Ithamar

“ The goddess answered him: "Truly, stranger, thou must come from a far-off land that thou dost not know Ithaca, which is known from the rising to the setting of the sun.
"It is indeed a stony island but it is not barren, nor is it a good place for raising horses. It is rich in grain and grapes. It has an abundance of dew and rain, and most delicious wine is made here. Nowhere can be found handsomer goats or finer cattle. Every kind of tree grows in its forests, and its springs are never dry. The fame of Ithaca has reached even as far as Troy itself which, I am told, lies far from Hellas." ”

“ I am ULYSSES, SON OF LAERTES. In Ithaca I dwell. Many islands lie about it, but Ithaca is furthest to the west, and the others face the sun-rising. Very rugged is this island of Ithaca, but it is the mother of brave men; verily, there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country. Calypso, the fair goddess, would have had me abide with her, to be her husband; but she did not prevail, because there is nothing that a man loves more than his country and his parents. But now I will tell thee of all the troubles that the gods laid upon me as I journeyed from Troy. ”

“ What has Othmar to do with it either way? If it be a sacrifice made for him he will not care for it. He has been kind to you; he is kind to half a million people; but your future is nothing to him, except as he wishes you well, assuredly he wishes you well, and the more success and happiness you gain the less remorse will he feel that he and his broke up your life in the south. Oh, my child, my dear, be wise while it is time. The world is all before you, do not take a false step on its very threshold. The gods are seldom benevolent ”

“ Why, he wondered, why on earth should a man care about a pre-existence, or a spiritual existence, at all, who had everything that his heart could desire in his terrestrial life? He could imagine that starving poets or hungry theologians comforted themselves with those fancies, but Othmar!——
‘You should have been a Montalembert or a Lamennais,’ he answered, which was a polite way of saying that he was an imbecile.
‘Without being either the one or the other, one may carry into public life the same sort of honour which even you think incumbent on one in public life,’ said Othmar. ”

“ And whatsoever gift thou wouldest give me, let it be a thing to treasure; but horses I will take none to Ithaca, but leave them here to grace thine own house, for thou art lord of a wide plain wherein is lotus great plenty, and therein is spear-reed and wheat and rye, and white and spreading barley. In Ithaca there are no wide courses, nor meadow land at all. It is a pasture-land of goats, and more pleasant in my sight than one that pastureth horses; for of the isles that lie and lean upon the sea, none are fit for the driving of horses, or rich in meadow land, and least of all is Ithaca. ”

“ But your question is already answered, for though the prince would be glad enough to fight you, Sakon will have none of it. Have you nothing else to ask me, King?”
Ithobal nodded and said:—
“Listen, merchant. I know your repute of old, that you love money and will do much to gain it, and that you are craftier than any hill-side jackal. Now, if you can do my will, you will have more wealth than ever you won in your life before.” ”

“ You might set her body down under her orange-boughs, under her blue sky, but you could not give her the heart of her childhood. You are a god in your way; the only god the nineteenth century knows—a rich man—but to do that is beyond your power.'
'If I had that power I should be a god indeed!' said Othmar bitterly, 'and the whole sick world would come to me to be cured.'
He needed not the words of Rosselin to remind him that never would he be able to undo the work his wife had done in one idle moment of imperious caprice. ”

“ Doubtless you think that a mad fancy and naught else drives me to the deed, but it is not so, although in truth my heart—like yours—chooses this woman to be my wife and none other. That fondness I might conquer, but look you, of all things living this lady alone has dared to cross my will, so that to-day even the sentries on their rounds and the savage women in the kraals tell each other of how Ithobal, the great king of an hundred tribes, has been baffled and mocked at by a girl who despises him because his blood is not all white. ”

“ But to do this you must be strong, you must be bold, you must be true to yourself. You must not be overcome because you see her looking like the great lady she is. There is only one thing which the wife of Othmar respects, it is genius; she respects that because her intellect appreciates, and her gold cannot buy, it. Prove to her that it is in you, and she will respect you. If you died for her lord to-morrow, she would only say that you had forgotten you were not upon the stage. I seem to speak harshly and roughly. Ah, my dear, my heart is neither ”

“ So the days passed, and Othmar remained silent and worked with the other young men of the village without speaking, and no longer could he sing or call the birds to him. Always he looked white and sad, but saddest of all when there was any village merry-making, and the villagers sang and danced together. Then when he heard them he would put his fingers in his ears and hide his eyes so as not to see them and run afar off by himself; for the sound of any music was quite horrible to him after the singing of the travelling musicians. ”

“ Truthfully we can only date from 1767, when Marc Othmar, who dealt in horses, began to lend money in Agram. It is not a lofty beginning; it is not even a creditable one. But I do not think that to pretend that Marc Othmar, the horse dealer or horse stealer, was a hero and saint would mend matters. I accept him as what he was, but I cannot be proud of him; even sometimes I am on the eve of cursing him; at all events, of wishing he had never existed.’
‘My dear Othmar, you are very strange sometimes——’
‘Am I? One is never content with what one has. ”

“ It takes so much; it offers nothing. True, some of the greatest passions the world has [22] seen have been born after youth had long passed, and have burned on till death with deeper fires of sunset than ever dawn has seen. But a woman is not consoled by that possibility as morning slides past her and the shadows grow long.
Othmar, without other reply, opened the door of her dressing-room, and there entered two small children, a boy and a girl with faces like flowers, and sweet rosy mouths, carrying a large gilded basket between them, filled with white lilac and gardenia. ”

“ As the hours passed on, Othmar went downstairs and broke a little bread, took a little wine, then returned to the chamber of death and waited there. They told him that as the night wore away the last struggle must come. Death loves the hour before dawn.
Many thoughts came to the watcher as he sat there; they were melancholy and tired thoughts. Life seemed to him, as to Heine, like a child lost in the dark. What was the use of all the energy and effort, all the desire and regret, all the grief and hope, all the knowledge and ambition? ”

“ Istar on this cursed Izdubar, and descended to Hades to attempt once more to summon unearthly powers against the hero. She descends to the infernal regions, which are vividly described, and, passing through their seven gates, is ushered into the presence of the queen of the dead. The world of love goes wrong in the absence of Istar, and on the petition of the gods she is once more brought to the earth, ultimately Anatu, her mother, satisfying her vengeance by striking Izdubar with a loathsome disease. ”

“ Poets are charming companions, but they are not infallible guides. Fate has given you a safe home, a tranquil lot, a sure provision. Do not tempt fortune to desert you by showing it any ingratitude. I fear my words seem very cold and dull ones after the gorgeous flatteries you have heard, but they at least are wise as I see wisdom for you; and, believe me, they are well meant.'
He spoke with earnestness as the boat approached the island, and, with the sail lowered, drifted lightly before the wind towards the beach.
'Will you tell your grandfather?' asked Othmar, as they neared the isle. ”

“ The whole temperament of Othmar was one to which business was antagonistic and oppressive in the greatest degree; nature had made him a student and a dreamer, and all the dull, fretting cares which accompany the administration of all great fortunes and houses of finance were to him the most irksome and distasteful of all bondage. But they were fastened in their golden fetters on his life as the burden of the ivory and silver howdah lies heavy as lead upon the back of an elephant in a state procession. ”

“ She remembered the words of Othmar, bidding her live the life that was led on the wide cornlands of La Beauce. All that was strong in her, and born to freedom, and filled with the love of the sea, and the joys of untrammelled movement through sunlit air, and against fruit-scented breezes, rose in nausea and revolt against the pent-up life of the artist in cities. ”

“ I tell you that your idea is absurd, that Othmar will never attribute to you the motives you fancy; he is too wise and too generous, and no one could look at you, child, and think of you an ignoble thing. You may be a great artist if you choose. If you are not that, you will be of all creatures the most wretched, for you will live against all the instincts of your nature, against all the bend of your mind. What made you, when you read your poets on your island, dream of a life wholly unknown to you, if not the forces of genius which made you dissatisfied where you were, and cried to you "Go." ”

“ It is inevitable that your name has been, or will be, associated with hers. Modern life is one huge glass-house. If she be first seen at your house, in your salons, calumny can scarcely attach to your friendship for her. Pardon me if I speak with too intimate a candour. If I said less, I should feel myself almost dragged into the base collusion of a Sir Pandarus.'
Othmar grew pale with anger; he was unaccustomed to familiarity, and the words seemed to him wanting in delicacy and in respect. ”

“ Well, if that be so—and it is not for me to say—who could be a fitter mate for the greatest king upon the earth than a goddess from the heavens? Take her, king Ithobal, take her, and this I promise you, that when your armies are encamped without the walls, the priests of El will absolve you of the crime of aspiring to the fair lips of Baaltis.”
“The lips of Baaltis,” broke in Ithobal; “do you think that I shall find them sweet when another man has rifled them? Secret chambers are many yonder in the palace of the gods, and doubtless the Jew will find his way there.” ”

“ Now, though you are a very clever man, my dear Othmar, you cannot be put in either of these categories. You know too much of the world for the first, and you have too much softness of heart for the second. Now, were you like Baron Fritz——’
‘My uncle is the one perfectly happy man that I have ever known,’ replied Othmar. ‘It is because he is the most perfect of egotists. ”

“ She smiled and rose. 'My dear Otho, jealousy is a very ugly, useless, and unwise passion. The world decided, as soon as ever I was presented to it, that I had no such thing as a heart. You have always persisted in supposing that I have, but very likely the world is more right than you.'
'May I not hope at least that I have a place in it?' murmured Othmar, and he bent towards her with much of a lover's ardour. ”

“ In that one great passion he has attained, enjoyed, realised what he can never reach again; what no woman who lives will ever be able to make him feel again; and in this sense he is not untruthful when he says that he has only loved but once.
Such a love Othmar had known for the one woman who, despite the enemy Time, and the decaying worm of custom, had still, through her very mutability, cruelty, and negligence, retained a power to wound him and a power to delight him which no living creature could ever rival with him. ”

“ If he revered anything in life, it was the tradition of old Marc Othmar amassing his florins in the half-barbaric city of Agram.
‘For aught we know he was a Tchigan, a Romany,’ his nephew had said to him once; and he had replied angrily, ‘And if he were a gipsy? Is there blood more ancient? Is there a people freer? Is there an intelligence more complex? What are the European races beside the Oriental? But you know very well that he was a pure Croat,’ he had concluded, with intolerable impatience of such depreciation of the founder of their greatness. ”

“ In sea-girt Ithaca, must be referr'd
To the Gods' will, Telemachus! meantime
Thou hast unquestionable right to keep
Thy own, and to command in thy own house. ⁠510
May never that man on her shores arrive,
While an inhabitant shall yet be left
In Ithaca, who shall by violence wrest
Thine from thee. But permit me, noble Sir! ”

“ You are a man, my dear Count Othmar, who is much more likely to be fascinated by a disinterested action than by a vulgar amour. I understand you, but I warn you that nobody else will.'
'I suppose not,' said Othmar. 'That must be as it may. How did you divine so well what I was thinking of?'
'Divination of that kind is easy after experiences as long as mine are,' answered Rosselin, gathering one of his carnations and fastening it in his linen coat. 'If we do not acquire that much from life we live to be old to little purpose. ”