The Darrow Enigma by Melvin L. Severy (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

Ptolemies:

Went out without a flicker in full glare

Of noon-day glory. When her flame lacked oil

Too proud was Egypt’s queen to be

The snuff of Roman spirits; so she said,

“Good-night,” and closed the book of life half read

And little understood; perchance misread

The greater part, - yet, who shall say? Are we

An ermined bench to call her culprit failings up

And make them plead for mercy? Or can we,

Upon whom soon shall fall the awful shadow of

The Judgment Seat, stand in her light and throw

Ourselves that shadow? Rather let fall upon

Her memory the softening gauze of Time,

As mantle of a charity which else

We might not serve. She was a woman,

And as a woman loved! What though the fierce

Simoom blew ever hot within the sail

Of her desire? What if it shifted with

Direction of her breath? Or if the rudder of

Her will did lean as many ways as trampled straws,

And own as little worth? She was a woman still,

And queen. They do best understand themselves

Who trust themselves the least; as they are wisest

Who, for their safety, thank more the open sea

Than pilot will. Oh, Egypt’s self-born Isis!

Ought we to fasten in thy memory the fangs

Of unalloyed distrust? We know how little

Better is History’s page than leaf whereat the ink

Is thrown. Nor yet should we forget how much

The nearer thou than we didst come to

The rough-hewn corner-stone of Time. We know

Thy practised love enfolded Antony;

And that around the heart of Hercules’

Descendant, threading through and through,

Like the red rivers of its life, in tangled mesh

No circumstance could e’er unravel, thou

Didst coil, - the dreamy, dazzling “Serpent of

The Nile!” Thy sins stick jagged out

From history’s page, and bleeding tear

Fair Judgment from thy merits. We perchance

Do wrong thee, Isis; for that coward, History,

Who binds in death his object’s jaw and then

Besmuts her name, hath crossed his focus in

Another age, and paled his spreading figment from

Our sight. Thou art so far back toward

The primal autocrat whose wish, hyena-like,

Was his religion, that, appearing as thou dost

On an horizon new flushed in the first

Uncertain ray of Altruism, thou seem’st

More ghost than human. Yet thou lovest, loving ghost,

And thy fierce parent flame thyself snuffed out

Scarce later than the dark’ning of the fire

Thou gav’st to be eternal vestal of

Thine Antony’s spirit. Thou didst love and die

Of love; let, therefore, no light tongue, brazen

In censure, say that nothing in thy life

Became thee like the leaving it. The cloth

From which humanity is cut is woven of

The warp and woof of circumstance, and all

Are much alike. We spring from out the mantle, Earth,

And hide at last beneath it; in the interim

Our acts are less of us than it. We are

No judge, then, of thy sins, thou ending link

Of Ptolemy’s chain. Forsooth, we are too much

O’erfilled with wondering how like to thee

We all had been, inclipt and dressed in thine

Own age and circumstance.

 

The exercises of the evening concluded with the reading of the

familiar poem, beginning:

 

“I am dying, Egypt, dying;

Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast.”

 

It was about noon the next day when Maitland called upon me. “See

here, Doc,” he began at once, “do you believe in coincidences?” I

informed him that his question was not altogether easy to understand.

“Wait a moment,” he said, “while I explain. For at least two years

prior to my recent return from California the name ‘Cleopatra’ has

not entered my mind. You were the first to mention it to me, and

from you I learned that Miss Darrow was to have charge of the ‘Antony

and Cleopatra’ night. That is all natural enough. But why should I,

on every morning since you first mentioned the subject to me, awake

with Antony’s words upon my lips? Why should every book or paper I

pick up contain some reference to Cleopatra? Why, man, if I were

superstitious, it would seem positively spookish. I am getting to

believe that I shall be confronted either by Cleopatra’s name, or

some allusion to her, every time I pick up a book. It’s getting to

be decidedly interesting.”

 

“I have had,” I replied, “similar, though less remarkable,

experiences. It is quite a common occurrence to learn of a thing,

say, this morning for the first time in one’s life, and then to

find, in the course of the day’s reading, three or four independent

references to the same thing. Suppose we step into the library, and

pick out a few books haphazard, just to see if we chance upon any

reference to Cleopatra.”

 

To this Maitland agreed, and, entering the library, I pushed the

Morning Herald across the table to him, saying: “One thing’s as good

as another; try that.” He started a little, but did not touch the

paper. “You will have to find something harder than that,” he said,

pointing to the outspread paper.

 

I followed the direction of his finger, and read:

 

“Boston Theatre. Special engagement of Miss Fanny Davenport.

For one week. Beginning Monday, the 12th of December, Sardou’s

‘Cleopatra.’”

 

I was indeed surprised, but I said nothing. The next thing I handed

him was a copy of Godey’s Magazine, several years old. He opened it

carelessly, and in a moment read the following line: “I am dying,

sweetheart, dying.” “Doesn’t that sound familiar? It reminds me at

once of the poetic alarm clock that wakens me every morning, - ‘I am

dying, Egypt, dying.’ There is no doubt that Higginson’s poem

suggested this one. Here is the whole of the thing as it is printed

here,” he said, and read the following:

 

LOVE’S TWILIGHT

 

I am dreaming, loved one, dreaming

Of the sweet and beauteous past

When the world was as its seeming,

Ere the fatal shaft was cast.

 

I am sobbing, sad-eyed, sobbing,

At the darkly sullen west,

Of the smile of ignorance robbing

The pale face against the breast.

 

I am smiling, tear-stained, smiling,

As the sun glints on the crest

Of the troubled wave, beguiling

Shipwrecked Hope to its long rest.

 

I am parting, broken, parting,

From a soul that I hold dear,

And the music of whose beauty

Fades a dead strain on my ear.

 

I am dying, sweetheart, dying,

Drips life’s gold through palsied hands, -=20

See; the dead’ning Sun is sighing

His last note in red’ning bands.

 

So I’m sighing, sinking, sighing,

Flows life’s river to the sea.

Death my throbbing heart is tying

With the strings that ache for thee.

 

“Yes,” I said, when he had finished. “I shall have to admit that

immediately suggests Higginson’s poem and Cleopatra’s name. But

here, try this,” and I threw an old copy of the Atlantic Monthly

upon the table. Maitland opened it and laughed. “This may be mere

chance, Doc,” he said, “but it is remarkable, none the less. See

here!” He held the magazine toward me, and I read: “Cleopatra’s

Needle. The Historic Significance of Central Park’s New Monument.

Some of the Difficulties that Attended its Transportation and

Erection. By James Theodore Wright, Ph. D.” I was dumfounded.

Things were indeed getting interesting.

 

“Magazines and newspapers,” I said, “seem to be altogether too much

in your line. We’ll try a book this time. Here,” and I pulled the

first one that came to hand, “is a copy of Tennyson’s Poems I fancy

it will trouble you to find your reference in that.” Maitland took

it in silence, and, opening it at random, began to read. The result

surprised him even more than it did me. He had chanced upon these

verses from “A Dream of Fair Women”:

 

“‘We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit

Lamps which outburn’d Canopus. 0 my life

In Egypt! 0 the dalliance and the wit,

The flattery and the strife.

 

“‘And the wild kiss when fresh from war’s alarms,

My Hercules, my Roman Antony,

My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms,

Contented there to die!

 

“‘And there he died! And when I heard my name

Sigh’d forth with life, I would not brook my fear

Of the other! With a worm I balked his fame.

What else was left? look here!’

 

“With that she tore her robe apart and half

The polished argent of her breast to sight

Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,

Showing the aspic’s bite.”

 

“There is no doubt about that,” I said, as he laid the book upon the

table. “I want to try this thing once more. Here is Pascal; if you

can find any reference to the ‘Serpent of the Nile’ in that, you

needn’t go any farther, I shall be satisfied,” and I passed the book

to him. He turned the pages over in silence for half a minute, or

so, and then said: “I guess this counts as a failure, - no, though,

by Jove! Look here!” His face was of almost deathly pallor, and

his finger trembled upon the passage it indicated as he held the

book toward me. I glanced with some anxiety from his face to the

book, and read, as nearly as I now can remember: “If Cleopatra’s

nose had been shorter, the entire face of the world would have been

changed.”

 

It was some minutes before Maitland fully regained his composure,

and during that time neither of us spoke. “Well, Doc,” he said at

length, and his manner was decidedly grave, even for him:

 

“What do you make of it?” I didn’t know what to make of it, and

I admitted my ignorance with a frankness at which, considering my

profession, I have often since had occasion to marvel. I told

him that I could scarcely account for it on the ground of mere

coincidence, and I called his attention to that part of “The Mystery

of Marie Roget,” where Poe figures out the mathematical likelihood

of a certain combination of peculiarities of clothing being found

to obtain in the case of two young women who were unknown to each

other. If the finding of a single reference to Cleopatra had been

a thing of so infrequent occurrence as to at once challenge

Maitland’s attention, what was to be said when, all of a sudden, her

name, or some reference to her, seemed to stare at him from every

page he read?

 

“‘There is something in this more than natural,

If philosophy could find it out,’”=20

 

murmured Maitland, more to himself than to me. “Come, what do you

say?” and he turned abruptly to me with one of those searching looks

so peculiar to him in moments of excitement. “I see,” I replied,

“that you are determined I shall give my opinion now and here,

without a moment’s reflection. Very well; you have just quoted

‘Hamlet’; I will do likewise:

 

“‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy I’

 

“You seem in some strange way to be dominated by the shade of

Cleopatra. Now, if I believed in metempsychosis, I should think you

were Mark Antony brought down to date. There, with that present

sober air of yours, you’d pass anywhere for such an anachronism.

But to be serious, and to give you advice which is positively bilious

with gravity, I should say, investigate this thing fully; make a

study of this ancient charmer. By the way, why not begin by going

to see Davenport in Sardou’s ‘Cleopatra’? You have never seen her

in it, have you?”

 

In this way. I succeeded in getting him out of his depressed state.

We got into an argument concerning the merits of