Ben Hur (13 page)

Messala broke in upon him with a biting laugh.

"Oh, I understand you now. Ishmael, you say, is a usurper, yet to
believe an Idumaean sooner than Ishmael is to sting like an adder.
By the drunken son of Semele, what it is to be a Jew! All men and
things, even heaven and earth, change; but a Jew never. To him
there is no backward, no forward; he is what his ancestor was
in the beginning. In this sand I draw you a circle—there! Now
tell me what more a Jew's life is? Round and round, Abraham here,
Isaac and Jacob yonder, God in the middle. And the circle—by the
master of all thunders! the circle is too large. I draw it again—"
He stopped, put his thumb upon the ground, and swept the fingers
about it. "See, the thumb spot is the Temple, the finger-lines
Judea. Outside the little space is there nothing of value? The
arts! Herod was a builder; therefore he is accursed. Painting,
sculpture! to look upon them is sin. Poetry you make fast to your
altars. Except in the synagogue, who of you attempts eloquence?
In war all you conquer in the six days you lose on the seventh.
Such your life and limit; who shall say no if I laugh at you?
Satisfied with the worship of such a people, what is your God
to our Roman Jove, who lends us his eagles that we may compass the
universe with our arms? Hillel, Simeon, Shammai, Abtalion—what are
they to the masters who teach that everything is worth knowing that
can be known?"

The Jew arose, his face much flushed.

"No, no; keep your place, my Judah, keep your place," Messala cried,
extending his hand.

"You mock me."

"Listen a little further. Directly"—the Roman smiled derisively—
"directly Jupiter and his whole family, Greek and Latin, will come
to me, as is their habit, and make an end of serious speech. I am
mindful of your goodness in walking from the old house of your
fathers to welcome me back and renew the love of our childhood—
if we can. 'Go,' said my teacher, in his last lecture—'Go, and,
to make your lives great, remember Mars reigns and Eros has found
his eyes.' He meant love is nothing, war everything. It is so
in Rome. Marriage is the first step to divorce. Virtue is a
tradesman's jewel. Cleopatra, dying, bequeathed her arts, and is
avenged; she has a successor in every Roman's house. The world is
going the same way; so, as to our future, down Eros, up Mars! I am
to be a soldier; and you, O my Judah, I pity you; what can you be?"

The Jew moved nearer the pool; Messala's drawl deepened.

"Yes, I pity you, my fine Judah. From the college to the synagogue;
then to the Temple; then—oh, a crowning glory!—the seat in the
Sanhedrim. A life without opportunities; the gods help you! But
I—"

Judah looked at him in time to see the flush of pride that kindled
in his haughty face as he went on.

"But I—ah, the world is not all conquered. The sea has islands
unseen. In the north there are nations yet unvisited. The glory
of completing Alexander's march to the Far East remains to some
one. See what possibilities lie before a Roman."

Next instant he resumed his drawl.

"A campaign into Africa; another after the Scythian; then—a legion!
Most careers end there; but not mine. I—by Jupiter! what a
conception!—I will give up my legion for a prefecture. Think of
life in Rome with money—money, wine, women, games—poets at the
banquet, intrigues in the court, dice all the year round. Such a
rounding of life may be—a fat prefecture, and it is mine. O my
Judah, here is Syria! Judea is rich; Antioch a capital for the
gods. I will succeed Cyrenius, and you—shall share my fortune."

The sophists and rhetoricians who thronged the public resorts of
Rome, almost monopolizing the business of teaching her patrician
youth, might have approved these sayings of Messala, for they were
all in the popular vein; to the young Jew, however, they were new,
and unlike the solemn style of discourse and conversation to which he
was accustomed. He belonged, moreover, to a race whose laws, modes,
and habits of thought forbade satire and humor; very naturally,
therefore, he listened to his friend with varying feelings; one
moment indignant, then uncertain how to take him. The superior
airs assumed had been offensive to him in the beginning; soon they
became irritating, and at last an acute smart. Anger lies close by
this point in all of us; and that the satirist evoked in another
way. To the Jew of the Herodian period patriotism was a savage
passion scarcely hidden under his common humor, and so related
to his history, religion, and God that it responded instantly to
derision of them. Wherefore it is not speaking too strongly to say
that Messala's progress down to the last pause was exquisite torture
to his hearer; at that point the latter said, with a forced smile,

"There are a few, I have heard, who can afford to make a jest of
their future; you convince me, O my Messala, that I am not one
of them."

The Roman studied him; then replied, "Why not the truth in a jest
as well as a parable? The great Fulvia went fishing the other day;
she caught more than all the company besides. They said it was
because the barb of her hook was covered with gold."

"Then you were not merely jesting?"

"My Judah, I see I did not offer you enough," the Roman answered,
quickly, his eyes sparkling. "When I am prefect, with Judea to
enrich me, I—will make you high-priest."

The Jew turned off angrily.

"Do not leave me," said Messala.

The other stopped irresolute.

"Gods, Judah, how hot the sun shines!" cried the patrician,
observing his perplexity. "Let us seek a shade."

Judah answered, coldly,

"We had better part. I wish I had not come. I sought a friend and
find a—"

"Roman," said Messala, quickly.

The hands of the Jew clenched, but controlling himself again,
he started off. Messala arose, and, taking the mantle from the
bench, flung it over his shoulder, and followed after; when he
gained his side, he put his hand upon his shoulder and walked
with him.

"This is the way—my hand thus—we used to walk when we were
children. Let us keep it as far as the gate."

Apparently Messala was trying to be serious and kind, though he
could not rid his countenance of the habitual satirical expression.
Judah permitted the familiarity.

"You are a boy; I am a man; let me talk like one."

The complacency of the Roman was superb. Mentor lecturing the
young Telemachus could not have been more at ease.

"Do you believe in the Parcae? Ah, I forgot, you are a Sadducee:
the Essenes are your sensible people; they believe in the sisters.
So do I. How everlastingly the three are in the way of our doing
what we please! I sit down scheming. I run paths here and there.
Perpol! Just when I am reaching to take the world in hand, I hear
behind me the grinding of scissors. I look, and there she is,
the accursed Atropos! But, my Judah, why did you get mad when I
spoke of succeeding old Cyrenius? You thought I meant to enrich
myself plundering your Judea. Suppose so; it is what some Roman
will do. Why not I?"

Judah shortened his step.

"There have been strangers in mastery of Judea before the Roman,"
he said, with lifted hand. "Where are they, Messala? She has outlived
them all. What has been will be again."

Messala put on his drawl.

"The Parcae have believers outside the Essenes. Welcome, Judah,
welcome to the faith!"

"No, Messala, count me not with them. My faith rests on the rock
which was the foundation of the faith of my fathers back further than
Abraham; on the covenants of the Lord God of Israel."

"Too much passion, my Judah. How my master would have been shocked
had I been guilty of so much heat in his presence! There were other
things I had to tell you, but I fear to now."

When they had gone a few yards, the Roman spoke again.

"I think you can hear me now, especially as what I have to say
concerns yourself. I would serve you, O handsome as Ganymede;
I would serve you with real good-will. I love you—all I can.
I told you I meant to be a soldier. Why not you also? Why not
you step out of the narrow circle which, as I have shown, is all
of noble life your laws and customs allow?"

Judah made no reply.

"Who are the wise men of our day?" Messala continued. "Not they
who exhaust their years quarrelling about dead things; about Baals,
Joves, and Jehovahs; about philosophies and religions. Give me one
great name, O Judah; I care not where you go to find it—to Rome,
Egypt, the East, or here in Jerusalem—Pluto take me if it belong
not to a man who wrought his fame out of the material furnished him
by the present; holding nothing sacred that did not contribute to
the end, scorning nothing that did! How was it with Herod? How with
the Maccabees? How with the first and second Caesars? Imitate them.
Begin now. At hand see—Rome, as ready to help you as she was the
Idumaean Antipater."

The Jewish lad trembled with rage; and, as the garden gate was
close by, he quickened his steps, eager to escape.

"O Rome, Rome!" he muttered.

"Be wise," continued Messala. "Give up the follies of Moses and
the traditions; see the situation as it is. Dare look the Parcae
in the face, and they will tell you, Rome is the world. Ask them of
Judea, and they will answer, She is what Rome wills."

They were now at the gate. Judah stopped, and took the hand gently
from his shoulder, and confronted Messala, tears trembling in his
eyes.

"I understand you, because you are a Roman; you cannot understand
me—I am an Israelite. You have given me suffering to-day by convincing
me that we can never be the friends we have been—never! Here we part.
The peace of the God of my fathers abide with you!"

Messala offered him his hand; the Jew walked on through the gateway.
When he was gone, the Roman was silent awhile; then he, too, passed
through, saying to himself, with a toss of the head,

"Be it so. Eros is dead, Mars reigns!"

From the entrance to the Holy City, equivalent to what is now
called St. Stephen's Gate, a street extended westwardly, on a
line parallel with the northern front of the Tower of Antonia,
though a square from that famous castle. Keeping the course as
far as the Tyropoeon Valley, which it followed a little way south,
it turned and again ran west until a short distance beyond what
tradition tells us was the Judgment Gate, from whence it broke
abruptly south. The traveller or the student familiar with the
sacred locality will recognize the thoroughfare described as part
of the Via Dolorosa—with Christians of more interest, though of
a melancholy kind, than any street in the world. As the purpose
in view does not at present require dealing with the whole street,
it will be sufficient to point out a house standing in the angle last
mentioned as marking the change of direction south, and which, as an
important centre of interest, needs somewhat particular description.

The building fronted north and west, probably four hundred feet
each way, and, like most pretentious Eastern structures, was two
stories in height, and perfectly quadrangular. The street on the
west side was about twelve feet wide, that on the north not more
than ten; so that one walking close to the walls, and looking up
at them, would have been struck by the rude, unfinished, uninviting,
but strong and imposing, appearance they presented; for they were of
stone laid in large blocks, undressed—on the outer side, in fact,
just as they were taken from the quarry. A critic of this age would
have pronounced the house fortelesque in style, except for the
windows, with which it was unusually garnished, and the ornate
finish of the doorways or gates. The western windows were four
in number, the northern only two, all set on the line of the
second story in such manner as to overhang the thoroughfares below.
The gates were the only breaks of wall externally visible in the
first story; and, besides being so thickly riven with iron bolts
as to suggest resistance to battering-rams, they were protected
by cornices of marble, handsomely executed, and of such bold
projection as to assure visitors well informed of the people
that the rich man who resided there was a Sadducee in politics
and creed.

Not long after the young Jew parted from the Roman at the palace
up on the Market-place, he stopped before the western gate of the
house described, and knocked. The wicket (a door hung in one of
the valves of the gate) was opened to admit him. He stepped in
hastily, and failed to acknowledge the low salaam of the porter.

To get an idea of the interior arrangement of the structure,
as well as to see what more befell the youth, we will follow him.

The passage into which he was admitted appeared not unlike a narrow
tunnel with panelled walls and pitted ceiling. There were benches
of stone on both sides, stained and polished by long use. Twelve or
fifteen steps carried him into a court-yard, oblong north and south,
and in every quarter, except the east, bounded by what seemed the
fronts of two-story houses; of which the lower floor was divided
into lewens, while the upper was terraced and defended by strong
balustrading. The servants coming and going along the terraces;
the noise of millstones grinding; the garments fluttering from
ropes stretched from point to point; the chickens and pigeons in
full enjoyment of the place; the goats, cows, donkeys, and horses
stabled in the lewens; a massive trough of water, apparently for
the common use, declared this court appurtenant to the domestic
management of the owner. Eastwardly there was a division wall
broken by another passage-way in all respects like the first one.

Clearing the second passage, the young man entered a second court,
spacious, square, and set with shrubbery and vines, kept fresh and
beautiful by water from a basin erected near a porch on the north
side. The lewens here were high, airy, and shaded by curtains
striped alternate white and red. The arches of the lewens rested
on clustered columns. A flight of steps on the south ascended to
the terraces of the upper story, over which great awnings were
stretched as a defence against the sun. Another stairway reached
from the terraces to the roof, the edge of which, all around the
square, was defined by a sculptured cornice, and a parapet of
burned-clay tiling, sexangular and bright red. In this quarter,
moreover, there was everywhere observable a scrupulous neatness,
which, allowing no dust in the angles, not even a yellow leaf
upon a shrub, contributed quite as much as anything else to the
delightful general effect; insomuch that a visitor, breathing the
sweet air, knew, in advance of introduction, the refinement of the
family he was about calling upon.