The Prince at Home
A wise man wishing to know another always attends him when he is in narrative. The reader may be familiar with the principle, and a believer in it; for his better satisfaction, therefore, a portion of the Prince’s conversation with Uel over the tea-table the night of his arrival in Constantinople shall be reported nearly as possible in his own words. It will be found helpful to the story as well as an expose of character.
“I said in my letter, as thou mayst remember, O son of Jahdai”— the voice of the speaker was low, but earnest, and admirably in harmony with the sentiment, “that I hoped thou wouldst allow me to relate myself to thee as father to son. Thou hast not forgotten it, I am sure.”
“I recall it distinctly,” Uel answered, respectfully.
“Thou wilt remember not less clearly then that I added the words, ‘in all things a help, in nothing a burden.’”
Uel assented.
“The addition I thought of great importance,” the Prince continued; “for it was very desirable that thou shouldst not imagine me coming to sit down upon thee, and in idleness fatten upon the fruits of thy industry. As something of even greater importance, thou shouldst know now, at this earliest moment of our intercourse, that I am abundantly able from what I have of goods and treasure to keep any condition I may choose to assume. Indeed thou shouldst not be too much astonished did I practise the style and manner of the nobles who are privileged in the palaces of thy Caesar. At home I shall be as thou seest me now, thy friend of simplest habits, because my tastes really incline to them; when I go abroad, the officials of the Church and State whom I chance to encounter shall be challenged to comparison of appearance, and be piqued to inquire about me. Then when the city observes thou art intimate with me, the demand for thy wares will increase; thou mayst even be put to stress to keep apace with it. In speaking thus, I trust thy natural shrewdness, sharpened as it must have become by much dealing as a merchant.”
He paused here to give his cup to Syama for replenishment; whereupon Uel said: “I have followed thy discourse with interest, and I hope with understanding; yet I am conscious of a disadvantage. I do not know thy name, nor if thou hast a title.”
“Yes, and thou mightest have set down in the table of defaults,” the Wanderer began pleasantly in reply, but broke off to receive the cup smoking hot from the servant, and say—“Thanks, Syama. I see thy hand hath not lost its deftness; neither has the green leaf suffered from its long journey over the sea.”
Uel noticed with what intentness Syama watched the master’s lips while he was speaking, and the gratification that beamed from his face in answer to the compliment; and he thought, “Verily this must be a good man to be so beloved by his dependents.”
“I was saying, O son of Jahdai, that thou mightest have set down the other points of information equally necessary to our intercourse—Whence I come? And why? And I will not leave thee in the dark respecting them. Only let me caution thee—It is not required that the public should be taken into our confidence. I have seen a flower good to look upon, but viscous, and with a scent irresistible to insects. That flower represents the world; and what is the folly of its victims but the madness of men who yield themselves with too easy faith to the seductions of the world? Nay, my son, observe thou the term—I use it to begin the relationship I seek—observe also I begin the relationship by confidences which were unwisely given without the injunction that they are intended to be put away in thy inner-conscience. Tell me if I am understood.”
The question was emphasized by a look whose magnetism thrilled Uel’s every nerve.
“I believe I understand you,” he replied.
Then, as if the Prince knew the effect he had wrought, and that it relieved him from danger of betrayal, he returned to his former easy manner.
“And yet, as thou shalt see, my son, the confidences are not crimes— But thy cup is empty, and Syama waiting for it.”
“The drink is new to me,” Uel replied, yielding to the invitation.
“New? And wilt thou not also say it is better than wine? The world of which we are talking, will one day take up the admission, and be happier of it.”
Turning then to serious matter:
“Afterwhile,” he said, “thou wilt be importuned by the curious to know who I am, and thou shouldst be able to answer according to the fact—He is a Prince of India. The vulgar will be satisfied with the reply. Others will come demanding more. Refer them to me. As to thyself, O son of Jahdai, call me as I have instructed thee to speak of me— call me Prince.
At the same time I would have thee know that on my eighth day I was carried into a temple and registered a son of a son of Jerusalem. The title I give thee for my designation, did not ennoble me. The birthright of a circumcised heritor under the covenant with Israel is superior to every purely human dignity whatever its derivation.”
“In other words, O Prince, thou art”—Uel hesitated.
“A Jew!” the other answered promptly—“A Jew, as thy father was—as thou art.”
The look of pleasure that appeared on the shopkeeper’s face was swiftly interpreted by the Prince, who felt he had indeed evoked a tie of blood, and bound the man with it.
“So much is despatched,” he said, with evident satisfaction; then, after a draught from the tea-cup, and a re-delivery to Syama for more, he continued: “Possibly thou wilt also remember my letter mentions a necessity for my crossing from India to Mecca on the “way to Kash-Cush, and that, despite the stoppage, I hoped to greet thee in person within six months after Syama reported himself. How stands the time?”
“This is the last day of the six months,” Uel answered.
“Yes, there was never man”—tho Prince paused, as if the thought were attended with a painful recollection—“never a man,” he presently resumed, “who kept account of time more exactly than myself.”
A copious draught of tea assuaged the passing regret.
“I wrote the letter while in Cipango, an island of the great eastern sea. Thirty years after I set foot upon its shore, theretofore unvisited by a white man, a countryman of ours from this city, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, joined me. From him I heard of thy father’s death. He also gave me thy name…. My life on the island was comparatively untroubled. Indeed, for thy perfect comprehension, my son, it is best to make an explanation now; then thou wilt have a key to many things in my conduct to come as well as conduct gone which would otherwise keep thee in doubtful reflection. The study of greatest interest is religion. I have travelled the world over—I mean the inhabited parts—and in its broad extent there is not a people without worship of some kind. Wherefore my assertion, that beyond the arts, above the sciences, above commerce, above any or all other human concernments, religion is the superlative interest. It alone is divine. The study of it is worship. Knowledge of it is knowledge of God. Can as much be said of any other subject?”
Uel did not answer; he was following the speech too intently, and the Prince, seeing it, drank again, and proceeded:
“The divine study took me to Cipango. Fifty years thou mayst say to thyself was a long term in such a country. Not so, my son. I found there two faiths; the one Sin-Siu, which I turned my back upon as mythologic, without the poetry of the Greek and Roman; the other— well, a life given to the laws of Buddha were well spent. To say truth, there is such similitude between them and the teachings of him we are in the habit of calling the carpenter’s son that, if I did not know better, it were easy to believe the latter spent the years of his disappearance in some Buddhistic temple…. Leaving explanation to another time, the same study carried me to Mecca. The binding of men, the putting yokes about their necks, trampling them in the dust, are the events supposed most important and therefore most noticeable in history; but they are as nothing in comparison with winning belief in matters indeterminable by familiar