The youths looked up at him from their writing as he passed, with faces of surprise and awe, and evidently thinking no more about the absurdity of his sheepskin and his tanned complexion; and he went out with a stunned, confused feeling, as of one who, by a desperate leap, has plunged into a new world. He tried to feel content; but he dare not. All before him was anxiety, uncertainty. He had cut himself adrift; he was on the great stream. Whither would it lead him? Well—was it not the great stream? Had not all mankind, for all the ages, been floating on it? Or was it but a desert-river, dwindling away beneath the fiery sun, destined to lose itself a few miles on, among the arid sands? Were Arsenius and the faith of his childhood right? And was the Old World coming speedily to its death-throe, and the Kingdom of God at hand? Or was Cyril right, and the Church Catholic appointed to spread, and conquer, and destroy, and rebuild, till the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ! If so, what use in this old knowledge which he craved? And yet, if the day of the destruction of all things were at hand, and the times destined to become worse and not better, till the end—how could that be? …
“What news?” asked the little porter, who had been waiting for him at the door all the while. “What news, O favourite of the gods!”
“I will lodge with you, and labour with you. Ask me no more at present. I am—I am—”
“Those who descended into the Cave of Trophonius, and beheld the unspeakable, remained astonished for three days, my young friend—and so will you!” And they went forth together to earn their bread.
But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon that cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far above the noise and struggle of man and his workday world?
She is sitting again, with her manuscripts open before her; but she is thinking of the young monk, not of them.
“Beautiful as Antinous! … Rather as the young Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the slaughter of the Python. Why should not he, too, become a slayer of Pythons, and loathsome monsters, bred from the mud of sense and matter? So bold and earnest! I can forgive him those words for the very fact of his having dared, here in my fathers house, to say them to me. … And yet so tender, so open to repentance and noble shame!—That is no plebeian by birth; patrician blood surely flows in those veins; it shows out in every attitude, every tone, every motion of the hand and lip. He cannot be one of the herd. Who ever knew one of them crave after knowledge for its own sake? … And I have longed so for one real pupil! I have longed so to find one such man, among the effeminate selfish triflers who pretend to listen to me. I thought I had found one—and the moment that I had lost him, behold, I find another; and that a fresher, purer, simpler nature than ever Raphael’s was at its best. By all the laws of physiognomy—by all the symbolism of gesture and voice and complexion—by the instinct of my own heart, that young monk might be the instrument, the ready, valiant, obedient instrument, for carrying out all my dreams. If I could but train him into a Longinus, I could dare to play the part of a Zenobia, with him as counseller. … And for my Odenatus—Orestes? Horrible!”
She covered her face with her hand a minute. “No!” she said, dashing away the tears—“That—and anything—and everything for the cause of Philosophy and the gods!”
XI
The Laura Again
Not a sound, not a moving object, broke the utter stillness of the glen of Scetis. The shadows of the crags, though paling every moment before the spreading dawn, still shrouded all the gorge in gloom. A winding line of haze slept above the course of the rivulet. The plumes of the palm-trees hung motionless, as if awaiting in resignation the breathless blaze of the approaching day. At length, among the green ridges of the monastery garden, two gray figures rose from their knees, and began, with slow and feeble strokes, to break the silence by the clatter of their hoes among the pebbles.
“These beans grow wonderfully, brother Aufugus. We shall be able to sow our second crop, by God’s blessing, a week earlier than we did last year.”
The person addressed returned no answer; and his companion, after watching him for some time in silence, recommenced—
“What is it, my brother? I have remarked lately a melancholy about you, which is hardly fitting for a man of God.”
A deep sigh was the only answer. The speaker laid down his hoe, and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of Aufugus, asked again—
“What is it, my friend? I will not claim with you my abbot’s right to know the secrets of your heart: but surely that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken to me, however unworthy I may be to hear it!”
“Why should I not be sad, Pambo, my friend? Does not Solomon say that there is a time for mourning?”
“True: but a time for mirth also.”
“None to the penitent, burdened with the guilt of many sins.”
“Recollect what the blessed Anthony used to say—‘Trust not in thine own righteousness, and regret not that which is past.’ ”
“I do neither, Pambo.”
“Do not be too sure of that. Is it not because thou art still trusting in thyself, that thou dost regret the past, which shows thee that thou art not that which thou wouldst gladly pride thyself on being?”
“Pambo, my friend,” said Arsenius solemnly, “I will tell thee all. My sins are not yet past; for
