Latest / Last Days of Pompeii / 020 - Book 3 Chapter III

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020 - Book 3 Chapter III · Last Days of Pompeii

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  Speaker 1: Book three, Chapter three of Last Days of Pompeii. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Ann Boulay. Last Days of
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  Speaker 1: Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer Lytton Book three, Chapter three.
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  Speaker 1: The congregation, followed by Apacides the Nazarene, gained the side
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  Speaker 1: of the Sarnas. That river, which now has shrunk into
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  Speaker 1: a petty stream, then rushed gaily into the sea, covered
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  Speaker 1: with countless vessels, and reflecting on its waves the gardens,
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  Speaker 1: the vines, the palaces, and the temples of Pompeii from
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  Speaker 1: its more noisy and frequented banks. Olinthus directed his steps
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  Speaker 1: to a path which ran amidst a shady vista of trees,
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  Speaker 1: at the distance of a few paces from the river.
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  Speaker 1: This walk was, in the evening a favorite resort of
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  Speaker 1: the Pompeians, but during the heat and business of the
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  Speaker 1: day was seldom visited, save by some groups of playful children,
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  Speaker 1: some meditative poet or some disputative philosophers. At the side
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  Speaker 1: farthest from the river, frequent copses of box interspersed the
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  Speaker 1: more delicate and effervescent foliage, and these were cut into
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  Speaker 1: a thousand quaint shapes, sometimes into the forms of fawns
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  Speaker 1: and satyrs, sometimes into the mimicry of Egyptian pyramids, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: into the letters that composed the name of a popular
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  Speaker 1: or eminent citizen. Thus the false taste is equally ancient
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  Speaker 1: as the pure, and the retired traders of Hackney and
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  Speaker 1: Paddington a century ago were little aware, perhaps that in
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  Speaker 1: their tortured use and sculptured box they found their models
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  Speaker 1: in the most polished period of Roman antiquity, in the
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  Speaker 1: gardens of Pompeii and the villas of the fastidious Pliny.
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  Speaker 1: This walked now as the noonday sun shone perpendicularly through
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  Speaker 1: the checkered leaves, was entirely deserted, at least no other
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  Speaker 1: forms than those of Olynthus and the priest infringed upon
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  Speaker 1: the solitude. They sat themselves on one of the benches,
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  Speaker 1: placed at intervals between the trees, and facing the faint
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  Speaker 1: breeze that came languidly from the river, whose ways danced
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  Speaker 1: and sparkled before them. A singular and contrasted pair the
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  Speaker 1: believer in the latest the priests of the most ancient
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  Speaker 1: worship of the world. Since thou leftest me so abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: said Olethus hast thou been happy? Hast thy heart found
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  Speaker 1: contentment under these priestly robes. Hast thou still yearning for
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  Speaker 1: the voice of God? Heard it whisper comfort to THEE
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  Speaker 1: from the oracles of isis that sigh, that averted countenance?
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  Speaker 1: Give me the answer my soul predicted alas answered Epacides, sadly,
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  Speaker 1: thou seest before THEE a wretched and distracted man. From
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  Speaker 1: my childhood upward, I have idolized the dreams of virtue.
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  Speaker 1: I have envied the holiness of men who, in caves
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  Speaker 1: and lonely temples have been admitted to the companionship of
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  Speaker 1: beings above the world. My days have been consumed with
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  Speaker 1: feverish and vague desires, my nights with mocking but solemn visions.
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  Speaker 1: Seduced by the mystic prophecies of an impostor, I have
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  Speaker 1: endued these robes my nature, I confess it to THEE. Frankly,
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  Speaker 1: my nature has revolted at what I have seen and
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  Speaker 1: been doomed to share. In searching after the truth. I
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  Speaker 1: have become but the minister of falsehoods. On the evening
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  Speaker 1: in which we last met, I was buoyed by hopes
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  Speaker 1: created by that same impostor whom I ought already to
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  Speaker 1: have better known. I have no matter, no matter suffice it.
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  Speaker 1: I have added perjury and sin, to rashness and to sorrow.
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  Speaker 1: The veil is now rent forever from my eyes. I
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  Speaker 1: behold a villain where I obeyed a demi god. The
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  Speaker 1: earth darkens in my sight. I am in the deepest
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  Speaker 1: abyss of gloom. I know not if there be gods above,
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  Speaker 1: if we are the things of chance, if beyond the
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  Speaker 1: bounded and melancholy present, there is annihilation or a hereafter.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me, then, thy faith sol these doubts. If thou
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  Speaker 1: hast indeed the power, I do not marvel, answered the Nazarene,
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  Speaker 1: that thou hast thus erred, or that thou art thus septic.
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  Speaker 1: Eighty years ago, there was no assurance to man of
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  Speaker 1: God or of a certain and definite future beyond the grave.
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  Speaker 1: New laws are declared to him who has ears a heaven,
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  Speaker 1: A true olympus is revealed to him who has eyes. Heed,
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  Speaker 1: then and listen, and with all the earnestness of a
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  Speaker 1: man believing ardently himself and zealous to convert the Nazarene
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  Speaker 1: poorthforth to apacities the assurances of scriptural promise. He spoke
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  Speaker 1: first of the sufferings and miracles of Christ. He wept
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  Speaker 1: as he spoke. He turned next to the glories of
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  Speaker 1: the Savior's ascension, to the clear predictions of revelation. He
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  Speaker 1: described that pure and unsensual heaven destined to the virtuous.
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  Speaker 1: Those fires and torments that were the doom of guilt.
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  Speaker 1: The doubts which sprung up to the mind of later
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  Speaker 1: reasoners in the immensity of the sacrifice of God to
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  Speaker 1: man were not such as would occur to the early heathen.
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  Speaker 1: He had been accustomed to believe that the gods had
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  Speaker 1: lived upon the earth and taken upon themselves the form
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  Speaker 1: of men, had shared in human passions, in human labors,
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  Speaker 1: and in human misfortunes. What was the travail of his
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  Speaker 1: own Alcmena's son, whose altar now smoked with the incense
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  Speaker 1: of countless cities, but a toil for the human race
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  Speaker 1: had not the great Dorian Apollo expiated a mystic sin
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  Speaker 1: by descending to the grave those who were the deities
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  Speaker 1: of heaven had been the lawgivers or benefactors on earth,
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  Speaker 1: and gratitude had led to worship. It seemed, therefore to
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  Speaker 1: the heathen a doctrine neither knew nor strange, that Christ
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  Speaker 1: had been sent from heaven, that an immortal had endued
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  Speaker 1: mortality and tasted the bitterness of death, and the end
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  Speaker 1: for which he thus toiled and thus suffered. How far
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  Speaker 1: more glorious did it seem to Epacides than that for
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  Speaker 1: which the deities of old had visited the nether world
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  Speaker 1: and passed through the gates of death? Was it not
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  Speaker 1: worthy of a god too descend to these dim valleys
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  Speaker 1: in order to clear up the clouds gathered over the
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  Speaker 1: dark mound beyond, to satisfy the doubts of sages, to
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  Speaker 1: convert speculation into certainty by example, to point out the
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  Speaker 1: rules of life by revelation, to solve the enigma of
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  Speaker 1: the grave, and to prove that the soul did not
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  Speaker 1: yearn in vain when it dreamed of an immortality. In
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  Speaker 1: these lasts was the great argument of those lowly men
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  Speaker 1: destined to convert the earth. As nothing is more flattering
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  Speaker 1: to the pride and the hopes of man than the
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  Speaker 1: belief in a future state. So nothing could be more
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  Speaker 1: vague and confused than the notions of the Heathen sages.
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  Speaker 1: Upon that mystic subject. Apacides had already learned that the
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  Speaker 1: faith of the philosophers was not that of the herd,
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  Speaker 1: that if they secretly professed a creed in some diviner power,
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  Speaker 1: it was not the creed which they thought it wise
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  Speaker 1: to impart to the community. He had already learned that
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  Speaker 1: even the priests ridiculed what he preached to the people,
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  Speaker 1: that the notions of the few and the man were
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  Speaker 1: never united. But in this new faith, it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: him that philosopher, priest, and people, the expounders of the
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  Speaker 1: religion and its followers were alike accordant. They did not
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  Speaker 1: speculate and debate upon immortality. They spoke of as a
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  Speaker 1: thing certain and assured. The magnificence of the promise dazzled him,
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  Speaker 1: its consolation soothed, For the Christian faith made its early
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  Speaker 1: converts among sinners. Many of his fathers and its martyrs
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  Speaker 1: were those who felt the bitterness of vice, and who
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  Speaker 1: were therefore no longer tempted by his false aspect. From
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  Speaker 1: the paths of an austere and uncompromising virtue. All the
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  Speaker 1: assurances of this healing faith invited to repentance. They were
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  Speaker 1: peculiarly adapted to the bruised and sore of spirit. The
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  Speaker 1: very remorse which Epacites felt for his late excesses made
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  Speaker 1: him incline to one who found holiness and that remorse,
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  Speaker 1: and who whispered of the joy in heaven over one
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  Speaker 1: sinner that repenteth, Come, said the Nazarene, as he perceived
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  Speaker 1: the effect he had produced. To the humble haul in
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  Speaker 1: which we meet a select and a chosen few. Listen
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  Speaker 1: there to our prayers. Note the sincerity of our repentant
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  Speaker 1: tears mingle in our simple sacrifice, not of victims, nor
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  Speaker 1: of garlands, but offered by white robe thoughts upon the
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  Speaker 1: altar of the heart. The flowers that we lay there
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  Speaker 1: are imperishable. They bloom over us when we are no more, Nay,
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  Speaker 1: they accompany us beyond the grave. They spring up beneath
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  Speaker 1: our feet in heaven. They delight us with an eternal odor.
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  Speaker 1: For they are of the soul, they partake of its nature.
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  Speaker 1: These offerings are temptations overcome, and sins repented come Oh,
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  Speaker 1: come lose not another moment. Prepare all ready for the great,
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  Speaker 1: the awful journey from darkness to light, from sorrowness to bliss,
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  Speaker 1: from corruption to immortality. This is the day of the
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  Speaker 1: Lord the Sun, a day that we have set apart
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  Speaker 1: for our devotions. Though we meet usually at night, yet
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  Speaker 1: some amongst us are gathered together even now. What joy,
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  Speaker 1: what triumph will be with us all? If we can
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  Speaker 1: bring one stray lamb into the sacred fold. There seemed
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  Speaker 1: to epacidies, so naturally pure of heart, something ineffably generous
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  Speaker 1: and benign in that spirit of conversation which animated Olynthus
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  Speaker 1: a spirit that found its own bliss in the happiness
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  Speaker 1: of others, that sought in his wide sociality to make
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  Speaker 1: companions for eternity. He was touched, softened, and subdued. He
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  Speaker 1: was not in that mood which can bear to be
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  Speaker 1: left alone. Curiosity, too, mingled with his purer stimulants. He
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  Speaker 1: was anxious to see those rites of which so many
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  Speaker 1: dark and contradictory rumors were afloat. He paused a moment,
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  Speaker 1: looked over his garb, thought of our bases, shuddered with horror,
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  Speaker 1: lifted his eyes to the broad brow of the Nazarene, intent, anxious, watchful,
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  Speaker 1: but for his benefit, for his salvation. He drew his
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  Speaker 1: robe round him, so as holy to conceal his robes,
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  Speaker 1: and said, lead on, I follow thee. Tuthus pressed his
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  Speaker 1: hand joyfully, and then, descending to the river side, hailed
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  Speaker 1: one of the boats that plied there constantly. They entered it, and,
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  Speaker 1: awning overhead, while it sheltered them from the sun, screened
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  Speaker 1: also their persons from observation. They rapidly skimmed the wave.
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  Speaker 1: From one of the boats that passed them. Floated a
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  Speaker 1: soft music, and its prow was decorated with flowers. It
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  Speaker 1: was gliding towards the sea, so said Alynthus, sadly, unconscious
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  Speaker 1: and mirthful in their delusions, sail the votaries of luxury
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  Speaker 1: into the great ocean of storm and shipwreck. We passed them,
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  Speaker 1: silent and unnoticed, to gain the land. Apacides, lifting his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: caught through the aperture in the yawning a glimpse of
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  Speaker 1: the face of one of the inmates on that gay bark.
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  Speaker 1: It was the face of Ione. The lovers were embarked
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  Speaker 1: on the excursion at which we have been made present,
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  Speaker 1: The priest's sighed, and once more sunk back upon his seat.
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  Speaker 1: They reached the shore, where in the suburbs an alley
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  Speaker 1: of small and mean houses stretched towards the bank. They
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  Speaker 1: dismissed the boat landed, and olynthus preceding the priest, threaded
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  Speaker 1: the labyrinth of lanes, and arrived at last at the
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  Speaker 1: closed door of a habitation somewhat larger than its neighbors.
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  Speaker 1: He knocked thrice. The door was opened and closed again.
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  Speaker 1: As the Pacites followed his guide across the threshold, they
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  Speaker 1: passed a deserted atrium and gained an inner chamber of
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  Speaker 1: moderate size, which, when the door was closed, received its
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  Speaker 1: only light from a small window cut over the door itself.
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  Speaker 1: But halting at the threshold of this chamber, and knocking
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  Speaker 1: at the door, Olympus said, peace be with you. A
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  Speaker 1: voice from within returned, Peace be with whom the faithful,
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  Speaker 1: answered Olympus, and the door opened. Twelve or fourteen persons
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  Speaker 1: were sitting in a semicircle, silent and seemingly absorbed in thought,
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  Speaker 1: and opposite to a crucifix rudely carved in wood. They
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  Speaker 1: lifted up their eyes when olynthus entered without speaking the
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  Speaker 1: Nazarene himself before he accosted them, knelt suddenly down, and
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  Speaker 1: by his moving lips and his eyes fixed steadfastly on
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  Speaker 1: the crucifix a, Pacides saw that he prayed inly this
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  Speaker 1: write performed. Olynthus turned to the congregation, men and brethren,
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  Speaker 1: he said, start not to behold amongst you a priest
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  Speaker 1: of isis. He hath sojourned with the blind, but the
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  Speaker 1: spirit hath fallen on him. He desires to see, to hear,
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  Speaker 1: and to understand. Let him, said one of the assembly,
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  Speaker 1: and Apacides beheld in the speaker, a man still younger
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  Speaker 1: than himself, of a countenance equally worn and pallid, of
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  Speaker 1: an eye which equally spoke of the restless and fiery
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  Speaker 1: operations of a working mind. Let him repeated a second voice,
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  Speaker 1: And he who thus spoke was in the prime of manhood.
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  Speaker 1: His bronze skin and asiatic features bespoke him a son
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  Speaker 1: of Syria. He had been a robber in his youth.
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  Speaker 1: Let him said a third voice, and the priest, again,
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  Speaker 1: turning to regard the speaker, saw an old man with
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  Speaker 1: a long gray beard, whom he recognized as a slave
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  Speaker 1: to the wealthy diomed let him repeated simultaneously the rest men, who,
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  Speaker 1: with two exceptions, were evidently of the inferior ranks. In
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  Speaker 1: these exceptions, Epacites noted an officer of the guard and
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  Speaker 1: an Alexandrian merchant. We do not recommenced Olynthus we do
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  Speaker 1: not bind you to secrecy. We impose on you no oaths,
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  Speaker 1: as some of our weaker brethren would do. It is true, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: that there is no absolute law against us. But the multitude,
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  Speaker 1: more savage than the rulers, thirst for our lives. So,
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  Speaker 1: my friends, when Pilot would have hesitated, it was the
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  Speaker 1: people who shouted Christ to the cross. But we bind
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  Speaker 1: you not to our safety. No betray us to the crowd. Impeach, calumniate, malignus,
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  Speaker 1: if you will. We are above death. We should walk
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  Speaker 1: cheerfully to the den of the lion or the rack
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  Speaker 1: of the torturer. We can trample down the darkness of
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  Speaker 1: the grave. And what is death to a criminal is
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  Speaker 1: eternity to the Christian, A low and applauding murmur ran
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  Speaker 1: through the assembly. Thou comest among us as an examiner,
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  Speaker 1: mayst thou remain a convert our religion. You behold it
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  Speaker 1: yon cross, our soul image, yon scroll, the mysteries of
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  Speaker 1: our serian eolysses, our mortality. It is in our lives,
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  Speaker 1: sinners we all have been, who now can accuse us
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  Speaker 1: of a crime we have baptized ourselves from the past.
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  Speaker 1: Think not that this is of us, It is of God.
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  Speaker 1: Approach Meden, beckoning to the old slave who had spoken
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  Speaker 1: third for the omission of apacites. Thou art the sole
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  Speaker 1: man amongst us, who is not free, but in heaven
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  Speaker 1: the last shall be first. So with us, unfold your scroll,
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  Speaker 1: read and explain. Useless would it be for us to
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  Speaker 1: accompany the lecture of Medan or the comments of the
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  Speaker 1: congregation familiar? Now are those doctrines then strange and new?
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  Speaker 1: Eighteen centuries have left us little to expound upon the
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  Speaker 1: lure of scripture or the life of Christ. To us, too,
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  Speaker 1: there would seem little congenial in the doubts that occurred
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  Speaker 1: to a heathen priest, and little learned in the answers
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  Speaker 1: they received from men uneducated, rude and simple, possessing only
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  Speaker 1: the knowledge that they are greater than they seemed. There
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  Speaker 1: was one thing that greatly touched the Neopolitan when the
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  Speaker 1: lecture was concluded, they heard a very gentle knock at
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  Speaker 1: the door. The password was given and replied to. The
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  Speaker 1: door opened, and two young children, the eldest of whom
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  Speaker 1: might have told its seventh year, entered timidly. They were
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  Speaker 1: the children of the master of the house, that dark
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  Speaker 1: and hearty Syrian, whose youth had been spent in pillage
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  Speaker 1: and bloodshed. The eldest of the congregation, it was, that
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  Speaker 1: old slave, opened to them his arms. They fled to
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  Speaker 1: the shelter, They crept to his breast, and his hard
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  Speaker 1: features smiled as he caressed them. And these bold and
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  Speaker 1: fervent men, nursed in vicissitude, beaten by the rough winds
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  Speaker 1: of life, men have mailed in impervious fortitude, ready to
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  Speaker 1: affront a world prepared for torment and armed for death.
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  Speaker 1: Men who presented all imaginable contrasts to the weak nerves.
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  Speaker 1: The light hearts, the tender fragility of childhood crowded round
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  Speaker 1: the infants, smoothing their rugged brows and composing their bearded
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  Speaker 1: lips to kindly and fostering smiles. Then the old man
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  Speaker 1: opened the scroll, and he taught the infants to repeat
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  Speaker 1: after him, that beautiful prayer which we still dedicate to
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  Speaker 1: the Lord, and still teach to our children. And then
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  Speaker 1: he told them in simple phrase, of God's love to
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  Speaker 1: the young, and how not a sparrow falls, but his
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  Speaker 1: eyes seize it. This lovely custom of iNFiNiT initiation was
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  Speaker 1: long cherished by the early Church in memory of the
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  Speaker 1: words which said, suffer little children to come unto me,
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  Speaker 1: and forbid them not, and was perhaps the origin of
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  Speaker 1: the superstitious calumny which ascribed to the Nazarenes, the crime
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  Speaker 1: which the Nazarenes, when victorious, attributed to the jew these
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  Speaker 1: the decoying children, to hideous rites at which they were
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  Speaker 1: secretly immolated, And the stern paternal penitence seemed to feel
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  Speaker 1: in the innocence of his children a return into early
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  Speaker 1: life life e'er yet it sinned. He followed the motion
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  Speaker 1: of their young lips with an earnest gaze. He smiled
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  Speaker 1: as they repeated, with hush and reverent looks, the holy words.
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  Speaker 1: And when the lesson was done, and they ran released
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  Speaker 1: and gladly to his knee, he clasped them to his breast,
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  Speaker 1: kissed them again and again, and tears flowed fast down
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  Speaker 1: his cheek. Tears of which it could have been impossible
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  Speaker 1: to trace the source. So mingled they were with joy
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  Speaker 1: and sorrow, penitence and hope, remorse for himself, and love
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  Speaker 1: for them. Something I say there was in this scene
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  Speaker 1: which peculiarly affected apacities, And in truth it is difficult
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  Speaker 1: to conceive a ceremony more appropriate to the religion of benevolence,
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  Speaker 1: more appealing to the household than every day affections, striking
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  Speaker 1: a more sensitive chord in the human breast. It was
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  Speaker 1: at this time that an inner door opened gently, and
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  Speaker 1: a very old man entered the chamber, leaning on his staff.
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  Speaker 1: At his presence, the whole congregation rose. There was an
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  Speaker 1: expression of deep affectionate respect upon every countenance, and apacides,
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  Speaker 1: gazing on his countenance, felt attracted towards him by an
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  Speaker 1: irresistible sympathy. No man ever looked upon that face without love,
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  Speaker 1: for there had dwelt the smile of the deity, the
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  Speaker 1: incarnation of Divinus. Love, and the glory of the smile
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  Speaker 1: had never passed away. My children, God be with you,
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  Speaker 1: said the old man, stretching his arms, and as he spoke,
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  Speaker 1: the infants ran to his knee. He sat down and
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  Speaker 1: they nestled fondly to his breast. It was beautiful to
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  Speaker 1: see that mingling of the extremities of life, the rivers
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  Speaker 1: gushing from their early source, the majestic streme gliding to
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  Speaker 1: the ocean of eternity, as the light of declining day
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  Speaker 1: seems to mingle earth and heaven, making the outline of
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  Speaker 1: each scarce visible, and blending the harsh mountain tops with
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the sky. Even so did the smile of that benign
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: old age appear to hallow the aspect of those around,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to blend together the strong distinctions of varying years, and
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to diffuse over infancy and manhood the light of that
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: heaven into which it must soon vanish and be lost. Father,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: said Olynthus, thou on whose form the miracle of the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Redeemer worked, Thou, who wert snatched from the grave to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: become the living witness of his mercy and his power.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Behold a stranger in our meeting, a new lamb gathered
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to the fold. Let me bless him, said the old man.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: The throng gave way apactes approached him, as by an instinct,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: he fell on his knees before him. The old man
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: laid his hands on the priest's head and blessed him,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: but not aloud. As his lips moved, his eyes were upturned,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and tears, those tears that good men only shed in
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the hope of happiness to another, flowed fast down his cheeks.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: The children were on either side of the convert. His
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: heart was theirs. He had become as one of them,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. End of Book three,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter three mm