“As we will for you!” shouted many voices.
“Say for the kingdom of God.” And he passed out.
And so ended Philammon’s first day in Alexandria.
VI
The New Diogenes
About five o’clock the next morning, Raphael Aben-Ezra was lying in bed, alternately yawning over a manuscript of Philo Judaeus, pulling the ears of his huge British mastiff, watching the sparkle of the fountain in the court outside, wondering when that lazy boy would come to tell him that the bath was warmed, and meditating, half aloud. …
“Alas! poor me! Here I am, back again—just at the point from which I started! … How am I to get free from that heathen Siren? Plagues on her! I shall end by falling in love with her. … I don’t know that I have not got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly glad the other day when that fool told me he dare not accept her modest offer. Ha! ha! A delicious joke it would have been to have seen Orestes bowing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed in the ruins of the Serapeium, as High Priestess of the Abomination of Desolation! … And now … Well I call all heaven and earth to witness, that I have fought valiantly. I have faced naughty little Eros like a man, rod in hand. What could a poor human being do more than try to marry her to someone else, in hopes of sickening himself of the whole matter? Well, every moth has its candle, and every man his destiny. But the daring of the little fool! What huge imaginations she has! She might be another Zenobia, now, with Orestes as Odenatus, and Raphael Aben-Ezra to play the part of Longinus, and receive Longinus’s salary of axe or poison. She don’t care for me; she would sacrifice me, or a thousand of me, the cold-blooded fanatical archangel that she is, to water with our blood the foundation of some new temple of cast rags and broken dolls. … Oh, Raphael Aben-Ezra, what a fool you are! … You know you are going off as usual to her lecture, this very morning!”
At this crisis of his confessions the page entered, and announced, not the bath, but Miriam.
The old woman, who, in virtue of her profession, had the private entry of all fashionable chambers in Alexandria, came in hurriedly; and instead of seating herself as usual, for a gossip, remained standing, and motioned the boy out of the room.
“Well my sweet mother? Sit: Ah? I see! You rascal, you have brought in no wine for the lady. Don’t you know her little ways yet?”
“Eos has got it at the door, of course,” answered the boy, with a saucy air of offended virtue.
“Out with you, imp of Satan!” cried Miriam. “This is no time for winebibbing. Raphael Aben-Ezra, why are you lying here? Did you not receive a note last night?”
“A note? So I did, but I was too sleepy to read it. There it lies. Boy, bring it here. … What’s this? A scrap out of Jeremiah? ‘Arise, and flee for thy life, for evil is determined against the whole house of Israel!’—Does this come from the chief rabbi; I always took the venerable father for a sober man. … Eh, Miriam?”
“Fool! instead of laughing at the sacred words of the prophets, get up and obey them. I sent you the note.”
“Why can’t I obey them in bed? Here I am, reading hard at the Cabbala, or Philo—who is stupider still—and what more would you have?”
The old woman, unable to restrain her impatience, literally ran at him, gnashing her teeth, and, before he was aware, dragged him out of bed upon the floor, where he stood meekly wondering what would come next.
“Many thanks, mother, for having saved me the one daily torture of life—getting out of bed by one’s own exertion.”
“Raphael Aben-Ezra! are you so besotted with your philosophy and your heathenry, and your laziness, and your contempt for God and man, that you will see your nation given up for a prey, and your wealth plundered by heathen dogs? I tell you, Cyril has sworn that God shall do so to him, and more also, if there be a Jew left in Alexandria by tomorrow about this time.”
“So much the better for the Jews, then, if they are half as tired of this noisy Pandemonium as I am. But how can I help it? Am I Queen Esther, to go to Ahasuerus there in the prefect’s palace, and get him to hold out the golden sceptre to me?”
“Fool! if you had read that note last night, you might have gone and saved us, and your name would have been handed down forever from generation to generation as a second Mordecai.”
“My dear mother, Ahasuerus would have been either fast asleep, or far too drunk to listen to me. Why did you not go yourself?”
“Do you suppose that I would not have gone if I could? Do you fancy me a sluggard like yourself? At the risk of my life I have got hither in time, if there be time to save you.”
“Well: shall I dress? What can be done now?”
“Nothing! The streets are blockaded by Cyril’s mob—There! do you hear the shouts and screams? They are attacking the farther part of the quarter already.”
“What! are they murdering them?” asked Raphael, throwing on his pelisse. “Because, if it has really come to a practical joke of that kind, I shall have the greatest pleasure in employing a counterirritant. Here, boy! My sword and dagger! Quick!”
“No, the hypocrites! No blood is to be shed, they say, if we make no resistance, and let them pillage. Cyril and his monks are there, to prevent outrage, and so forth. … The Angel of the Lord scatter them!”
The conversation was interrupted by the rushing in of the whole household, in an agony of terror; and Raphael, at last thoroughly roused, went to a window
