A MAN CROSSED WITH ADVERSITY
"One sole desire, one passion now remains
To keep life's fever still within his veins,
Vengeance! dire vengeance on the wretch who cast
O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast."
—Lalla Rookh.
It was late in the evening when David returned to his apartments, excited, triumphant, eager.
"Well," he cried, rushing impetuously up to Mantel, who stood waiting for him. "Is he still there? Is that place really his home?"
"Yes," his friend answered; "he has lived there for more than a year, in solitude and poverty. His health is very poor and he is growing steadily weaker. He has declined so much recently that now he does not venture out until the afternoon."
"Feeble, is he? Poor old man!" exclaimed David. "But at least he is not dead, and while there is life there is hope! I am not a murderer, and there is a possibility of my making atonement! How I cling to that idea, Mantel! In a single hour I have enjoyed more happiness than I thought a whole lifetime could contain. But even in this indescribable happiness there is a strange element of unrest, for it seems too good to last. Is all great gladness haunted by this apprehension of evanescence? But at any rate, I am happy now!"
"And I am almost happy in your happiness," responded his friend, his face lighted up by an altogether new and beautiful smile.
"Sit down, then," said David, giving him a chair and standing opposite to him, "and I will tell you my story."
Words cannot describe the emotion, nay the passion, with which he poured that tragic narrative into the ears of his eager and sympathetic listener.
Never was a story told to a more attentive and appreciative auditor. There must have been some buried sorrow in that heart which had rendered it sensitive to the griefs of others. Hours were consumed by this narrative and by the questions which had to be asked and answered, and it was long after midnight when David found time to say, "And now shall I tell you my plans for the future?"
"Yes, if you will," said Mantel.
"Well, I have rented a sunny room in a lodging house in a quiet street, and to-morrow, if you are willing, you shall go and lead him to it. I must lean upon you, Mantel; I dare not make myself known to him. He would never accept my aid if he knew by whom it was bestowed, for he is proud and revengeful and would give himself no rest night or day until he had my life, if he knew I was within reach. I do not fear him; but what good could come of his wreaking vengeance on me, richly as I deserve it? It would only make his destiny more dark and dreadful, and defeat the one chance I have of making an atonement. You do not think I ought to make myself known, do you?"
"I do not. I think with you that an atonement is the most perfect satisfaction of justice."
"Thank you, thank you, my dear friend. You do not know how glad I am to have you think I am doing right. You will go to him to-morrow, then, and you will tell him that some one who has seen him on the streets has taken compassion on him. You will do this, will you not?"
"Nothing could give me greater pleasure. I half feel as if I had participated with you in the wrong done to the old man, and that I shall be blessed with you in trying to make it right."
"That is good in you, Mantel. How much nobility lies buried in every human heart! It may be that even such men as you and I are capable of some sort of rescue and redemption. I am going to spend my best strength in working for this poor old blind beggar whom I have wronged. I mean to toil for him like a galley slave, and mark me, Mantel, it is going to be honest toil!"
"Honest, did you say?" asked Mantel, lifting his eyebrows incredulously.
"Yes," David answered, "honest. This hope that has come to me has wrought a great change in my heart. It has revived old feelings which I thought long dead. If there is a God in heaven who has decided to give me one more chance to set myself right, I am going to take it! And listen; if this great hope can come to me, why not to you?"
Mantel leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then answered with a sigh, "Perhaps—but," and paused.
There are moments when these two indefinite words contain the whole of our philosophy of existence. "I am going to seek the great Perhaps!" said Rabelais, as he breathed his last.
David looked at him sympathetically and said, "Well, it is not strange that you cannot feel as I do. It is not by what befalls others, but by what befalls ourselves, that we learn to hope and trust."
The silence that came between them was broken by Mantel, who looked up at him with a trace of the old ironical smile on his face.
"Your plans are all right as far as they go, but it seems to me the hardest part of the tangle still remains to be unraveled."
"What do you mean?" asked David.
"What are you going to do about this beautiful Pepeeta?"
"Oh, I have settled that, too! You do not know how clearly I see it all. It is as if a fog had lifted from the ocean, and the sailor had found himself inside the harbor. I shall write and tell her all."
"Do you mean that you will tell her that her husband is alive?"
"I do."
"And perhaps you will advise her to return to him!"
"You are right, I shall."
Mantel shook his head.
"You do not think it best?" said David.
"I do not know."
"But there is nothing else to do."
"It is natural that I should see only the difficulties."
"What difficulties can there be?"
"Will you do anything more than destroy her by binding her once more to the man she loathes?"
"You do not know Pepeeta."
"It is true, I only know human nature."
"But she is more than human!"
"And are you?"
"Not I!"
"Then how will you endure to see her once more the wife of your enemy and rival?"
"Mantel," said David, pausing in his restless walk across the room, "I do not wonder that you ask this. It was the first question that I asked myself. It struck my heart like the blow of a hammer. But I have settled it. I have weighed the pains which I have suffered in a just and even balance. I know I cannot escape suffering, whichever way I turn. I have felt the pains of doing wrong, and I now deliberately choose the pains of doing right, let them be what they will!"
"It is easy to scorn the bitterness of an untasted cup."
"No matter! I have settled it. It must be done."
Mantel shrugged his shoulders and said, "I am afraid that the great Joker of whom we were talking yesterday is about to perpetrate another of his jests."
"You think it absurd, then?"
"I regard it as impossible."
"But why?"
"Because you are making a plan to act as if you were a disembodied conscience. You have forgotten that you still have the passions of a man. I fear there will be another tragedy as dark as the first. But if you are determined, I must obey you. I never know how to act for myself; but if some one wishes me to act for him I can do so without fear, even if I am compelled to do so without hope."
David resumed his walk for a moment, and then pausing again before his friend, said, "Mantel, a few years ago my soul was so sensitive to truth and duty that I was accustomed to regard its intuitions as the will of God revealed to me in some sort of supernatural way. I acted on the impulses of my heart without the slightest question or hesitation, and during that entire period of my life I cannot remember that I was ever for a single time seriously mistaken or misled. While I obeyed those intuitions and followed that mysterious light, I was happy. When I turned my back on that light it ceased to shine. It has been more than two years since I have thought I heard the voice of God or felt any assurance that I was in the path of duty. But now the departed vision has returned! I have had as clear a perception of my duty as was ever vouchsafed me in the old sweet days, and I shall obey it if it costs me my life."
So deep was his earnestness that Mantel seemed to catch his enthusiasm and be convinced. But in another instant the old mocking smile had returned.
"Would you be so tractable and obedient if the old beggar were in better health?" he said, opening and shutting the leaves of a book which was lying on the table, and looking out from under half-lifted eyelids.
At this insinuation David winced, and for a moment seemed about to resent it. But he restrained himself and replied gently, "The same distrust of my motives has arisen in my own mind. I more than half suspect that if, as you say, the old beggar were young and strong, my heart would fail me. But the knowledge that I could not do my duty if the doctor were going to live cannot be any reason for my not doing it when I believe that he is likely to die! I am not called upon to do wrong simply because I see that I am not wholly unselfish in doing right. I am not asked to face a supposition, but a fact. I shall not pride myself on any righteousness that I do not possess; but I must not be kept from doing my duty because I am not a perfect man."
"You are right," said Mantel, but his assent seemed more like a concession than a conviction. He had grown to regard the passing panorama of life as a great spectacular exhibition. The actors seemed swayed by powers external to themselves, their movements exhibiting such gross inconsistencies as to make it impossible to predict, and almost impossible to guess them. He looked on with more curiosity than interest, as at the different combinations in a kaleidoscope. He could not conceive that David, or any one, could so come under the dominant influence of a conviction as to act coherently and consistently upon it through any or all emergencies. But he was kind and sympathetic, and his heart responded to the passionate earnestness of his friend with a new interest and pleasure.