Chapter 36

by Herman Melville

　　IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUESPRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.As, not without some haste, the boon companion withdrew, a strangeradvanced, and touching the cosmopolitan, said: "I think I heard you sayyou would see that man again. Be warned; don't you do so."He turned, surveying the speaker; a blue-eyed man, sandy-haired, andSaxon-looking; perhaps five and forty; tall, and, but for a certainangularity, well made; little touch of the drawing-room about him, but alook of plain propriety of a Puritan sort, with a kind of farmerdignity. His age seemed betokened more by his brow, placidly thoughtful,than by his general aspect, which had that look of youthfulness inmaturity, peculiar sometimes to habitual health of body, the originalgift of nature, or in part the effect or reward of steady temperance ofthe passions, kept so, perhaps, by constitution as much as morality. Aneat, comely, almost ruddy cheek, coolly fresh, like a redclover-blossom at coolish dawn--the color of warmth preserved by thevirtue of chill. Toning the whole man, was one-knows-not-what ofshrewdness and mythiness, strangely jumbled; in that way, he seemed akind of cross between a Yankee peddler and a Tartar priest, though itseemed as if, at a pinch, the first would not in all probability playsecond fiddle to the last."Sir," said the cosmopolitan, rising and bowing with slow dignity, "if Icannot with unmixed satisfaction hail a hint pointed at one who has justbeen clinking the social glass with me, on the other hand, I am notdisposed to underrate the motive which, in the present case, could alonehave prompted such an intimation. My friend, whose seat is still warm,has retired for the night, leaving more or less in his bottle here.Pray, sit down in his seat, and partake with me; and then, if you chooseto hint aught further unfavorable to the man, the genial warmth of whoseperson in part passes into yours, and whose genial hospitality meandersthrough you--be it so.""Quite beautiful conceits," said the stranger, now scholastically andartistically eying the picturesque speaker, as if he were a statue inthe Pitti Palace; "very beautiful:" then with the gravest interest,"yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul--one full of alllove and truth; for where beauty is, there must those be.""A pleasing belief," rejoined the cosmopolitan, beginning with an evenair, "and to confess, long ago it pleased me. Yes, with you andSchiller, I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatiblewith ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in thelatent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whoselithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloftin the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?"As he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit--assome earnest descriptive speakers will--as unconsciously to wreathe hisform and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creaturedescribed. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise,apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, andpresently said:"When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you tochange personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? toglide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your wholebeautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wishnever occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, andconscience, and revel for a while in the carefree, joyous life of aperfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?""Such a wish," replied the other, not perceptibly disturbed, "I mustconfess, never consciously was mine. Such a wish, indeed, could hardlyoccur to ordinary imaginations, and mine I cannot think much above theaverage.""But now that the idea is suggested," said the stranger, with infantileintellectuality, "does it not raise the desire?""Hardly. For though I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudiceagainst the rattle-snake, still, I should not like to be one. If I werea rattle-snake now, there would be no such thing as being genial withmen--men would be afraid of me, and then I should be a very lonesome andmiserable rattle-snake.""True, men would be afraid of you. And why? Because of your rattle, yourhollow rattle--a sound, as I have been told, like the shaking togetherof small, dry skulls in a tune of the Waltz of Death. And here we haveanother beautiful truth. When any creature is by its make inimical toother creatures, nature in effect labels that creature, much as anapothecary does a poison. So that whoever is destroyed by arattle-snake, or other harmful agent, it is his own fault. He shouldhave respected the label. Hence that significant passage in Scripture,'Who will pity the charmer that is bitten with a serpent?'""I would pity him," said the cosmopolitan, a little bluntly, perhaps."But don't you think," rejoined the other, still maintaining hispassionless air, "don't you think, that for a man to pity where natureis pitiless, is a little presuming?""Let casuists decide the casuistry, but the compassion the heart decidesfor itself. But, sir," deepening in seriousness, "as I now for the firstrealize, you but a moment since introduced the word irresponsible in away I am not used to. Now, sir, though, out of a tolerant spirit, as Ihope, I try my best never to be frightened at any speculation, so longas it is pursued in honesty, yet, for once, I must acknowledge that youdo really, in the point cited, cause me uneasiness; because a properview of the universe, that view which is suited to breed a properconfidence, teaches, if I err not, that since all things are justlypresided over, not very many living agents but must be some wayaccountable.""Is a rattle-snake accountable?" asked the stranger with such apreternaturally cold, gemmy glance out of his pellucid blue eye, that heseemed more a metaphysical merman than a feeling man; "is a rattle-snakeaccountable?""If I will not affirm that it is," returned the other, with the cautionof no inexperienced thinker, "neither will I deny it. But if we supposeit so, I need not say that such accountability is neither to you, norme, nor the Court of Common Pleas, but to something superior."He was proceeding, when the stranger would have interrupted him; but asreading his argument in his eye, the cosmopolitan, without waiting forit to be put into words, at once spoke to it: "You object to mysupposition, for but such it is, that the rattle-snake's accountabilityis not by nature manifest; but might not much the same thing be urgedagainst man's? A reductio ad absurdum, proving the objection vain. Butif now," he continued, "you consider what capacity for mischief there isin a rattle-snake (observe, I do not charge it with being mischievous, Ibut say it has the capacity), could you well avoid admitting that thatwould be no symmetrical view of the universe which should maintain that,while to man it is forbidden to kill, without judicial cause, hisfellow, yet the rattle-snake has an implied permit of unaccountabilityto murder any creature it takes capricious umbrage at--manincluded?--But," with a wearied air, "this is no genial talk; at leastit is not so to me. Zeal at unawares embarked me in it. I regret it.Pray, sit down, and take some of this wine.""Your suggestions are new to me," said the other, with a kind ofcondescending appreciativeness, as of one who, out of devotion toknowledge, disdains not to appropriate the least crumb of it, even froma pauper's board; "and, as I am a very Athenian in hailing a newthought, I cannot consent to let it drop so abruptly. Now, therattle-snake----""Nothing more about rattle-snakes, I beseech," in distress; "I mustpositively decline to reenter upon that subject. Sit down, sir, I beg,and take some of this wine.""To invite me to sit down with you is hospitable," collectedlyacquiescing now in the change of topics; "and hospitality being fabledto be of oriental origin, and forming, as it does, the subject of apleasing Arabian romance, as well as being a very romantic thing initself--hence I always hear the expressions of hospitality withpleasure. But, as for the wine, my regard for that beverage is soextreme, and I am so fearful of letting it sate me, that I keep my lovefor it in the lasting condition of an untried abstraction. Briefly, Iquaff immense draughts of wine from the page of Hafiz, but wine from acup I seldom as much as sip."The cosmopolitan turned a mild glance upon the speaker, who, nowoccupying the chair opposite him, sat there purely and coldly radiant asa prism. It seemed as if one could almost hear him vitreously chime andring. That moment a waiter passed, whom, arresting with a sign, thecosmopolitan bid go bring a goblet of ice-water. "Ice it well, waiter,"said he; "and now," turning to the stranger, "will you, if you please,give me your reason for the warning words you first addressed to me?""I hope they were not such warnings as most warnings are," said thestranger; "warnings which do not forewarn, but in mockery come after thefact. And yet something in you bids me think now, that whatever latentdesign your impostor friend might have had upon you, it as yet remainsunaccomplished. You read his label.""And what did it say? 'This is a genial soul,' So you see you musteither give up your doctrine of labels, or else your prejudice againstmy friend. But tell me," with renewed earnestness, "what do you take himfor? What is he?""What are you? What am I? Nobody knows who anybody is. The data whichlife furnishes, towards forming a true estimate of any being, are asinsufficient to that end as in geometry one side given would be todetermine the triangle.""But is not this doctrine of triangles someway inconsistent with yourdoctrine of labels?""Yes; but what of that? I seldom care to be consistent. In aphilosophical view, consistency is a certain level at all times,maintained in all the thoughts of one's mind. But, since nature isnearly all hill and dale, how can one keep naturally advancing inknowledge without submitting to the natural inequalities in theprogress? Advance into knowledge is just like advance upon the grandErie canal, where, from the character of the country, change of level isinevitable; you are locked up and locked down with perpetualinconsistencies, and yet all the time you get on; while the dullest partof the whole route is what the boatmen call the 'long level'--aconsistently-flat surface of sixty miles through stagnant swamps.""In one particular," rejoined the cosmopolitan, "your simile is,perhaps, unfortunate. For, after all these weary lockings-up andlockings-down, upon how much of a higher plain do you finally stand?Enough to make it an object? Having from youth been taught reverence forknowledge, you must pardon me if, on but this one account, I reject youranalogy. But really you someway bewitch me with your tempting discourse,so that I keep straying from my point unawares. You tell me you cannotcertainly know who or what my friend is; pray, what do you conjecturehim to be?""I conjecture him to be what, among the ancient Egyptians, was called a----" using some unknown word."A ----! And what is that?""A ---- is what Proclus, in a little note to his third book on thetheology of Plato, defines as ---- ----" coming out with a sentence ofGreek.Holding up his glass, and steadily looking through its transparency, thecosmopolitan rejoined: "That, in so defining the thing, Proclus set itto modern understandings in the most crystal light it was susceptibleof, I will not rashly deny; still, if you could put the definition inwords suited to perceptions like mine, I should take it for a favor."A favor!" slightly lifting his cool eyebrows; "a bridal favor Iunderstand, a knot of white ribands, a very beautiful type of the purityof true marriage; but of other favors I am yet to learn; and still, in avague way, the word, as you employ it, strikes me as unpleasinglysignificant in general of some poor, unheroic submission to being donegood to."Here the goblet of iced-water was brought, and, in compliance with asign from the cosmopolitan, was placed before the stranger, who, notbefore expressing acknowledgments, took a draught, apparentlyrefreshing--its very coldness, as with some is the case, proving notentirely uncongenial.At last, setting down the goblet, and gently wiping from his lips thebeads of water freshly clinging there as to the valve of a coral-shellupon a reef, he turned upon the cosmopolitan, and, in a manner the mostcool, self-possessed, and matter-of-fact possible, said: "I hold to themetempsychosis; and whoever I may be now, I feel that I was once thestoic Arrian, and have inklings of having been equally puzzled by a wordin the current language of that former time, very probably answering toyour word favor.""Would you favor me by explaining?" said the cosmopolitan, blandly."Sir," responded the stranger, with a very slight degree of severity, "Ilike lucidity, of all things, and am afraid I shall hardly be able toconverse satisfactorily with you, unless you bear it in mind."The cosmopolitan ruminatingly eyed him awhile, then said: "The best way,as I have heard, to get out of a labyrinth, is to retrace one's steps. Iwill accordingly retrace mine, and beg you will accompany me. In short,once again to return to the point: for what reason did you warn meagainst my friend?""Briefly, then, and clearly, because, as before said, I conjecture himto be what, among the ancient Egyptians----""Pray, now," earnestly deprecated the cosmopolitan, "pray, now, whydisturb the repose of those ancient Egyptians? What to us are theirwords or their thoughts? Are we pauper Arabs, without a house of ourown, that, with the mummies, we must turn squatters among the dust ofthe Catacombs?""Pharaoh's poorest brick-maker lies proudlier in his rags than theEmperor of all the Russias in his hollands," oracularly said thestranger; "for death, though in a worm, is majestic; while life, thoughin a king, is contemptible. So talk not against mummies. It is a part ofmy mission to teach mankind a due reverence for mummies."Fortunately, to arrest these incoherencies, or rather, to vary them, ahaggard, inspired-looking man now approached--a crazy beggar, askingalms under the form of peddling a rhapsodical tract, composed byhimself, and setting forth his claims to some rhapsodical apostleship.Though ragged and dirty, there was about him no touch of vulgarity; for,by nature, his manner was not unrefined, his frame slender, and appearedthe more so from the broad, untanned frontlet of his brow, tangled overwith a disheveled mass of raven curls, throwing a still deeper tingeupon a complexion like that of a shriveled berry. Nothing could exceedhis look of picturesque Italian ruin and dethronement, heightened bywhat seemed just one glimmering peep of reason, insufficient to do himany lasting good, but enough, perhaps, to suggest a torment of latentdoubts at times, whether his addled dream of glory were true.Accepting the tract offered him, the cosmopolitan glanced over it, and,seeming to see just what it was, closed it, put it in his pocket, eyedthe man a moment, then, leaning over and presenting him with a shilling,said to him, in tones kind and considerate: "I am sorry, my friend, thatI happen to be engaged just now; but, having purchased your work, Ipromise myself much satisfaction in its perusal at my earliest leisure."In his tattered, single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned meagerly up to hischin, the shutter-brain made him a bow, which, for courtesy, would nothave misbecome a viscount, then turned with silent appeal to thestranger. But the stranger sat more like a cold prism than ever, whilean expression of keen Yankee cuteness, now replacing his former mysticalone, lent added icicles to his aspect. His whole air said: "Nothingfrom me." The repulsed petitioner threw a look full of resentful prideand cracked disdain upon him, and went his way."Come, now," said the cosmopolitan, a little reproachfully, "you oughtto have sympathized with that man; tell me, did you feel nofellow-feeling? Look at his tract here, quite in the transcendentalvein.""Excuse me," said the stranger, declining the tract, "I never patronizescoundrels.""Scoundrels?""I detected in him, sir, a damning peep of sense--damning, I say; forsense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunningvagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman.Did you not remark how he flinched under my eye?'"Really?" drawing a long, astonished breath, "I could hardly havedivined in you a temper so subtlely distrustful. Flinched? to be sure hedid, poor fellow; you received him with so lame a welcome. As for hisadroitly playing the madman, invidious critics might object the same tosome one or two strolling magi of these days. But that is a matter Iknow nothing about. But, once more, and for the last time, to return tothe point: why sir, did you warn me against my friend? I shall rejoice,if, as I think it will prove, your want of confidence in my friend restsupon a basis equally slender with your distrust of the lunatic. Come,why did you warn me? Put it, I beseech, in few words, and thoseEnglish.""I warned you against him because he is suspected for what on theseboats is known--so they tell me--as a Mississippi operator.""An operator, ah? he operates, does he? My friend, then, is somethinglike what the Indians call a Great Medicine, is he? He operates, hepurges, he drains off the repletions.""I perceive, sir," said the stranger, constitutionally obtuse to thepleasant drollery, "that your notion, of what is called a GreatMedicine, needs correction. The Great Medicine among the Indians is lessa bolus than a man in grave esteem for his politic sagacity.""And is not my friend politic? Is not my friend sagacious? By your owndefinition, is not my friend a Great Medicine?""No, he is an operator, a Mississippi operator; an equivocal character.That he is such, I little doubt, having had him pointed out to me assuch by one desirous of initiating me into any little novelty of thiswestern region, where I never before traveled. And, sir, if I am notmistaken, you also are a stranger here (but, indeed, where in thisstrange universe is not one a stranger?) and that is a reason why I feltmoved to warn you against a companion who could not be otherwise thanperilous to one of a free and trustful disposition. But I repeat thehope, that, thus far at least, he has not succeeded with you, and trustthat, for the future, he will not.""Thank you for your concern; but hardly can I equally thank you for sosteadily maintaining the hypothesis of my friend's objectionableness.True, I but made his acquaintance for the first to-day, and know littleof his antecedents; but that would seem no just reason why a nature likehis should not of itself inspire confidence. And since your ownknowledge of the gentleman is not, by your account, so exact as it mightbe, you will pardon me if I decline to welcome any further suggestionsunflattering to him. Indeed, sir," with friendly decision, "let uschange the subject."