Philammon blushed scarlet.
“And that,” thought he, “in spite of what passed this morning!—Why, what is the matter with our host?”
“He has taken Solomon’s advice, and forgotten his sorrow.”
And so, indeed, he had; for he was sleeping sweetly, with open lacklustre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the ceiling; while the negress, with her head fallen on her chest, seemed equally unconscious of their presence.
“We’ll see,” quoth Miriam; and taking up the lamp, she held the flame unceremoniously to the arm of each of them; but neither winced nor stirred.
“Surely your wine is not drugged?” said Philammon, in trepidation.
“Why not? What has made them beasts, may make us angels. You seem none the less lively for it! Do I?”
“But drugged wine?”
“Why not? The same who made wine made poppy-juice. Both will make man happy. Why not use both?”
“It is poison!”
“It is the nepenthe, as I told Hypatia, whereof she was twaddling mysticism this morning. Drink, child, drink! I have no mind to put you to sleep tonight! I want to make a man of you, or rather, to see whether you are one!”
And she drained another cup, and then went on, half talking to herself—
“Ay, it is poison; and music is poison; and woman is poison, according to the new creed, Pagan and Christian; and wine will be poison, and meat will be poison, some day; and we shall have a world full of mad Nebuchadnezzars, eating grass like oxen. It is poisonous, and brutal, and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and an eunuch, and a dry branch. You are all in the same lie, Christians and philosophers, Cyril and Hypatia! Don’t interrupt me, but drink, young fool!—Ay, and the only man who keeps his manhood, the only man who is not ashamed to be what God has made him, is your Jew. You will find yourselves in want of him after all, some day, you besotted Gentiles, to bring you back to common sense and common manhood.—In want of him and his grand old books, which you despise while you make idols of them, about Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Solomon, whom you call saints, you miserable hypocrites, though they did what you are too dainty to do, and had their wives and their children, and thanked God for a beautiful woman, as Adam did before them, and their sons do after them—Drink, I say—and believed that God had really made the world, and not the devil, and had given them the lordship over it, as you will find out to your cost some day.”
Philammon heard, and could not answer; and on she rambled.
“And music, too? Our priests were not afraid of sackbut and psaltery, dulcimer and trumpet, in the house of the Lord; for they knew who had given them the cunning to make them. Our prophets were not afraid of calling for music, when they wished to prophesy, and letting it soften and raise their souls, and open and quicken them till they saw into the inner harmony of things, and beheld the future in the present; for they knew who made the melody and harmony, and made them the outward symbols of the inward song which runs through sun and stars, storm and tempest, fulfilling his word—in that these sham philosophers the heathen are wiser than those Christian monks. Try it!—try it! Come with me! Leave these sleepers here, and come to my rooms. You long to be as wise as Solomon. Then get at wisdom as Solomon did, and give your heart first to know folly and madness. … You have read the Book of the Preacher?”
Poor Philammon! He was no longer master of himself. The arguments—the wine—the terrible spell of the old woman’s voice and eye, and the strong overpowering will which showed out through them, dragged him along in spite of himself. As if in a dream, he followed her up the stairs.
“There, throw away that stupid, ugly, shapeless philosopher’s cloak. So! You have on the white tunic I gave you? And now you look as a human being should. And you have been to the baths today? Well—you have the comfort of feeling now like other people, and having that alabaster skin as white as it was created, instead of being tanned like a brute’s hide. Drink, I say! Ay—what was that face, that figure, made for? Bring a mirror here, hussy! There, look in that and judge for yourself? Were those lips rounded for nothing? Why were those eyes set in your head, and made to sparkle bright as jewels, sweet as mountain honey? Why were those curls laid ready for soft fingers to twine themselves among them, and look all the whiter among the glossy black knots? Judge for yourself!”
Alas! poor Philammon!
“And after all,” thought he, “is it not true, as well as pleasant?”
“Sing to the poor boy, girls!—sing to him! and teach him for the first time in his little ignorant life, the old road to inspiration!”
One of the slave-girls sat down on the divan, and took up a double flute; while the other rose, and accompanying the plaintive dreamy air with a slow dance, and delicate twinklings of her silver armlets and anklets, and the sistrum which she held aloft, she floated gracefully round and round the floor and sang—
Why were we born but for bliss?
Why are we ripe, but to fall?
Dream not that duty can bar thee from beauty,
Like water and sunshine, the heirloom of all.Lips were made only to kiss;
Hands were made only to toy;
Eyes were made only to lure on the lonely,
The longing, the loving, and drown them in joy!
Alas, for poor Philammon! And yet no! The very poison brought with it its own antidote; and, shaking off by one strong effort of will the spell of the music and the wine, he sprang to his feet. …
“Never! If love means no
