Gerasim

“ But now they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter.
At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life. From his childhood he had been used to field labor, to village life. Shut off by his affliction from the society of men, he had grown up, dumb and mighty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil. ”

“ But just through his most unpleasant matter, Ivan Ilych obtained comfort. Gerasim, the butler's young assistant, always came in to carry the things out. Gerasim was a clean, fresh peasant lad, grown stout on town food and always cheerful and bright. At first the sight of him, in his clean Russian peasant costume, engaged on that disgusting task embarrassed Ivan Ilych.
Once when he got up from the commode too weak to draw up his trousers, he dropped into a soft armchair and looked with horror at his bare, enfeebled thighs with the muscles so sharply marked on them. ”

“ Since then no one addressed a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids’ room, promptly fell into a fainting-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that Gerasim’s rough action reached his mistress’s knowledge the same day. But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat “how he bent your head down with his heavy hand,” and next day she sent Gerasim a rouble. She looked on him with favour as a strong and faithful watchman. ”

“ She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and was never a yard from his side; she always followed him about wagging her tail. He had even given her a name—the dumb know that their inarticulate noises call the attention of others. He called her Mumu. All the servants in the house liked her, and called her Mumu, too. She was very intelligent, she was friendly with every one, but was only fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved her passionately, and he did not like it when other people stroked her ”

“ Every one was still. Gerasim took up his spoon again and went on with his cabbage-soup. "Look at him, the dumb devil, the wood-demon!" they all muttered in undertones, while the wardrobe-maid got up and went out into the maid's room. Another time, noticing that Kapiton—the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation reported above—was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana, Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but most significantly, menaced him with it. ”

“ But before he got home, he got off the fly, and going right round the yard, jumped over the fence into the yard from a back street. He was afraid to go in at the gate for fear of meeting Gerasim.
His anxiety was unnecessary, however; Gerasim was no longer in the yard. On coming out of the house he had at once missed Mumu. He never remembered her failing to wait for his return, and began running up and down, looking for her, and calling her in his own way. . . . He rushed up to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into the street, this way and that. . . . She was lost! ”

“ And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in his lonely hut; he is strong and healthy as before, and does the work of four men as before, and as before is serious and steady. But his neighbors have observed that ever since his return from Moscow he has quite given up the society of women; he will not even look at them, and does not keep even a single dog.
"It's his good luck, though," the peasants reason, "that he can get on without female folk; and as for a dog—what need has he of a dog? you wouldn't get a thief to go into his yard for any money!" ”

“ The poor girl simply did not know how to behave or what to do. Soon the whole household knew of the dumb porter's wiles; jeers, jokes, sly hints, were showered upon Tatiana. At Gerasim, however, it was not every one who would dare to scoff ”

“ Then he told him he was prepared to engage him as man of all work, and he should come back the next day ready to take the place.
Gerasim was fairly stunned by the great stroke of fortune. So overwhelming was his joy that his legs would scarcely carry him. He went to the coachman's room, and Yegor said to him:
"Well, my lad, see to it that you do your work right, so that I shan't have to be ashamed of you. You know what masters are like. If you go wrong once, they'll be at you forever after with their fault-finding, and never give you peace." ”

“ It is easier for me when my feet are raised."
Gerasim brought the chair, set it down gently in place, and raised Ivan Ilych's legs on it. It seemed to Ivan Ilych that he felt better while Gerasim was holding up his legs.
"It's better when my legs are higher," he said. "Place that cushion under them."
Gerasim did so. He again lifted the legs and placed them, and again Ivan Ilych felt better while Gerasim held his legs. When he set them down Ivan Ilych fancied he felt worse.
"Gerasim," he said. "Are you busy now?" ”

“ Jeroboam adopted a plan which while safeguarding the interests of his treasury, prevented his becoming unpopular with his own subjects; as he was unable to have a temple for himself alone, he chose two out of the most venerated ancient sanctuaries, that of Dan for the northern tribes, and that of Bethel, on the Judæan frontier, for the tribes of the east and centre. He made two calves of gold, one for each place, and said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” ”

“ Misfortune had not chilled their zeal: they rallied round Rehoboam and his race with such a persistency that they were enabled to maintain their ground when their richer rivals had squandered their energies and fallen away before their eyes. Jeroboam, indeed, and his successors had never obtained from their people more than a precarious support and a lukewarm devotion: their authority was continually coming into conflict with a tendency to disintegration among the tribes, and they could only maintain their rule by the constant employment of force. ”

“ As a painter of exotic life Gérôme remains an observer of the highest order. If he has not wholly revealed Italy to us in his Guardians of the Herd and his Pifferari (1855, 1857) , he has at least done so in the case of Egypt, still deeply impregnated with an ancient and splendid civilization, naïve and at the same time venerable, Egypt before the advent of tourists, a luminous land where the Nile and the Desert reign supreme, a land of magnificence and of savagery. ”

“ Gerizim forms a part of the great central chain or congeries of mountains which rises in the interior of Palestine, and from which the Carmel range branches, as a sort of spur or offshoot, traversing the country in a westward and northward direction, and continuing its course until it terminates at the sea. The other principal mountain groups in the Holy Land are the ranges of Lebanon on the north, and the mountainous tract about Jerusalem in the south. ”

“ But another class left Rome altogether. Some took up their abode on the rugged isles of the Adriatic or the Mediterranean. Large numbers of them went to the East, principally to Palestine. Jerome was practically the abbot of a Roman colony of monks and nuns. Two motives, beside the general ruling desire to achieve holiness, produced this exodus to the Holy Land, which culminated centuries later in the crusades. One was a desire to see the deserts and caves, the abode of hermits famous for piety and miracles. ”

“ The nations have heard of thy disgrace, and thy howling hath filled the land: for the strong hath stumbled against the strong, and both are fallen together.
46:13. The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremias the prophet, how Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt:
46:14. Declare ye to Egypt, and publish it in Magdal, and let it be known in Memphis, and in Taphnis: say ye: Stand up, and prepare thyself: for the sword shall devour all round about thee.
46:15. Why are thy valiant men come to nothing? they stood not: because the Lord hath overthrown them. ”

“ Gérôme remains, beyond question, the unrivalled painter of Egypt, whose aspects, enchanting and sinister alike, he has reproduced in a series of pictures of finished workmanship and vibrant colouring.
It was in 1856 that, together with a few friends, among others Bartholdi, then twenty-two years old, he undertook his long tour through Egypt. To-day, one can go to Cairo or up the Nile as casually as to Nice or Italy and with almost as little trouble. In those days it was not a question of a simple excursion, of which any and every amateur tourist would be capable, but of a veritable expedition. ”

“ When they returned to Palestine they all settled at Bethlehem, where Paula built four monasteries, three for nuns and one for monks. She was at the head of the nunneries until her death in 404, when Eustochium succeeded her; Jerome presided over the fourth monastery. Here he did most of his literary work and, throwing aside his unfinished plan of a translation from Origen’s Hexaplar text, translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, with the aid of Jewish scholars. ”

“ But Gerasa is more than thirty miles distant from the nearest part of the Lake of Tiberias, while the city mentioned in the narrative could not have been very far off the scene of the event. However, as Gerasa was a very important Hellenic city, not much more than a score of miles from Gadara, it is easily imaginable that a locality which was part of Decapolitan territory may have been spoken of as belonging to one of the two cities, when it really appertained to the other. After weighing all the arguments, no doubt remains on my mind that "Gadarene" is the proper reading. ”

“ When Solomon, on the day after his marriage with the Egyptian princess, disturbed the regular course of the Temple service by sleeping late with his head on the pillow under which lay the key of the Temple, Jeroboam with eighty thousand Ephraimites approached the king and publicly called him to account for is negligence. God administered a reproof to Jeroboam; "Why dost thou reproach a prince of Israel? As thou livest, thou shalt have a taste of his rulership, and thou wilt see thou are not equal to its responsibilities." ”

“ Seetzen the world are indebted for much of the knowledge they possess relative to the ancient city of Geraza, the ruins of which are pointed out by the Arabs under the name of Djarash.
Approaching it from the south, the traveller first observes a triumphal gateway, nearly entire, bearing a striking resemblance in point of workmanship to the remains of Antinoë in Upper Egypt. The front presents four columns of a small diameter, and constructed of many separate pieces of stone; their pedestals are of a square form, but tall and slender. ”

“ The first one of Jeremiah’s predictions to come true was when Daniel and the Israelites were taken captives to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. Again he warned them not to go into Egypt, but they not only went but compelled him to go with them.
The last we hear of Jeremiah is in Egypt, urging his people to give up their idols and worship God. He is indeed, as Mr. Sargent has represented him, “the prophet of sorrow”; and yet the figure is one of strength. ”

“ But Rehoboam refused to depart from Solomon’s despotic rule, and was tactless enough to send Adoniram, the overseer of the corvée. He was stoned to death, and Rehoboam realizing the temper of the people fled to Jerusalem and prepared for war. Jeroboam became the recognized leader of the northern tribes. ”

“ The death of Paula, however, seemed to mark the turning point in Jerome’s career. During the long, lonely years since then he [Pg 101] has never enjoyed the same scholarly quiet, and he has had to cope with repeated and varied misfortunes. The very winter she died was one of unusual severity, which sorely tried his physical powers, already weakened by disease and by long-continued privations. The Isaurians came down from Asia Minor and devasted northern Palestine, so that the monastery was overcrowded with fugitives ”

“ Bethlehem, Third Period. 405–420. The last period of Jerome’s life was passed in the midst of privations, the loss of friends, and frequent illnesses. Paula had died. Jerome was poor (500, 214, 215) and often weak (498, 500) . His eyesight failed (id.) . He had enemies around him (261, 262) and in the high places of the Empire (237, 499) . The barbarians were sweeping across the Empire (237, 500) , some, like the Isaurians, threatening the North of Palestine (214) and even penetrating at one time to Southern Syria and Egypt (id.) ”

“ Yet Jeroboam had by this time gained all his victories, and never before had the King of Samaria appeared to be more firmly seated on the throne: what, then, did this intruder mean by introducing himself as a messenger of wrath in the name of Jahveh, at the very moment when Jahveh was furnishing His worshippers with abundant signs of His favour? Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, interrupted him as he went on to declare that “Jeroboam should die by the sword, and Israel should surely be led away captive out of his land.” ”

“ He hoped to see Rufinus, wrote to him through Florentius (4, 6) , but he did not come; and he determined to embrace the life of solitude. Heliodorus had some thought of accompanying him, but, to Jerome’s great chagrin) felt the call to pastoral work to be the stronger, and returned to Italy (8, 13, 123) .
The Desert. 374–379. Jerome spent the next five years in the Desert of Chalcis, to the east of Antioch (7) . It was peopled by hermits who, though living apart for most purposes, were under some kind of authority (4, 21) . ”