Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (best romance ebooks TXT) 📕

The exposure startled him. Back in the hush of the perfumed thicket he discovered, as he thought, that the charm of the great Grove was peace without fear, and almost yielded to it; now, in this sleep in the day’s broad glare⁠—this sleep at the feet of Daphne⁠—he read a further chapter to which only the vaguest allusion is sufferable. The law of the place was Love, but Love without Law.

And this was the sweet peace of Daphne!

This the life’s end of her ministers!

For this kings and princes gave of their revenues!

For this a crafty priesthood subordinated nature⁠—her birds and brooks and lilies, the river, the labor of many hands, the sanctity of altars, the fertile power of the sun!

It would be pleasant now to record that as Ben-Hur pursued his walk assailed by such reflections, he yielded somewhat to sorrow for the votaries of the great outdoor temple; especially for those who, by personal service, kept it in a state so surpassingly lovely. How they came to the condition was not any longer a mystery; the motive, the influence, the inducement, were before him. Some there were, no doubt, caught by the promise held out to their troubled spirits of endless peace in a consecrated abode, to the beauty of which, if they had not money, they could contribute their labor; this class implied intellect peculiarly subject to hope and fear; but the great body of the faithful could not be classed with such. Apollo’s nets were wide, and their meshes small; and hardly may one tell what all his fishermen landed: this less for that they cannot be described than because they ought not to be. Enough that the mass were of the sybarites of the world, and of the herds in number vaster and in degree lower⁠—devotees of the unmixed sensualism to which the East was almost wholly given. Not to any of the exaltations⁠—not to the singing-god, or his unhappy mistress; not to any philosophy requiring for its enjoyment the calm of retirement, nor to any service for the comfort there is in religion, nor to love in its holier sense⁠—were they abiding their vows. Good reader, why shall not the truth be told here? Why not learn that, at this age, there were in all earth but two peoples capable of exaltations of the kind referred to⁠—those who lived by the law of Moses, and those who lived by the law of Brahma. They alone could have cried you, Better a law without love than a love without law.

Besides that, sympathy is in great degree a result of the mood we are in at the moment: anger forbids the emotion. On the other hand, it is easiest taken on when we are in a state of most absolute self-satisfaction. Ben-Hur walked with a quicker step, holding his head higher; and, while not less sensitive to the delightfulness of all about him, he made his survey with calmer spirit, though sometimes with curling lip; that is to say, he could not so soon forget how nearly he himself had been imposed upon.

In front of Ben-Hur there was a forest of cypress-trees, each a column tall and straight as a mast. Venturing into the shady precinct, he heard a trumpet gayly blown, and an instant after saw lying upon the grass close by the countryman whom he had run upon in the road going to the temples. The man arose, and came to him.

“I give you peace again,” he said, pleasantly.

“Thank you,” Ben-Hur replied, then asked, “Go you my way?”

“I am for the stadium, if that is your way.”

“The stadium!”

“Yes. The trumpet you heard but now was a call for the competitors.”

“Good friend,” said Ben-Hur, frankly, “I admit my ignorance of the Grove; and if you will let me be your follower, I will be glad.”

“That will delight me. Hark! I hear the wheels of the chariots. They are taking the track.”

Ben-Hur listened a moment, then completed the introduction by laying his hand upon the man’s arm, and saying, “I am the son of Arrius, the duumvir, and thou?”

“I am Malluch, a merchant of Antioch.”

“Well, good Malluch, the trumpet, and the gride of wheels, and the prospect of diversion excite me. I have some skill in the exercises. In the palaestrae of Rome I am not unknown. Let us to the course.”

Malluch lingered to say, quickly, “The duumvir was a Roman, yet I see his son in the garments of a Jew.”

“The noble Arrius was my father by adoption,” Ben-Hur answered.

“Ah! I see, and beg pardon.”

Passing through the belt of forest, they came to a field with a track laid out upon it, in shape and extent exactly like those of the stadia. The course, or track proper, was of soft earth, rolled and sprinkled, and on both sides defined by ropes, stretched loosely upon upright javelins. For the accommodation of spectators, and such as had interests reaching forward of the mere practise, there were several stands shaded by substantial awnings, and provided with seats in rising rows. In one of the stands the two newcomers found places.

Ben-Hur counted the chariots as they went by⁠—nine in all.

“I commend the fellows,” he said, with goodwill. “Here in the East, I thought they aspired to nothing better than the two; but they are ambitious, and play with royal fours. Let us study their performance.”

Eight of the fours passed the stand, some walking, others on the trot, and all unexceptionably handled; then the ninth one came on the gallop. Ben-Hur burst into exclamation.

“I have been in the stables of the emperor, Malluch, but, by our father Abraham of blessed memory! I never saw the like of these.”

The last four was then sweeping past. All at once they fell into confusion. Someone on the stand uttered a sharp cry. Ben-Hur turned, and saw an old man half-risen from an upper seat,