The Brook Kerith. George Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ hut that Joseph was bidden to enter was the last left in the cenoby for allotment, four proselytes having arrived last month.

      No better commodity have we for the moment, the curator said, struck by the precarious shelter the hut offered—a crazy door and a roof that let the starlight through at one end of the wall. But the rains are over, he added, and the coverlet is a warm one. On this he left Joseph, whom the bell would call to orison, too tired to sleep, turning vaguely from side to side, trying to hush the thoughts that hurtled through his clear brain—that stars endure for ever, but the life of the palm-tree was as the life of the man who fed on its fruit. The tree lived one hundred years, and among the Essenes a centenarian was no rare thing, but of what value to live a hundred years in the monotonous life of the cenoby? And in his imagination, heightened by insomnia, the Essenes seemed to him like the sleeping trees. If he remained he would become like them, while his father lived alone in Galilee! Dan rose up before him and he could find no sense in the assurances he had given the president that he wished to be admitted into the order. He seemed no longer to desire admission, and if he did desire it he could not, for his father's sake, accept the admission. Then why had he talked as he had done to the president? He could not tell: and it must have been while lying on his right side, trying to understand himself, what he was and why he was in the cenoby, that he fell into that deep and dreamless sleep from which he was awakened by a bell, and so suddenly that it seemed to him that he had not been asleep more than a few minutes. It was no doubt the bell for morning prayer: and only half awake he repaired with the other proselytes to the part of the village open to the sunrise.

      All the Essenes were assembled there, and he learnt that they looked upon this prayer of thanksgiving for the return of light as the important event of the day. He joined in it, though he suspected a certain idolatry in the prayer. It seemed to him that the Essenes were praying for the sun to rise; but to do this would be to worship the sun in some measure, and to look upon the sun as in some degree a God, he feared; but the Essenes were certainly very pious Jews. What else they were, time would reveal to him: a few days would be enough; and long before the prayer was finished he was thinking of his father in Galilee and what his face would tell, were he to see his son bowing before the sun. But the Essenes were not really worshipping the sun but praying to God that the sun might rise and give them light again to continue their daily work. One whole day at least he must spend in the cenoby, and—feeling that he was becoming interested again in the Essenes—he began to form a plan to stay some time with them.

      On rising from his knees, he thought he might stay for some weeks. But if the Essene brotherhood succeeded in persuading him that his fate was to abandon his father and the trade that awaited him in Galilee and the wife who awaited him somewhere? His father often said: Joseph, you are the last of our race. I hope to see with you a good wife who will bear you children, for I should like to bless my grandchildren before I die. The Essenes would at least free him from the necessity of telling his father that there was no heart in him for a wife; and if he did not take a wife, he might become—— One of the curators whispered to him the use he should make of the little axe, and he followed the other proselytes; and having found a place where the earth was soft, each dug a hole about a foot deep, into which they eased themselves, afterwards filling up the hole with the earth that had been taken out. Joseph then went down with them to a source for purifications, and these being finished the proselytes grouped themselves round Joseph, anxious to become acquainted with the last recruit, and asking all together what provision of food he had made for himself for that day: if he had made none, he would have to go without food, for only those who were admitted into the order were suffered to the common repasts. A serious announcement, he said, to make to a man at break of day who knew nothing of these things yesterday, and he asked how his omission might be repaired. He must ask for permission to go to Jericho to buy food. As he was going there on a mule, he might bring back food not only for himself but for all of them: enough lentils to last a week; and he inquired what else they were permitted to eat—if eggs were forbidden? At which the proselytes clapped their hands. A basket of eggs! A basket of eggs! And some honey! cried another. Figs! cried a third; we haven't tasted any for a month. But my mule's back will not bear all that you require, Joseph answered. Our mule! cried the proselytes; all property is held in common. Even the fact of my mule having become common property, Joseph said, will not enable him to carry more than his customary burden, and the goods will embarrass me. If the mule belongs to the community, then I am the mule driver, the provider of the community. Constituted such by thy knowledge of the aptitudes and temper and strength of the animal! cried a proselyte after him, and he went away to seek out one of the curators; for it is not permissible for an Essene to go to Jericho without having gotten permission. Of course the permission was at once granted, and while saddling his mule for the journey the memory of the river overnight now caused Joseph to hesitate and to think that he might find himself return empty-handed to the plump of proselytes now waiting to see him start.

      But if thou crossed the river yesterday, there is no reason why thou shouldn't cross it in safety now, cried one. But forget not the basket of eggs, said a second. Nor the honey, mentioned a third, and a fourth called after him the quality of lentils he enjoyed. The mind of the fifth regarding food was not expressed, for a curator came by and reproved them, saying they were mere belly-worshippers.

      There will be less water in the river than there was overnight, the curator said, and Joseph hoped he was right, for it would be a harsh and disagreeable death to drown in a lake so salt that fish could not live in it. True, one would escape being eaten by fishes; but if the mule be carried away, he said to himself, drown I shall, long before I reach the lake, unless indeed I strike out and swim—which, it seemed to him, might be the best way to save his life—and if there be no current in the lake I can gain the shore easily. But the first sight of the river proved the vanity of his foreboding, for during the night it had emptied a great part of its flood into the lake. The struggle in getting his mule across was slight; still slighter when he returned with a sack of lentils, a basket of eggs, some pounds of honey and many misgivings as to whether he should announce this last commodity to the curator or introduce it surreptitiously. To begin his probationship with a surreptitious act would disgrace him in the eyes of the prior, whose good opinion he valued above all. So did his thoughts run on till he came within sight of a curator, who told him that sometimes, on the first day of probationship, honey and figs were allowed.

      The cooking of the food and the eating of it in the only cabin in which there were conveniences for eating helped the time away, and Joseph began to ask himself how long his cloistral life was going to endure, for he seemed to have lost all desire to leave it, and had begun to turn the different crafts over in his mind and to debate which he should choose to put his hand to. Of husbandry he was as ignorant as a crow, nor could he tell poisonous pastures from wholesome, nor could he help in the bakery. At first venture there seemed to be no craft for him to follow, since fish did not thrive in the Salt Lake and the fisherman's art could not be practised, he was told, in the Jordan, for the Essenes were not permitted to kill any living thing.

      While laying emphasis on this rule, the curator cracked a flea under his robe, but Joseph did not call his attention to his disobedience, but bowed his head and left him to the scruple of conscience which he hoped would awaken in him later.

      Before this had time to come to pass, the curator called after him and suggested that he might teach Hebrew to the four proselytes, whose knowledge of that language had seemed to Mathias, their instructor, disgracefully weak. They were all from Alexandria, like their teacher, and read the Scriptures in Greek; but the Essenes, so said the curator, must read the Scriptures in Hebrew; and the teaching of Hebrew, Mathias said to Joseph, takes me away from my important work, but it may amuse you to teach them. Our father may accept you as a sufficient teacher: go to him for examination.

      A little talk and a few passages read from the Scriptures satisfied the president that Joseph was the assistant teacher that had been so long desired in the community, and he spoke to Joseph soothingly of Mathias, whose life work was the true interpretation of the Scriptures. But did the Scriptures need interpretation? Joseph asked himself, not daring to put questions to the president; and on an СКАЧАТЬ