Part 85

I thought so, too, and I watched Madame Patoff to see whether she would return to the subject which seemed to attract her. Cutter kept up the conversation, however, and did not again show any apprehension about his former patient's state of mind, though I could see that he watched her as closely as I did. The fresh breeze filled the sails, and the next tack took us clear up to Yeni Mahalle on the European side; for the little yacht was quick in stays, and, moreover, had a good hold on the water, enabling her to beat quickly up against wind and current. Once again I went about, and, running briskly across, made the little pier below Anadoli Kavak, little more than three quarters of an hour after we had started. We landed, and went up the green slope to the place where the little coffee-shop stands under the trees. We intended to climb the hill to the ruined castle. To my surprise, Professor Cutter suggested to Madame Patoff that they should stay below, while the rest made the ascent. He said he feared she would tire herself too much. But she would not listen to him.

"I insist upon going," she said. "I am as strong as any of you. It is quite absurd."

Cutter temporized by suggesting that we should have coffee before the walk, and Chrysophrasia sank languidly down upon a straw chair.

"If the man has any loukoum, I could bear a cup of coffee," she murmured. The man had loukoum, it appeared, and Chrysophrasia was satisfied. We all sat down in a circle under the huge oak-tree, and enjoyed the freshness and greenness of the place. The kaffeji, in loose white garments and a fez, presently brought out a polished brass tray, bearing the requisite number of tiny cups and two little white saucers filled with pieces of loukoum-rahat, the Turkish national sweetmeat, commonly called by schoolboys fig-paste.

"Why was I not born a Turk!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia. "This joyous life in the open air is so intensely real, so profoundly true!"

"Life is real anywhere," remarked Cutter, with a smile. "The important question is whether it is agreeable to the liver."

"Death is real, too," said Madame Patoff, in such a curious tone that we all started slightly, as we had done in the boat. My nerves are good, but I felt a weird horror of the woman stealing over me. The imperturbable scientist only glanced at me, as though to remind me of what he had said before. Then he took up the question.

"No, madam," he said, coldly. "Death is a negation, almost a universal negation. It is not real; it only devours reality, and then denies it. You can see that life is to breathe, to think, to eat, to drink, to love, to fear,--any of these. Death is only the negation of all these things, because we can only say that in death we do none of them. Reality is motion, in the broad sense, as far as man is concerned; death is only the cessation of the ability to move. You cannot predicate anything else of it."

"Oh, your dry, dry science!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia, casting up her green eyes. "You would turn our fair fields and limpid--ahem--skies--into the joyless waste of a London pavement, or one of your horrid dissecting-rooms!"

"I don't see the point of your simile, Miss Dabstreak," answered Cutter, with pardonable bluntness. "Besides, that is philosophy, and not science."

"What is the difference. Mr. Griggs?" asked Hermione, turning to me.

"My dear young lady," said I, "science, I think, means the state of being wise, and hence, the thing known, which gives a man the title of wise. Philosophy means the love of wisdom."

"Rather involved definition," observed the professor, with a laugh. "There is not much difference between the state of being wise and the state of loving wisdom."

"The one asserts the possession of that which the other aspires to possess, but considers to be very difficult of attainment," I tried to explain. "The scientist says to the world, 'I have found the origin of life: it is protoplasm, it is your God, and all your religious beliefs are merely the result of your ignorance of protoplasm.' The philosopher answers, 'I allow that this protoplasm is the origin of life, but how did this origin itself originate? And if you can show how it originated from inanimate matter, how did the inanimate matter begin to exist? And how was space found in which it could exist? And why does anything exist, animate or inanimate? And is the existence of matter a proof of a supreme design, or is it not?' Thereupon science gets very red in the face, and says that these questions are absurd, after previously stating that everything ought to be questioned."

"Science," answered the professor, "says that man has enough to do in questioning his immediate surroundings, without going into the matter of transcendental inquiry."

"Then she ought to keep to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot. "The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded assumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion that there is no God."

"That is strong language, Mr. Griggs,--very strong language," repeated the professor. "You exaggerate the position too much, I think. But it is useless to argue with transcendentalists. You always fall back upon the question of faith, and you refuse to listen to reason."

"When you can disprove our position, we will listen to your proof. But since the whole human race, as far as we can ascertain, without any exception whatsoever, has believed always in the survival of the soul after death, allow me to say that when you deny the existence of the soul the onus probandi lies with you, and not with us."

Therewith I drank my coffee in silence, and looked at the half-naked Turkish children playing upon the little pier over the bright water. It struck me that if the learned scientist had told them that they had no souls, they would have laughed at him very heartily. I think that in the opinion of the company I had the best of the argument, and Cutter knew it, for he did not answer.

"I have always believed that I have a soul," said Macaulay Carvel, in his smooth, monotonous tone. But there was as much conviction in his tone as though he had expressed his belief in the fact that he had a nose.

"Of course you have," said Hermione. "Let us go up to the castle and see the view before it is too late. Aunt Annie, do wait for us here; it is very tiring, really."

"You seem to think I am a decrepit old woman," answered Madame Patoff, impatiently, as she rose from her chair.

Paul felt that it was his duty to offer his mother his arm for the ascent, though the professor came forward at the same moment.

"Dear Paul, you are so good," said she, accepting his assistance as we began to climb the hill.

I saw her face in that moment. It was as calm and beautiful as ever, but I thought she glanced sideways to see whether every one had heard her speech and appreciated it. Little was said as we breasted the steep ascent, for the path was rough, and there was barely room for two people to walk side by side. At last we emerged upon a broad slope of grass outside the walls of the old fortress. A goatherd lives inside it, and has turned the old half-open vaults into a stable for his flocks. We paused under the high walls, which on one side are built above the precipitous cliff, with a sheer fall of a hundred feet or more. Towards the land they are not more than forty feet high, where the grass grows up to their base. There is a curious gate on that side, with the carved arms of the Genoese republic imbedded in the brick masonry.

Some one suggested that we should go inside, and after a short interview with the goatherd he consented to chain up his enormous dog, and let us pass the small wooden gate which leads to the interior. Inside the fortress the falling in of the roof and walls has filled the old court so that it is nearly on a level with the walls. It is easy to scramble up to the top, and the thickness is so great that it is safe to walk along for a little distance, provided one does not go too near the edge. We wandered about below, and some of us climbed up to see the beautiful view, which extends far down the Bosphorus on the one side, and looks over the broad Black Sea on the other. Madame Patoff still leaned on Paul's arm, while the professor gallantly helped the languid Chrysophrasia to reach the most accessible places. Macaulay was engaged in an attempt to measure the circumference of the castle, and rambled about in quest of facts, as usual, noting down the figures in his pocket-book very conscientiously. I was left alone with Hermione for a few minutes. We sat down on a heap of broken masonry to rest, talking of the place and its history. Hermione was so placed that she could not see the top of the wall which overhung the precipice on the outer side, but from where I sat I could watch Paul slowly helping his mother to reach the top.

"It belonged to the Genoese, and was built by them," I said. "The arms over the gate are theirs. Perhaps you noticed them." Paul and his mother had reached the summit of the wall, and were standing there, looking out at the view.

"How did the Genoese come to be here?" asked Hermione, digging her parasol into the loose earth.