I Knew Nothing Of These Mysteries, And Was Not Therefore Prepared
For The Sort Of Reception Which I Met With.
I advanced to the iron
fence, and putting my letter between the bars, politely proffered
it to Mr. Banker.
Mr. Banker received me with a sad and dejected
look, and not "with open arms," or with any arms at all, but with -
a pair of tongs! I placed my letter between the iron fingers,
which picked it up as if it were a viper, and conveyed it away to
be scorched and purified by fire and smoke. I was disgusted at
this reception, and at the idea that anything of mine could carry
infection to the poor wretch who stood on the other side of the
grille, pale and trembling, and already meet for death. I looked
with something of the Mahometan's feeling upon these little
contrivances for eluding fate; and in this instance, at least, they
were vain. A few more days, and the poor money-changer, who had
striven to guard the days of his life (as though they were coins)
with bolts and bars of iron - he was seized by the plague, and he
died.
To people entertaining such opinions as these respecting the fatal
effect of contact, the narrow and crowded streets of Cairo were
terrible as the easy slope that leads to Avernus. The roaring
ocean and the beetling crags owe something of their sublimity to
this - that if they be tempted, they can take the warm life of a
man. To the contagionist, filled as he is with the dread of final
causes, having no faith in destiny nor in the fixed will of God,
and with none of the devil-may-care indifference which might stand
him instead of creeds - to such one, every rag that shivers in the
breeze of a plague-stricken city has this sort of sublimity. If by
any terrible ordinance he be forced to venture forth, he sees death
dangling from every sleeve, and as he creeps forward, he poises his
shuddering limbs between the imminent jacket that is stabbing at
his right elbow and the murderous pelisse that threatens to mow him
clean down as it sweeps along on his left. But most of all, he
dreads that which most of all he should love - the touch of a
woman's dress; for mothers and wives, hurrying forth on kindly
errands from the bedsides of the dying, go slouching along through
the streets more wilfully and less courteously than the men. For a
while it may be that the caution of the poor Levantine may enable
him to avoid contact, but sooner or later perhaps the dreaded
chance arrives; that bundle of linen, with the dark tearful eyes at
the top of it, that labours along with the voluptuous clumsiness of
Grisi - she has touched the poor Levantine with the hem of her
sleeve! From that dread moment his peace is gone; his mind, for
ever hanging upon the fatal touch, invites the blow which he fears.
He watches for the symptoms of plague so carefully, that sooner or
later they come in truth.
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