Ben-Hur; a tale of the Christ

by Lew Wallace

  CHAPTER IV

  The mother resumed her easy position against the cushion, while theson took place on the divan, his head in her lap. Both of them,looking out of the opening, could see a stretch of lower house-topsin the vicinity, a bank of blue-blackness over in the west which theyknew to be mountains, and the sky, its shadowy depths brilliant withstars. The city was still. Only the winds stirred.

  "Amrah tells me something has happened to you," she said, caressinghis cheek. "When my Judah was a child, I allowed small things totrouble him, but he is now a man. He must not forget"--her voicebecame very soft--"that one day he is to be my hero."

  She spoke in the language almost lost in the land, but which afew--and they were always as rich in blood as in possessions--cherishedin its purity, that they might be more certainly distinguishedfrom Gentile peoples--the language in which the loved Rebekahand Rachel sang to Benjamin.

  The words appeared to set him thinking anew; after a while, however,he caught the hand with which she fanned him, and said, "Today, O mymother, I have been made to think of many things that never had placein my mind before. Tell me, first, what am I to be?"

  "Have I not told you? You are to be my hero."

  He could not see her face, yet he knew she was in play. He becamemore serious.

  "You are very good, very kind, O my mother. No one will ever loveme as you do."

  He kissed the hand over and over again.

  "I think I understand why you would have me put off the question,"he continued. "Thus far my life has belonged to you. How gentle,how sweet your control has been! I wish it could last forever.But that may not be. It is the Lord's will that I shall oneday become owner of myself--a day of separation, and therefore adreadful day to you. Let us be brave and serious. I will be yourhero, but you must put me in the way. You know the law--every sonof Israel must have some occupation. I am not exempt, and ask now,shall I tend the herds? or till the soil? or drive the saw? or bea clerk or lawyer? What shall I be? Dear, good mother, help me toan answer."

  "Gamaliel has been lecturing today," she said, thoughtfully.

  "If so, I did not hear him."

  "Then you have been walking with Simeon, who, they tell me,inherits the genius of his family."

  "No, I have not seen him. I have been up on the Market-place,not to the Temple. I visited the young Messala."

  A certain change in his voice attracted the mother's attention.A presentiment quickened the beating of her heart; the fan becamemotionless again.

  "The Messala!" she said. "What could he say to so trouble you?"

  "He is very much changed."

  "You mean he has come back a Roman."

  "Yes."

  "Roman!" she continued, half to herself. "To all the world theword means master. How long has he been away?"

  "Five years."

  She raised her head, and looked off into the night.

  "The airs of the Via Sacra are well enough in the streets of theEgyptian and in Babylon; but in Jerusalem--our Jerusalem--thecovenant abides."

  And, full of the thought, she settled back into her easy place.He was first to speak.

  "What Messala said, my mother, was sharp enough in itself; but,taken with the manner, some of the sayings were intolerable."

  "I think I understand you. Rome, her poets, orators, senators,courtiers, are mad with affectation of what they call satire."

  "I suppose all great peoples are proud," he went on, scarcelynoticing the interruption; "but the pride of that people isunlike all others; in these latter days it is so grown thegods barely escape it."

  "The gods escape!" said the mother, quickly. "More than one Romanhas accepted worship as his divine right."

  "Well, Messala always had his share of the disagreeable quality.When he was a child, I have seen him mock strangers whom even Herodcondescended to receive with honors; yet he always spared Judea.For the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifledwith our customs and God. As you would have had me do, I partedwith him finally. And now, O my dear mother, I would know with morecertainty if there be just ground for the Roman's contempt. In whatam I his inferior? Is ours a lower order of people? Why should I,even in Caesar's presence; feel the shrinking of a slave? Tell meespecially why, if I have the soul, and so choose, I may not huntthe honors of the world in all its fields? Why may not I take swordand indulge the passion of war? As a poet, why may not I sing of allthemes? I can be a worker in metals, a keeper of flocks, a merchant,why not an artist like the Greek? Tell me, O my mother--and this isthe sum of my trouble--why may not a son of Israel do all a Romanmay?"

  The reader will refer these questions back to the conversation inthe Market-place; the mother, listening with all her facultiesawake, from something which would have been lost upon one lessinterested in him--from the connections of the subject, the pointingof the questions, possibly his accent and tone--was not less swiftin making the same reference. She sat up, and in a voice quick andsharp as his own, replied, "I see, I see! From association Messala,in boyhood, was almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might havebecome a proselyte, so much do we all borrow from the influencesthat ripen our lives; but the years in Rome have been too much forhim. I do not wonder at the change; yet"--her voice fell--"he mighthave dealt tenderly at least with you. It is a hard, cruel naturewhich in youth can forget its first loves."

  Her hand dropped lightly upon his forehead, and the fingers caughtin his hair and lingered there lovingly, while her eyes soughtthe highest stars in view. Her pride responded to his, not merelyin echo, but in the unison of perfect sympathy. She would answerhim; at the same time, not for the world would she have had theanswer unsatisfactory: an admission of inferiority might weakenhis spirit for life. She faltered with misgivings of her own powers.

  "What you propose, O my Judah, is not a subject for treatment bya woman. Let me put its consideration off till to-morrow, and Iwill have the wise Simeon--"

  "Do not send me to the Rector," he said, abruptly.

  "I will have him come to us."

  "No, I seek more than information; while he might give me thatbetter than you, O my mother, you can do better by giving mewhat he cannot--the resolution which is the soul of a man's soul."

  She swept the heavens with a rapid glance, trying to compass allthe meaning of his questions.

  "While craving justice for ourselves, it is never wise to beunjust to others. To deny valor in the enemy we have conquered isto underrate our victory; and if the enemy be strong enough to holdus at bay, much more to conquer us"--she hesitated--"self-respectbids us seek some other explanation of our misfortunes than accusinghim of qualities inferior to our own."

  Thus, speaking to herself rather than to him, she began:

  "Take heart, O my son. The Messala is nobly descended; his familyhas been illustrious through many generations. In the days ofRepublican Rome--how far back I cannot tell--they were famous,some as soldiers, some as civilians. I can recall but one consul ofthe name; their rank was senatorial, and their patronage always soughtbecause they were always rich. Yet if to-day your friend boastedof his ancestry, you might have shamed him by recounting yours.If he referred to the ages through which the line is traceable,or to deeds, rank, or wealth--such allusions, except when greatoccasion demands them, are tokens of small minds--if he mentionedthem in proof of his superiority, then without dread, and standingon each particular, you might have challenged him to a comparisonof records."

  Taking a moment's thought, the mother proceeded:

  "One of the ideas of fast hold now is that time has much to do withthe nobility of races and families. A Roman boasting his superiorityon that account over a son of Israel will always fail when put tothe proof. The founding of Rome was his beginning; the very bestof them cannot trace their descent beyond that period; few of thempretend to do so; and of such as do, I say not one could make goodhis claim except by resort to tradition. Messala certainly couldnot. Let us look now to ourselves. Could we better?"

  A little more lig
ht would have enabled him to see the pride thatdiffused itself over her face.

  "Let us imagine the Roman putting us to the challenge. I wouldanswer him, neither doubting nor boastful."

  Her voice faltered; a tender thought changed the form of the argument.

  "Your father, O my Judah, is at rest with his fathers; yet Iremember, as though it were this evening, the day he and I,with many rejoicing friends, went up into the Temple to presentyou to the Lord. We sacrificed the doves, and to the priest I gaveyour name, which he wrote in my presence--'Judah, son of Ithamar,of the House of Hur.' The name was then carried away, and writtenin a book of the division of records devoted to the saintly family.

  "I cannot tell you when the custom of registration in this modebegan. We know it prevailed before the flight from Egypt. I haveheard Hillel say Abraham caused the record to be first opened withhis own name, and the names of his sons, moved by the promisesof the Lord which separated him and them from all other races,and made them the highest and noblest, the very chosen of theearth. The covenant with Jacob was of like effect. 'In thy seedshall all the nations of the earth be blessed'--so said the angel toAbraham in the place Jehovah-jireh. 'And the land whereon thou liest,to thee will I give it, and to thy seed'--so the Lord himself saidto Jacob asleep at Bethel on the way to Haran. Afterwards the wisemen looked forward to a just division of the land of promise; and,that it might be known in the day of partition who were entitledto portions, the Book of Generations was begun. But not for thatalone. The promise of a blessing to all the earth through thepatriarch reached far into the future. One name was mentioned inconnection with the blessing--the benefactor might be the humblestof the chosen family, for the Lord our God knows no distinctionsof rank or riches. So, to make the performance clear to men ofthe generation who were to witness it, and that they might givethe glory to whom it belonged, the record was required to be keptwith absolute certainty. Has it been so kept?"

  The fan played to and fro, until, becoming impatient, he repeatedthe question, "Is the record absolutely true?"

  "Hillel said it was, and of all who have lived no one was sowell-informed upon the subject. Our people have at times beenheedless of some parts of the law, but never of this part. The goodrector himself has followed the Books of Generations through threeperiods--from the promises to the opening of the Temple; thence tothe Captivity; thence, again, to the present. Once only were therecords disturbed, and that was at the end of the second period;but when the nation returned from the long exile, as a firstduty to God, Zerubbabel restored the Books, enabling us oncemore to carry the lines of Jewish descent back unbroken fullytwo thousand years. And now--"

  She paused as if to allow the hearer to measure the time comprehendedin the statement.

  "And now," she continued, "what becomes of the Roman boast ofblood enriched by ages? By that test, the sons of Israel watchingthe herds on old Rephaim yonder are nobler than the noblest ofthe Marcii."

  "And I, mother--by the Books, who am I?"

  "What I have said thus far, my son, had reference to your question.I will answer you. If Messala were here, he might say, as others havesaid, that the exact trace of your lineage stopped when the Assyriantook Jerusalem, and razed the Temple, with all its precious stores;but you might plead the pious action of Zerubbabel, and retort thatall verity in Roman genealogy ended when the barbarians from theWest took Rome, and camped six months upon her desolated site.Did the government keep family histories? If so, what became ofthem in those dreadful days? No, no; there is verity in our Booksof Generations; and, following them back to the Captivity, back tothe foundation of the first Temple, back to the march from Egypt,we have absolute assurance that you are lineally sprung from Hur,the associate of Joshua. In the matter of descent sanctified bytime, is not the honor perfect? Do you care to pursue further?if so, take the Torah, and search the Book of Numbers, and ofthe seventy-two generations after Adam, you can find the veryprogenitor of your house."

  There was silence for a time in the chamber on the roof.

  "I thank you, O my mother," Judah next said, clasping both herhands in his; "I thank you with all my heart. I was right in nothaving the good rector called in; he could not have satisfied memore than you have. Yet to make a family truly noble, is timealone sufficient?"

  "Ah, you forget, you forget; our claim rests not merely upon time;the Lord's preference is our especial glory."

  "You are speaking of the race, and I, mother, of the family--ourfamily. In the years since Father Abraham, what have they achieved?What have they done? What great things to lift them above the levelof their fellows?"

  She hesitated, thinking she might all this time have mistaken hisobject. The information he sought might have been for more thansatisfaction of wounded vanity. Youth is but the painted shellwithin which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing thespirit of man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in somethan in others. She trembled under a perception that this might bethe supreme moment come to him; that as children at birth reach outtheir untried hands grasping for shadows, and crying the while, so hisspirit might, in temporary blindness, be struggling to take hold ofits impalpable future. They to whom a boy comes asking, Who am I,and what am I to be? have need of ever so much care. Each word inanswer may prove to the after-life what each finger-touch of theartist is to the clay he is modelling.

  "I have a feeling, O my Judah," she said, patting his cheek withthe hand he had been caressing--"I have the feeling that all Ihave said has been in strife with an antagonist more real thanimaginary. If Messala is the enemy, do not leave me to fight himin the dark. Tell me all he said."