After making sure that their lovely burden had been set firmly on her pedestal, the five brothers showed a singular inclination to tarry about the Venus. Many others now pressed forward to examine the figure closely; and several were even prompted to touch it, till rebuked for this unseemly action by their superior, who, if he felt a similar impulse, would not sacrifice his holy dignity by yielding to it.
Certain of the elder and more severe Benedictines urged the immediate destruction of the image, which, they argued, was a heathen abomination that defiled the abbey garden by its presence, and therefore should not be countenanced. Others, moved by the evil beauty of the Venus in a manner impossible for them to admit, pleaded furtively and shamefacedly for her preservation. Still others, the most practical, pointed out that the Venus, being a rare and beautiful example of Roman sculpture, might well be sold at a goodly price to some rich and impious art-lover.
Augustin, though he felt that the Venus should be indubitably destroyed as an impure pagan idol, was filled with a queer and unaccountable hesitation which led him to defer the necessary orders for her demolishment. It was as if the subtly wanton loveliness of the marble were pleading for clemency like a living form, with a voice half-human, half-divine. Averting his eyes from the white bosom, he spoke harshly, bidding the Brothers to return to their labors and devotions, and saying that the Venus could remain in the garden till arrangements were made for her ultimate disposition and removal. Pending this, he instructed one of the Brothers to bring sackcloth and drape therewith the unseemly nudity of the goddess.
Even at the time, Augustin was criticized for his peculiar delay and laxness in this matter by some of the deans. During the few years that remained to him, he was to regret bitterly the flash of carnal weakness that had prompted him to defer the destruction of the image.
Contenting himself for the nonce with a severe injunction to the effect that no one should approach the Venus other than those whose labors in the garden should compel an involuntary proximity, Augustin retired with the various Brothers, some of whom, as they went, gave many a backward glance at the life-like charms of the naked goddess. Later, there was much peeping from the cell windows that looked upon the garden; and more than one Brother, caught in this indecorous occupation, was reprimanded austerely by the deans.
However, such peccadillos were trivial indeed, compared with the grave scandal involving a number of the monks, which ensued shortly. Those concerned were Paul, Pierre and Hughues, together with the two who had helped in raising the Venus from her pit, and three others who had also touched the limbs or body of the statue with their fingers.
These eight, it was found, had absented themselves without leave from the monastery during the night that followed the discovery of the Venus. Covertly and shamefastly, several of them returned the next morning; and their fellow-truants straggled in during the day, or were apprehended through rumors and charges that had been brought against them.
All, it was learned, had been guilty of open or furtive lechery. Some had annoyed the peasant women of the neighborhood with satyr-like advances; others had played the incubus with village girls at Ste. Zenobie, or had been seen in houses of ill-fame, many miles away in Ximes.
Summoned before their indignant abbot, these piacular culprits could offer no explanation or defense, other than the plea that they had been driven by an irresistible carnal compulsion. They attributed their downfall to the antique Venus, saying that they had been haunted by lubric thoughts and goaded by lascivious desires such as had tormented Anthony during his desert vigil, ever since the hour when they had touched the flesh-white marble of the statue.
Many of those who had beheld the evil image but had not touched it, now confessed that they had been conscious of like thoughts and impulses; and all agreed that a foul enchantment had been exerted by the Venus. Since only those who had laid hands on the marble were actually driven beyond the bounds of decorum or decency, it was plain that the full power of the diabolic pagan charm was inherent in such contact; and that anyone who dared to handle the Venus henceforth would be in grave danger of perdition.
The whole situation, though supremely scandalous, was so unusual that it could not be dealt with in any ordinary fashion. In view of their sorcerous temptation and demoniac compulsion, the eight offending monks were not expelled from the order, as their heinous lecheries might well have merited, but were merely sentenced to severe and protracted penance.
In the meanwhile, nothing was done with the Venus; for obviously, anyone who ventured to touch it—even, perhaps, with the motive of demolition—would court the baleful witchcraft that had already brought a profound and far-reaching evil on Périgon. It was suggested that some layman (to whom the penalty of heathen madness would be a less serious matter than to those who had taken vows of chastity) should be hired to shatter the idol and remove and bury its fragments. This, no doubt, would have been accomplished in good time, if it had not been for the hasty and fanatic zeal of Brother Louis.
III
This Brother, a youth of good family, was conspicuous among the Benedictines both for his comely face and his austere piety. Handsome as Adonis, he was given to ascetic vigils and prolonged devotions, outdoing in this regard the abbot and the deans.
At the hour of the statue’s disinterment, he was busily engaged in copying a Latin Testament; and neither then nor at any later time had he cared to inspect a find which he considered more than dubious. He had expressed disapprobation on hearing from his fellows the details of the discovery; and feeling that the abbey garden was polluted by the presence of an obscene image, he had purposely avoided all windows through which the womanly nakedness of the antique marble might have been visible to his chaste eyes.
Therefore it was with supreme horror and indignation that he learned of the downfall of the eight Benedictines who had touched the image. It seemed to him an insupportable thing that these virtuous, god-fearing monks should be brought to shame through the operation of some carnal pagan spell. He reprobated openly the hesitation of Augustin and his delay in destroying the idol. More mischief, he felt, would ensue if it were suffered to remain intact and were left to contaminate the beholders with its unchaste nudity. The act of demolition should be accomplished at once.
Secure in his own consciousness of sanctity and virtue, and fearless of any temptation or baleful influence that might be exerted by the Venus, Brother Louis, after long and painful reflection, resolved that he would take the matter into his own hands. Though this action would involve a nominal disobedience to the abbot’s order, he would go forth that very evening, armed with a heavy hammer, and would smash the idol into many fragments. Thus the honor of Périgon would be vindicated, and his insubordination become a justifiable thing.
Brooding deeply as he went about his daily toils and devotions, Louis confided this intention to no one. Wild whispers were circulating among the monks; and it was said that several others besides the eight culprits had been drawn to touch the sorcerous marble in secret, and would succumb anon to the overpowering nympholepsy which they had incurred. It was said also that the image was no mere lifeless lump of stone, but had sought to entice with wanton smiles and harlot gestures those who had labored in the garden after Paul, Pierre and Hughues. Hearing these whispers, Louis was confirmed in his resolution.
Visiting on some pretext or other the workshop of the abbey at twilight, he concealed an iron hammer beneath his robe and carried it away with him to his cell. Then, toiling patiently at the Latin manuscript by candle-light, while a holy wrath and ardor mounted within him, he waited till most of the Brothers had retired to their dormitory.
A rosy-tinted moon that was slightly past the full had climbed above the neighboring forest when Louis stole forth into the garden by a postern door. The blackish clods of freshly-spaded loam were topped with an eerie silver; and Louis had not gone far on the open ground when he discerned the Venus, whose nude limbs and bosom startled him as if they had been those of a li
ving woman.
Indeed, as he went nearer, he could not persuade himself that the figure was a mere statue. The full, wan breasts appeared to quiver in the moonlight as with the rise and fall of a breathing bosom; the drooping eyelids seemed to lift in a captious coquetry; the doubtfully smiling lips assumed a more seductive curve; the delicate fingers stirred a little, as if to beckon him. Aware, however, that this illusion might well be part of the baneful enchantment whose cause he had come forth to destroy, Louis strove to resist the insidious impressions that troubled him more and more.
Sinking into the soft and thoroughly spaded soil at each step, he went boldly forward till he stood face to face with the Venus on the verge of the dark hole from which she had been exhumed. Without delay, with a feeling of imperative haste, he tried to lift the ponderous hammer; but it seemed that his arm, though sustained by a righteous anger, a holy indignation, would no longer obey him.
He knew not how the change had been wrought, nor how the spell had fallen; but he felt the impotence of a dreamer, helpless in the thrall of some strange dream. A subtly clinging web was upon his senses. Wildly, with dying horror and rebellion, he stared at the immemorial temptress who seemed to proffer her divine beauty; and staring, he forgot his wrath, his purpose, his fear and horror—and his cenobitic vows.
The hammer fell unheeded from his fingers. Bathed in a perilous light, and swathed with alluring shadows, the Venus appeared to live and palpitate—to lift comely hands that implored his mercy—to open fair eyes and delicious lips that claimed his love.
An unleashed delirium, sudden and irresistible, sang triumphantly in his brain, exulted madly in his blood. Stepping across the forgotten hammer, he embraced the Venus.... Her arms and bosom were cool as marble to his feverous touch, but they seemed to offer the firm softness and resilience of living flesh....
IV
The absence of Brother Louis, together with that of three others, was noted by the monks at early dawn with much alarm and consternation. Sorrowfully, it was surmised that they had fallen under the spell of the statue, and would be apprehended in the same manner and for the same sinful deeds as their predecessors.
Later, two of the missing monks returned to the abbey of their own will; and a third was caught with the charcoal-burner’s wife whom he had seduced into mad elopement. All made the same confession: laboring in the garden on the previous day, they had been prompted by a fatal curiosity to finger the forbidden image; and had been seized, as a result, by the pagan madness.
Brother Louis, however, was not found; and his fate remained a mystery for several hours. Then it happened that one of the older monks, on some errand or other, had occasion to cross the garden. Peering fearfully in the direction of the Venus, he was surprised and mystified to see that she had disappeared.
With much trepidation, deeming the vanishment an act of sorcery or Satanry, he went forward to the place where the status had stood. There, with unspeakable horror, he found the solution of the riddle.
Somehow, the Venus had been overturned and had fallen back into the huge pit. The body of Brother Louis, with a shattered skull and lips bruised to a bloody pulp, was lying crushed beneath her marble breasts. His arms were clasped about her in a stiff embrace, to which death had now added its own rigidity; and later, when the horrified Brothers had been summoned to consider the problem, it was deemed inadvisable to make any effort toward his removal. The iron hammer, lying beside the pit, was proof of the righteous intention with which he had gone forth—but certain other matters, putting him beyond all redemption, were equally evident.
So, by the order of Augustin, the pit was filled hastily to its rim with earth and stones; and the very spot where it had been, being left without mound or other mark, was quickly overgrown by grass and weeds along with the rest of the abandoned garden.
THE WHITE SYBIL
Tortha, the poet, with strange austral songs in his heart, and the dark umber of high and heavy suns on his face, had come back to his native city of Cerngoth, in Mhu Thulan, by the Hyperborean sea. Far had he wandered since early youth in the quest of that alien beauty which had fled always before him like the horizon. Beyond Commoriom of the white, numberless spires, and beyond the marsh-grown jungles to the south of Commoriom, he had floated on nameless rivers, and had crossed the half-legendary realm of Tscho Vulpanomi, upon whose diamond-sanded, ruby-gravelled shore an ignescent ocean was said to beat forever with fiery spume.
Many marvels had he beheld, and things incredible to relate: the uncouthly carven gods of the South, to whom blood was spilt on sun-approaching towers; the plumes of the huusim, which were many ells in length and had the color of pure flame; the mailed monsters of the austral swamps; the proud argosies of Mu and Antillia, which moved by enchantment, without oar or sail; the fuming peaks that were shaken perpetually by the struggles of imprisoned demons. But, walking at noon on the familiar streets of Cerngoth, he met a stranger marvel than these. Idly, with no thought or expectation of other than homely things, he beheld the White Sybil of Polarion.
He knew not whence she had come, but suddenly she was before him in the noontide throng. Amid the tawny girls of Cerngoth with their russet hair and blue-black eyes, she was like an apparition descended from the boreal moon. Goddess or ghost or woman, he knew not which, she passed fleetly to some unknowable bourn: a creature of snow and ice and norland light, with unbound hair of wannest silver-gold, with eyes that were like moon-pervaded pools, and lips that were smitten with the same pallor as the brow and bosom. Her gown was of some filmy white fabric, pure and ethereal as her person.
In wonder that turned to startled rapture, Tortha gazed at the miraculous being, and sustained for a moment the strangely thrilling light of her chill eyes, in which he seemed to find an obscure recognition, such as a long-veiled divinity, appearing at last, would vouchsafe to her worshipper.
Somehow, she seemed to bring with her the infrangible solitude of remote places, the death-deep hush of lonely plateaus and mountains. A silence, such as might dwell in some abandoned city, fell on the chaffering, chattering crowd as she went by; and the people drew back from her in sudden awe. Before the silence could break into gossiping murmurs, Tortha had guessed her identity.
He knew that he had seen the White Sybil, that mysterious being who was rumored to come and go as if by some preterhuman agency in the cities of Hyperborea. No man had ever learned her name, her nativity, or her dwelling-place; but she was said to descend like a spirit from the bleak mountains to the north of Cerngoth; from the desert land of Polarion, where the oncoming glaciers crept in valleys that had once been fertile with fern and cycad, and passes that had been the highways of busy traffic.
No one had ever dared to accost or follow her. Often she came and went in eerie silence; but sometimes, in the marts or public squares, she would utter weird prophecies and cryptic tidings of doom. In many places, throughout Mhu Thulan and central Hyperborea, she had foretold the enormous sheet of ice, now crawling gradually downward from the pole, that would cover the continent in ages to come, and would bury beneath oblivious drift the mammoth palms of its jungles and the superb pinnacles of its metropoles. And in great Commoriom, then the capital, she had prophesied a stranger doom that was to befall this city long before the encroachment of the Arctic ice. Men feared her everywhere, as a messenger of unknown outland gods, moving abroad in supernal bale and beauty.
All this, Tortha had heard many times during the course of his return journey from Tycho Vulpanomi; and he had wondered somewhat at the tale, but had soon dismissed it from his mind, being laden with marvellous memories of exotic things and places. But now that he had seen the Sybil, it was as if an unexpected revelation had been offered to him; as if he had discerned, briefly and afar, the hidden goal of a mystic pilgrimage.
In that single glimpse of the enigmatic entity, he had found the personification of all the vague ideals and unfixed longings that had drawn him from land to land. Here was the eluding strangeness he had s
ought on alien breasts and waters, and beyond horizons of fire-vomiting mountains. Here was the veiled Star, whose name and luster he had never known, but whose magnetical attraction had led him blindly beneath southron skies—and back again to Cerngoth.
The moon-cold eyes of the Sybil had kindled a strange love in Tortha, to whom love had been, at best, no more than a passing agitation of the heart. Being identified at bottom with his poetic yearning for all high and unachievable things, for the peril and wonder and disaster of untrodden places, the love was profound and lasting, as no passion for a mortal woman could have been.
However, on that occasion, it did not occur to him that he might follow the visitant or come to learn more concerning her. Momentarily, he was content with the rare vision that had fired his soul and dazzled his senses. Dreaming such dreams as the moon might inspire in a moth; dreams through which the Sybil moved like a woman-shaped flame on ways that were too far and too steep for human feet, he returned to his house in Cerngoth.
The days that ensued were dim and dream-like to Tortha, and were presided over by his memory of the White Sybil, which was clearer to him than outward things. He felt a desire that was beyond the senses—a fire that had fallen as if from Arctic stars. A mad Uranian fever mounted in his soul, together with the sure knowledge that he sought an impossible fruition. Idly, to beguile the hours, he copied the poems he had written during his journey, or turned over the pages of boyish manuscripts. All were equally void and without meaning now, like the sere leaves of a bygone year.
With no prompting on the part of Tortha, his servants and visitors spoke to him of the Sybil. Seldom, they said, had she entered Cerngoth, appearing more often in cities remote from the ice-bound waste of Polarion. Truly, she was no mortal being, for she had been seen on the same day in places hundreds of miles apart. Huntsmen had sometimes met her on the mountains above Cerngoth; but always, when encountered thus, she had disappeared quickly, like a morning vapor that melts among the crags.
The Maze of the Enchanter Page 7
