The Bride of the Nile — Complete by Georg Ebers (top novels txt) 📕

was not to be appeased even by Death, the reconciler—who grossly insulted the father, the noblest of men, and, in him, the son too, at the grave itself.”

The patriarch shook his head with a supercilious smile, and a hot thrill shot through Orion as Benjamin laid his hand on his shoulder and said with grave kindness:

“A Christian does not find it hard to forgive a sinner, an antagonist, an enemy; and it is a joy to me to pardon the son who feels himself injured through his lost father, blind and foolish as his indignation may be. Your wrath can no more affect me, Child, than the Almighty in Heaven, and it would not even be blameworthy, but that—and of this we must speak presently—but that—well, I will be frank with you at once—but that your manner clearly and unmistakably betrays what you lack to make you a true Christian, and such a man as he must be who fills so conspicuous a position in this land governed by infidels. You know what I mean?”

The prelate let his hand slip from the young man’s shoulder, looking enquiringly in his face; and when Orion, finding no reply ready, drew back a step or two, the old man went on with growing excitement:

“It is humility, pious and submissive faith, that I find you lack, my friend. Who, indeed, am I? But as the Vicar, the representative of Him before whom we all are as worms in the dust, I must insist that every man who calls himself a Christian, a Jacobite, shall submit to my will and orders, without hesitation or doubt, as obediently and unresistingly as though salvation or woe had fallen on him from above. What would become of us, if individuals were to take upon themselves to defy me and walk in their own way? In one miserable generation, and with the death of the elders who had grown up as true Christians, the doctrine of the Saviour would be extinct on the shores of the Nile, the crescent would rise in the place of the Cross, and our cry would go up to Heaven for so many lost souls. Learn, haughty youth, to bow humbly and submissively to the will of the Most High and of His vicar on earth, and let me show you, from your demeanor to myself especially, how far your own judgment is to be relied on. You regard me as your father’s enemy?”

“Yes,” said Orion firmly.

“And I loved him as a brother!” replied the patriarch in a softer voice. “How gladly would I have heaped his bier with palm branches of peace, such as the Church alone can grow, wet with my own tears!”

“And yet,” cried Orion, “you denied to him, whom you call your friend, what the Church does not refuse to thieves and murderers, if only they desire forgiveness and have received absolution from a priest; and that....”

“And that your father did!” interrupted the old man. “Peace be to him! He is now, no doubt, gazing on the glory of the Lord. And nevertheless I could forbid the priesthood here showing him honor at the grave.—Why? For what urgent reason was such a prohibition spoken by a friend against a friend?”

“Because you wished to brand him, in the eyes of the world, as the man who lent his support to the unbelievers and helped them to victory,” said Orion gloomily.

“How well the boy can read the thoughts of men!” exclaimed the prelate, looking at the young man with approbation in which, however, there was some irony and annoyance. “Very good. We will assume that my object was to show the Christians of Memphis what fate awaits the man, who surrenders his country to the enemy and walks hand-in-hand with unbelievers? And may I not possibly have been right?”

“Do you suppose my father invited the Arabs?” interrupted the young man.

“No, Child,” replied the patriarch, “the enemy came of his own free will.”

“And you,” Orion went on, “after the Greeks had driven you into exile, prophesied from the desert that they would come and overthrow the Melchites, the Greek enemies of our faith, drive them out of the country.”

“It was revealed to me by the Lord!” replied the old man, bowing his head reverently. “And yet other things were shown to me while I dwelt a devout ascetic, mortifying my flesh under the scorching sun of the desert. Beware my son, beware! Heed my warning, lest it should be fulfilled and the house of Menas vanish like clouds swept before the wind.—Your father, I know, regarded my prophecy as advice given by me to receive the infidels as the instrument of the Almighty and to support them in driving the Melchite oppressors out of the land.”

“Your prophecy,” replied Orion, “had, no doubt, a marked effect on my father; and when the cause of the emperor and the Greeks was lost, your opinion that the Melchites were unbelievers as much as the sons of Islam, was of infinite comfort to him. For he, if any one—as you know—had good reason to hate the sectarians who killed his two sons in their prime. What followed, he did to rescue his and your unfortunate brethren and dependants from destruction. Here, here in this desk, lies his answer to the emperor’s accusations, as given to the Greek deputation who had speech of him in this very room. He wrote it down as soon as they had left him. Will you hear it?”

“I can guess its purport.”

“No, no!” cried the excited youth; he hastily opened his father’s desk, laid his hand at once on the wax tablet, and exclaimed: “This was his reply!” And he proceeded to read:

“These Arabs, few as they are, are stronger and more powerful than we with all our numbers. One man of them is equal to a hundred of us, for they rush on death and love it better than life. Each of them presses to the front in battle, and they have no longing to return home and to their families. For every Christian they kill they look for a great reward in Heaven, and they say that the gates of Paradise open at once for those who fall in the fight. They have not a wish in this world beyond the satisfaction of their barest need of food and clothing. We, on the contrary, love life and dread death;—how can we stand against them? I tell you that I will not break the peace I have concluded with the Arabs. ...”

“And what is the upshot of all this reply?” interrupted the patriarch shrugging his shoulders.

“That my father found himself compelled to conclude a peace, and that—but read on.—That as a wise man he was forced to ally himself with the foe.”

“The foe to whom he yielded more readily and paid much greater honor than became him as a Christian!—Does not this discourse convey the idea that the joys of Paradise solely and exclusively await our damned and blood-thirsty oppressors?—And the Moslem Paradise! What is it but a gulf of iniquity, in which they are to wallow in sensual delight? The false prophet invented it to tempt his followers to force his lying creed, by might of arms and in mad contempt of death, on nation after nation. Our Lord, the Word made flesh, came down on earth to win hearts and souls by the persuasive power of the living truth, one and eternal, which emanates from Him as light proceeds from the sun;