dejection. A thousand times she reproached
herself with the easy compliance by which she permitted her favourite to
stay behind her. “Had not my fondness,” said she, “lessened my
authority, Pekuah had not dared to talk of her terrors. She ought to
have feared me more than spectres. A severe look would have overpowered
her; a peremptory command would have compelled obedience. Why did
foolish indulgence prevail upon me? Why did I not speak, and refuse to
hear?”
“Great Princess,” said Imlac, “do not reproach yourself for your virtue,
or consider that as blameable by which evil has accidentally been caused.
Your tenderness for the timidity of Pekuah was generous and kind. When
we act according to our duty, we commit the events to Him by whose laws
our actions are governed, and who will suffer none to be finally punished
for obedience. When, in prospect of some good, whether natural or moral,
we break the rules prescribed us, we withdraw from the direction of
superior wisdom, and take all consequences upon ourselves. Man cannot so
far know the connection of causes and events as that he may venture to do
wrong in order to do right. When we pursue our end by lawful means, we
may always console our miscarriage by the hope of future recompense.
When we consult only our own policy, and attempt to find a nearer way to
good by over-leaping the settled boundaries of right and wrong, we cannot
be happy even by success, because we cannot escape the consciousness of
our fault; but if we miscarry, the disappointment is irremediably
embittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him who feels at once the
pangs of guilt and the vexation of calamity which guilt has brought upon
him!
“Consider, Princess, what would have been your condition if the Lady
Pekuah had entreated to accompany you, and, being compelled to stay in
the tents, had been carried away; or how would you have borne the thought
if you had forced her into the Pyramid, and she had died before you in
agonies of terror?”
“Had either happened,” said Nekayah, “I could not have endured life till
now; I should have been tortured to madness by the remembrance of such
cruelty, or must have pined away in abhorrence of myself.”
“This, at least,” said Imlac, “is the present reward of virtuous conduct,
that no unlucky consequence can oblige us to repent it.”
CHAPTER XXXV
THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEKUAH.
NEKAYAH, being thus reconciled to herself, found that no evil is
insupportable but that which is accompanied with consciousness of wrong.
She was from that time delivered from the violence of tempestuous sorrow,
and sunk into silent pensiveness and gloomy tranquillity. She sat from
morning to evening recollecting all that had been done or said by her
Pekuah, treasured up with care every trifle on which Pekuah had set an
accidental value, and which might recall to mind any little incident or
careless conversation. The sentiments of her whom she now expected to
see no more were treasured in her memory as rules of life, and she
deliberated to no other end than to conjecture on any occasion what would
have been the opinion and counsel of Pekuah.
The women by whom she was attended knew nothing of her real condition,
and therefore she could not talk to them but with caution and reserve.
She began to remit her curiosity, having no great desire to collect
notions which she had no convenience of uttering. Rasselas endeavoured
first to comfort and afterwards to divert her; he hired musicians, to
whom she seemed to listen, but did not hear them; and procured masters to
instruct her in various arts, whose lectures, when they visited her
again, were again to be repeated. She had lost her taste of pleasure and
her ambition of excellence; and her mind, though forced into short
excursions, always recurred to the image of her friend.
Imlac was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew his inquiries, and
was asked every night whether he had yet heard of Pekuah; till, not being
able to return the Princess the answer that she desired, he was less and
less willing to come into her presence. She observed his backwardness,
and commanded him to attend her. “You are not,” said she, “to confound
impatience with resentment, or to suppose that I charge you with
negligence because I repine at your unsuccessfulness. I do not much
wonder at your absence. I know that the unhappy are never pleasing, and
that all naturally avoid the contagion of misery. To hear complaints is
wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy; for who would cloud by
adventitious grief the short gleams of gaiety which life allows us, or
who that is struggling under his own evils will add to them the miseries
of another?
“The time is at hand when none shall be disturbed any longer by the sighs
of Nekayah: my search after happiness is now at an end. I am resolved to
retire from the world, with all its flatteries and deceits, and will hide
myself in solitude, without any other care than to compose my thoughts
and regulate my hours by a constant succession of innocent occupations,
till, with a mind purified from earthly desires, I shall enter into that
state to which all are hastening, and in which I hope again to enjoy the
friendship of Pekuah.”
“Do not entangle your mind,” said Imlac, “by irrevocable determinations,
nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary accumulation of misery.
The weariness of retirement will continue to increase when the loss of
Pekuah is forgot. That you have been deprived of one pleasure is no very
good reason for rejection of the rest.”
“Since Pekuah was taken from me,” said the Princess, “I have no pleasure
to reject or to retain. She that has no one to love or trust has little
to hope. She wants the radical principle of happiness. We may perhaps
allow that what satisfaction this world can afford must arise from the
conjunction of wealth, knowledge, and goodness. Wealth is nothing but as
it is bestowed, and knowledge nothing but as it is communicated. They
must therefore be imparted to others, and to whom could I now delight to
impart them? Goodness affords the only comfort which can be enjoyed
without a partner, and goodness may be practised in retirement.”
“How far solitude may admit goodness or advance it, I shall not,” replied
Imlac, “dispute at present. Remember the confession of the pious hermit.
You will wish to return into the world when the image of your companion
has left your thoughts.”
“That time,” said Nekayah, “will never come. The generous frankness, the
modest obsequiousness, and the faithful secrecy of my dear Pekuah will
always be more missed as I shall live longer to see vice and folly.”
“The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity,” said Imlac, “is
like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the new-created earth, who, when
the first night came upon them, supposed that day would never return.