CHAPTER X.
THE MYSTERY OF THE WOMEN RESOLVED.
For some days Daphne was utterly prostrated with the scenes which she had been compelled to witness. The present was joyless, the future hopeless. If she requested to be sent back to Greece, she knew not if the whole land would not be desolate; and, worse than all, she again distrusted Thoth, and doubted if he would keep his promise. She began to fear that she was reserved for some dreadful fate.
Thoth neither came to see her nor sent any message, but, as before, left the seeds of hope to spring up in quietness. And as the days passed by, slowly and gradually the youth and health of Daphne began to dissipate the gloomy memories, and wonder and love of life took the place of heaviness of spirit and fear of death.
To her own surprise she again formed the wish to see Thoth, and at times almost believed that he would in some wonderful manner convert the scenes which she had witnessed into an unreal dream. But the belief was momentary and evanescent, and she shuddered as she thought of the plight of the miserable women and their deplorable state. Alive they were certainly, and living a life worse than death. Hope rose again, however, when she thought of the apparent kindness of Thoth, and then she tried to imagine that he was to be the saviour of the women who had been cruelly ill-treated by others. Surely, she thought, he himself can never have been guilty of such crimes.
When her thoughts had become thus kindly disposed towards Thoth, he suddenly appeared, almost as if he had been able to read what was passing in her mind.
His face was as impassive and immobile as ever, and he made inquiries concerning Daphne's welfare as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
But she shuddered at his callousness, and indignantly cried, "Unless thou canst and wilt explain to me the mystery of these women, never look on me again."
"That," said he, "is my present purpose. Listen with care."
Daphne signified her assent, and Thoth continued—
"In order to resolve this mystery, I must first make thee understand how much this city is different from others in every respect—a fact, indeed, thou canst not have failed to observe. Tell me, apart from these women, what thinkest thou of our people?"
"They are truly a wonderful race, and surpass dreams in their knowledge of arts and sciences."
"And, apart from the women, what sayest thou of the government?"
"The people seem happy and contented, and they appear to live in the utmost obedience to their rulers through mere love and respect—except these women."
"That," replied Thoth, "is the plain truth. There is no city under the sun in which the people are so happy, contented, and so easily governed—except these women.
"And how," he continued, "dost thou imagine this wonderful state of affairs has arisen? But it is impossible to divine, and I will tell thee.
"Many hundred years ago the father of the rulers of our people, a man of a Grecian tribe, held a high office in Egypt. In knowledge he surpassed all men, and in knowledge lay his authority. He devised many just laws, and was honoured and revered both by the multitude and by the king and his rulers. Had he not been thwarted, he would have made the Egyptians the most powerful people of the world. But he was betrayed and deluded: some time I may tell thee the full history—suffice it to say that he was ruined and subjected to dishonour through the love of a beautiful woman.
"Mark this—for it is the key-stone of our policy. He contrived to seize the woman, and with a number of devoted followers he fled away and founded this city. Of the pure Greek race were only my ancestor and this woman, and about half a score of women and men. The rest were aliens, but all devoted to him, and prepared to pay him most implicit obedience, and his knowledge both of men and things was so great that he could exact any obedience.
"He determined to found a new state entirely according to reason. The government was to be entirely in the hands of the wisest man, and this wisest man was to be first-born of this new royal race. For Thoth the first, as he is called of us, forced the woman who deceived him to become the mother of his children. And he believed, through the secrets which he had wrested from nature, that, by the careful choice of a mother, he could combine for the future the right by birth with the right by power and wisdom.
"It is this careful choice according to types which has provided this city with dwarfs and giants, and with workers of all kinds, with aptitudes for peculiar forms of art or science. Thou hast seen for thyself the results of the wisdom of the first Thoth. But as regards the rulers, he was determined that he would, in the course of time, utterly stamp out the love of woman, and replace it with loathing and disgust. To this end he himself treated the woman who had changed his love into hatred with the utmost cruelty and contempt. At the same time, in order to render her offspring healthy and intelligent, he compelled her to labour both with mind and body, and to live so as to unfold her utmost powers. How meet she was to be the mother of a race of kings thou canst judge thyself, if thou hast not yet forgotten the statue which was her image. Her sons were taught from their infancy to loathe their mother, and to regard their sisters as necessary evils.
"It would only be painful and useless were I to tell thee more in detail; suffice it to say that in the building of the women thou hast seen the natural result of this policy, acted upon for many hundred years. Our women of the race of rulers are simply intended to be mothers of particular kinds of men, and in the course of generations the men of this race have succeeded in acquiring for women a natural hatred and loathing.
"Now thou canst understand why it was my fellows—who were also of the rulers, though inferior to me—treated thee and thy companions with such contempt, and also thou canst to some extent explain the mystery of the women whom I showed to thee. Thou seest only the will of the first Thoth manifested through his descendants. Two principles he has planted in all his people—perfect obedience to his vice-regent, for we say that our king is not dead but asleep, and love of knowledge and of toil. Thus in all and in us of the ruling race, our strongest passion is hatred and contempt for women."
As he ended his narration Daphne shuddered, for she thought she read in his eyes signs of lust depraved by malignant cruelty, and that he regarded her with all the loathing he had just described. Then she reflected on her helpless condition and on the misery she had witnessed, and swiftly determined to seek a refuge in death. Already with this notion in her mind she had provided herself with a dagger, and with a trembling hand she seized it. Then she raised her courage, and looking Thoth steadfastly in the face, she cried—
"I at least will never be degraded, and thus I escape from thy snare."
She raised the knife, and was about to plunge it into her heart when Thoth seized her arm, and said—
"Stay thy hand,—thou hast heard but half the story. Dost thou not wonder why, hating women as we do, and being most strict in keeping our race pure, we have notwithstanding sought to bring strange women from beyond the sea, and that we have paid them honour—I at least to thee,—thou dost not doubt that?"
But Daphne replied with undisguised doubtfulness, "Perchance it is but some horrible device to make the cruelty more exquisite."
•••••••• ••••••••
"Nay," said he,—"listen. A generation back one of our vice-regents, who was my predecessor in government and also my father, thought he observed signs of decay in the race of rulers. He applied various tests, and all gave the same result. There was a falling off both in mental and bodily power. It seemed to him that in some manner the training and the selection of the women had been faulty, and being confident of the good results of the plan of Thoth the first, he ascribed the fault to a want of rigour. Accordingly he redoubled the labours and increased the tasks of the women, and, at the same time, treated them with still greater cruelty, for his object was to bring the mind of women absolutely under control. But desirous of confirming his view by reasoning from the opposite, he brought over from Greece a female child and caused her to be received with affection by the common people, and at the proper age made her one of his own wives. But the hatred of women was so strongly implanted in him that, though he treated her with forced respect and kindness, he could not show her any real love. Yet such is the nature of women, she loved him though she lived in constant fear and wretchedness. So much did her lord despise her, that he took no pains to conceal from her the secrets of our government. He allowed her to discover that she was only the subject of an experiment, and that if her child did not show at an early age signs of superiority, he would be destroyed. The mother's instinct was alarmed, and, by the aid of her old nurse, she contrived to exchange her son with another infant who had been destined to become vice-regent.
"Thus, in a manner contrary to our ancient laws, her son grew up to become vice-regent. So long as he was merely a child, the mother contrived to see him and to pour upon him her affection; but when at an early age he was removed from her sight, she fell sick, and, as is our custom, she was doomed to death.
"She perished, and later on I found out the fraudulent exchange, and that I—for I was her son—had, as it were by accident, become vice-regent. But I also discovered very speedily by tests that we apply in these cases, that I was gifted with powers far above those of any of the royal race of whom a record had been preserved. I proved also by the application of new tests that the real decline in the royal race had been greater than my father had imagined, for he had not allowed sufficiently for the accumulation of knowledge.
"Perchance thou dost not understand the whole meaning of this history, but it matters not, for thou canst not fail to comprehend the conclusion."
At this point in the narrative he paused as if in doubt, as a man who believes he has solved a problem suddenly thinks of a possible error.
"It is strange," he continued, speaking more to himself than to Daphne, "that I, the vice-regent of the haters of women, should to a woman disclose these secrets. Yet there can be no error."
Again he paused, and then with firmness and dignity proceeded—
"Therefore have I determined, knowing that I am greater in mind than any of my predecessors, to utterly reverse this policy, and to restore women to a position of equality with man, and henceforth to deal with the ruling as we have always dealt with the subject race. Yet, fearing the effects of long subservience and degradation, I thought it best to go back to the origin of our race, and to bring maidens from the best State in Greece to form our new queens, as was the case with mine own mother. In all other respects I have kept up our ancient rules; and, as I shall explain to thee hereafter, I propose to carry out to the full the scheme of the first Thoth for the conquest and government of the whole world."
••••••••
Daphne had listened to his explanations with wonder, and a great weight was lifted from her heart. Her eyes bespoke gratitude and admiration. For a moment she desired to throw herself into his arms, to pour her soul into his, and, so quick is thought, to love with all her being the man whom but lately she had abhorred.
It was, however, for a moment only that joyous thoughts thus filled her mind; for, as she looked in his face, she saw no signs of responsive affection. As before, Thoth appeared perfectly impassive, and if he showed any feeling, it was simply the satisfaction of a philosopher who has explained in an intelligible manner a difficult problem. He had, indeed, spoken of the change in the treatment of the women of the royal race in precisely the same way as he might have spoken of a new method of building the royal palaces. Again the spirit of Daphne was bowed down, and her hopes vanished. Thoth, it seemed to her, if no longer a monster, was yet not a man.
She sank down silently on her couch, and waited for further explanations as listlessly as a man struck by a heavy blow waits for a return of his senses.
But not long did she remain thus calm and spiritless, for Thoth had by no means as yet exhausted his powers of agitation.