Adolphe Adam

“ Garde, with much resolution, permitted herself not so much as one tiny flicker of a glance toward Adam, all during the time of service. She felt him looking at her, however, from time to time, and rejoiced that her little ruse to make him stirred up and mayhap jealous was succeeding. The flush of maidenhood’s beauty which had mounted to her cheek, the moment she found that Adam was near, remained throughout the morning.
Later to church than any other, a man, alone, and none too reverent, entered the door and took a seat on the side, from which he could scan many of the faces in the place. ”

“ It is time, however, that we should describe Adam more particularly to our readers. He was dressed in a coarse grey coat; with trousers of the same colour, a striped waistcoat; a half-worn broad-brimmed hat, and thick shoes, studded with nails, which clattered as he went. Thus arrayed, and with his trunk upon his shoulders, Adam went tramping and clattering along East Smithfield, over Tower-hill, and along the Minories, inquiring at every turning—"If any one could direct him to Mr Davison's, the merchant in Cornhill?" ”

“ Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old, so that he must have seen many generations of his posterity. How sad must his life have been to think that by his disobedience he had not only forfeited the favor of God, the delightful pleasures of paradise, and the joys of eternal life, but that all who would descend from him must participate in the consequences of his first transgression! They fell with him from his high estate, just as when a man who is immensely wealthy fails. He does not suffer alone. His children and his children's children must become sharers in his poverty. ”

“ He smiled, for a new thought occurred to him, and, as it were, shone through him. Adam slept in Paradise, and when he waked, he saw his wife by his side; a world is his, and also another who is to become one with him. ”

“ And Adam, first of men, answered where he stood on earth: "When I heard the Lord, my God, speaking with a mighty voice, He bade me dwell here keeping His commandments, gave me this woman, this lovely maid, bade me take heed and be not tempted to the tree of death and utterly beguiled, and said that he who taketh to his heart one whit of evil shall dwell in blackest hell. Though thou art come with lies and secret wiles, I know not that thou art an angel of the Lord from heaven. ”

“ His size overwhelmed him; he felt like an elephant. With a sudden rush all his self-possession deserted him. He almost wished that his sister might return so that they should be brought up to him seriatim, named just as Adam named the beasts, and dismissed—which Adam did not do—with a kiss. It was really, of course—and he knew it to his secret mortification—a meeting on both sides of children; they all felt the shyness and self-consciousness of children, he as much as they, and at any moment might take the sudden plunge into careless intimacy, as the way with children ever is. ”

“ In honour of his beauteous Alvida?
Come hither, swain; what is it that thou cravest?
Adam. Faith, sir, nothing, but to speak a few sentences to your worship.
Rasni. Say, what is it?
Adam. I am sure, sir, you have heard of the spirits that walk in the city here.
Rasni. Ay, what of that?
Adam. Truly, sir, I have an oration to tell you of one of them; and this it is.
Alvi. Why goest not forward with thy tale?
Adam. Faith, mistress, I feel an imperfection in my voice, a disease that often troubles me; but, alas, easily mended; a cup of ale or a cup of wine will serve the turn. ”

“ Adam’s keen eyes, peering through the red-tinged obscurity, made out the dark shape of Virey staggering along back and forth like an old man driven and bewildered, hounded by the death he feared. The sight gave Adam a moment of fierce satisfaction. Strong as was the influence of Magdalene Virey, it could not keep down hate for this selfish and fallen man. Selfish beyond all other frailty of human nature! The narrow mind obsessed with self—the I and me and mine—the miserable littleness that could not forgive, that could not understand! Adam had pity even in his hate. ”

“ Adam growled at him, angrily. “Betrothed to you, she loves me more. Come, sir, stake me a thousand against my chances to win her and take her away from you, heart and soul. A thousand, sir, and if you can win it—your field shall be open, you shall hear nor fear no more from me!”
“By my faith,” said Suffle, rising, as Adam had done, “you hold this lady lightly, that you prattle of her name like this. Better I should run you through, for an arrant knave.”
“Bah!” said Rust, “you think more of your winnings than you do of your lady. You hesitate and scold over a paltry thousand. ”

“ But to-night the Sachem was so thoroughly engrossed with his love and his forming plans, that he completely forgot to think of his lorn retinue, and therefore the beef-eater felt more alone and sad than usual. There was nothing in Boston, save Adam, with which he could associate any thoughts of jollier days. There was nothing but Adam left in the world, to which to devote the great fund of affection and devotion in his simple breast. ”

“ As he held out his arms Adam began to chant the weird tune to that mate song of his own invention.
"You know I can't do that," I said as I went into his embrace and drank the chant down into my heart. "There are so many live things that I must stay to watch over. I—I'm their—mother as well as—as yours. They must be fed."
"God, there really is such a thing as a woman," said Adam as he hid his smouldering eyes against my lips. "You'll be waiting when I come back, and you'll go with me the minute I call, if it's day or night? You'll be ready with your bundle?" ”

“ Pater Cœlestis. Then thou are blameless, and the fault thou layest to me?
Adam. Nay, all I ascribe to my own imbecility.
No fault in thee Lord but in my infirmity,
And want of respect in such gifts as thou gavest me.
Pater Cœlestis. For that I put thee at thine own liberty,
Thou oughtest my goodness to have in more regard.
Adam. Avoid it I cannot, thou layest it to me so hard.
Lord, now I perceive what power is in man,
And strength of himself, when thy sweet grace is absent,
He must needs but fall, do he the best he can,
And endanger himself, as appeareth evident ”

“ Adam will have to suffer punishment for his transgression, but he shall still have hope of return and mercy, because he came into My wrath on account of thy wickedness and seductive guile. And as thou overcamest Adam’s wife while she was yet a virgin, so shall one of her daughters, also a virgin, win a triumph over thee. And just as thou seemest now to have led Adam with all his possessions and kinship as spoils into thy dominion, so shall one of his sons search all thy garners and carry all thy treasures away as spoils ”

“ All poor Adam's patience and long-suffering, his unselfishness, his loving ways with his little ones, his steady industry, his perfect confidence in and true affection for herself, his silence under provocation, or the soft answers which always seemed most natural to him, where many a man under similar circumstances would have replied with an oath and a blow—all these things came before her mind's eye on one side. ”

“ Then came a low, grating roar. The avalanche of endless broken rocks had slipped an inch. It left an ominous silence. Adam stirred restlessly in his blankets. There was a woman in the lee of that tremendous sliding slope—a woman of delicate frame, of magnificent spirit, of a heart of living flame. Every hour she slept or lay wide eyed in the path of that impending cataclysm was one of exceeding peril. Adam chafed under the invisible bonds of her will. Because she chose to lie there, fearless, beyond the mind of man to comprehend, was that any reason why he should let her perish? ”

“ Adam and Eve fare little better than the angels under his reforming fingers. Milton, you remember, makes Adam tell Raphael the story of his birth, in language charmful to affable arch-angel's ear, albeit tuned to harmonies in heaven. Dryden burlesques that revelation into the following soliloquy, supposed to have been the first words spoken by human lips. Adam at once opens his mouth in the style of the age of refinement. After the fall, how degenerate kept growing on our father tongue, till it reached its acme in the barbarous lingo of Shakspeare! ”

“ Old Adam understood all his glory.
“He’s mine!” said old Adam again, foolishly.
Then Adam leaned forward with startled, staring eyes. Henry had bowed and smiled in answer to the cheers. Across the street his own house was a mass of color—red, white, and blue over windows and doors, gay dresses on the porch. On each side the pavement was crowded with a shouting multitude. Surely no hero had ever had a more glorious passage through the streets of his birthplace! ”

“ New adoration then Ye will to the Supreme of heaven address."
The seraph having descended to the altar of the earth, Adam, filled with eager expectation, hastened to him. A lucid, ethereal body was the radiant mansion of his blessed spirit, and his form was as lovely as the bright image in the Creator's mind when meditating on the form of man in the blooming fields of Paradise. Adam approached with a radiant smile, which suffused over his countenance an air of ineffable and sweetest dignity, and thus with impassioned accents he spoke. ”

“ Thus to his pupil anon commenced the grave man Adam.
⁠Yes, she is beautiful, Philip, beautiful even as morning:
Yes, it is that which I said, the Good and not the Attractive!
Happy is he that finds, and finding does not leave it!
⁠And by his side in silence walked Philip, and presently answered,
Happy is he that finds, if he lose not : but happy, and more too,
Blessed, be he by whose showing the seeker is changed to the finder.
⁠Ten more days did Adam with Philip abide at the changehouse,
Ten more nights they met, they walked with father and daughter. ”

“ Surely Adam did not really die. Adam never really dies.
One other thing he said to me that remains; there are two Adams—the Adam before he tasted the fruit and the Adam after he had tasted. Most Russians retain their Eden happiness, but whenever one of them tastes of the Tree of Knowledge his old happiness is cursed; the time has come for him to leave Eden and seek the new happiness. Adam was the first modern man. The tramps have found the second Eden.
235 CHAPTER XXIX
THE BAPTIST CHAPEL I HAVE continually come across Protestants in Russia. ”

“ And know thou that the son of Adam circumventeth the fishes and draweth them forth of the seas; and he shooteth the birds with a pellet of clay [3] and trappeth the elephant with his craft. None is safe from his mischief and neither bird nor beast escapeth him; and on this wise have I told thee what I have heard concerning the son of Adam.' So I awoke, fearful and trembling and from that hour to this my heart hath not known gladness, for dread of the son of Adam, lest he surprise me unawares by his wile or trap me in his snares. ”

“ RATS IN THE ARMORY. Adam’s disappointment, when he got no more responses to the eager questions and blessings he breathed upward to his unseen sweetheart, was keener than all the anguish he had felt at being so foully imprisoned. He had caught up the keys, quickly enough, but when he failed to catch any more of her trembling words he felt more deserted and surrounded by the blackness than he had been in all this new experience. ”

“ So he was called Adam, and to that world about him he was the first of men—a man-child alone. Heaven sent him no Eve for a companion, but all earth, horse and foot, was at his feet. As soon as he was old enough to appear in public he held a levée, and Strickland’s sixty policemen, with their sixty clanking sabres, bowed to the dust before him. When his fingers closed a little on Imam Din’s sword-hilt they rose and roared till Adam roared too, and was withdrawn. ”

“ Adam had got off his chopping-block, and was listening with pursed lips and something of the expression of a terrier at a rat-hole.
"Yes, you go, Rufus!" he said, as Mrs. Peck paused. "You show him round! I'd like him to know you."
"What for?" said Rufus.
Adam contorted one side of his face into something that was between a wink and a grin. "Do you good to go into society," he said. "That's all right, missus, he'll go. Better go and ask Mr. Knight what time he wants to start." ”

“ Just at this moment Adam heard voices behind the shrubs. One was that of a girl, and as she passed on, she gaily hummed a tune. It was one that his wife used to sing in her clear fresh voice, which he had so loved to hear, during their brief courtship and early married days. The sound actually brought moisture, of which he felt thoroughly ashamed, to Adam's eyes, and he was gently disengaging one hand so as to wipe it away, when a different voice addressed him by name. ”

“ Then Adam, suddenly realizing what covered his head, threw off the coat and handkerchief. And his eyes were startled by such a sight as they had never beheld—a marvelous unreality of silver sheen and black shadow, a starry tracery of labyrinthine streams on a medium as weird and beautiful and intangible as a dream.
“O God! am I alive or dead?” he whispered in awe. And his voice proved to him that he and his burden had not slipped into the oblivion of the beyond. ”

“ Strange talked about applying for a search-warrant to examine the house. Should he do so, I will warn you of it, if possible. But your safer course is to be looking for the enemy with every ring that the bell gives, every breath that stirs the trees in the labyrinth, every sound that vibrates on the air."
"A pretty state of things!" growled Adam. "I'm sure I wish I never had come here!"
"Oh that you had not!" returned Karl.
"It's my proper place, though. It is. My dear little son, heir to all, ought to be brought up on his own property. ”