Hypatia. or New Foes with an Old Face

CHAPTER XII: THE BOWER OF ACRASIA

The house which Pelagia and the Amal had hired after their return to Alexandria, was one of the most splendid in the city. They had been now living there three months or more, and in that time Pelagia’s taste had supplied the little which it needed to convert it into a paradise of lazy luxury. She herself was wealthy; and her Gothic guests, overburdened with Roman spoils, the very use of which they could not understand, freely allowed her and her nymphs to throw away for them the treasures which they had won in many a fearful fight. What matter? If they had enough to eat, and more than enough to drink, how could the useless surplus of their riches be better spent than in keeping their ladies in good humour?.... And when it was all gone....they would go somewhere or other—who cared whither?—and win more. The whole world was before them waiting to be plundered, and they would fulfil their mission, whensoever it suited them. In the meantime they were in no hurry. Egypt furnished in profusion every sort of food which could gratify palates far more nice than theirs. And as for wine—few of them went to bed sober from one week’s end to another. Could the souls of warriors have more, even in the halls of Valhalla?

So thought the party who occupied the inner court of the house, one blazing afternoon in the same week in which Cyril’s messenger had so rudely broken in on the repose of the Scetis. Their repose, at least, was still untouched. The great city roared without; Orestes plotted, and Cyril counterplotted, and the fate of a continent hung—or seemed to hang—trembling in the balance; but the turmoil of it no more troubled those lazy Titans within, than did the roll and rattle of the carriage-wheels disturb the parakeets and sunbirds which peopled, under an awning of gilded wire, the inner court of Pelagia’s house. Why should they fret themselves with it all? What was every fresh riot, execution, conspiracy, bankruptcy, but a sign—that the fruit was growing ripe for the plucking? Even Heraclian’s rebellion, and Orestes’ suspected conspiracy, were to the younger and coarser Goths a sort of child’s play, at which they could look on and laugh, and bet, from morning till night; while to the more cunning heads, such as Wulf and Smid, they were but signs of the general rottenness—new cracks in those great walls over which they intended, with a simple and boyish consciousness of power, to mount to victory when they chose.

And in the meantime, till the right opening offered, what was there better than to eat, drink, and sleep? And certainly they had chosen a charming retreat in which to fulfil that lofty mission. Columns of purple and green porphyry, among which gleamed the white limbs of delicate statues, surrounded a basin of water, fed by a perpetual jet, which sprinkled with cool spray the leaves of the oranges and mimosas, mingling its murmurs with the warblings of the tropic birds which nestled among the branches.

On one side of the fountain, under the shade of a broad-leaved palmetto, lay the Amal’s mighty limbs, stretched out on cushions, his yellow hair crowned with vine-leaves, his hand grasping a golden cup, which had been won from Indian Rajahs by Parthian Chosroos, from Chosroos by Roman generals, from Roman generals by the heroes of sheepskin and horsehide; while Pelagia, by the side of the sleepy Hercules-Dionysos, lay leaning over the brink of the fountain, lazily dipping her fingers into the water, and basking, like the gnats which hovered over its surface, in the mere pleasure of existence.

On the opposite brink of the basin, tended each by a dark-eyed Hebe, who filled the wine-cups, and helped now and then to empty them, lay the especial friends and companions in arms of the Amal, Goderic the son of Ermenric, and Agilmund the son of Cniva, who both, like the Amal, boasted a descent from gods; and last, but not least, that most important and all but sacred personage, Smid the son of Troll, reverenced for cunning beyond the sons of men; for not only could he make and mend all matters, from a pontoon bridge to a gold bracelet, shoe horses and doctor them, charm all diseases out of man and beast, carve runes, interpret war-omens, foretell weather, raise the winds, and finally, conquer in the battle of mead-horns all except Wulf the son of Ovida; but he had actually, during a sojourn among the half-civilised Maesogoths, picked up a fair share of Latin and Greek, and a rough knowledge of reading and writing.

A few yards off lay old Wulf upon his back, his knees in the air, his hands crossed behind his head, keeping up, even in his sleep, a half-conscious comment of growls on the following intellectual conversation:—

‘Noble wine this, is it not?’

‘Perfect. Who bought it for us?’

‘Old Miriam bought it, at some great tax-farmer’s sale. The fellow was bankrupt, and Miriam said she got it for the half what it was worth.’

‘Serve the penny-turning rascal right. The old vixen-fox took care, I’ll warrant her, to get her profit out of the bargain.’

‘Never mind if she did. We can afford to pay like men, if we earn like men.’

‘We shan’t afford it long, at this rate,’ growled Wulf.

‘Then we’ll go and earn more. I am tired of doing nothing.’

‘People need not do nothing, unless they choose,’ said Goderic. ‘Wulf and I had coursing fit for a king, the other morning on the sand-hills. I had had no appetite for a week before, and I have been as sharp-set as a Danube pike ever since.’

‘Coursing? What, with those long-legged brush-tailed brutes, like a fox upon stilts, which the prefect cozened you into buying.’

‘All I can say is, that we put up a herd of those—what do you call them here—deer with goats’ horns?’

‘Antelopes?’

‘That’s it—and the curs ran into them as a falcon does into a skein of ducks. Wulf and I galloped and galloped over those accursed sand-heaps till the horses stuck fast; and when they got their wind again, we found each pair of dogs with a deer down between them—and what can man want more, if he cannot get fighting? You eat them, so you need not sneer.’

‘Well, dogs are the only things worth having, then, that this Alexandria does produce.’

‘Except fair ladies!’ put in one of the girls.

‘Of course. I’ll except the women. But the men-’

‘The what? I have not seen a man since I came here, except a dock-worker or two—priests and fine gentlemen they are all—and you don’t call them men, surely?’

‘What on earth do they do, beside riding donkeys?’

‘Philosophise, they say.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know; some sort of slave’s quill-driving, I suppose.’

‘Pelagia! do you know what philosophising is?’

‘No—and I don’t care.’

‘I do,’ quoth Agilmund, with a look of superior wisdom; ‘I saw a philosopher the other day.’

‘And what sort of a thing was it?’

‘I’ll tell you. I was walking down the great street there, going to the harbour; and I saw a crowd of boys—men they call them here—going into a large doorway. So I asked one of them what was doing, and the fellow, instead of answering me, pointed at my legs, and set all the other monkeys laughing. So I boxed his ears, and he tumbled down.’

‘They all do so here, if you box their ears,’ said the Amal meditatively, as if he had bit upon a great inductive law.

‘Ah,’ said Pelagia, looking up with her most winning smile, ‘they are not such giants as you, who make a poor little woman feel like a gazelle in a lion’s paw!’

‘Well—it struck me that, as I spoke in Gothic, the boy might not have understood me, being a Greek. So I walked in at the door, to save questions, and see for myself. And there a fellow held out his hand—I suppose for money, So I gave him two or three gold pieces, and a box on the ear, at which he tumbled down, of course, but seemed very well satisfied. So I walked in.’

‘And what did you see?’

‘A great hall, large enough for a thousand heroes, full of these Egyptian rascals scribbling with pencils on tablets. And at the farther end of it the most beautiful woman I ever saw—with right fair hair and blue eyes, talking, talking—I could not understand it; but the donkey-riders seemed to think it very fine; for they went on looking first at her, and then at their tablets, gaping like frogs in drought. And, certainly, she looked as fair as the sun, and talked like an Alruna-wife. Not that I knew what it was about, but one can see somehow, you know.—So I fell asleep; and when I woke, and came out, I met some one who understood me, and he told me that it was the famous maiden, the great philosopher. And that’s what I know about philosophy.’

‘She was very much wasted then, on such soft-handed starvelings. Why don’t she marry some hero?’

‘Because there are none here to marry,’ said Pelagia; ‘except some who are fast netted, I fancy, already.’

‘But what do they talk about, and tell people to do, these philosophers, Pelagia?’

‘Oh, they don’t tell any one to do anything—at least, if they do, nobody ever does it, as far as I can see; but they talk about suns and stars, and right and wrong, and ghosts and spirits, and that sort of thing; and about not enjoying oneself too much. Not that I ever saw that they were any happier than any one else.’

‘She must have been an Alruna-maiden,’ said Wulf, half to himself.

‘She is a very conceited creature, and I hate her,’ said Pelagia.

‘I believe you,’ said Wulf.

‘What is an Alruna-maiden?’ asked one of the girls.

‘Something as like you as a salmon is like a horse-leech. Heroes, will you hear a saga?’

‘If it is a cool one,’ said Agilmund; ‘about ice, and pine-trees, and snowstorms, I shall be roasted brown in three days more.’

‘Oh,’ said the Amal, ‘that we were on the Alps again for only two hours, sliding down those snow-slopes on our shields, with the sleet whistling about our ears! That was sport!’

‘To those who could keep their seat,’ said Goderic. ‘Who went head over heels into a glacier-crack, and was dug out of fifty feet of snow, and had to be put inside a fresh-killed horse before he could be brought to life?’

‘Not you, surely,’ said Pelagia. ‘Oh, you wonderful creature! what things you have done and suffered!’

‘Well,’ said the Amal, with a look of stolid self-satisfaction, ‘I suppose I have seen a good deal in my time, eh?’

‘Yes, my Hercules, you have gone through your twelve labours, and saved your poor little Hesione after them all, when she was chained to the rock, for the ugly sea-monsters to eat; and she will cherish you, and keep you out of scrapes now, for her own sake;’ and Pelagia threw her arms round the great bull-neck, and drew it down to her.

‘Will you hear my saga?’ said Wulf impatiently.

‘Of course we will,’ said the Amal; ‘anything to pass the time.’

‘But let it be about snow,’ said Agilmund.

‘Not about Alruna-wives?’

‘About them, too,’ said Goderic; ‘my mother was one, so I must needs stand up for them.’

‘She was, boy. Do you be her son. Now hear, Wolves of the Goths!’

And the old man took up his little lute, or as he would probably have called it, ‘fidel,’ and began chanting to his own accompaniment.

Over the camp fires Drank I with heroes, Under the Donau bank Warm in the snow-trench, Sagamen heard I there, Men of the Longbeards, Cunning and ancient, Honey-sweet-voiced. Scaring the wolf-cub, Scaring the horn-owl out, Shaking the snow-wreaths Down from the pine-boughs, Up to the star-roof Rang out their song. Singing how Winil men Over the icefloes Sledging from Scanland on Came unto Scoring; Singing of Gambara Freya’s beloved. Mother of Ayo Mother of Ibor. Singing of Wendel men, Ambri and Assi; How to the Winilfolk Went they with war-words— ‘Few are ye, strangers, And many are we; Pay us now toll and fee, Clothyarn, and rings, and beeves; Else at the raven’s meal Bide the sharp bill’s doom.’

Clutching the dwarfs’ work then, Clutching the bullock’s shell, Girding gray iron on, Forth fared the Winils all, Fared the Alruna’s sons, Ayo and Ibor. Mad of heart stalked they Loud wept the women all, Loud the Alruna-wife; Sore was their need.

Out of the morning land, Over the snowdrifts, Beautiful Freya came, Tripping to Scoring. White were the moorlands, And frozen before her; But green were the moorlands, And blooming behind her, Out of her golden locks Shaking the spring flowers, Out of her garments Shaking the south wind, Around in the birches Awaking the throstles, And making chaste housewives all Long for their heroes home, Loving and love-giving, Came she to Scoring. Came unto Gambara, Wisest of Valas— ‘Vala, why weepest thou Far in the wide-blue, High up in the Elfin-home, Heard I thy weeping.’

‘Stop not thy weeping, Till one can fight seven, Sons have I, heroes tall, First in the sword-play; This day at the Wendels’ hands Eagles must tear them; While their mothers, thrall-weary, Must grind for the Wendels’

Wept the Alruna-wife; Kissed her fair Freya— ‘Far off in the morning land High in Valhalla, A window stands open, Its sill is the snow-peaks, Its posts are the water-spouts Storm rack its lintel, Gold cloud-flakes above it Are piled for the roofing. Far up to the Elfin-home, High in the wide-blue. Smiles out each morning thence Odin Allfather; From under the cloud-eaves, Smiles out on the heroes, Smiles out on chaste housewives all, Smiles on the brood-mares, Smiles on the smith’s work: And theirs is the sword-luck, With them is the glory— So Odin hath sworn it—

 
     Who first in the morning
     Shall meet him and greet him.’
 

Still the Alruna wept— ‘Who then shall greet him? Women alone are here: Far on the moorlands Behind the war-lindens, In vain for the bill’s doom Watch Winil heroes all, One against seven.’

Sweetly the Queen laughed— ‘Hear thou my counsel now; Take to thee cunning, Beloved of Freya. Take thou thy women-folk, Maidens and wives: Over your ankles Lace on the white war-hose; Over your bosoms Link up the hard mailnets; Over your lips Plait long tresses with cunning;– So war-beasts full bearded King Odin shall deem you, When off the gray sea-beach At sunrise ye greet him.’

Night’s son was driving His golden-haired horses up. Over the Eastern firths High flashed their manes. Smiled from the cloud-eaves out Allfather Odin, Waiting the battle-sport: Freya stood by him. ‘Who are these heroes tall— Lusty-limbed Longbeards? Over the swans’ bath Why cry they to me? Bones should be crashing fast, Wolves should be full-fed, Where’er such, mad-hearted, Swing hands in the sword-play.’

Sweetly laughed Freya— ‘A name thou hast given them— Shames neither thee nor them, Well can they wear it. Give them the victory, First have they greeted thee; Give them the victory, Yokefellow mine! Maidens and wives are these— Wives of the Winils; Few are their heroes And far on the war-road, So over the swans’ bath They cry unto thee.’

Royally laughed he then; Dear was that craft to him, Odin Allfather, Shaking the clouds. ‘Cunning are women all, Bold and importunate! Longbeards their name shall be, Ravens shall thank them: Where the women are heroes, What must the men be like? Theirs is the victory; No need of me!’

[Footnote: This punning legend may be seen in Paul Warnefrid’s Gesta Langobardorum. The metre and language are intended as imitations of those of the earlier Eddaic poems.]

‘There!’ said Wulf, when the song was ended; ‘is that cool enough for you?’

‘Rather too cool; eh, Pelagia?’ said the Amal, laughing.

‘Ay,’ went on the old man, bitterly enough, ‘such were your mothers; and such were your sisters; and such your wives must be, if you intend to last much longer on the face of the earth—women who care for something better than good eating, strong drinking, and soft lying.’

‘All very true, Prince Wulf,’ said Agilmund, ‘but I don’t like the saga after all. It was a great deal too like what Pelagia here says those philosophers talk about—right and wrong, and that sort of thing.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘Now I like a really good saga, about gods and giants, and the fire kingdoms and the snow kingdoms, and the Aesir making men and women out of two sticks, and all that.’

‘Ay,’ said the Amal, ‘something like nothing one ever saw in one’s life, all stark mad and topsy-turvy, like one’s dreams when one has been drunk; something grand which you cannot understand, but which sets you thinking over it all the morning after.’

‘Well,’ said Goderic, ‘my mother was an Alruna-woman, so I will not be the bird to foul its own nest. But I like to hear about wild beasts and ghosts, ogres, and fire-drakes, and nicors—something that one could kill if one had a chance, as one’s fathers had.’

‘Your fathers would never have killed nicors,’ said Wulf, ‘if they had been—’

‘Like us—I know,’ said the Amal. ‘Now tell me, prince, you are old enough to be our father; and did you ever see a nicor?’

‘My brother saw one, in the Northern sea, three fathoms long, with the body of a bison-bull, and the head of a cat, and the beard of a man, and tusks an ell long, lying down on its breast, watching for the fishermen; and he struck it with an arrow, so that it fled to the bottom of the sea, and never came up again.’

‘What is a nicor, Agilmund?’ asked one of the girls.

‘A sea-devil who eats sailors. There used to be plenty of them where our fathers came from, and ogres too, who came out of the fens into the hall at night, when the warriors were sleeping, to suck their blood, and steal along, and steal along, and jump upon you—so!’

Pelagia, during the saga, had remained looking into the fountain, and playing with the water-drops, in assumed indifference. Perhaps it was to hide burning blushes, and something very like two hot tears, which fell unobserved into the ripple. Now she looked up suddenly—

‘And of course you have killed some of these dreadful creatures, Amalric?’

‘I never had such good luck, darling. Our forefathers were in such a hurry with them, that by the time we were born, there was hardly one left.’

‘Ay, they were men,’ growled Wulf.

‘As for me,’ went on the Amal, ‘the biggest thing I ever killed was a snake in the Donau fens. How long was he, prince? You had time to see, for you sat eating your dinner and looking on, while he was trying to crack my bones.’

‘Four fathom,’ answered Wulf.

‘With a wild bull lying by him, which he had just killed. I spoilt his dinner, eh, Wulf?’

‘Yes,’ said the old grumbler, mollified, ‘that was a right good fight.’

‘Why don’t you make a saga about it, then, instead of about right and wrong, and such things?’

‘Because I am turned philosopher. I shall go and hear that Alruna-maiden this afternoon.’

‘Well said. Let us go too, young men: it will pass the time, at all events.’

‘Oh, no! no! no! do not! you shall not!’ almost shrieked Pelagia.

‘Why not, then, pretty one?’

‘She is a witch—she—I will never love you again if you dare to go. Your only reason is that Agilmund’s report of her beauty.’

‘So? You are afraid of my liking her golden locks better than your black ones?’

‘I? Afraid?’ And she leapt up, panting with pretty rage. ‘Come, we will go too—at once—and brave this nun, who fancies herself too wise to speak to a woman, and too pure to love a man! Lookout my jewels! Saddle my white mule! We will go royally. We will not be ashamed of Cupid’s livery, my girls—saffron shawl and all! Come, and let us see whether saucy Aphrodite is not a match after all for Pallas Athene and her owl!’

And she darted out of the cloister.

The three younger men burst into a roar of laughter, while Wulf looked with grim approval.

‘So you want to go and hear the philosopher, prince?’ said Smid.

‘Wheresoever a holy and a wise woman speaks, a warrior need not be ashamed of listening. Did not Alaric bid us spare the nuns in Rome, comrade? And though I am no Christian as he was, I thought it no shame for Odin’s man to take their blessing; nor will I to take this one’s, Smid, son of Troll.’

CHAPTER XIII: THE BOTTOM OF THE ABYSS

‘Here am I, at last!’ said Raphael Aben-Ezra to himself. ‘Fairly and safely landed at the very bottom of the bottomless; disporting myself on the firm floor of the primeval nothing, and finding my new element, like boys when they begin to swim, not so impracticable after all. No man, angel, or demon, can this day cast it in my teeth that I am weak enough to believe or disbelieve any phenomenon or theory in or concerning heaven or earth; or even that any such heaven, earth, phenomena, or theories exist—or otherwise.... I trust that is a sufficiently exhaustive statement of my opinions? .... I am certainly not dogmatic enough to deny—or to assert either—that there are sensations.... far too numerous for comfort .... but as for proceeding any further, by induction, deduction, analysis, or synthesis, I utterly decline the office of Arachne, and will spin no more cobwebs out of my own inside—if I have any. Sensations? What are they, but parts of oneself—if one has a self! What put this child’s fancy into one’s head, that there is anything outside of one which produces them? You have exactly similar feelings in your dreams, and you know that there is no reality corresponding to them—No, you don’t! How dare you be dogmatic enough to affirm that? Why should not your dreams be as real as your waking thoughts? Why should not your dreams be the reality, and your waking thoughts the dream? What matter which?

‘What matter indeed? Here have I been staring for years—unless that, too, is a dream, which it very probably is—at every mountebank “ism” which ever tumbled and capered on the philosophic tight-rope; and they are every one of them dead dolls, wooden, worked with wires, which are petitiones principii.... Each philosopher begs the question in hand, and then marches forward, as brave as a triumph, and prides himself—on proving it all afterwards. No wonder that his theory fits the universe, when he has first clipped the universe to fit his theory. Have I not tried my hand at many a one—starting, too, no one can deny, with the very minimum of clipping,.... for I suppose one cannot begin lower than at simple “I am I”.... unless—which is equally demonstrable—at “I am not I.” I recollect—or dream—that I offered that sweet dream, Hypatia, to deduce all things in heaven and earth, from the Astronomics of Hipparchus to the number of plumes in an archangel’s wing, from that one simple proposition, if she would but write me out a demonstration of it first, as some sort of [Greek expression] for the apex of my inverted pyramid. But she disdained.... People are apt to disdain what they know they cannot do.... “It was an axiom,” it was, “like one and one making two.”.... How cross the sweet dream was, at my telling her that I did not consider that any axiom either, and that one thing and one thing seeming to us to be two things, was no more proof that they really were two, and not three hundred and sixty-five, than a man seeming to be an honest man, proved him not to be a rogue; and at my asking her, moreover, when she appealed to universal experience, how she proved that the combined folly of all fools resulted in wisdom!

‘“I am I” an axiom, indeed! What right have I to say that I am not any one else? How do I know it? How do I know that there is any one else for me not to be? I, or rather something, feel a number of sensations, longings, thoughts, fancies—the great devil take them all—fresh ones every moment, and each at war tooth and nail with all the rest; and then on the strength of this infinite multiplicity and contradiction, of which alone I am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up, and say, “I by myself I,” and swear stoutly that I am one thing, when all I am conscious of is the devil only knows how many things. Of all quaint deductions from experience, that is the quaintest! Would it not be more philosophical to conclude that I, who never saw or felt or heard this which I call myself, am what I have seen, heard, and felt—and no more and no less—that sensation which I call that horse, that dead man, that jackass, those forty thousand two-legged jackasses who appear to be running for their lives below there, having got hold of this same notion of their being one thing each—as I choose to fancy in my foolish habit of imputing to them the same disease of thought which I find in myself—crucify the word!—The folly of my ancestors—if I ever had any—prevents my having any better expression.... Why should I not be all I feel—that sky, those clouds—the whole universe? Hercules! what a creative genius my sensorium must be!—I’ll take to writing’ poetry—a mock-epic, in seventy-two books, entitled “The Universe: or, Raphael Aben-Ezra,” and take Homer’s Margites for my model. Homer’s? Mine! Why must not the Margites, like everything else, have been a sensation of my own? Hypatia used to say Homer’s poetry was a part of her.... only she could not prove it.... but I have proved that the Margites is a part of me.... not that I believe my own proof—scepticism forbid! Oh, would to heaven that the said whole disagreeable universe were annihilated, if it were only just to settle by fair experiment whether any of master “I” remained when they were gone! Buzzard and dogmatist! And how do you know that that would settle it? And if it did—why need it be settled?....

‘I daresay there is an answer pat for all this. I could write a pretty one myself in half an hour. But then I should not believe it .... nor the rejoinder to that.... nor the demurrer to that again .... So.... I am both sleepy and hungry.... or rather, sleepiness and hunger are me. Which is it! Heigh-ho....’ and Raphael finished his meditation by a mighty yawn.

This hopeful oration was delivered in a fitting lecture-room. Between the bare walls of a doleful fire-scarred tower in the Campagna of Rome, standing upon a knoll of dry brown grass, ringed with a few grim pines, blasted and black with smoke; there sat Raphael Aben-Ezra, working out the last formula of the great world problem—‘Given Self; to find God.’ Through the doorless stone archway he could see a long vista of the plain below, covered with broken trees, trampled crops, smoking villas, and all the ugly scars of recent war, far onward to the quiet purple mountains and the silver sea, towards which struggled, far in the distance, long dark lines of moving specks, flowing together, breaking up, stopping short, recoiling back to surge forward by some fresh channel, while now and then a glitter of keen white sparks ran through the dense black masses.... The Count of Africa had thrown for the empire of the world—and lost.

‘Brave old Sun!’ said Raphael, ‘how merrily he flashes off the sword-blades yonder, and never cares that every tiny spark brings a death-shriek after it! Why should he? It is no concern of his. Astrologers are fools. His business is to shine; and on the whole, he is one of my few satisfactory sensations. How now? This is questionably pleasant!’

As he spoke, a column of troops came marching across the field, straight towards his retreat.

‘If these new sensations of mine find me here, they will infallibly produce in me a new sensation, which will render all further ones impossible.... Well? What kinder thing could they do for me?.... Ay—but how do I know that they would do it? What possible proof is there that if a two-legged phantasm pokes a hard iron-gray phantasm in among my sensations, those sensations will be my last? Is the fact of my turning pale, and lying still, and being in a day or two converted into crows’ flesh, any reason why I should not feel? And how do I know that would happen? It seems to happen to certain sensations of my eyeball—or something else—who cares? which I call soldiers; but what possible analogy can there be between what seems to happen to those single sensations called soldiers, and what may or may not really happen to all my sensations put together, which I call me? Should I bear apples if a phantasm seemed to come and plant me? Then why should I die if another phantasm seemed to come and poke me in the ribs?

‘Still I don’t intend to deny it.... I am no dogmatist. Positively the phantasms are marching straight for my tower! Well, it may be safer to run away, on the chance. But as for losing feeling,’ continued he, rising and cramming a few mouldy crusts into his wallet, ‘that, like everything else, is past proof. Why—if now, when I have some sort of excuse for fancying myself one thing in one place, I am driven mad with the number of my sensations, what will it be when I am eaten, and turned to dust, and undeniably many things in many places.... Will not the sensations be multiplied by—unbearable! I would swear at the thought, if I had anything to swear by! To be transmuted into the sensoria of forty different nasty carrion crows, besides two or three foxes, and a large black beetle! I’ll run away, just like anybody else.... if anybody existed. Come, Bran! ...............

‘Bran! where are you; unlucky inseparable sensation of mine? Picking up a dinner already off these dead soldiers? Well, the pity is that this foolish contradictory taste of mine, while it makes me hungry, forbids me to follow your example. Why am I to take lessons from my soldier-phantasms, and not from my canine one? Illogical! Bran! Bran!’ and he went out and whistled in vain for the dog.

‘Bran! unhappy phantom, who will not vanish by night or day, lying on my chest even in dreams; and who would not even let me vanish, and solve the problem—though I don’t believe there is any—why did you drag me out of the sea there at Ostia? Why did you not let me become a whole shoal of crabs? How did you know, or I either, that they may not be very jolly fellows, and not in the least troubled with philosophic doubts?.... But perhaps there were no crabs, but only phantasms of crabs.... And, on the other hand, if the crab-phantasms give jolly sensations, why should not the crow-phantasms? So whichever way it turns out, no matter; and I may as well wait here, and seem to become crows, as I certainly shall do.—Bran!.... Why should I wait for her? What pleasure can it be to me to have the feeling of a four-legged, brindled, lop-eared, toad-mouthed thing always between what seem to be my legs? There she is! Where have you been, madam? Don’t you see I am in marching order, with staff and wallet ready shouldered? Come!’