Ben Hur (26 page)

At length a man approached and spoke to him.

"What would you have?"

"I would see Simonides, the merchant."

"Will you come this way?"

By a number of paths left in the stowage, they finally came to
a flight of steps; ascending which, he found himself on the
roof of the depot, and in front of a structure which cannot
be better described than as a lesser stone house built upon
another, invisible from the landing below, and out west of the
bridge under the open sky. The roof, hemmed in by a low wall,
seemed like a terrace, which, to his astonishment, was brilliant
with flowers; in the rich surrounding, the house sat squat, a plain
square block, unbroken except by a doorway in front. A dustless path
led to the door, through a bordering of shrubs of Persian rose
in perfect bloom. Breathing a sweet attar-perfume, he followed
the guide.

At the end of a darkened passage within, they stopped before a
curtain half parted. The man called out,

"A stranger to see the master."

A clear voice replied, "In God's name, let him enter."

A Roman might have called the apartment into which the visitor was
ushered his atrium. The walls were paneled; each panel was comparted
like a modern office-desk, and each compartment crowded with labelled
folios all filemot with age and use. Between the panels, and above and
below them, were borders of wood once white, now tinted like cream,
and carved with marvellous intricacy of design. Above a cornice of
gilded balls, the ceiling rose in pavilion style until it broke
into a shallow dome set with hundreds of panes of violet mica,
permitting a flood of light deliciously reposeful. The floor was
carpeted with gray rugs so thick that an invading foot fell half
buried and soundless.

In the midlight of the room were two persons—a man resting in a
chair high-backed, broad-armed, and lined with pliant cushions;
and at his left, leaning against the back of the chair, a girl
well forward into womanhood. At sight of them Ben-Hur felt the
blood redden his forehead; bowing, as much to recover himself as
in respect, he lost the lifting of the hands, and the shiver and
shrink with which the sitter caught sight of him—an emotion as
swift to go as it had been to come. When he raised his eyes the
two were in the same position, except the girl's hand had fallen
and was resting lightly upon the elder's shoulder; both of them
were regarding him fixedly.

"If you are Simonides, the merchant, and a Jew"—Ben-Hur stopped
an instant—"then the peace of the God of our father Abraham upon
you and—yours."

The last word was addressed to the girl.

"I am the Simonides of whom you speak, by birthright a Jew," the
man made answer, in a voice singularly clear. "I am Simonides,
and a Jew; and I return you your salutation, with prayer to know
who calls upon me."

Ben-Hur looked as he listened, and where the figure of the
man should have been in healthful roundness, there was only a
formless heap sunk in the depths of the cushions, and covered by
a quilted robe of sombre silk. Over the heap shone a head royally
proportioned—the ideal head of a statesman and conqueror—a head
broad of base and domelike in front, such as Angelo would have
modelled for Caesar. White hair dropped in thin locks over the
white brows, deepening the blackness of the eyes shining through
them like sullen lights. The face was bloodless, and much puffed
with folds, especially under the chin. In other words, the head
and face were those of a man who might move the world more readily
than the world could move him—a man to be twice twelve times
tortured into the shapeless cripple he was, without a groan,
much less a confession; a man to yield his life, but never a
purpose or a point; a man born in armor, and assailable only
through his loves. To him Ben-Hur stretched his hands, open and
palm up, as he would offer peace at the same time he asked it.

"I am Judah, son of Ithamar, late head of the House of Hur, and a
prince of Jerusalem."

The merchant's right hand lay outside the robe—a long, thin hand,
articulate to deformity with suffering. It closed tightly;
otherwise there was not the slightest expression of feeling
of any kind on his part; nothing to warrant an inference of
surprise or interest; nothing but this calm answer,

"The princes of Jerusalem, of the pure blood, are always welcome
in my house; you are welcome. Give the young man a seat, Esther."

The girl took an ottoman near by, and carried it to Ben-Hur. As she
arose from placing the seat, their eyes met.

"The peace of our Lord with you," she said, modestly. "Be seated
and at rest."

When she resumed her place by the chair, she had not divined his
purpose. The powers of woman go not so far: if the matter is of
finer feeling, such as pity, mercy, sympathy, that she detects;
and therein is a difference between her and man which will endure
as long as she remains, by nature, alive to such feelings. She was
simply sure he brought some wound of life for healing.

Ben-Hur did not take the offered seat, but said, deferentially,
"I pray the good master Simonides that he will not hold me
an intruder. Coming up the river yesterday, I heard he knew
my father."

"I knew the Prince Hur. We were associated in some enterprises
lawful to merchants who find profit in lands beyond the sea and
the desert. But sit, I pray you—and, Esther, some wine for the
young man. Nehemiah speaks of a son of Hur who once ruled the
half part of Jerusalem; an old house; very old, by the faith!
In the days of Moses and Joshua even some of them found favor
in the sight of the Lord, and divided honors with those princes
among men. It can hardly be that their descendant, lineally come
to us, will refuse a cup of wine-fat of the genuine vine of Sorek,
grown on the south hill-sides of Hebron."

By the time of the conclusion of this speech, Esther was before
Ben-Hur with a silver cup filled from a vase upon a table a little
removed from the chair. She offered the drink with downcast face.
He touched her hand gently to put it away. Again their eyes met;
whereat he noticed that she was small, not nearly to his shoulder
in height; but very graceful, and fair and sweet of face, with eyes
black and inexpressibly soft. She is kind and pretty, he thought,
and looks as Tirzah would were she living. Poor Tirzah! Then he
said aloud,

"No, thy father—if he is thy father?"—he paused.

"I am Esther, the daughter of Simonides," she said, with dignity.

"Then, fair Esther, thy father, when he has heard my further speech,
will not think worse of me if yet I am slow to take his wine of
famous extract; nor less I hope not to lose grace in thy sight.
Stand thou here with me a moment!"

Both of them, as in common cause, turned to the merchant.
"Simonides!" he said, firmly, "my father, at his death, had a
trusted servant of thy name, and it has been told me that thou
art the man!"

There was a sudden start of the wrenched limbs under the robe,
and the thin hand clenched.

"Esther, Esther!" the man called, sternly; "here, not there,
as thou art thy mother's child and mine—here, not there, I say!"

The girl looked once from father to visitor; then she replaced the
cup upon the table, and went dutifully to the chair. Her countenance
sufficiently expressed her wonder and alarm.

Simonides lifted his left hand, and gave it into hers, lying lovingly
upon his shoulder, and said, dispassionately, "I have grown old in
dealing with men—old before my time. If he who told thee that whereof
thou speakest was a friend acquainted with my history, and spoke of
it not harshly, he must have persuaded thee that I could not be else
than a man distrustful of my kind. The God of Israel help him who,
at the end of life, is constrained to acknowledge so much! My loves
are few, but they are. One of them is a soul which"—he carried the
hand holding his to his lips, in manner unmistakable—"a soul which
to this time has been unselfishly mine, and such sweet comfort that,
were it taken from me, I would die."

Esther's head drooped until her cheek touched his.

"The other love is but a memory; of which I will say further that,
like a benison of the Lord, it hath a compass to contain a whole
family, if only"—his voice lowered and trembled—"if only I knew
where they were."

Ben-Hur's face suffused, and, advancing a step, he cried, impulsively,
"My mother and sister! Oh, it is of them you speak!"

Esther, as if spoken to, raised her head; but Simonides returned
to his calm, and answered, coldly, "Hear me to the end. Because I am
that I am, and because of the loves of which I have spoken, before I
make return to thy demand touching my relations to the Prince Hur,
and as something which of right should come first, do thou show me
proofs of who thou art. Is thy witness in writing? Or cometh it in
person?"

The demand was plain, and the right of it indisputable. Ben-Hur
blushed, clasped his hands, stammered, and turned away at loss.
Simonides pressed him.

"The proofs, the proofs, I say! Set them before me—lay them in
my hands!"

Yet Ben-Hur had no answer. He had not anticipated the requirement;
and, now that it was made, to him as never before came the awful
fact that the three years in the galley had carried away all the
proofs of his identity; mother and sister gone, he did not live in
the knowledge of any human being. Many there were acquainted with
him, but that was all. Had Quintus Arrius been present, what could
he have said more than where he found him, and that he believed the
pretender to be the son of Hur? But, as will presently appear in full,
the brave Roman sailor was dead. Judah had felt the loneliness before;
to the core of life the sense struck him now. He stood, hands clasped,
face averted, in stupefaction. Simonides respected his suffering,
and waited in silence.

"Master Simonides," he said, at length, "I can only tell my story;
and I will not that unless you stay judgment so long, and with
good-will deign to hear me."

"Speak," said Simonides, now, indeed, master of the situation—"speak,
and I will listen the more willingly that I have not denied you to be
the very person you claim yourself."

Ben-Hur proceeded then, and told his life hurriedly, yet with the
feeling which is the source of all eloquence; but as we are familiar
with it down to his landing at Misenum, in company with Arrius,
returned victorious from the AEgean, at that point we will take
up the words.

"My benefactor was loved and trusted by the emperor, who heaped
him with honorable rewards. The merchants of the East contributed
magnificent presents, and he became doubly rich among the rich
of Rome. May a Jew forget his religion? or his birthplace, if it
were the Holy Land of our fathers? The good man adopted me his
son by formal rites of law; and I strove to make him just return:
no child was ever more dutiful to father than I to him. He would
have had me a scholar; in art, philosophy, rhetoric, oratory,
he would have furnished me the most famous teacher. I declined
his insistence, because I was a Jew, and could not forget the
Lord God, or the glory of the prophets, or the city set on the
hills by David and Solomon. Oh, ask you why I accepted any of
the benefactions of the Roman? I loved him; next place, I thought
with his help, array influences which would enable me one day to
unseal the mystery close-locking the fate of my mother and sister;
and to these there was yet another motive of which I shall not speak
except to say it controlled me so far that I devoted myself to arms,
and the acquisition of everything deemed essential to thorough
knowledge of the art of war. In the palaestrae and circuses of
the city I toiled, and in the camps no less; and in all of them
I have a name, but not that of my fathers. The crowns I won—and
on the walls of the villa by Misenum there are many of them—all
came to me as the son of Arrius, the duumvir. In that relation
only am I known among Romans. . . . In steadfast pursuit of my
secret aim, I left Rome for Antioch, intending to accompany
the Consul Maxentius in the campaign he is organizing against
the Parthians. Master of personal skill in all arms, I seek
now the higher knowledge pertaining to the conduct of bodies of
men in the field. The consul has admitted me one of his military
family. But yesterday, as our ship entered the Orontes, two other
ships sailed in with us flying yellow flags. A fellow-passenger
and countryman from Cyprus explained that the vessels belonged
to Simonides, the master-merchant of Antioch; he told us, also,
who the merchant was; his marvellous success in commerce; of his
fleets and caravans, and their coming and going; and, not knowing
I had interest in the theme beyond my associate listeners, he said
Simonides was a Jew, once the servant of the Prince Hur; nor did he
conceal the cruelties of Gratus, or the purpose of their infliction."

At this allusion Simonides bowed his head, and, as if to help him
conceal his feelings and her own deep sympathy, the daughter hid
her face on his neck. Directly he raised his eyes, and said, in a
clear voice, "I am listening."

"O good Simonides!" Ben-Hur then said, advancing a step, his whole
soul seeking expression, "I see thou art not convinced, and that
yet I stand in the shadow of thy distrust."

The merchant held his features fixed as marble, and his tongue
as still.

"And not less clearly, I see the difficulties of my position,"
Ben-Hur continued. "All my Roman connection I can prove; I have
only to call upon the consul, now the guest of the governor of
the city; but I cannot prove the particulars of thy demand upon
me. I cannot prove I am my father's son. They who could serve me
in that—alas! they are dead or lost."

He covered his face with his hands; whereupon Esther arose, and,
taking the rejected cup to him, said, "The wine is of the country
we all so love. Drink, I pray thee!"