Book: Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

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The Princess and her favourite embraced each other with transport
too violent to be expressed, and went out together to pour the
tears of tenderness in secret, and exchange professions of kindness
and gratitude. After a few hours they returned into the refectory
of the convent, where, in the presence of the prior and his
brethren, the Prince required of Pekuah the history of her
adventures.



CHAPTER XXXVIII--THE ADVENTURES OF THE LADY PEKUAH.



"At what time and in what manner I was forced away," said Pekuah,
"your servants have told you. The suddenness of the event struck
me with surprise, and I was at first rather stupefied than agitated
with any passion of either fear or sorrow. My confusion was
increased by the speed and tumult of our flight, while we were
followed by the Turks, who, as it seemed, soon despaired to
overtake us, or were afraid of those whom they made a show of
menacing.

"When the Arabs saw themselves out of danger, they slackened their
course; and as I was less harassed by external violence, I began to
feel more uneasiness in my mind. After some time we stopped near a
spring shaded with trees, in a pleasant meadow, where we were set
upon the ground, and offered such refreshments as our masters were
partaking. I was suffered to sit with my maids apart from the
rest, and none attempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first
began to feel the full weight of my misery. The girls sat weeping
in silence, and from time to time looked on me for succour. I knew
not to what condition we were doomed, nor could conjecture where
would be the place of our captivity, or whence to draw any hope of
deliverance. I was in the hands of robbers and savages, and had no
reason to suppose that their pity was more than their justice, or
that they would forbear the gratification of any ardour of desire
or caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my maids, and
endeavoured to pacify them by remarking that we were yet treated
with decency, and that since we were now carried beyond pursuit,
there was no danger of violence to our lives.

"When we were to be set again on horseback, my maids clung round
me, and refused to be parted; but I commanded them not to irritate
those who had us in their power. We travelled the remaining part
of the day through an unfrequented and pathless country, and came
by moonlight to the side of a hill, where the rest of the troop was
stationed. Their tents were pitched and their fires kindled, and
our chief was welcomed as a man much beloved by his dependents.

"We were received into a large tent, where we found women who had
attended their husbands in the expedition. They set before us the
supper which they had provided, and I ate it rather to encourage my
maids than to comply with any appetite of my own. When the meat
was taken away, they spread the carpets for repose. I was weary,
and hoped to find in sleep that remission of distress which nature
seldom denies. Ordering myself, therefore, to be undressed, I
observed that the women looked very earnestly upon me, not
expecting, I suppose, to see me so submissively attended. When my
upper vest was taken off, they were apparently struck with the
splendour of my clothes, and one of them timorously laid her hand
upon the embroidery. She then went out, and in a short time came
back with another woman, who seemed to be of higher rank and
greater authority. She did, at her entrance, the usual act of
reverence, and, taking me by the hand placed me in a smaller tent,
spread with finer carpets, where I spent the night quietly with my
maids.

"In the morning, as I was sitting on the grass, the chief of the
troop came towards me. I rose up to receive him, and he bowed with
great respect. 'Illustrious lady,' said he, 'my fortune is better
than I had presumed to hope: I am told by my women that I have a
princess in my camp.' 'Sir,' answered I, 'your women have deceived
themselves and you; I am not a princess, but an unhappy stranger
who intended soon to have left this country, in which I am now to
be imprisoned for ever.' 'Whoever or whencesoever you are,'
returned the Arab, 'your dress and that of your servants show your
rank to be high and your wealth to be great. Why should you, who
can so easily procure your ransom, think yourself in danger of
perpetual captivity? The purpose of my incursions is to increase
my riches, or, more property, to gather tribute. The sons of
Ishmael are the natural and hereditary lords of this part of the
continent, which is usurped by late invaders and low-born tyrants,
from whom we are compelled to take by the sword what is denied to
justice. The violence of war admits no distinction: the lance
that is lifted at guilt and power will sometimes fall on innocence
and gentleness.'

"'How little,' said I, 'did I expect that yesterday it should have
fallen upon me!'

"'Misfortunes,' answered the Arab, 'should always be expected. If
the eye of hostility could learn reverence or pity, excellence like
yours had been exempt from injury. But the angels of affliction
spread their toils alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the
mighty and the mean. Do not be disconsolate; I am not one of the
lawless and cruel rovers of the desert; I know the rules of civil
life; I will fix your ransom, give a passport to your messenger,
and perform my stipulation with nice punctuality.'

"You will easily believe that I was pleased with his courtesy, and
finding that his predominant passion was desire for money, I began
now to think my danger less, for I knew that no sum would be
thought too great for the release of Pekuah. I told him that he
should have no reason to charge me with ingratitude if I was used
with kindness, and that any ransom which could be expected for a
maid of common rank would be paid, but that he must not persist to
rate me as a princess. He said he would consider what he should
demand, and then, smiling, bowed and retired.

"Soon after the women came about me, each contending to be more
officious than the other, and my maids themselves were served with
reverence. We travelled onward by short journeys. On the fourth
day the chief told me that my ransom must be two hundred ounces of
gold, which I not only promised him, but told him that I would add
fifty more if I and my maids were honourably treated.

"I never knew the power of gold before. From that time I was the
leader of the troop. The march of every day was longer or shorter
as I commanded, and the tents were pitched where I chose to rest.
We now had camels and other conveniences for travel; my own women
were always at my side, and I amused myself with observing the
manners of the vagrant nations, and with viewing remains of ancient
edifices, with which these deserted countries appear to have been
in some distant age lavishly embellished.

"The chief of the band was a man far from illiterate: he was able
to travel by the stars or the compass, and had marked in his
erratic expeditions such places as are most worthy the notice of a
passenger. He observed to me that buildings are always best
preserved in places little frequented and difficult of access; for
when once a country declines from its primitive splendour, the more
inhabitants are left, the quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply
stones more easily than quarries; and palaces and temples will be
demolished to make stables of granite and cottages of porphyry.'"



CHAPTER XXXIX--THE ADVENTURES OF PEKUAH (continued).



"We wandered about in this manner for some weeks, either, as our
chief pretended, for my gratification, or, as I rather suspected,
for some convenience of his own. I endeavoured to appear contented
where sullenness and resentment would have been of no use, and that
endeavour conduced much to the calmness of my mind; but my heart
was always with Nekayah, and the troubles of the night much
overbalanced the amusements of the day. My women, who threw all
their cares upon their mistress, set their minds at ease from the
time when they saw me treated with respect, and gave themselves up
to the incidental alleviations of our fatigue without solicitude or
sorrow. I was pleased with their pleasure, and animated with their
confidence. My condition had lost much of its terror, since I
found that the Arab ranged the country merely to get riches.
Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice: other intellectual
distempers are different in different constitutions of mind; that
which soothes the pride of one will offend the pride of another;
but to the favour of the covetous there is a ready way--bring
money, and nothing is denied.

"At last we came to the dwelling of our chief; a strong and
spacious house, built with stone in an island of the Nile, which
lies, as I was told, under the tropic. 'Lady,' said the Arab, 'you
shall rest after your journey a few weeks in this place, where you
are to consider yourself as Sovereign. My occupation is war: I
have therefore chosen this obscure residence, from which I can
issue unexpected, and to which I can retire unpursued. You may now
repose in security: here are few pleasures, but here is no
danger.' He then led me into the inner apartments, and seating me
on the richest couch, bowed to the ground.

"His women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me with
malignity; but being soon informed that I was a great lady detained
only for my ransom, they began to vie with each other in
obsequiousness and reverence.

"Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy liberty, I was
for some days diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place.
The turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and
afforded a view of many windings of the stream. In the day I
wandered from one place to another, as the course of the sun varied
the splendour of the prospect, and saw many things which I had
never seen before. The crocodiles and river-horses are common in
this unpeopled region; and I often looked upon them with terror,
though I knew they could not hurt me. For some time I expected to
see mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has told me, the European
travellers have stationed in the Nile; but no such beings ever
appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after them, laughed at my
credulity.

"At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set apart for
celestial observations, where he endeavoured to teach me the names
and courses of the stars. I had no great inclination to this
study; but an appearance of attention was necessary to please my
instructor, who valued himself for his skill, and in a little while
I found some employment requisite to beguile the tediousness of
time, which was to be passed always amidst the same objects. I was
weary of looking in the morning on things from which I had turned
away weary in the evening: I therefore was at last willing to
observe the stars rather than do nothing, but could not always
compose my thoughts, and was very often thinking on Nekayah when
others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon after, the Arab
went upon another expedition, and then my only pleasure was to talk
with my maids about the accident by which we were carried away, and
the happiness we should all enjoy at the end of our captivity."

"There were women in your Arab's fortress," said the Princess; "why
did you not make them your companions, enjoy their conversation,
and partake their diversions? In a place where they found business
or amusement, why should you alone sit corroded with idle
melancholy? or why could not you bear for a few months that
condition to which they were condemned for life?"

"The diversions of the women," answered Pekuah, "were only childish
play, by which the mind accustomed to stronger operations could not
be kept busy. I could do all which they delighted in doing by
powers merely sensitive, while my intellectual faculties were flown
to Cairo. They ran from room to room, as a bird hops from wire to
wire in his cage. They danced for the sake of motion, as lambs
frisk in a meadow. One sometimes pretended to be hurt that the
rest might be alarmed, or hid herself that another might seek her.
Part of their time passed in watching the progress of light bodies
that floated on the river, and part in marking the various forms
into which clouds broke in the sky.

"Their business was only needlework, in which I and my maids
sometimes helped them; but you know that the mind will easily
straggle from the fingers, nor will you suspect that captivity and
absence from Nekayah could receive solace from silken flowers.

"Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conversation:
for of what could they be expected to talk? They had seen nothing,
for they had lived from early youth in that narrow spot: of what
they had not seen they could have no knowledge, for they could not
read. They had no idea but of the few things that were within
their view, and had hardly names for anything but their clothes and
their food. As I bore a superior character, I was often called to
terminate their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could.
If it could have amused me to hear the complaints of each against
the rest, I might have been often detained by long stories; but the
motives of their animosity were so small that I could not listen
without interrupting the tale."

"How," said Rasselas, "can the Arab, whom you represented as a man
of more than common accomplishments, take any pleasure in his
seraglio, when it is filled only with women like these? Are they
exquisitely beautiful?"

"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and ignoble
beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity,
without energy of thought or dignity of virtue. But to a man like
the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually plucked and
carelessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he might find among
them, they were not those of friendship or society. When they were
playing about him he looked on them with inattentive superiority;
when they vied for his regard he sometimes turned away disgusted.
As they had no knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the
tediousness of life; as they had no choice, their fondness, or
appearance of fondness, excited in him neither pride nor gratitude.
He was not exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a woman who
saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard of which he
could never know the sincerity, and which he might often perceive
to be exerted not so much to delight him as to pain a rival. That
which he gave, and they received, as love, was only a careless
distribution of superfluous time, such love as man can bestow upon
that which he despises, such as has neither hope nor fear, neither
joy nor sorrow."

"You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy," said Imlac, "that
you have been thus easily dismissed. How could a mind, hungry for
knowledge, be willing, in an intellectual famine, to lose such a
banquet as Pekuah's conversation?"

"I am inclined to believe," answered Pekuah, "that he was for some
time in suspense; for, notwithstanding his promise, whenever I
proposed to despatch a messenger to Cairo he found some excuse for
delay. While I was detained in his house he made many incursions
into the neighbouring countries, and perhaps he would have refused
to discharge me had his plunder been equal to his wishes. He
returned always courteous, related his adventures, delighted to
hear my observations, and endeavoured to advance my acquaintance
with the stars. When I importuned him to send away my letters, he
soothed me with professions of honour and sincerity; and when I
could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again in motion,
and left me to govern in his absence. I was much afflicted by this
studied procrastination, and was sometimes afraid that I should be
forgotten; that you would leave Cairo, and I must end my days in an
island of the Nile.

"I grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so little to
entertain him, that he for a while more frequently talked with my
maids. That he should fall in love with them or with me, might
have been equally fatal, and I was not much pleased with the
growing friendship. My anxiety was not long, for, as I recovered
some degree of cheerfulness, he returned to me, and I could not
forbear to despise my former uneasiness.

"He still delayed to send for my ransom, and would perhaps never
have determined had not your agent found his way to him. The gold,
which he would not fetch, he could not reject when it was offered.
He hastened to prepare for our journey hither, like a man delivered
from the pain of an intestine conflict. I took leave of my
companions in the house, who dismissed me with cold indifference."

Nekayah having heard her favourite's relation, rose and embraced
her, and Rasselas gave her a hundred ounces of gold, which she
presented to the Arab for the fifty that were promised.



CHAPTER XL--THE HISTORY OF A MAN OF LEARNING.



They returned to Cairo, and were so well pleased at finding
themselves together that none of them went much abroad. The Prince
began to love learning, and one day declared to Imlac that he
intended to devote himself to science and pass the rest of his days
in literary solitude.

"Before you make your final choice," answered Imlac, "you ought to
examine its hazards, and converse with some of those who are grown
old in the company of themselves. I have just left the observatory
of one of the most learned astronomers in the world, who has spent
forty years in unwearied attention to the motion and appearances of
the celestial bodies, and has drawn out his soul in endless
calculations. He admits a few friends once a month to hear his
deductions and enjoy his discoveries. I was introduced as a man of
knowledge worthy of his notice. Men of various ideas and fluent
conversation are commonly welcome to those whose thoughts have been
long fixed upon a single point, and who find the images of other
things stealing away. I delighted him with my remarks. He smiled
at the narrative of my travels, and was glad to forget the
constellations and descend for a moment into the lower world.

"On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, and was so
fortunate as to please him again. He relaxed from that time the
severity of his rule, and permitted me to enter at my own choice.
I found him always busy, and always glad to be relieved. As each
knew much which the other was desirous of learning, we exchanged
our notions with great delight. I perceived that I had every day
more of his confidence, and always found new cause of admiration in
the profundity of his mind. His comprehension is vast, his memory
capacious and retentive, his discourse is methodical, and his
expression clear.

"His integrity and benevolence are equal to his learning. His
deepest researches and most favourite studies are willingly
interrupted for any opportunity of doing good by his counsel or his
riches. To his closest retreat, at his most busy moments, all are
admitted that want his assistance; 'For though I exclude idleness
and pleasure, I will never,' says he, 'bar my doors against
charity. To man is permitted the contemplation of the skies, but
the practice of virtue is commanded.'"

"Surely," said the Princess, "this man is happy."

"I visited him," said Imlac, "with more and more frequency, and was
every time more enamoured of his conversation; he was sublime
without haughtiness, courteous without formality, and communicative
without ostentation. I was at first, great Princess, of your
opinion, thought him the happiest of mankind, and often
congratulated him on the blessing that he enjoyed. He seemed to
hear nothing with indifference but the praises of his condition, to
which he always returned a general answer, and diverted the
conversation to some other topic.

"Amidst this willingness to be pleased and labour to please, I had
quickly reason to imagine that some painful sentiment pressed upon
his mind. He often looked up earnestly towards the sun, and let
his voice fall in the midst of his discourse. He would sometimes,
when we were alone, gaze upon me in silence with the air of a man
who longed to speak what he was yet resolved to suppress. He would
often send for me with vehement injunction of haste, though when I
came to him he had nothing extraordinary to say; and sometimes,
when I was leaving him, would call me back, pause a few moments,
and then dismiss me."



CHAPTER XLI--THE ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS THE CAUSE OF HIS UNEASINESS.



"At last the time came when the secret burst his reserve. We were
sitting together last night in the turret of his house watching the
immersion of a satellite of Jupiter. A sudden tempest clouded the
sky and disappointed our observation. We sat awhile silent in the
dark, and then he addressed himself to me in these words: 'Imlac,
I have long considered thy friendship as the greatest blessing of
my life. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and
knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. I have
found in thee all the qualities requisite for trust--benevolence,
experience, and fortitude. I have long discharged an office which
I must soon quit at the call of Nature, and shall rejoice in the
hour of imbecility and pain to devolve it upon thee.'

"I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and protested that
whatever could conduce to his happiness would add likewise to mine.

"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I
have possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the
distribution of the seasons. The sun has listened to my dictates,
and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds at my
call have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my
command. I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated
the fervours of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental
powers, have hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have
perished by equinoctial tempests which I found myself unable to
prohibit or restrain. I have administered this great office with
exact justice, and made to the different nations of the earth an
impartial dividend of rain and sunshine. What must have been the
misery of half the globe if I had limited the clouds to particular
regions, or confined the sun to either side of the equator?'"



CHAPTER XLII--THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED AND
JUSTIFIED.



"I suppose he discovered in me, through the obscurity of the room,
some tokens of amazement and doubt, for after a short pause he
proceeded thus:-

"'Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor offend me,
for I am probably the first of human beings to whom this trust has
been imparted. Nor do I know whether to deem this distinction a
reward or punishment. Since I have possessed it I have been far
less happy than before, and nothing but the consciousness of good
intention could have enabled me to support the weariness of
unremitted vigilance.'

"'How long, sir,' said I, 'has this great office been in your
hands?'

"'About ten years ago,' said he, 'my daily observations of the
changes of the sky led me to consider whether, if I had the power
of the seasons, I could confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants
of the earth. This contemplation fastened on my mind, and I sat
days and nights in imaginary dominion, pouring upon this country
and that the showers of fertility, and seconding every fall of rain
with a due proportion of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do
good, and did not imagine that I should ever have the power.

"'One day as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I
felt in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the
southern mountains, and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the
hurry of my imagination I commanded rain to fall; and by comparing
the time of my command with that of the inundation, I found that
the clouds had listened to my lips.'

"'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence?
The Nile does not always rise on the same day.'

"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, 'that such objections
could escape me. I reasoned long against my own conviction, and
laboured against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes
suspected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart
this secret but to a man like you, capable of distinguishing the
wonderful from the impossible, and the incredible from the false.'

"'Why, sir,' said I, 'do you call that incredible which you know,
or think you know, to be true?'

"'Because,' said he, 'I cannot prove it by any external evidence;
and I know too well the laws of demonstration to think that my
conviction ought to influence another, who cannot, like me, be
conscious of its force. I therefore shall not attempt to gain
credit by disputation. It is sufficient that I feel this power
that I have long possessed, and every day exerted it. But the life
of man is short; the infirmities of age increase upon me, and the
time will soon come when the regulator of the year must mingle with
the dust. The care of appointing a successor has long disturbed
me; the night and the day have been spent in comparisons of all the
characters which have come to my knowledge, and I have yet found
none so worthy as thyself.'"

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