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Tower of Dago

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<h2>CHAPTER V The Famine</h2> It came to pass as the Master of the Tower of Dago had foretold. A year of famine visited the island. There in his loneliness he had taken continual counsel of that great vital principle which he chose to associate with the Prince of Evil, but to which the learned give the name of "Gæa"—Earth. And the Earth-demon has, in truth, diabolical humours. Between Earth and her minions, and the favourites of Heaven, there is eternal strife. It pleases Earth to let the ill weeds grow. The[Pg 42] poppy and the corn-flower are her darlings. And yet, that child of Heaven, man's finer nature, forces her to bring forth white wheat for him! The Earth-spirit favours the savage and grosser instincts, while man does her violence by pressing upon her his nobler fruits and virtues. Man, doubtless, has a right to ask, "Why has the Creator brought forth these myriads of caterpillars and cockchafers that devastate my fruit-trees?" But surely the caterpillar and the cockchafer have an equal right to demand, "To what purpose has Earth given birth to that misshapen, two-legged creature that delights to sweep me down from my tree, and trample me under foot?" But, after all, the Earth-spirit is not the gardener's friend, but rather the caterpillar's. The hermit in the Tower of Dago included in his studies that centre of the other infernos, the sun. He had observed that the spots and eruptions on the sun's disc exercise an influence upon the weather of our planet. He had, moreover, imbibed the wisdom of the wind and waves.[Pg 43] He had carefully noted the migrations of whales and kingfishers, as well as the displays of the aurora borealis and the shooting stars. All these had told him that the hot days of May, which so quicken the growth of the crops, would be succeeded by a frost that would blight utterly the whole field produce of the island of Dago in a single night. And so it happened. Not on that island alone but throughout the whole of northern Russia, the hopes of the agriculturists were shattered by that terrible frost. The capricious weather brought in its train that pestilence which attacks only the poor—Starvation. In such circumstances larger and more powerful States may easily procure money, and tide over the evil day by purchasing grain in lands more blessed than theirs, and distributing it among their people. But a small and poverty-stricken republic like the island of Dago could not so easily get gold and silver to give in exchange for bread. The poor people had to fall back upon such nutriment as fish and cheese. "This[Pg 44] year," they said, "we must eat no bread." That was the solution. The old women of the island now came much more frequently to the tower to sell their flowers. But instead of gold they now begged for a little corn. "Listen to me!" said the Master of the tower to them one day. "You want bread. Well, I know a secret which enables me to transform earth at once into corn and barley. Bring me earth, then—but rich and fertile it must be—and I will give you corn in exchange for it. However large the sack may be in which you bring the clods, just so large will be the sack of corn I will give you in return." At first it was only the women that made the trial. They brought the magician good, dark loam in small sacks. For this they received a like quantity of wheat. The grain was such as they had never before seen. At once the strong young men were seized with the desire to participate in such profitable barter, and soon they too were carrying to the tower as heavy sacks of[Pg 45] mother earth as their brawny arms and broad shoulders could support. The Very Reverend Pastor Waimœner did, indeed, pronounce his anathema against all who dared to make such pilgrimages to the Satanic shrine in order to barter their own blessed earth for a stranger's accursed corn. He warned them that grain grown in such a mysterious and suspicious soil could not but give them the itch and elflock, and that one day their souls must inevitably sink for ever in the pool of fire. His threats and warnings, however, were of no avail. The people's skins did not turn black with eating the mysterious corn, neither did their hair become entangled. Their souls' welfare, they therefore reasoned, might well be equally secure. The grain was, in fact, the best ever reaped in Brandenburg. The Russian Government had had it shipped for their northern ports. That year so many grain-laden vessels had gone on the rocks beneath the Tower of Dago, that its inmates had soon no more room to store the[Pg 46] booty. Thus it was that they came to exchange it with the islanders for earth. Earth! But for what purpose could the Destroying Spirit require earth? To create! <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/img-12.png" width-obs="300" height-obs="208" alt="" title="" /></div> There was a little hollow on the south side of the tower which was sheltered from the wind on every side. This hollow the Master filled with the earth, and planted the little plot all over with flowers. In this way he soon had a perfect flower-garden laid out. There was, then, one human being in the tower who took pleasure in flowers. But did the terrible doctrines professed by the Master permit him to act thus kindly towards any living creature? [Pg 47]Alas! Nothing in creation is flawless—not even the Satanic confession of faith. Even Satan is sometimes tricked by his disciples, and unbelief itself has its hypocrisy. To his own thinking, this man had succeeded in banishing every human feeling from his heart—but this one still remained. He had, he thought, been able to renounce every virtue in favour of its opposite vice—but this one he could not renounce. He could not fight down the kindliness that filled his heart for the poor girl, Mashinka, who had saved his child, who had accompanied him into exile, and who had become a loving mother to his boy and a devoted companion to him. So he felt grateful to her. But that was surely a heresy against the religion he professed and preached—a positive breach of the all-denying dogma! For Gratitude is itself a virtue and closely related to Love. Gratitude being merely a tyranny of the soul over the body, how could the body, which had now become master, admit it? And if the body be[Pg 48] indeed the ruling lord, the right of thought also belongs to it. Its philosophy must, then, determine the course of both action and feeling. Was it not plain that this one contradiction in the Master's principles might—nay, must, overturn the whole edifice of Babel? Nevertheless, the Master found it impossible to shut his heart against this one feeling. With the most painstaking art he had laid out this garden—bought at a higher price even than the gardens of Semiramis; and that, too, for a poor peasant girl who alone in that Babel of hate had retained in her heart the priceless feeling of Love. When the garden was finished and planted with all the flowers the island could afford, the Master led Mashinka to the door, which had hitherto been closed to her, opened it, and said simply: "The garden is yours!" <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/img-13.png" width-obs="323" height-obs="500" alt=""The garden is yours!"" title="" /></div> "The garden is yours!" And as the girl, weeping with joy, threw herself at his feet, pressed his hand to her lips and covered it with her tears—did not the[Pg 51] captive spirit throb rebelliously within its weak bodily prison, and ask: "Is not a single tear like these—a single cry of joy—sweeter far than a sea of blood, and a chorus of death-shrieks from the throats of thousands of vanquished enemies?" At the thought, he pushed the girl away from him and rushed up to his laboratory, there to continue the work of destruction. [Pg 52] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/img-14.png" width-obs="500" height-obs="288" alt="" title="" /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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