Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  Dan put down his glass of sherbet and looked after his son. He had been so happy for a little while, and now unhappiness was by again.

  CHAP. XI.

  THE DOGS BARKED as he unlocked the gate, but a few words quieted them (they still remembered his voice) and he crept upstairs to his room, weary in body and sore of foot, for he had come a long way, having accompanied Jesus, whom he had met under the cliffs abutting the lake, to the little pathway cut in the shoulder of the hill that leads to Capernaum. He had not recognised him as he passed, which was not strange, so unseemly were the ragged shirt and the cloak of camel’s or goat’s hair he wore over it, patched along and across, one long tatter hanging on a loose thread. It caught in his feet, and perforce he hitched it up as he walked, and Joseph remembered that he looked upon the passenger as a mendicant wonder-worker on his round from village to village. But Jesus had not gone very far when Joseph was stopped by a memory of a face seen long ago: a pale bony olive face, lit with brilliant eyes. It is he! he cried; and starting in pursuit and quickly overtaking Jesus, he called his name. Jesus turned, and there was no doubt when the men stood face to face that the shepherd Joseph had seen in the cenoby in converse with the president, and the wandering beggar by the lake shore, were one and the same person. Jesus asked him which way he was walking, and he answered that all directions were the same to him, for he was only come out for a breath of fresh air before bed-time. But thinking he had expressed himself vulgarly, he added other words and waited for Jesus to speak of the beauty of God’s handiwork. Jesus merely mentioned in answer that he was going to Capernaum, where he lodged with Simon Peter. But he had not forgotten the brotherhood by the Dead Sea, and invited Joseph to accompany him and tell him of those whom he had left behind. We are of the same brotherhood, he said; and then, as if noticing Joseph’s embarrassment, or you are a proselyte, maybe, who at the end of the first year retired from the order? Many do so. Joseph did not know how to answer this question, for he had not obtained permission from the president to seek Jesus in Egypt, and it seemed to him that the most truthful account he could give of himself at the cenoby was to say that he was not there long enough to consider himself even a proselyte. He lived in the cenoby as a visitor, rather than as one attached to the order; but how far he might consider himself an Essene did not matter to anybody. Besides he wished to hear Jesus talk rather than to talk about himself, so he compared his residence with the Essenes to a clue out of which a long thread had unravelled: a thread, he said, that led me into the desert in search of thee.

  Jesus had known Banu, in the desert, and listened attentively while Joseph told him how Banu was interrupted while speaking of the resurrection by a vision of John baptizing Jesus, and had bidden him go to Jordan and get baptism from John. But it was not John’s baptism I sought, but thee, and I arrived breathless, to hear that thou hadst gone away with him, John not being able to bear the cold of the water any longer. Afterwards I sought thee hither and thither, till hearing of thee in Egypt I went there and sought thee from synagogue to synagogue.

  A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it, Jesus answered gently, and in a tenderer voice than his scrannel peacock throat would have led one to expect. And as if foreseeing an ardent disciple he began to speak to Joseph of God, his speech moving on with a gentle motion like that of clouds wreathing and unwreathing, finding new shapes for every period, and always beautiful shapes. He often stopped speaking and his eyes became fixed, as if he saw beyond the things we all see; and after an interval he would begin to speak again; and Joseph heard that he had met John among the hills and listened to him, and that if he accepted baptism from him it was because he wished to follow John: but John sought to establish the kingdom of God within the law, and so a dancing-girl asked for his head. It seemed as if Jesus were on the point of some tremendous avowal, but if so it passed away like a cloud, and he put his hand on Joseph’s shoulder affectionately and asked him to tell him about Egypt, a country which he said he had never heard of before. Whereupon Joseph raised his eyes and saw in Jesus a travelling wonder-worker come down from a northern village — a peasant, without knowledge of the world and of the great Roman Empire. At every step Jesus’ ignorance of the world surprised Joseph more and more. He seemed to believe that all the nations were at war, and from further discourse Joseph learnt that Jesus could not speak Greek, and he marvelled at his ignorance, for Jesus only knew such Hebrew as is picked up in the synagogues. He did not seek to conceal his ignorance of this world from Joseph, and almost made parade of it, as if he was aware that one must discard a great deal to gain a little, as if he would impress this truth upon Joseph, almost as if he would reprove him for having spent so much time on learning Greek, for instance, and Greek philosophy. He treated these things as negligible when Joseph spoke of them, and evinced more interest in Joseph himself, who admitted he had returned from philosophy to the love of God.

  Now sitting on his bed, kept awake by his memories, Joseph relived in thought the hours he had spent with Jesus. He seemed to comprehend the significance of every word much better now than when he was with Jesus, and he deplored his obtuseness and revised all the answers given to Jesus. He remembered with sorrow how he tried to explain to Jesus the teaching of the Alexandrian philosophers regarding the Scriptures, paining Jesus very much by his recital but he had continued to explain for the sake of the answer that he knew would come at last. It did come. He remembered Jesus saying that philosophies change in different men, but the love of God is the same in all men. A great truth, Joseph said to himself, for every school is in opposition to another school. But how did Jesus come to know this being without philosophy? He had been tempted to ask how he was able to get at the truth of things without the Greek language and without education, but refrained lest a question should break the harmony of the evening. The past was not yet past and sitting on his bed in the moonlight Joseph could re-see the plain covered with beautiful grasses and flowers, with low flowering bushes waving over dusky headlands, for it was dark as they crossed the plain; and they had heard rather than seen the rushing stream, bubbling out of the earth, making music in the still night. He knew the stream from early childhood, but he had never really known it until he stood with Jesus under the stars by the narrow pathway cut in the shoulder of the hill, whither the way leads to Capernaum, for it was there that Jesus took his hands and said the words: “Our Father which is in Heaven.” At these words their eyes were raised to the skies, and Jesus said: whoever admires the stars and the flowers finds God in his heart and sees him in his neighbour’s face. And as Joseph sat, his hands on his knees, he recalled the moment that Jesus turned from him abruptly and passed into the shadow of the hillside that fell across the flowering mead. He heard his footsteps and had listened, repressing the passionate desire to follow him and to say: having found thee, I can leave thee never again. It was fear of Jesus that prevented him from following Jesus, and he returned slowly the way he came, his eyes fixed on the stars, for the day was now well behind the hills and the night all over the valley, calm and still. The stars in their allotted places, he said: as they have always been and always will be. He stood watching them. Behind the stars that twinkled were stars that blazed; behind the stars that blazed were smaller stars, and behind them a sort of luminous dust. And all this immensity is God’s dwelling-place, he said. The stars are God’s eyes; we live under his eyes and he has given us a beautiful garden to live in. Are we worthy of it? he asked; and Jew though he was he forgot God for a moment in the sweetness of the breathing of earth, for there is no more lovely plain in the spring of the year than the Plain of Gennesaret.

  Every breath of air brought a new and exquisite scent to him, and through the myrtle bushes he could hear the streams singing their way down to the lake; and when he came to the lake’s edge he heard the warble that came into his ear when he was a little child, which it retained always. He heard it in Egypt, under the Pyramids, and the cataracts of th
e Nile were not able to silence it in his ears. But suddenly from among the myrtle bushes a song arose. It began with a little phrase of three notes, which the bird repeated, as if to impress the listener and prepare him for the runs and trills and joyous little cadenzas that were to follow. A sudden shower of jewels it seemed like, and when the last drops had fallen the bird began another song, a continuation of the first, but more voluptuous and intense; and then, as if he felt that he had set the theme sufficiently, he started away into new trills and shakes and runs, piling cadenza upon cadenza till the theme seemed lost, but the bird held it in memory while all his musical extravagances were flowing, and when the inevitable moment came he repeated the first three notes. Again Joseph heard the warbling water, and it seemed to him that he could hear the stars throbbing. It was one of those moments when the soul of man seems to break, to yearn for that original unity out of which some sad fate has cast it — a moment when the world seems to be one thing and not several things: the stars and the stream, the odours afloat upon the stream, the bird’s song and the words of Jesus: whosoever admires the stars and flowers finds God in his heart, seemed to become all blended into one extraordinary harmony; and unable to resist the emotion of the moment any longer, Joseph threw himself upon the ground and prayed that the moment he was living in might not be taken from him, but that it might endure for ever. But while he prayed, the moment was passing, and becoming suddenly aware that it had gone, he rose from his knees and returned home mentally weary and sad at heart; but sitting on his bedside the remembrance that he was to meet Jesus in the morning at Capernaum called up the ghost of a departed ecstasy, and his head drowsing upon his pillow he fell asleep, hushed by remembrances.

  CHAP. XII.

  A FEW HOURS later he was speeding along the lake’s edge in the bright morning, happy as the bird singing in the skies, when the thought like a dagger-thrust crossed his mind that being the son of a rich man Jesus could not receive him as a disciple, only the poor were welcome into the brotherhood of the poor. His father had told him as much, and the beggar whom he had met under the cliffs, smelling of rags and raw garlic, expressed the riches of simplicity. Happy, happy evening, for ever gone by! Happy ignorance already turned into knowledge! For in Peter’s house Jesus would hear that the man whom he had met under the cliffs was the son of the fish-salter of Magdala, and perhaps they knew enough of his story to add, who has been making money in Jerusalem himself and has no doubt come to Galilee to engage his father in some new trade that will extort more money from the poor. He is not for thy company. A great aversion seized him for Capernaum, and he walked, overcome with grief, to the lake’s edge and stooped to pick up a smooth stone, thinking to send it skimming over the water, as he used to when a boy; but there was neither the will nor the strength in him for the innocent sport, and he lay down, exhausted in mind and body, to lament this new triumph of the demon that from the beginning of his life thwarted him and interrupted all his designs — this time intervening at the last moment as if with a purpose of great cruelty. This demon seemed to him to descend out of the blue air and sometimes to step out of the blue water, and Joseph was betimes moved to rush into the lake, for there seemed to him no other way of escaping from him. Then he would turn back from the foam and the reeds, and pray to the demon to leave him for some little while in peace: let me be with Jesus for a little while, and then I’ll do thy bidding. Tie the tongues of those that would tell him I’m the son of a rich man — Simon Peter, James and John, sons of Zebedee. James would say a word in his favour, but Jesus would answer: why did he not tell these things to me overnight? And if he loves me, why does he not rid himself of the wealth that separates him from me?

  Well, young Master, cried somebody behind him, now what be ye thinking over this fine morning? Of the fish the nets will bring to be safely packed away in your father’s barrels? My father’s barrels be accursed! Joseph exclaimed, springing to his feet. And why dost thou call me master? I’m not master, nor art thou servant. And then, his eyes opening fully to the external world, he recognised the nearly hunchback Philip of Capernaum — a high-necked, thick-set fellow, in whom a hooked nose and prominent eyes were the distinguishing features. A sail-maker, that spoke with a sharp voice, and Joseph remembered him as combining the oddest innocence of mind regarding spiritual things with a certain shrewdness in the conduct of his business. Thy voice startled me out of a dream, Joseph said, and I knew not what I said. Beg pardon, Master — but the word “Sir” you like no better, and it would sound unseemly to call you “Joseph” and no more. As we are not born the same height nor strength nor wits, such little differences as “Sir” and “Master” get into our speech. All those that love God are the same, and there is neither class nor wealth, only love, Joseph answered passionately. That is the teaching of the new prophet Jesus, Philip replied, his yapping voice assuming an inveigling tone or something like one. I was in Magdala yester evening, and spent the night in my debtor’s house, and as we were figuring out the principal and interest a neighbour came in, and among his several news was that you were seen walking with Jesus by the lake in the direction of Capernaum. We were glad to hear that, for having only returned to us last night you did not know that Jesus has become a great man in these parts, especially since he has come to lodge in Simon Peter’s house. That was a great step for him. But I must be hastening away, for a meeting is at Simon Peter’s house. And I have promised Jesus to be there too, Joseph answered. Then we may step the way out together, Philip answered, looking up into Joseph’s face, and — as if he read there encouragement to speak out the whole of his mind — he continued:

  I was saying that it was a great step up for him when Simon Peter took him to lodge in his house, for beforetimes he had, as the saying is, no place to lay his head: an outcast from Cana, whither he went first to his mother’s house, and it is said he turned water into wine on one occasion at a marriage feast; but that cannot be true, for if it were, there is no reason that I can see why he should stay his hand and not turn all water into wine. To which Joseph replied that it would be a great misfortune, for the greater part of men would be as drunk as Noah was when he planted a vineyard, and we know how Lot’s daughters turned their father’s drunkenness to account. Moreover, Philip, if Jesus had turned all the water into wine there would be no miracle, for a miracle is a special act performed by someone whom God has chosen as an instrument. It is as likely as not, Master, that you be right in what you say, for there’s no saying what is true and what is false in this world, for what one man says another man denies, and it is not even certain that all men see and hear alike. But, Philip, thou must remember that though men neither hear nor see alike, yet the love of God is the same in every man. But is it? Philip asked. For can it be denied that some men love God in the hope that God may do something for them, while others love God lest he may punish them. But methinks that such love as that is more fear than love; and then there are others that can love God — well, just because it seems to them that God is by them, just as I’m by you at the present moment. Jesus is such an one. But there be not many like him, and that was why his teaching found no favour either in Cana or in Nazareth. In them parts they knew that he was the carpenter’s son, and his mother and his brothers and sisters were a hindrance to him, for thinking him a bit queer, they came ofttimes to the synagogues to ask him to come home with them, for they are shrewd enough to see that such talk as his will bring him no good in the end, for priests are strong everywhere and have the law of the land on their side, for governors would make but poor shift to govern without them. But why then, Philip, shouldst thou who art a cautious man, be going to Peter’s house to meet him? Well, that’s the question I’ve been asking myself all the morning till I came upon you. Master, sitting by the lake, and not unlikely you were asking yourself the same question, sitting over yonder by the lake all by yourself. He casts a spell upon me, I’m thinking, and has, it would seem to me, cast one upon you, for you went a long way with him last night, b
y all accounts. I’d have it from thee, Philip, how long he has been in these parts? Well, I should say it must be two years or thereabouts that he came up from Jericho, staying but a little while in Jerusalem and going on to his mother at Cana, and afterwards trying his luck, as I have said, in Nazareth. But his mother hasn’t seen him for many a year? He has been away since childhood, living with a certain sect of Jews called the Essenes, and it was John —— Yes, I know John was baptizing in Jordan, Joseph interrupted, and he baptized Jesus. And after that he went into the desert, said Philip hurriedly, for he did not like being interrupted in his story. He came up to Nazareth, I was saying, about two years ago, but was thrown out of that city and came here; he was more fortunate here, picking up bits of food from the people now and then, who, thinking him harmless, let him sleep in an odd hole or corner; but he must have often been like dying of hunger by the wayside, for he was always travelling, going his rounds from village to village. But luck was on his side, and when he was near dying a traveller would come by and raise him and give him a little wine. He is one of those that can do with little, and after the first few months he had the luck to cast out one or two devils, and finding he could cast out devils, he turned to the healing of the sick; and many is the withered limb that he put right, and many a lame man he has set walking with as good a stride as we are taking now, and many a blind man’s eyes he has opened, and the scrofulous he cured by looking at them — so it is said. And so his fame grew from day to day; the people love him, for he asks no money from them, which is a sure way into men’s affections; but those whose children he has cured cannot see him go away hungry, and they put a loaf into his shirt, for he takes anything that he can get except money, which he will not look upon. There has been no holier man in these parts, Sir, these many years. The oldest in the country cannot remember one like him — my father is nearer ninety than eighty, and he says that Jesus is a greater man than he ever heard his father tell of, and he was well into the eighties before he died. Now, Sir, as we are near to Peter’s house, you’ll not mind my telling you that there is no “Sir” or “Master” at Peter’s house. But, Philip, has it not already been said that thou mayst drop such titles as “Sir” and “Master” in addressing me? And wert thou not at one with me that we should be more courteous and friendly one between the other without them? Well, yes, Master, I do recollect some such talk between us, but now that we be coming into Capernaum it would be well that I should call you “Joseph,” but “Joseph” would be difficult to me at first, and we are all brothers amongst us, only Jesus is Master over all of us, and God over him. But it now strikes my mind that I have not told you how Jesus and Peter became acquainted.