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022 - Book 3 Chapter V · Last Days of Pompeii

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  Speaker 1: Book three, Chapter five 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 Anne Boulay. Last Days of
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  Speaker 1: Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer Lytton book three, Chapter five,
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  Speaker 1: Nydia encounters Julia interview of the heathen sister and converted brother,
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  Speaker 1: and Athenian's notion of Christianity. What happiness to Ione? What
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  Speaker 1: bliss to be ever by the side of Glaucus, to
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  Speaker 1: hear his voice, and she too can see him? Such
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  Speaker 1: was the soliloquy of the blind girl as she walked
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  Speaker 1: alone and at twilight, to the house of her new mistress,
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  Speaker 1: whither Glaucus had already preceded her. Suddenly she was interrupted
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  Speaker 1: in her fond thoughts by a female voice. Blind Girl,
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  Speaker 1: whither goest thou there is no pannier under thine arm,
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  Speaker 1: hast thou sold all thy flowers. The person thus accosting
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  Speaker 1: Nydia was a lady of a hansom, but a bold
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  Speaker 1: and unmaidenly countenance. It was Julia, the daughter of Diomed.
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  Speaker 1: Her veil was half raised as she spoke. She was
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  Speaker 1: accompanied by Diomed himself and by a slave carrying a
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  Speaker 1: lantern before them. The merchant and his daughter were returning
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  Speaker 1: home from a supper at one of their neighbors. Dost
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  Speaker 1: thou not remember my voice? Continued Julia. I am the
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  Speaker 1: daughter of Diomed, the wealthy. AH, forgive me, yes, I
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  Speaker 1: recall the tones of your voice. No, Noble Julia, I
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  Speaker 1: have no flowers to sell. I heard that thou wert
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  Speaker 1: purchased by the beautiful Greek Glaucus. Is that true, pretty
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  Speaker 1: slave asked Julia, I serve the neopolitan Ione, replied Nitia evasively. Ah,
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  Speaker 1: and it is true. Then come, come, interrupted Diomed, with
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  Speaker 1: his cloak up to his mouth. The night grows cold.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot stay here while you prated to that blind girl.
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  Speaker 1: Come let her follow you home if you wish to
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  Speaker 1: speak to her, do, child, said Julia, with the air
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  Speaker 1: of one not accustomed to be refused. I have much
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  Speaker 1: to ask of thee. Come, I cannot this night it
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  Speaker 1: grows late, answered Nydia. I must be at home. I
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  Speaker 1: am not free, Noble Julia. What the meek Ione will
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  Speaker 1: chide thee ay, I doubt not she is a second thileustrous,
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  Speaker 1: But come then tomorrow, do remember I have been thy
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  Speaker 1: friend of old. I will obey thy wishes, answered Nydia,
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  Speaker 1: and Diomed again impatiently summoned his daughter. She was obliged
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  Speaker 1: to proceed with the main question she had desired to
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  Speaker 1: put to Nydia unasked. Meanwhile, we returned to Ione. The
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  Speaker 1: interval of time that had elapsed that day between the
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  Speaker 1: first and second visit of Glaucus had not been too
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  Speaker 1: gaily spent. She had received a visit from her brother
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  Speaker 1: since the night he had assisted in saving her from
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  Speaker 1: the Egyptian. She had not before seen him occupied with
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  Speaker 1: his own thoughts, thoughts of so serious and intense a nature.
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  Speaker 1: The young priest had thought little of his sister. In truth,
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  Speaker 1: men perhaps of that fervent order of mind which is
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  Speaker 1: ever aspiring above earth, are but little prone to the
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  Speaker 1: earthlier affections. And it had been long since Apacides had
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  Speaker 1: sought those soft and friendly interchanges of thought, those sweet
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  Speaker 1: confidences which in his earlier youth had bound him to Ione,
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  Speaker 1: and which are so natural to that endearing connection which
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  Speaker 1: existed between them. Ione, however, had not ceased to regret
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  Speaker 1: his estrangement. She had attributed it at present to the
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  Speaker 1: engrossing duties of his severe fraternity, and often amidst all
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  Speaker 1: her bright hopes and her new attachment to her betrothed. Often,
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  Speaker 1: when she thought of her brother's brow prematurely furrowed his
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  Speaker 1: unsmiling lips and bended frame, she sighed to think that
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  Speaker 1: the service of the gods could throw so deep a
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  Speaker 1: shadow over that earth which the gods created. But this day,
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  Speaker 1: when he visited her, there was a strange calmness on
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  Speaker 1: his features, a more quiet and self possessed expression in
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  Speaker 1: his sunken eyes than she had marked for years. This
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  Speaker 1: apparent improvement was but momentary. It was a false calm
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  Speaker 1: which the least breeze could ruffle. May the Gods bless thee,
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  Speaker 1: my brother, she said, embracing him. The gods speak not
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  Speaker 1: thus vaguely. Perchance there is but one God, my brother.
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  Speaker 1: What if the sublime faith of the Nazarene be true?
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  Speaker 1: What if God be a monarch, one invisible alone. What
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  Speaker 1: if these numerous, countless deities whose altars fill the earth
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  Speaker 1: be but evil demons seeking to wean us from the
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  Speaker 1: true creed. This may be the case, Ione alas can
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  Speaker 1: we believe it? Or if we believed, would it not
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  Speaker 1: be a melan melancholy? Faith? Answered the Neopolitan, What all
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  Speaker 1: this beautiful world made only human mountain, disenchanted of its
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  Speaker 1: ohrid the waters of their nymph, that beautiful prodigiality of
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  Speaker 1: faith which makes everything divine, consecrating the meanest flowers, bearing
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  Speaker 1: celestial whispers in the faintest breathed, wouldst thou deny this
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  Speaker 1: and make the earth mere dust and clay? No apacides
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  Speaker 1: all that is brightest in our hearts? Is that very
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  Speaker 1: credulity which peoples the universe with gods? Ione answered, as
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  Speaker 1: a believer in the poesy of the old mythology would answer,
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  Speaker 1: we may judge by that reply, how obstinate and hard
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  Speaker 1: the contest which Christianity had to endure. Among the Heathens,
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  Speaker 1: The graceful superstition was never silent. Every the most household
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  Speaker 1: action of their lives was entwined with it. It was
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  Speaker 1: a portion of life itself, as the flowers are a
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  Speaker 1: part of the thyrsus. At every incident they recurred to
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  Speaker 1: a god. Every cup of wine was prefaced by a livation.
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  Speaker 1: The very garlands on their households were dedicated to some divinity,
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  Speaker 1: their ancestors themselves made holy, presided as lerez over their
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  Speaker 1: hearth and hall. So abundant was belief with them that,
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  Speaker 1: in their own climes at this hour, idolatry has never
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  Speaker 1: thoroughly been outrooted. It changes but its objects of worship.
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  Speaker 1: It appeals to innumerable saints where once it resorted to divinities,
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  Speaker 1: and it pours its crowds and listening reverence to oracles
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  Speaker 1: at the shrines of Saint Januarius or Saint Stephen instead
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  Speaker 1: of those of Isis or Apollo. But these superstitions were
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  Speaker 1: not to the early Christians the object of contempt, so
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  Speaker 1: much of as horror. They did not believe with the
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  Speaker 1: quiet skepticism of the Heathen philosopher that the gods were
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  Speaker 1: inventions of the priest, nor even with the vulgar that
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  Speaker 1: according to the dim light of history, they had been
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  Speaker 1: mortals like themselves. They imagined the Heathen divinities to be
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  Speaker 1: evil spirits. They transplanted to Italy and to Greece, the
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  Speaker 1: gloomy demons of India and the East, And in Jupiter
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  Speaker 1: or in Mars, they shuddered at the representative of Moloch
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  Speaker 1: or of Satan. Epacides had not yet adopted formerly the
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  Speaker 1: Christian faith, but he was already on the brink of it.
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  Speaker 1: He already participated the doctrines of Olynthus he already imagined
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  Speaker 1: that the lively imaginations of the Heathen were the suggestions
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  Speaker 1: of the arch enemy of mankind. The innocent and natural
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  Speaker 1: answer of Ione made him shudder. He hastened to reply vehemently,
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  Speaker 1: and yet so confusedly that Ione feared for his reason
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  Speaker 1: more than she dreaded his violence. Ah, my brother, she said,
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  Speaker 1: these hard duties of thine have shattered thy very sense.
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  Speaker 1: Come to me, of Pasides, my brother, my own brother,
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  Speaker 1: Give me thy hand. Let me wipe the dew from
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  Speaker 1: thy brow. Chide me not now I understand thee. Not
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  Speaker 1: think only that Ione could not offend thee, Ione, said Apacides,
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  Speaker 1: drying her towards him and regarding her tenderly. Can I
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  Speaker 1: think that this beautiful form, this kind heart, may be
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  Speaker 1: destined to an eternity of torment d e meliora. The
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  Speaker 1: gods forbid, said Ione, in the customary form of words
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  Speaker 1: by which her contemporaries thought and omen might be averted.
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  Speaker 1: The words and still more. The superstition, they implied, wounded
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  Speaker 1: the ear of Apacides. He rose, muttering to himself, turned
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  Speaker 1: from the chamber, then, stopping half way, gazed wistfully on Ione,
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  Speaker 1: and extended his arms. Ione flew to them in joy.
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  Speaker 1: He kissed her earnestly, and then he said, farewell, my sister.
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  Speaker 1: When we next meet, mayest thou be to me as
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  Speaker 1: nothing Take thou then this embrace full yet of all
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  Speaker 1: the tender reminiscences of childhood, when faith and hope, creeds, customs, interests,
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  Speaker 1: objects were the same to us. Now the tie is
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  Speaker 1: to be broken. With these strange words, he left the house.
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  Speaker 1: The great and severest trial of the primitive Christians was
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  Speaker 1: indeed this. Their conversions separated them from their dearest bonds.
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  Speaker 1: They could not associate with beings whose commonest actions, whose
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  Speaker 1: commonest forms of speech, were impregnated with idolatry. They shuddered
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  Speaker 1: at the blessings of love to their years it was
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  Speaker 1: uttered in a demon's name. This, their misfortune, was their strength.
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  Speaker 1: If it divided them from the rest of the world,
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  Speaker 1: it was to unite them proportionally to each other. They
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  Speaker 1: were men of iron who wrought forth the word of God,
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  Speaker 1: and verily the bonds that bound them were of iron. Also,
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  Speaker 1: Glaucus found Ione in tears. He had already assumed the
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  Speaker 1: sweet privilege to console. He drew from her a recital
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  Speaker 1: of her interview with her brother. But in her confused
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  Speaker 1: account of language itself so confused to one not prepared
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  Speaker 1: for it, he was equally at a loss with Ione
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  Speaker 1: to conceive the intentions or the meaning of a Pactes
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  Speaker 1: hast thou ever heard much, she asked of this new
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  Speaker 1: sect of the Nazarenes, of which my brother spoke. I
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  Speaker 1: have often heard enough of the votaries, replied Glaucus. But
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  Speaker 1: of their exact tenants I know not, save that their
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  Speaker 1: doctrine there seemeth something preternaturally chilling and morose. They live
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  Speaker 1: apart from their kind. They affect to be shocked even
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  Speaker 1: at our simple uses of garlands. They have no sympathies
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  Speaker 1: with the cheerful amusements of life. They utter awful threats
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  Speaker 1: of the coming destruction of the world. They appear, in
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  Speaker 1: one word, to have brought their unsmiling and gloomy creed
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  Speaker 1: out of the cave of Trophonius. Yet continued Glaucus, after
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  Speaker 1: a slight pause. They have not wanted men of great
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  Speaker 1: power and genius, nor converts, even among the aerophagiites of Athens. Well,
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  Speaker 1: do I remember to have heard my father speak of
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  Speaker 1: one's strange guest at Athens many years ago. Methinks his
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  Speaker 1: name was Paul. My father was amongst a mighty crowd
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  Speaker 1: that gathered on one of our immemorial hills to hear
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  Speaker 1: this stage of the east expound through the wide throng.
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  Speaker 1: There rang not a single murmur. The jest and the
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  Speaker 1: roar with which our native orators are received were hushed
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  Speaker 1: for him. And when on the loftiest summit of that hill,
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  Speaker 1: raised above the breathless crowd below, stood this mysterious visitor,
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  Speaker 1: his mien and his countenance awed every heart even before
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  Speaker 1: a sound left his lips. He was a man, I
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  Speaker 1: have heard my father say, of no tall stature, but
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  Speaker 1: of noble and impressive mien. His robes were dark and ample.
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  Speaker 1: The declining sun, for it was evening, shone a slant
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  Speaker 1: upon his form as it rose aloft, motionless and commanding.
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  Speaker 1: His countenance was much worn and marked, as of one
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  Speaker 1: who had braved alike misfortune and the sternest vicissitude of
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  Speaker 1: many climes, but his eyes were bright with an almost
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  Speaker 1: unearthly fire. And when he raised his arm to speak,
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  Speaker 1: it was but the majesty of a man into whom
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  Speaker 1: the spirit of a god hath rushed. Men of Athens,
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  Speaker 1: he is reported to have said, I find amongst ye
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  Speaker 1: an altar with this inscription to the unknown God ye
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  Speaker 1: worship in ignorance, the same deity I serve to you unknown,
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  Speaker 1: till now to you be it now revealed. Then declared
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  Speaker 1: that solemn man, how, this great maker of all things,
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  Speaker 1: who had appointed unto man, his several tribes and his
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  Speaker 1: various homes, the Lord of Earth and the universal heaven,
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  Speaker 1: dwelt not in temples made with hands, that his presence
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  Speaker 1: his spirit were in the air. We breathed, our life
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  Speaker 1: and our being were with him. Think you, he cried,
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  Speaker 1: that the invisible is like your statues of gold and marble.
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  Speaker 1: Think you that he needeth sacrifice from you, he who
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  Speaker 1: made heaven and earth. Then he spoke of fearful and
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  Speaker 1: coming times, of the end of the world, of a
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  Speaker 1: second rising of the dead, whereof an assurance had been
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  Speaker 1: given to man in the resurrection of the mighty being
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  Speaker 1: whose religion he came to preach. When he thus spoke,
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  Speaker 1: the long pant murmur went forth, and the philosophers that
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  Speaker 1: were mingled with the people muttered their sage contempt. There
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  Speaker 1: might you have seen the chilling frown of the stoic,
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  Speaker 1: and the cynic sneer, and the epicurean, who believeth not
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  Speaker 1: even in our own elysium, muttered a pleasant jest and
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  Speaker 1: swept laughing through the crowd. But the deep heart of
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  Speaker 1: the people was touched and thrilled, and they trembled, though
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  Speaker 1: they knew not why. For verily the stranger had the
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  Speaker 1: voice and majesty of a man to whom the unknown
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  Speaker 1: God had committed the preaching of his faith. Ione listened
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  Speaker 1: with rapt attention, and the serious and earnest manner of
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  Speaker 1: the narrator betrayed the impression that he himself had received
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  Speaker 1: from one who had been amongst the audience, that on
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  Speaker 1: the hill of the Heathen Mars had heard the first
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  Speaker 1: tidings of the Word of Christ and of Book three,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter five,