FOLLE-FARINE.
23
wheresoev* thev wandered, and the lion and the boar
came at "his bidding from the deserts to bend their free
necks and their wills of fire meekly to bear his yoke in
ahYet1ie labored here at the corn-mill of Adrnetus; and
witchins him at his bondage there stood the slender,
Xlieht wing-footed Hermes, wu h a slow, mocking smile
upon his knavish lips, and a jeering scorn in his keen
eves, even as though he cried:
"Ô brother who would be greater than 11 For what
hast thou bartered to me. tire golden rod of thy wealth,
and thy dominion over the flocks and the herds/ For
seven chords strung on a shell-for a, melody not even
thine own! For a lyre, outshone by my syrinx hast
thou sold all thine empire to me! Wil human earn
eive heed to thy song, now thy scepter has passed to
my hands? Immortal music only is left thee and the
visien foreseeing the future. O god! O hero! O fool!
what shall these profit thee now?"                   ,
Thus to the artist by whom they had been begotten
the dim white shapes of the deities spoke. Thus he
saw them thus he heard, whilst the pale and watery
sunlight lit up the form of the toiler in Pherœ.
For even as it was with the divinity ot Delos, so is it
likewise with the genius of a man, which, being bornot
a eod, yet, is bound as a slave to the grindstone. Since,
even as Hermes mocked the Lord of the Unerring Bow-
so is genius mocked of the world when it has hartered
the herds, and the grain, and the rod that metes
wealth, for the seven chords that no ear, dully mortal,
And as he looked upon this symbol of his life, the
captivity and the calamity, the strength and the
slavery'of his existence overcame him; and tor the first
hour since he had been born of a woman Arslàn buried
his face in his hands and wept.
He could bend great thoughts to take the shapes that
he chose, as the chained god in Pherse bound the
strong kings of the, desert and forest to carry his yoke ;
yet, like the god, he likewise stood fettered to the mill
to grind for bread. *
--------o--------
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
A valley long and narrow, shut out from the rest or
«ie living world by the ramparts of stone that rose on
either side to touch the clouds; dense forests ot pines,
purple as night, where the erl-king rode and the bear-
King reigned ; at oire end mountains, mist, and gloom at
the other end the ocean: brief days with the sun shed on
a world of snow, in which the sounds of the winds and
the moans of the wolves alone were heard m the soli-
tude; lonf.'nights of marvelous magnificence with the
.stars of the arctic zone glowing with an unbearable,
luster above a sea of phosphorescent fire; those were
Arslàn's earliest memories—those had made him what
he was.                                               ,,              .      .   ...
In that pine-clothed Norwegian valley, opening to the
sea there were a few homesteads gathered together-
round a little wooden church, with torrents falling
above them, and a profound loneliness around; severed
After awhile they heard of her.
She wrote them tender and glowing words; she was
well, she was proud, she was glad, she had found those
who told her that she had a voice which was a gift of
gold, and that she might sing in triumph to the nations.
Such tidings came to her parents from time to time;
brief words, first teeming with hope, then delirious
with triumph, yet ever ending with a short, sad sigh of
conscience, a prayer for pardon—pardon for what?
The letters never said: perhaps only for the sin of
desertion.
The slow salt tears of age fell on these glowing pages
in which the heart «f a young, vainglorious, mad,
tender creature had stamped itself; but the old peo-
ple never spoke of them to others. " She is happy, it
does not matter for us." This was all they said, yet
this gentle patience was a martyrdom too sharp to last:
within that year the mother died, arrd the old man was
left alone.
The long winter came, locking the valley within its
fortress of ice, severing it from all the rest of the
breathing human world: and the letters ceased. He
would not let them say that she had forgotten; he
chose to think that it was the wall of snow which was
built up between them rather than any division raised
by her ingratitude and oblivion
>ve tnerrr, ami a [jiuium.u 1..uch..w>...vu.u, —7. 77"
by more than a day's journey from any other ot the
habitations of men.
There a simple idyllic life rolled slowly on through
the late and lovely springtimes, when the waters
loosened and the seed sprouted, and the white blossoms
broke above the black ground: through the short and
glorious summers, when the children's eyes saw the
elves kiss the roses, and the faries float on the sunbeam,
and the maidens braided their fair hair with blue corn-
flowers to dance on the eve of St. John: through the
Ion»- and silent winters, when an almost commuai night
brooded over all things, and the thunder of the ocean
alone answered the war of the wind-torn forests, and
the blood-red blaze of the northern light gleamed over a
winte still mountain world, and, within doors, by the
warm wood fire the youths sang Scandinavian ballads,
and the old people told strange sagas, and the^mothers
rocking their new-born sons to sleep, prayed God to
have mercy on all human lives drowning at sea and
frozen in the snow.
In this alpine valley, a green nest, hidden amidst
stupendous walls of stone, bottomless precipices, and
summits that touched the clouds, there was a cottage
even smaller and humbler than most, and closest ot all
to the church.   It was the house of the pastor.
The old man had been born there, and had lived there
all the years of his life—save a few that he had passed
in a town as a student-and he had wedded a neighbor
who, like himself, had known no other home than thrs
¦one village. He was gentle, patient, simple, and full of
tenderness; he worked, like his people, all the week
through in the open weather among his fruit-trees, hrs
little breadth of pasturage, his herb-garden, and his
few sheep.                                        ,       ,,             ,   ,,,
On the Sabbath-day he preached to the people the
creed that he himself believed in with all the fond, un-
questioning, implicit faith of the young children who
lifted to him their wondering eyes.
He was good; he was old: in his simple needs and
his undoubting hopes he was happy; all the living
things of his little world loved him, and he loved them.
So fate lit on him to torture him, as it is its pleasure to
torture the innocent.                           ...      . u.      a
It sent him a daughter who was fair to sight, and
had a voice like music; a form lithe arrd white, hair ot
gold, and with eyes like her own blue skies on a sum-
mer night.                                                         ,
She had never seen any other spot save her own
valley; but she had the old Norse blood m her veins,
and she was restless; the. sea tempted her with an
intense power; she desired passionately, without
knowing what she desired.                                           .
The simple pastoral work, the peaceful household
labors, the girls' garland of alpine flowers, the youths
singing in the brief rose twilight, the saga told the
thousandth time around the lamp in the deep midwin-
ter silence ; these things would not suffice for her. 1 he
old Scandinavian Bersaeek madness was in her veins.
The mountains were to her as the walls of a tomb
And one day the sea tempted her too utterly; beyond
her strength; as a lover, after a thousand rain entrea-
ties, one day tempts a woman, and'one day finds her
Weak. The sea vanquished her, and she went—
whither?                                                ,    ,          ,, .,   .
They hardly knew: to these old people the world that
lay behind their mountain fortress was a blank.   It
might be a paradise ; it might be a prison.   They could i
not tell.
They suffered their great agony meekly; they never
-cursed her; they did not even curse therr God because
*hey had given life to a woman-child.
/ ner rrigratituue ana ooiivion.
The sweet, sudden spring came, all the white and
golden flowers breaking up from the hard crust of the
soil, and all the loosened waters rushing with a shout, of
liberty to join the sea.   The summer followed, with the
red mountain roses blossoming by the brooks, and the
green mountain grasses blowing in the wind with the
music of the herd-bells ringing down the passes, arrd
the sound of the fife and of the reed-pipe calling the
maidens to the dance.
In the midst of the summer, one night, when all the
stars   were shining above tire quiet valley, and all the
children slept, under the roofs with the swallows, and
not a soul was stirring, save where here and there a
lover watched a light glare in some lattice underneath
the eaves, a half-dead woman dragged herself feebly
under t he lime-tree shadow s of the pastor's house, and
struck with a faint cry upon the door, and fell at her
father's feet, broken and senseless.   Before the full day
dawned she had given birth to a male child and was
dead.                                                      . ,    ,
Forgiveness had killed her; she might have borne
reproach, injury, malediction, but against that infinite
love which would bear with her even in her wretched-
ness, arrd would receive her even inker abasement, she
had no strength.
She died as her son's eyes opened to the morning
light.   He inherited no name and they called him after
his grandsire, Arslàn.                                                   .
When his dead daughter lay stretched before him m
the sunlight, with her white large limbs folded to rest,
and her noble, fair face calm as a mask-of marble, the
old   pastor   knew   little—nothing—of   what  her  life
through these two brief years had been.   Her lips had
sea rcely breathed a word before she had fallen sense-
less on'his threshold.    That she had had triumph he
knew; that she had fallen into dire necessities he saw.
Whether she had surrendered art for the sake of love,
or whether she had lost the public favor by some pub-
lic caprice, whether she had been eminent or obscure
in her career, whether it had abandoired her or she had
abandoned it he could not tell, and he knew too little
of the world to be able to learn.
That, she had traveled hack on her weary way home-
ward to her native mountains   that   her  son might
not perish amidst strangers; thus much he knew, but
no more.   Nor was more ever known by any hvmg
soul.                                         , .       .         , . ,          ..,
In life there are so many histories which are like
broken boughs that strew the ground, snapped short at
either end, so that none know the crown of them nor
the root.                           ...               .           ...
The child, whom she had left, grew in goodhness,
and strength, and stature, until the people said that he
was like the child-king, whom their hero Frithiof raised
up upon his buckler above the multitude; and who was
not afraid, but boldly gripped the brazen shield, and
smiled fearlessly at the noonday sun.
The child had his mother's Scandinavian beauty ; the
beauty of a marble statue, white as the snow, of great
height and largely molded ; and his free life amidst the
ice-fields and the pine-woods, and on the wide, wild
northern seas developed these bodily to their utter-
most perfection. The people admired and wondered
at-him; love him they did not. The lad was cold,
dauntless, silent; he repelled their sympathies and dis-
dained their pastimes. He choose rather to be by him-
self than with them. He was never cruel ; but he was
never tender; and when he did speak, he spoke with a
sort of eloquent scorn and caustic imagery that seemed
to them extraordinary in one so young.
But his grandfather loved him with a sincere love,
though it was tinged with so sharp a bitterness; and
reared him tenderly and wisely; and braced him with
a scholar's lore and by a mountaineer's exposure; so
that both brain and body had their due He was a
simple, childlike broken old man; but in this youth or
promise that urrfolded itself beside his age seemea to
strike fresh root, and he had wisdom and skill enough
to guide it justly.                                          .         ,     ,,
The desire of his soul was that his grandson should
succeed him in the spiritual charge of that tranquil
and beloved valley, and thus escape the dire perils or
that world in which his mother's life had been caught
and consumed like a moth's in flame But Arslàn.s
eyes looked ever across the ocean with that looK n
them which had been in his mother's; and when the old
Norseman spoke of this holy and peaceful future, be
W1Moreover, he—who had never beheld but the rude
paintings on panels of pine that decorated the little red
church under the firs and lindens-he had the grft of
He had'few and rough means only with which to
make his crude and unguided essays; but the delirium
of it was on him, and the peasants of his village
irazed awestrieken and adoring before the things which
he drew on every piece of pine-wood, on every smooth
breadth of sea-worn granite, on everybare surface or
lime-washed wall that he could find at liberty for tab
"SVvhen they asked him what, in his manhood, he
would do, he said little. "I will nevei leave the old
man," he made, answer; and he kept:tas word Up to
St twentieth year he never quitted the valley He
studied deeclv after his own manner; but nearly an
tas hours wfre passed in the open air alone, in the pure
cold air of the highest mountain summits, amidst the
thunder of the furious torrents, in the black recesses
of lonely tmmts, where none, save the wolf and the
bear, wandered with him; or away on the vast expam»
of the sea, where the storm drove the great arctie
waves like scourged sheep, and the huge breakers
seized the shore as a panther its prey.                  ^.m-
On such a world as this, and on the marvelous night*
of the north, his mind fed itself and his youth gamed
its powers The faint, feeble life of the old man held
him.to this lonely valley that seemed filled with the
coldness, the mystery, the ^^.^l^ffff^. *e
majesty of the arctic pole, to which it looked; ;but-un-
known to him, circumstance thus held hrm likewise
where alone the genius in him could take its full shape
and full stature.                                           ,  ..    ,.-„.,,
Unknown to him, in these, years it took the depth
the strength, the patience, the melancholy, the virility
of the North; took these never to be lost again.
In the twentieth winter of his life an avalanche
engulfed the pastor's house, and the little church by
which it stood, covering both beneath a mountain.ot
earth and snow and rock and riven trees. Some et the
timbers withstood the shock, and the roof remained
standing uncrushed, above their heads The avalanche
fell some little time after midnight: there were only
presenfin the dwelling himself, the old man, and a
SeTVheSwZnànnwas killed on her bed by the fall of a
beam upon her; he and the pastor strl lived-dived in
perpetual darkness without food or fuel, or any ray of
'^hé wooden clock stood erect, uninjured; they could
hear the hours go by in slow succession. The old man
was peaceful and even cheerful; praising God often
and praying that help might come to his beloved one
But Iris strength could net hold out against the icy
cold, the long hunger, the dreadful blank around as of
perpetual nifht > died ere the A-t day had wholly
¦trial nignt.    ne uieu nc w,c ..m* ««j -----     it
ioniliv at even-song; saying still that he was content,
Ind stiff praising GoS whS hid rewarded bis innocence
with shame arid recompensed his service with agony.
For two more days and nights Ardta remained m
his living tomb, enshrouded in eternal gloom, alone
with the dead, stretching out his hands ever and again
to meet that icy touch rather than be without com-
PaOn°?he morning of the third day the people: of the
village, who had labored ceaselessly, reached him, and
heATs£aneas the spring broke he left the valley and
passed over the mountains, seeking a new world
His old familiar home had become hateful to him
he had no tie to it save two low graves still snow-
covered underneath a knot of tall stone-pines; the old
Norse passion of wandering was m his veins as it had
been in his mother's before Mm; he fiercely and mutely
descried freedom, passion, knowledge, art, fame as
she had desired them, and he went: turning his face
from"that lowly green 'nest lying like a lark's between
^He'dfd not go as youth mostly goes, blind with a
divine dream of triumph: he went, consciously, to a
b iter combat as the sea-kings of old, whose blood ran
in his veins and whose strength was in his limbs, had
Lone to war, setting their prow hard against the sharp
fait waves and in the teeth of an adverse wmc
He was not without money. The pastor, indeed, bad
died almost penniless; he had been always poor an 1
had given the little hè possessed to those still poorer.
But the richest landowner in the village the largest
possessor of flocks and herds, dying childless, had be-
queathed his farm and cattle to Anita: having taved
tlie lad's dead mother, silently and vainlyThe va lue
of these realized by sale gave to Arslàn, when ne ne-
came his own master, whrft, in that valley at least was
wealth; and he went without care for the futoe on
this score into the world of men; his mind tun or
dreams"and the beautiful myths of dead ages; hrs
t «inner compounded of poetry and of coldness, ot en-
ffisSof-skept^
ambition, pure as snow m its instinct, but halt savage
inFroStthatyspring, when he had passed away from
his birthplace as the winter snows were melting on the
mountain sides and the mountain flowers were put. ing
Srth theirearl est buds under the pine-boughs until
less before the mockmg eyes ot hrs Hennés, twelve
vears han run their course,and all through them ne
i7rf never once again beheld his native land.
Liklthe Scandinavian Régner, he chose rather to
perish in the folds, and by the fangs, of the snakes that
devoured him than retnrn to his country with the con-
fess°on of defeat And despite the powers that were in
him w, life had been a failure, an utter faitare-as yet.
ïn'h s early youth he had voyaged of ten with men
who went to the extreme north in search of skins and
inch noor trades as they could drive with Esquimaux or
KoraEs Sad borne their dangers and their poverty
thSîm'iseriesand their famine, forsake of seeing what
thev Tàw7the pathless oceans of the ice realm, the
S the, arch of the aurora spanning the heavens
msÈmm§m
mÊmËm
the world too chill, and being for the other half too
SeThèaworld had never believed in him; and. he found
bimseKinthe'height and the maturity of his powers
condemned to an°absolute obscurity.   Not one man in
rSunngT^yeSrThe had devoted himself to the
,7" ,i7,-t with an undeviating SBbservience to all its
t^antaes    He had studied humanity in all Its phases;
i he had studied form with all the rigid care that it re-
nnires- he had studied color in almost every land that
Ues beneath the sun; he had studied the passions mail
IheirXformities, as well as in all their beauties; he
h/d snared neither himself nor others in pursuit of
, Fffff We had tried most vices, he had seen all
nSseriesfhe W s^ared'hCsetf no spectacle^however
I îoTthsome: he IwY turned back from no license, now-