CHAPTER VI.
"I DO NOT KNOW."
The day was in decline, and although the season was winter yet the air wasnot cold. The mountains of Greece lay in the wake like a bank of purplecloud tinged with gold.
On the quarter-deck reposed the corpse, with the feet turned in thedirection of the prow; the torches spluttered, and cast off sparks thatflew away with the smoke.
On each side were three slave women, detailed to wail, but Longa Duiliahad issued instructions that they were not to be noisy in theirdemonstration so as to disturb or swamp conversation aft.
The undulating lament swerving through semi-tones and demi-semitones,formed a low and sad background to the play of voices on the lower deck,where, sheltered from the wind, the widow reclined on cushions, and herdaughter Domitia sat at her side in conversation.
A change had come over the girl, so complete, so radical, that she seemedhardly to be the same person as before her father's death. This wasnoticeable as being in appearance and manner,--noticeable even to theslaves, not the most observant in matters that did not particularlyconcern their comfort and interests. She had been transmuted from aplayful child into a sad and serious woman.
The sparkle had left her eyes to make way for an eager, searching fire.The color had left her cheek; and her face had assumed a gloomyexpression. The change, in fact, was much like that in a landscape when asunny May day makes place for one that is overcast and threatening. Thenatural features are unaltered, but the aspect is wholly different inquality and character.
A mighty sorrow contracting, bruising, oppressing the heart sometimesmelts it into a sweetness of patient endurance that inspires pity andlove. But grief seemed to have frozen Domitia and not to have dissolvedher into tears.
The philosopher approached with solemn stalk, walking on the flat of hissoles.
"THE PHILOSOPHER APPROACHED." _Page 44._]
Such men were retained in noble households as family chaplains, to advise,comfort, and exhort. And this man at intervals approached the widow, whoon such occasions assumed a woe-begone expression, beat her brow andemitted at intervals long-drawn sighs.
At such times, the Magus, standing near, curled his lip contemptuously,and endeavored by shrugs and sniffs to let the bystanders perceive howlittle he valued the words of the stoic.
The philosopher Senecio now in formal style addressed the widow, and thenturned to harangue the daughter, on the excellence of moderation in griefas in joy, on the beauty of self-control so as to suffer the storms oflife to roll over the head with indifference. In this consisted theHighest Good, and to attain to such stolidity was the goal of all virtuousendeavor.
Then he thrust his hand into the folds of his toga, and withdrew, to be atonce attacked and wrangled with by the Chaldaean.
Domitia, who had listened with indifference, turned to her mother as soonas he was gone, and said--
"The _Summum Bonum_, the crown and glory of Philosophy is to become inmind what the slave becomes after many bastinadoes, as callous in soul ashe is on the soles of his feet. The lesson of life is not worth theacquisition."
"I think he put it all very well."
"Why are the strokes applied? Why should we bear them without crying out?After all, what profit is there in this philosophy?"
"Really, my dear, I cannot tell. But it is the correct thing to listen toand to talk philosophy, and good families keep their tame stoics,--evenquite new and vulgar people, wretched knights who have become rich intrade--in a word, they all do it."
"But, mother, what is this Highest Good?"
"You must inquire of Claudius Senecio himself. It is, I am sure somethingvery suitable to talk about, on such solemn occasions as this."
"But what is it? A runner in the course knows what is the prize for whichhe contends, a singer at the games sees the crown he hopes to earn--butthis Highest Good, is it nothing but not to squeal when kicked?"
"I really do not know."
"Mother, would to the Gods I did know! My sorrow is eating out my heart. Iam miserable. I am in darkness, like Theseus in the labyrinth, but withouta clue. And the Highest Good preached by philosophy is to sit down in thedarkness and despair of the light. I want to know. Has my father's lifegone out forever, like an extinguished torch cast into the sea? or is it asmouldering ember that may be blown again into flame?"
"Have you not heard, Domitia, how Senecio has assured you that your fatherwill live."
"Where?"
"On the page of history."
"First assure me that the page will be written, and that impartially. WhatI know of historians is that they scribble all the scurrility they canagainst the great and noble, in the hope of thereby advancing the creditof their own mean selves. Has a man no other hope of life than one builton the complaisance of the most malignant of men?"
"My dear,--positively, I do not know. You turn my head with your questions.Call Plancus that I may scold him, to ease my overwrought nerves. Thefellow has been stopping up his wrinkles with a composition of wax, lardand flour, and really, at his age, and in his social position--it isabsurd."
"But, mother, I want to know."
"Bless me, you make me squeamish. Of course we want to know a vast numberof things; and the Highest Good, I take it, is to learn to be satisfied toknow nothing. Cats, dogs, donkeys, don't worry themselves to know--and arehappy. They have, then, the _Summum Bonum_. If you want to know more, askthe philosopher. He is paid for the purpose, and eats at our expense, andye gods! how he eats. I believe he finds the Highest Good in the platter."
The lady made signs, and a slave, ever on the watch, hastened to learn herdesire, and at her command summoned the Stoic.
The philosopher paced the deck with his chin in the air, and came aft.
"My daughter," said the widow, "is splitting my suffering head withquestions. Pray answer her satisfactorily. Here Felicula, Procula,Lucilla, help me to the cabin."
When the lady had withdrawn, the philosopher said:
"Lady, you will propound difficulties, and I shall be pleased to solvethem."
"I ask plain answers to plain questions," said Domitia. "At death--whatthen?"
"Death, young lady, is the full stop at the end of the sentence, it is theclosing of the diptychs of life, on which its story is inscribed."
"I asked not what death is--but to what it leads?"
"Leads!--it--leads! ahem! Death encountered with stoic equanimity is thehighest point to which--"
"I do not ask how to meet death, but what it leads to. You seem unable orunwilling to answer a plain question. My dear father, does he livestill--as a star that for a while sets below the horizon but returnsagain?"
"He lives, most assuredly. In all men's mouths--on the snowy plains ofGermany, on the arid wastes of Syria, the fame of Cnaeus DomitiusCorbulo----"
"I asked naught about his fame, but about himself. Does he still exist,can he still think of, care for, love me--as I still think of, care for,love him--"
Her voice quivered and broke.
"Young lady--Socrates could say no more of the future than that it is abrilliant hope which one may run the risk of entertaining. And our ownImmortal Cicero declared that the hope of the soul living after death is adream, and not a doctrine. The Immortals have seen fit to cut the threadof his life----"
"The Immortals had no scissors wherewith to do it. He fell on his ownsword. Is there a soul? And after death where does it go? Is it a mereshadow?"
"My dear lady, philosophy teaches us to hope----"
"Natural instinct does that without the cumbrous assistance ofphilosophy--but what is that hope built on?"
"I cannot tell."
"Then of what avail is it to lead a good life?"
"On the page of history----"
"That is where the great man lives--but the poor girl or the mechanic? Ofwhat avail is a good life? What motive have we to induce us to lead it?"
"The approval of the co
nscience."
"But why should it approve? What is good? Where is it written that this isgood and that is evil?"
"I cannot tell."
"So," said the girl, and she signed to Elymas to approach. He came up witha sneer at the philosopher, who retired in discomfiture.
"You, Chaldaean, answer me that which confounds the Stoic. You havelearning in the East which we have not in the West. Tell me--what is thehuman soul? and has it an existence after death?"
"Certainly, lady. The soul is a ray of Divine light, an aeon out ofinfinite perfection. This ray is projected into space and enters into andis entangled in matter, and that is life, in the plant, in the fish, inthe bird, in the beast, in man."
"And what after death?"
"Death is the disengagement of this ray from its envelope. It returns tothe source, to the _pleroma_ or fulness of being and light whence itemanated, and loses itself in the one urn of splendor!"
"But when Pactolus and Styx run into the sea, the waters are mingled andlost, as to their individuality."
"And so with the spirits of men."
"What!" exclaimed Domitia. "When I die my little ray re-enters the sun andis lost in the general glory--and my father's ray is also sucked in anddisappears! There is no comfort in a thought where individuality isextinguished. But say. How know you that what you have propounded is thetruth?"
The Magus hesitated and became confused.
"It is," said he, "a solution at which the minds of the great thinkers ofthe East have arrived."
"I see," said Domitia, "it is no more than a guess. You and all alike arestagnant pools, whose muddy bottoms ferment and generate and throw upguesswork bubbles. One bubble looks more substantial than another, yet areall only the disguise of equal emptiness."
The Chaldaean withdrew muttering in his beard. Domitia looked after him andnoticed the physician Luke standing near, leaning over the bulwarks.
He was an elderly man, with kindly soft eyes, and a short beard in whichsome strands of gray appeared. A modest man, ready when called on toadvise, but never self-assertive.
Domitia had noticed him already and had taken a liking to him, though shehad not spoken to him. An unaccountable impulse induced her to addresshim.
"They are all quacks," she said.
"They must needs be seekers, and the best they can produce, is out ofthemselves, and that conjecture. From the depths of the intellect what canbe brought up than a more or less plausible guess?"
"And on these guesses we must live, like those who float across the Tigrisand Euphrates--on rafts supported by inflated bladders. There is then nosolid ground?"
"Man inflates the bladders--God lays the rocky basis."
"What mean you?"
"No certainty can be attained, in all these things man desires to know,the basis of hope, the foundation of morality, that cannot be brought outof man. It can only be known by revelation of God."
"And till he reveals we must drift on wind-bags. Good lack!"
"Do you think, Lady, that He who made man, and planted in man's heart adesire for a future life, and made it necessary for his welfare that heshould know to discern between good and evil, should leave him forever inthe dark--like as you said Theseus in the labyrinth, without a clue?"
"But where is the clue?"
"Or think you that He who launched the vessel of man, having carefullylaid the keel and framed the ribs, and set in her a pilot, should send herforth into unknown seas to certain wreckage--to be wafted up and down byevery wind--to be carried along by every current--to fall on reefs, or beengulfed by quicksands, and not to reach a port, and He not to set lightswhereby her course may be directed?"
"But where are the lights?"
At that moment, before Luke could answer, Lamia, who had been in the forepart of the vessel, came hastily aft, and disregarding the physician,heedless of the conversation on which he broke in, said hurriedly and inagitated tone:--
"The Imperial galley!"