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Title: The Sisters, v4
Author: Georg Ebers
Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5464]
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[This file was first posted on May 12, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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THE SISTERS
By Georg Ebers
Volume 4.
CHAPTER XVII.
A paved road, with a row of Sphinxes on each side, led from the Greek
temple of Serapis to the rock-hewn tombs of Apis, and the temples and
chapels built over them, and near them; in these the Apis bull after its
death--or "in Osiris" as the phrase went--was worshipped, while, so long
as it lived, it was taken care of and prayed to in the temple to which it
belonged, that of the god Ptah at Memphis. After death these sacred
bulls, which were distinguished by peculiar marks, had extraordinarily
costly obsequies; they were called the risen Ptah, and regarded as the
symbol of the soul of Osiris, by whose procreative power all that dies or
passes away is brought to new birth and new life--the departed soul of
man, the plant that has perished, and the heavenly bodies that have set.
Osiris-Sokari, who was worshipped as the companion of Osiris, presided
over the wanderings which had to be performed by the seemingly extinct
spirit before its resuscitation as another being in a new form; and
Egyptian priests governed in the temples of these gods, which were purely
Egyptian in style, and which had been built at a very early date over the
tomb-cave of the sacred bulls. And even the Greek ministers of Serapis,
settled at Memphis, were ready to follow the example of their rulers and
to sacrifice to Osiris-Apis, who was closely allied to Serapis--not only
in name but in his essential attributes. Serapis himself indeed was a
divinity introduced from Asia into the Nile valley by the Ptolemies, in
order to supply to their Greek and Egyptian subjects alike an object of
adoration, before whose altars they could unite in a common worship.
They devoted themselves to the worship of Apis in Osiris at the shrines,
of Greek architecture, and containing stone images of bulls, that stood
outside the Egyptian sanctuary, and they were very ready to be initiated
into the higher significance of his essence; indeed, all religious
mysteries in their Greek home bore reference to the immortality of the
soul and its fate in the other world.
Just as two neighboring cities may be joined by a bridge, so the Greek
temple of Serapis--to which the water-bearers belonged--was connected
with the Egyptian sanctuary of Osiris-Apis by the fine paved road for
processions along which Klea now rapidly proceeded. There was a shorter
way to Memphis, but she chose this one, because the mounds of sand on
each side of the road bordered by Sphinxes--which every day had to be
cleared of the desert-drift--concealed her from the sight of her
companions in the temple; besides the best and safest way into the city
was by a road leading from a crescent, decorated with busts of the
philosophers, that lay near the principal entrance to the new Apis tombs.
She looked neither at the lion-bodies with men's heads that guarded the
way, nor at the images of beasts on the wall that shut it in; nor did she
heed the dusky-hued temple-slaves of Osiris-Apis who were sweeping the
sand from the paved way with large brooms, for she thought of nothing but
Irene and the difficult task that lay before her, and she walked swiftly
onwards with her eyes fixed on the ground.
But she had taken no more than a few steps when she heard her name called
quite close to her, and looking up in alarm she found herself standing
opposite Krates, the little smith, who came close up to her, took hold of
her veil, threw it back a little before she could prevent him, and asked:
"Where are you off to, child?"
"Do not detain me," entreated Klea. "You know that Irene, whom you are
always so fond of, has been carried off; perhaps I may be able to save
her, but if you betray me, and if they follow me--"
"I will not hinder you," interrupted the old man. "Nay, if it were not
for these swollen feet I would go with you, for I can think of nothing
else but the poor dear little thing; but as it is I shall be glad enough
when I am sitting still again in my workshop; it is exactly as if a
workman of my own trade lived in each of my great toes, and was dancing
round in them with hammer and file and chisel and nails. Very likely you
may be so fortunate as to find your sister, for a crafty woman succeeds
in many things which are too difficult for a wise man. Go on, and if
they seek for you old Krates will not betray you."
He nodded kindly at Klea, and had already half turned his back on her
when he once more looked round, and called out to her:
"Wait a minute, girl--you can do me a little service. I have just fitted
a new lock to the door of the Apis-tomb down there. It answers
admirably, but the one key to it which I have made is not enough; we
require four, and you shall order them for me of the locksmith Heri, to
be sent the day after to-morrow; he lives opposite the gate of Sokari--
to the left, next the bridge over the canal--you cannot miss it. I hate
repeating and copying as much as I like inventing and making new things,
and Heri can work from a pattern just as well as I can. If it were not
for my legs I would give the man my commission myself, for he who speaks
by the lips of a go-between is often misunderstood or not understood at
all."
"I will gladly save you the walk," replied Klea, while the Smith sat down
on the pedestal of one of the Sphinxes, and opening the leather wallet
which hung by his side shook out the contents. A few files, chisels, and
nails fell out into his lap; then the key, and finally a sharp, pointed
knife with which Krates had cut out the hollow in the door for the
insertion of the lock; Krates touched up the pattern-key for the smith in
Memphis with a few strokes of the file, and then, muttering thoughtfully
and shaking his head doubtfully from side to side, he exclaimed:
"You still must come with me once more to the door, for I require
accurate workmanship from other people, and so I must be severe upon my
own."
"But I want so much to reach Memphis before dark," besought Klea.
"The whole thing will not take a minute, and if you will give me your arm
I shall go twice as fast. There are the files, there is the knife."
"Give it me," Klea requested. "This blade is sharp and bright, and as
soon as I saw it I felt as if it bid me take it with me. Very likely I
may have to come through the desert alone at night."
"Aye," said the smith, "and even the weakest feels stronger when he has a
weapon. Hide the knife somewhere about you, my child, only take care not
to hurt yourself with it. Now let me take your arm, and on we will go--
but not quite so fast."
Klea led the smith to the door he indicated, and saw with admiration how
unfailingly the bolt sprang forward when one half of the door closed upon
the other, and how easily the key pushed it back again; then, after
conducting Krates back to the Sphinx near which she had met him, she went
on her way at her quickest pace, for the sun was already very low, and it
seemed scarcely possible to reach Memphis before it should set.
As she approached a tavern where soldiers and low people were accustomed
to resort, she was met by a drunken slave. She went on and past him
without any fear, for the knife in her girdle, and on which she kept her
hand, kept up her courage, and she felt as if she had thus acquired a
third hand which was more powerful and less timid than her own. A
company of soldiers had encamped in front of the tavern, and the wine of
Kbakem, which was grown close by, on the eastern declivity of the Libyan
range, had an excellent savor. The men were in capital spirits, for at
noon today--after they had been quartered here for months as guards of
the tombs of Apis and of the temples of the Necropolis--a commanding
officer of the Diadoches had arrived at Memphis, who had ordered them to
break up at once, and to withdraw into the capital before nightfall.
They were not to be relieved by other mercenaries till the next morning.
All this Klea learned from a messenger from the Egyptian temple in the
Necropolis, who recognized her, and who was going to Memphis,
commissioned by the priests of Osiris-Apis and Sokari to convey a
petition to the king, praying that fresh troops might be promptly sent to
replace those now withdrawn.
For some time she went on side by side with this messenger, but soon she
found that she could not keep up with his hurried pace, and had to fall
behind. In front of another tavern sat the officers of the troops, whose
noisy mirth she had heard as she passed the former one; they were sitting
over their wine and looking on at the dancing of two Egyptian girls, who
screeched like cackling hens over their mad leaps, and who so effectually
riveted the attention of the spectators, who were beating time for them
by clapping their hands, that Klea, accelerating her step, was able to
slip unobserved past the wild crew. All these scenes, nay everything she
met with on the high-road, scared the girl who was accustomed to the
silence and the solemn life of the temple of Serapis, and she therefore
struck into a side path that probably also led to the city which she
could already see lying before her with its pylons, its citadel and its
houses, veiled in evening mist. In a quarter of an hour at most she
would have crossed the desert, and reach the fertile meadow land, whose
emerald hue grew darker and darker every moment. The sun was already
sinking to rest behind the Libyan range, and soon after, for twilight is
short in Egypt, she was wrapped in the darkness of night. The westwind,
which had begun to blow even at noon, now rose higher, and seemed to
pursue her with its hot breath and the clouds of sand it carried with it
from the desert.
She must certainly be approaching water, for she heard the deep pipe of
the bittern in the reeds, and fancied she breathed a moister air. A few
steps more, and her foot sank in mud; and she now perceived that she was
standing on the edge of a wide ditch in which tall papyrus-plants were
growing. The side path she had struck into ended at this plantation, and
there was nothing to be done but to turn about, and to continue her walk
against the wind and with the sand blowing in her face.
The light from the drinking-booth showed her the direction she must
follow, for though the moon was up, it is true, black clouds swept across
it, covering it and the smaller lights of heaven for many minutes at a
time. Still she felt no fatigue, but the shouts of the men and the loud
cries of the women that rang out from the tavern filled her with alarm
and disgust. She made a wide circuit round the hostelry, wading through
the sand hillocks and tearing her dress on the thorns and thistles that
had boldly struck deep root in the desert, and had grown up there like
the squalid brats in the hovel of a beggar. But still, as she hurried on
by the high-road, the hideous laughter and the crowing mirth of the
dancing-girls still rang in her mind's ear.
Her blood coursed more swiftly through her veins, her head was on fire,
she saw Irene close before her, tangibly distinct--with flowing hair and
fluttering garments, whirling in a wild dance like a Moenad at a
Dionysiac festival, flying from one embrace to another and shouting and
shrieking in unbridled folly like the wretched girls she had seen on her
way. She was seized with terror for her sister--an unbounded dread such
as she had never felt before, and as the wind was now once more behind
her she let herself be driven on by it, lifting her feet in a swift run
and flying, as if pursued by the Erinnyes, without once looking round her
and wholly forgetful of the smith's commission, on towards the city along
the road planted with trees, which as she knew led to the gate of the
citadel.
CHAPTER XVIII.
In front of the gate of the king's palace sat a crowd of petitioners who
were accustomed to stay here from early dawn till late at night, until
they were called into the palace to receive the answer to the petition
they had drawn up. When Klea reached the end of her journey she was so
exhausted and bewildered that she felt the imperative necessity of
seeking rest and quiet reflection, so she seated herself among these
people, next to a woman from Upper Egypt. But hardly had she taken her
place by her with a silent greeting, when her talkative neighbor began to
relate with particular minuteness why she had come to Memphis, and how
certain unjust judges had conspired with her bad husband to trick her--
for men were always ready to join against a woman--and to deprive her of
everything which had been secured to her and her children by her
marriage-contract. For two months now, she said, she had been waiting
early and late before the sublime gate, and was consuming her last ready
cash in the city where living was so dear; but it was all one to her, and
at a pinch she would sell even her gold ornaments, for sooner or later
her cause must come before the king, and then the wicked villain and his
accomplices would be taught what was just.
Klea heard but little of this harangue; a feeling had come over her like
that of a person who is having water poured again and again on the top of
his head. Presently her neighbor observed that the new-comer was not
listening at all to her complainings; she slapped her shoulder with her
hand, and said:
"You seem to think of nothing but your own concerns; and I dare say they
are not of such a nature as that you should relate them to any one else;
so far as mine are concerned the more they are discussed, the better."
The tone in which these remarks were made was so dry, and at the same
time so sharp, that it hurt Klea, and she rose hastily to go closer to
the gate. Her neighbor threw a cross word after her; but she did not
heed it, and drawing her veil closer over her face, she went through the
gate of the palace into a vast courtyard, brightly lighted up by cressets
and torches, and crowded with foot-soldiers and mounted guards.
The sentry at the gate perhaps had not observed her, or perhaps had let
her pass unchallenged from her dignified and erect gait, and the numerous
armed men through whom she now made her way seemed to be so much occupied
with their own affairs, that no one bestowed any notice on her. In a
narrow alley, which led to a second court and was lighted by lanterns,
one of the body-guard known as Philobasilistes, a haughty young fellow in
yellow riding-boots and a shirt of mail over his red tunic, came riding
towards her on his tall horse, and noticing her he tried to squeeze her
between his charger and the wall, and put out his hand to raise her veil;
but Klea slipped aside, and put up her hands to protect herself from the
horse's head which was almost touching her.
The cavalier, enjoying her alarm, called out: "Only stand still--he is
not vicious."
"Which, you or your horse?" asked Klea, with such a solemn tone in her
deep voice that for an instant the young guardsman lost his self-
possession, and this gave her time to go farther from the horse. But the
girl's sharp retort had annoyed the conceited young fellow, and not
having time to follow her himself, he called out in a tone of
encouragement to a party of mercenaries from Cyprus, whom the frightened
girl was trying to pass:
"Look under this girl's veil, comrades, and if she is as pretty as she is
well-grown, I wish you joy of your prize." He laughed as he pressed his
knees against the flanks of his bay and trotted slowly away, while the
Cypriotes gave Klea ample time to reach the second court, which was more
brightly lighted even than the first, that they might there surround her
with insolent importunity.
The helpless and persecuted girl felt the blood run cold in her veins,
and for a few minutes she could see nothing but a bewildering confusion
of flashing eyes and weapons, of beards and hands, could hear nothing but
words and sounds, of which she understood and felt only that they were
revolting and horrible, and threatened her with death and ruin. She had
crossed her arms over her bosom, but now she raised her hands to hide her
face, for she felt a strong hand snatch away the veil that covered her
head. This insolent proceeding turned her numb horror to indignant rage,
and, fixing her sparkling eyes on her bearded opponents, she exclaimed:
"Shame upon you, who in the king's own house fall like wolves on a
defenceless woman, and in a peaceful spot snatch the veil from a young
girl's head. Your mothers would blush for you, and your sisters cry
shame on you--as I do now!"
Astonished at Klea's distinguished beauty, startled at the angry glare in
her eyes, and the deep chest-tones of her voice which trembled with
excitement, the Cypriotes drew back, while the same audacious rascal that
had pulled away her veil came closer to her, and cried:
"Who would make such a noise about a rubbishy veil! If you will be my
sweetheart I will buy you a new one, and many things besides."
At the same time he tried to throw his arm round her; but at his touch
Klea felt the blood leave her cheeks and mount to her bloodshot eyes, and
at that instant her hand, guided by some uncontrollable inward impulse,
grasped the handle of the knife which Krates had lent her; she raised it
high in the air though with an unsteady arm, exclaiming:
"Let me go or, by Serapis whom I serve, I will strike you to the heart!"
The soldier to whom this threat was addressed, was not the man to be
intimidated by a blade of cold iron in a woman's hand; with a quick
movement he seized her wrist in order to disarm her; but although Klea
was forced to drop the knife she struggled with him to free herself from
his clutch, and this contest between a man and a woman, who seemed to be
of superior rank to that indicated by her very simple dress, seemed to
most of the Cypriotes so undignified, so much out of place within the
walls of a palace, that they pulled their comrade back from Klea, while
others on the contrary came to the assistance of the bully who defended
himself stoutly. And in the midst of the fray, which was conducted with
no small noise, stood Klea with flying breath. Her antagonist, though
flung to the ground, still held her wrist with his left hand while he
defended himself against his comrades with the right, and she tried with
all her force and cunning to withdraw it; for at the very height of her
excitement and danger she felt as if a sudden gust of wind had swept her
spirit clear of all confusion, and she was again able to contemplate her
position calmly and resolutely.
If only her hand were free she might perhaps be able to take advantage of
the struggle between her foes, and to force her way out between their
ranks.
Twice, thrice, four times, she tried to wrench her hand with a sudden
jerk through the fingers that grasped it; but each time in vain.
Suddenly, from the man at her feet there broke a loud, long-drawn cry of
pain which re-echoed from the high walls of the court, and at the same
time she felt the fingers of her antagonist gradually and slowly slip
from her arm like the straps of a sandal carefully lifted by the surgeon
from a broken ankle.
"It is all over with him!" exclaimed the eldest of the Cypriotes. "A man
never calls out like that but once in his life! True enough--the dagger
is sticking here just under the ninth rib! This is mad work! That is
your doing again, Lykos, you savage wolf!"
"He bit deep into my finger in the struggle--"
"And you are for ever tearing each other to pieces for the sake of the
women," interrupted the elder, not listening to the other's excuses.
"Well, I was no better than you in my time, and nothing can alter it!
You had better be off now, for if the Epistrategist learns we have fallen
to stabbing each other again--"
The Cypriote had not ceased speaking, and his countrymen were in the very
act of raising the body of their comrade when a division of the civic
watch rushed into the court in close order and through the passage near
which the fight for the girl had arisen, thus stopping the way against
those who were about to escape, since all who wished to get out of the
court into the open street must pass through the doorway into which Klea
had been forced by the horseman. Every other exit from this second court
of the citadel led into the strictly guarded gardens and buildings of the
palace itself.
The noisy strife round Klea, and the cry of the wounded man had attracted
the watch; the Cypriotes and the maiden soon found themselves surrounded,
and they were conducted through a narrow side passage into the court-yard
of the prison. After a short enquiry the men who had been taken were
allowed to return under an escort to their own phalanx, and Klea gladly
followed the commander of the watch to a less brilliantly illuminated
part of the prison-yard, for in him she had recognized at once Serapion's
brother Glaucus, and he in her the daughter of the man who had done and
suffered so much for his father's sake; besides they had often exchanged
greetings and a few words in the temple of Serapis.
"All that is in my power," said Glaucus--a man somewhat taller but not so
broadly built as his brother--when he had read the recluse's note and
when Klea had answered a number of questions, "all that is in my power I
will gladly do for you and your sister, for I do not forget all that I
owe to your father; still I cannot but regret that you have incurred such
risk, for it is always hazardous for a pretty young girl to venture into
this palace at a late hour, and particularly just now, for the courts are
swarming not only with Philometor's fighting men but with those of his
brother, who have come here for their sovereign's birthday festival. The
people have been liberally entertained, and the soldier who has been
sacrificing to Dionysus seizes the gifts of Eros and Aphrodite wherever
he may find them. I will at once take charge of my brother's letter to
the Roman Publius Cornelius Scipio, but when you have received his answer
you will do well to let yourself be escorted to my wife or my sister, who
both live in the city, and to remain till to-morrow morning with one or
the other. Here you cannot remain a minute unmolested while I am away--
Where now--Aye! The only safe shelter I can offer you is the prison down
there; the room where they lock up the subaltern officers when they have
committed any offence is quite unoccupied, and I will conduct you
thither. It is always kept clean, and there is a bench in it too."
Klea followed her friend who, as his hasty demeanor plainly showed, had
been interrupted in important business. In a few steps they reached the
prison; she begged Glaucus to bring her the Roman's answer as quickly as
possible, declared herself quite ready to remain in the dark--since she
perceived that the light of a lamp might betray her, and she was not
afraid of the dark--and suffered herself to be locked in.
As she heard the iron bolt creak in its brass socket a shiver ran through
her, and although the room in which she found herself was neither worse
nor smaller than that in which she and her sister lived in the temple,
still it oppressed her, and she even felt as if an indescribable
something hindered her breathing as she said to herself that she was
locked in and no longer free to come and to go. A dim light penetrated
into her prison through the single barred window that opened on to the
court, and she could see a little bench of palm-branches on which she sat
down to seek the repose she so sorely needed. All sense of discomfort
gradually vanished before the new feeling of rest and refreshment, and
pleasant hopes and anticipations were just beginning to mingle themselves
with the remembrance of the horrors she had just experienced when
suddenly there was a stir and a bustle just in front of the prison--and
she could hear, outside, the clatter of harness and words of command.
She rose from her seat and saw that about twenty horsemen, whose golden
helmets and armor reflected the light of the lanterns, cleared the wide
court by driving the men before them, as the flames drive the game from a
fired hedge, and by forcing them into a second court from which again
they proceeded to expel them. At least Klea could hear them shouting 'In
the king's name' there as they had before done close to her. Presently
the horsemen returned and placed themselves, ten and ten, as guards at
each of the passages leading into the court. It was not without interest
that Klea looked on at this scene which was perfectly new to her; and
when one of the fine horses, dazzled by the light of the lanterns, turned
restive and shied, leaping and rearing and threatening his rider with a
fall--when the horseman checked and soothed it, and brought it to a
stand-still--the Macedonian warrior was transfigured in her eyes to
Publius, who no doubt could manage a horse no less well than this man.
No sooner was the court completely cleared of men by the mounted guard
than a new incident claimed Klea's attention. First she heard footsteps
in the room adjoining her prison, then bright streaks of light fell
through the cracks of the slight partition which divided her place of
retreat from the other room, then the two window-openings close to hers
were closed with heavy shutters, then seats or benches were dragged about
and various objects were laid upon a table, and finally the door of the
adjoining room was thrown open and slammed to again so violently, that
the door which closed hers and the bench near which she was standing
trembled and jarred.
At the same moment a deep sonorous voice called out with a loud and
hearty shout of laughter:
"A mirror--give me a mirror, Eulaeus. By heaven! I do not look much
like prison fare--more like a man in whose strong brain there is no lack
of deep schemes, who can throttle his antagonist with a grip of his fist,
and who is prompt to avail himself of all the spoil that comes in his
way, so that he may compress the pleasures of a whole day into every
hour, and enjoy them to the utmost! As surely as my name is Euergetes
my uncle Antiochus was right in liking to mix among the populace. The
splendid puppets who surround us kings, and cover every portion of their
own bodies in wrappings and swaddling bands, also stifle the expression
of every genuine sentiment; and it is enough to turn our brain to reflect
that, if we would not be deceived, every word that we hear--and, oh dear!
how many words we must needs hear-must be pondered in our minds. Now,
the mob on the contrary--who think themselves beautifully dressed in a
threadbare cloth hanging round their brown loins--are far better off.
If one of them says to another of his own class--a naked wretch who wears
about him everything he happens to possess--that he is a dog, he answers
with a blow of his fist in the other's face, and what can be plainer than
that! If on the other hand he tells him he is a splendid fellow, he
believes it without reservation, and has a perfect right to believe it.
"Did you see how that stunted little fellow with a snub-nose and bandy-
legs, who is as broad as he is long, showed all his teeth in a delighted
grin when I praised his steady hand? He laughs just like a hyena, and
every respectable father of a family looks on the fellow as a god-
forsaken monster; but the immortals must think him worth something to
have given him such magnificent grinders in his ugly mouth, and to have
preserved him mercifully for fifty years--for that is about the rascal's
age. If that fellow's dagger breaks he can kill his victim with those
teeth, as a fox does a duck, or smash his bones with his fist."
"But, my lord," replied Eulaeus dryly and with a certain matter-of-fact
gravity to King Euergetes--for he it was who had come with him into the
room adjoining Klea's retreat, "the dry little Egyptian with the thin
straight hair is even more trustworthy and tougher and nimbler than his
companion, and, so far, more estimable. One flings himself on his prey
with a rush like a block of stone hurled from a roof, but the other,
without being seen, strikes his poisoned fang into his flesh like an
adder hidden in the sand. The third, on whom I had set great hopes, was
beheaded the day before yesterday without my knowledge; but the pair whom
you have condescended to inspect with your own eyes are sufficient. They
must use neither dagger nor lance, but they will easily achieve their end
with slings and hooks and poisoned needles, which leave wounds that
resemble the sting of an adder. We may safely depend on these fellows."
Once more Euergetes laughed loudly, and exclaimed: What criticism!
Exactly as if these blood-hounds were tragic actors of which one could
best produce his effects by fire and pathos, and the other by the
subtlety of his conception. I call that an unprejudiced judgment. And
why should not a man be great even as a murderer? From what hangman's
noose did you drag out the neck of one, and from what headsman's block
did you rescue the other when you found them?
"It is a lucky hour in which we first see something new to us, and,
by Heracles! I never before in the whole course of my life saw such
villains as these. I do not regret having gone to see them and talked to
them as if I were their equal. Now, take this torn coat off me, and help
me to undress. Before I go to the feast I will take a hasty plunge in my
bath, for I twitch in every limb, I feel as if I had got dirty in their
company.
"There lie my clothes and my sandals; strap them on for me, and tell me
as you do it how you lured the Roman into the toils."
Klea could hear every word of this frightful conversation, and clasped
her hand over her brow with a shudder, for she found it difficult to
believe in the reality of the hideous images that it brought before her
mind. Was she awake or was she a prey to some horrid dream?
She hardly knew, and, indeed, she scarcely understood half of all she
heard till the Roman's name was mentioned. She felt as if the point of a
thin, keen knife was being driven obliquely through her brain from right
to left, as it now flashed through her mind that it was against him,
against Publius, that the wild beasts, disguised in human form, were
directed by Eulaeus, and face to face with this--the most hideous, the
most incredible of horrors--she suddenly recovered the full use of her
senses. She softly slipped close to that rift in the partition through
which the broadest beam of light fell into the room, put her ear close to
it, and drank in, with fearful attention, word for word the report made
by the eunuch to his iniquitous superior, who frequently interrupted him
with remarks, words of approval or a short laugh-drank them in, as a man
perishing in the desert drinks the loathsome waters of a salt pool.
And what she heard was indeed well fitted to deprive her of her senses,
but the more definite the facts to which the words referred that she
could overhear, the more keenly she listened, and the more resolutely she
collected her thoughts. Eulaeus had used her own name to induce the
Roman to keep an assignation at midnight in the desert close to the Apis-
tombs. He repeated the words that he had written to this effect on a
tile, and which requested Publius to come quite alone to the spot
indicated, since she dare not speak with him in the temple. Finally he
was invited to write his answer on the other side of the square of clay.
As Klea heard these words, put into her own mouth by a villain, she could
have sobbed aloud heartily with anguish, shame, and rage; but the point
now was to keep her ears wide open, for Euergetes asked his odious tool:
"And what was the Roman's answer?" Eulaeus must have handed the tile to
the king, for he laughed loudly again, and cried out:
"So he will walk into the trap--will arrive by half an hour after
midnight at the latest, and greets Klea from her sister Irene. He
carries on love-making and abduction wholesale, and buys water-bearers
by the pair, like doves in the market or sandals in a shoe maker's stall.
Only see how the simpleton writes Greek; in these few words there are two
mistakes, two regular schoolboys' blunders.
"The fellow must have had a very pleasant day of it, since he must have
been reckoning on a not unsuccessful evening--but the gods have an ugly
habit of clenching the hand with which they have long caressed their
favorites, and striking him with their fist.
"Amalthea's horn has been poured out on him today; first he snapped up,
under my very nose, my little Hebe, the Irene of Irenes, whom I hope to-
morrow to inherit from him; then he got the gift of my best Cyrenaan
horses, and at the same time the flattering assurance of my valuable
friendship; then he had audience of my fair sister--and it goes more to
the heart of a republican than you would believe when crowned heads are
graciously disposed towards him--finally the sister of his pretty
sweetheart invites him to an assignation, and she, if you and Zoe speak
the truth, is a beauty in the grand style. Now these are really too many
good things for one inhabitant of this most stingily provided world; and
in one single day too, which, once begun, is so soon ended; and justice
requires that we should lend a helping hand to destiny, and cut off the
head of this poppy that aspires to rise above its brethren; the thousands
who have less good fortune than he would otherwise have great cause to
complain of neglect."
"I am happy to see you in such good humor," said Eulaeus.
"My humor is as may be," interrupted the king. "I believe I am only
whistling a merry tune to keep up my spirits in the dark. If I were on
more familiar terms with what other men call fear I should have ample
reason to be afraid; for in the quail-fight we have gone in for I have
wagered a crown-aye, and more than that even. To-morrow only will decide
whether the game is lost or won, but I know already to-day that I would
rather see my enterprise against Philometor fail, with all my hopes of
the double crown, than our plot against the life of the Roman; for I was
a man before I was a king, and a man I should remain, if my throne, which
now indeed stands on only two legs, were to crash under my weight.
"My sovereign dignity is but a robe, though the costliest, to be sure, of
all garments. If forgiveness were any part of my nature I might easily
forgive the man who should soil or injure that--but he who comes too near
to Euergetes the man, who dares to touch this body, and the spirit it
contains, or to cross it in its desires and purposes--him I will crush
unhesitatingly to the earth, I will see him torn in pieces. Sentence is
passed on the Roman, and if your ruffians do their duty, and if the gods
accept the holocaust that I had slain before them at sunset for the
success of my project, in a couple of hours Publius Cornelius Scipio will
have bled to death.
"He is in a position to laugh at me--as a man--but I therefore--as a man
--have the right, and--as a king--have the power, to make sure that that
laugh shall be his last. If I could murder Rome as I can him how glad
should I be! for Rome alone hinders me from being the greatest of all the
great kings of our time; and yet I shall rejoice to-morrow when they tell
me Publius Cornelius Scipio has been torn by wild beasts, and his body is
so mutilated that his own mother could not recognize it more than if a
messenger were to bring me the news that Carthage had broken the power of
Rome."
Euergetes had spoken the last words in a voice that sounded like the roll
of thunder as it growls in a rapidly approaching storm, louder, deeper,
and more furious each instant. When at last he was silent Eulaeus said:
"The immortals, my lord, will not deny you this happiness. The brave
fellows whom you condescended to see and to talk to strike as certainly
as the bolt of our father Zeus, and as we have learned from the Roman's
horse-keeper where he has hidden Irene, she will no more elude your grasp
than the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.--Now, allow me to put on your
mantle, and then to call the body-guard that they may escort you as you
return to your residence."
"One thing more," cried the king, detaining Eulaeus. "There are always
troops by the Tombs of Apis placed there to guard the sacred places; may
not they prove a hindrance to your friends?"
"I have withdrawn all the soldiers and armed guards to Memphis down to
the last man," replied Eulaeus, and quartered them within the White Wall.
Early tomorrow, before you proceed to business, they will be replaced by
a stronger division, so that they may not prove a reinforcement to your
brother's troops here if things come to fighting."
"I shall know how to reward your foresight," said Euergetes as Eulaeus
quitted the room.
Again Klea heard a door open, and the sound of many hoofs on the pavement
of the court-yard, and when she went, all trembling, up to the window,
she saw Euergetes himself, and the powerfully knit horse that was led in
for him. The tyrant twisted his hand in the mane of the restless and
pawing steed, and Klea thought that the monstrous mass could never mount
on to the horse's back without the aid of many men; but she was mistaken,
for with a mighty spring the giant flung himself high in the air and on
to the horse, and then, guiding his panting steed by the pressure of his
knees alone, he bounded out of the prison-yard surrounded by his splendid
train.
For some minutes the court-yard remained empty, then a man hurriedly
crossed it, unlocked the door of the room where Klea was, and informed
her that he was a subaltern under Glaucus, and had brought her a message
from him.
"My lord," said the veteran soldier to the girl, "bid me greet you, and
says that he found neither the Roman Publius Scipio, nor his friend the
Corinthian at home. He is prevented from coming to you himself; he has
his hands full of business, for soldiers in the service of both the kings
are quartered within the White Wall, and all sorts of squabbles break out
between them. Still, you cannot remain in this room, for it will shortly
be occupied by a party of young officers who began the fray. Glaucus
proposes for your choice that you should either allow me to conduct you
to his wife or return to the temple to which you are attached. In the
latter case a chariot shall convey you as far as the second tavern in
Khakem on the borders of the desert-for the city is full of drunken
soldiery. There you may probably find an escort if you explain to the
host who you are. But the chariot must be back again in less than an
hour, for it is one of the king's, and when the banquet is over there may
be a scarcity of chariots."
"Yes--I will go back to the place I came from," said Klea eagerly,
interrupting the messenger. "Take me at once to the chariot."
"Follow me, then," said the old man.
"But I have no veil," observed Klea, "and have only this thin robe on.
Rough soldiers snatched my wrapper from my face, and my cloak from off my
shoulders."
"I will bring you the captain's cloak which is lying here in the
orderly's room, and his travelling-hat too; that will hide your face with
its broad flap. You are so tall that you might be taken for a man, and
that is well, for a woman leaving the palace at this hour would hardly
pass unmolested. A slave shall fetch the things from your temple
to-morrow. I may inform you that my master ordered me take as much care
of you as if you were his own daughter. And he told me too--and I had
nearly forgotten it--to tell you that your sister was carried off by the
Roman, and not by that other dangerous man, you would know whom he meant.
Now wait, pray, till I return; I shall not be long gone."
In a few minutes the guard returned with a large cloak in which he
wrapped Klea, and a broad-brimmed travelling-hat which she pressed down
on her head, and he then conducted her to that quarter of the palace
where the king's stables were. She kept close to the officer, and was
soon mounted on a chariot, and then conducted by the driver--who took her
for a young Macedonian noble, who was tempted out at night by some
assignation--as far as the second tavern on the road back to the
Serapeum.
CHAPTER XIX.
While Klea had been listening to the conversation between Euergetes and
Eulaeus, Cleopatra had been sitting in her tent, and allowing herself to
be dressed with no less care than on the preceding evening, but in other
garments.
It would seem that all had not gone so smoothly as she wished during the
day, for her two tire-women had red eyes. Her lady-in-waiting, Zoe, was
reading to her, not this time from a Greek philosopher but from a Greek
translation of the Hebrew Psalms: a discussion as to their poetic merit
having arisen a few days previously at the supper-table. Onias, the
Israelite general, had asserted that these odes might be compared with
those of Alcman or of Pindar, and had quoted certain passages that had
pleased the queen. To-day she was not disposed for thought, but wanted
something strange and out of the common to distract her mind, so she
desired Zoe to open the book of the Hebrews, of which the translation was
considered by the Hellenic Jews in Alexandria as an admirable work--nay,
even as inspired by God himself; it had long been known to her through
her Israelite friends and guests.
Cleopatra had been listening for about a quarter of an hour to Zoe's
reading when the blast of a trumpet rang out on the steps which led up
her tent, announcing a visitor of the male sex. The queen glanced
angrily round, signed to her lady to stop reading, and exclaimed:
"I will not see my husband now! Go, Thais, and tell the eunuchs on the
steps, that I beg Philometor not to disturb me just now. Go on, Zoe."
Ten more psalms had been read, and a few verses repeated twice or thrice
by Cleopatra's desire, when the pretty Athenian returned with flaming
cheeks, and said in an excited tone:
"It is not your husband, the king, but your brother Euergetes, who asks
to speak with you."
"He might have chosen some other hour," replied Cleopatra, looking round
at her maid. Thais cast down her eyes, and twitched the edge of her robe
between her fingers as she addressed her mistress; but the queen, whom
nothing could escape that she chose to see, and who was not to-day in the
humor for laughing or for letting any indiscretion escape unreproved,
went on at once in an incensed and cutting tone, raising her voice to a
sharp pitch:
"I do not choose that my messengers should allow themselves to be
detained, be it by whom it may--do you hear! Leave Me this instant and
go to your room, and stay there till I want you to undress me this
evening. Andromeda--do you hear, old woman?--you can bring my brother to
me, and he will let you return quicker than Thais, I fancy. You need not
leer at yourself in the glass, you cannot do anything to alter your
wrinkles. My head-dress is already done. Give me that linen wrapper,
Olympias, and then he may come! Why, there he is already! First you ask
permission, brother, and then disdain to wait till it is given you."
"Longing and waiting," replied Euergetes, "are but an ill-assorted
couple. I wasted this evening with common soldiers and fawning
flatterers; then, in order to see a few noble countenances, I went into
the prison, after that I hastily took a bath, for the residence of your
convicts spoils one's complexion more, and in a less pleasant manner,
than this little shrine, where everything looks and smells like
Aphrodite's tiring-room; and now I have a longing to hear a few good
words before supper-time comes."
"From my lips?" asked Cleopatra.
"There are none that can speak better, whether by the Nile or the
Ilissus."
"What do you want of me?"
"I--of you?"
"Certainly, for you do not speak so prettily unless you want something."
"But I have already told you! I want to hear you say something wise,
something witty, something soul-stirring."
"We cannot call up wit as we would a maid-servant. It comes unbidden,
and the more urgently we press it to appear the more certainly it remains
away."
"That may be true of others, but not of you who, even while you declare
that you have no store of Attic salt, are seasoning your speech with it.
All yield obedience to grace and beauty, even wit and the sharp-tongued
Momus who mocks even at the gods."
"You are mistaken, for not even my own waiting-maids return in proper
time when I commission them with a message to you."
"And may we not to be allowed to sacrifice to the Charites on the way to
the temple of Aphrodite?"
"If I were indeed the goddess, those worshippers who regarded my hand-
maidens as my equals would find small acceptance with me."
"Your reproof is perfectly just, for you are justified in requiring that
all who know you should worship but one goddess, as the Jews do but one
god. But I entreat you do not again compare yourself to the brainless
Cyprian dame. You may be allowed to do so, so far as your grace is
concerned; but who ever saw an Aphrodite philosophizing and reading
serious books? I have disturbed you in grave studies no doubt; what is
the book you are rolling up, fair Zoe?"
"The sacred book of the Jews, Sire," replied Zoe; "one that I know you do
not love."
And you--who read Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, and Plato--do you like it?"
asked Euergetes.
"I find passages in it which show a profound knowledge of life, and
others of which no one can dispute the high poetic flight," replied
Cleopatra. "Much of it has no doubt a thoroughly barbarian twang, and it
is particularly in the Psalms--which we have now been reading, and which
might be ranked with the finest hymns--that I miss the number and rhythm
of the syllables, the observance of a fixed metre--in short, severity of
form. David, the royal poet, was no less possessed by the divinity when
he sang to his lyre than other poets have been, but he does not seem to
have known that delight felt by our poets in overcoming the difficulties
they have raised for themselves. The poet should slavishly obey the laws
he lays down for himself of his own free-will, and subordinate to them
every word, and yet his matter and his song should seem to float on a
free and soaring wing. Now, even the original Hebrew text of the Psalms
has no metrical laws."
"I could well dispense with them," replied Euergetes; "Plato too
disdained to measure syllables, and I know passages in his works which
are nevertheless full of the highest poetic beauty. Besides, it has been
pointed out to me that even the Hebrew poems, like the Egyptian, follow
certain rules, which however I might certainly call rhetorical rather
than poetical. The first member in a series of ideas stands in
antithesis to the next, which either re-states the former one in a new
form or sets it in a clearer light by suggesting some contrast. Thus
they avail themselves of the art of the orator--or indeed of the painter
--who brings a light color into juxtaposition with a dark one, in order
to increase its luminous effect. This method and style are indeed not
amiss, and that was the least of all the things that filled me with
aversion for this book, in which besides, there is many a proverb which
may be pleasing to kings who desire to have submissive subjects, and to
fathers who would bring up their sons in obedience to themselves and to
the laws. Even mothers must be greatly comforted by them,--who ask no
more than that their children may get through the world without being
jostled or pushed, and unmolested if possible, that they may live longer
than the oaks or ravens, and be blessed with the greatest possible number
of descendants. Aye! these ordinances are indeed precious to those who
accept them, for they save them the trouble of thinking for themselves.
Besides, the great god of the Jews is said to have dictated all that this
book contains to its writers, just as I dictate to Philippus, my hump-
backed secretary, all that I want said. They regard everyone as a
blasphemer and desecrator who thinks that anything written in that roll
is erroneous, or even merely human. Plato's doctrines are not amiss, and
yet Aristotle had criticised them severely and attempted to confute them.
I myself incline to the views of the Stagyrite, you to those of the noble
Athenian, and how many good and instructive hours we owe to our
discussions over this difference of opinion! And how amusing it is to
listen when the Platonists on the one hand and the Aristotelians on the
other, among the busy threshers of straw in the Museum at Alexandria,
fall together by the ears so vehemently that they would both enjoy
flinging their metal cups at each others' heads--if the loss of the wine,
which I pay for, were not too serious to bear. We still seek for truth;
the Jews believe they possess it entirely.
"Even those among them who most zealously study our philosophers believe
this; and yet the writers of this book know of nothing but actual
present, and their god--who will no more endure another god as his equal
than a citizen's wife will admit a second woman to her husband's house--
is said to have created the world out of nothing for no other purpose but
to be worshipped and feared by its inhabitants.
"Now, given a philosophical Jew who knows his Empedocles--and I grant
there are many such in Alexandria, extremely keen and cultivated men--
what idea can he form in his own mind of 'creation out of nothing?' Must
he not pause to think very seriously when he remembers the fundamental
axiom that 'out of nothing, nothing can come,' and that nothing which has
once existed can ever be completely annihilated? At any rate the
necessary deduction must be that the life of man ends in that nothingness
whence everything in existence has proceeded. To live and to die
according to this book is not highly profitable. I can easily reconcile
myself to the idea of annihilation, as a man who knows how to value a
dreamless sleep after a day brimful of enjoyment--as a man who if he must
cease to be Euergetes would rather spring into the open jaws of
nothingness--but as a philosopher, no, never!"
"You, it is true," replied the queen, "cannot help measuring all and
everything by the intellectual standard exclusively; for the gods, who
endowed you with gifts beyond a thousand others, struck with blindness or
deafness that organ which conveys to our minds any religious or moral
sentiment. If that could see or hear, you could no more exclude the
conviction that these writings are full of the deepest purport than I
can, nor doubt that they have a powerful hold on the mind of the reader.
"They fetter their adherents to a fixed law, but they take all bitterness
out of sorrow by teaching that a stern father sends us suffering which is
represented as being sometimes a means of education, and sometimes a
punishment for transgressing a hard and clearly defined law. Their god,
in his infallible but stern wisdom, sets those who cling to him on an
evil and stony path to prove their strength, and to let them at last
reach the glorious goal which is revealed to them from the beginning."
"How strange such words as these sound in the mouth of a Greek,"
interrupted Euergetes. "You certainly must be repeating them after the
son of the Jewish high-priest, who defends the cause of his cruel god
with so much warmth and skill."
"I should have thought," retorted Cleopatra, "that this overwhelming
figure of a god would have pleased you, of all men; for I know of no
weakness in you. Quite lately Dositheos, the Jewish centurion--a very
learned man--tried to describe to my husband the one great god to whom
his nation adheres with such obstinate fidelity, but I could not help
thinking of our beautiful and happy gods as a gay company of amorous
lords and pleasure-loving ladies, and comparing them with this stern and
powerful being who, if only he chose to do it, might swallow them all up,
as Chronos swallowed his own children."
"That," exclaimed Euergetes, "is exactly what most provokes me in this
superstition. It crushes our light-hearted pleasure in life, and
whenever I have been reading the book of the Hebrews everything has come
into my mind that I least like to think of. It is like an importunate
creditor that reminds us of our forgotten debts, and I love pleasure and
hate an importunate reminder. And you, pretty one, life blooms for you--"
"But I," interrupted Cleopatra, "I can admire all that is great; and
does it not seem a bold and grand thing even to you, that the mighty idea
that it is one single power that moves and fills the world, should be
freely and openly declared in the sacred writings of the Jews--an idea
which the Egyptians carefully wrap up and conceal, which the priests of
the Nile only venture to divulge to the most privileged of those who are
initiated into their mysteries, and which--though the Greek philosophers
indeed have fearlessly uttered it--has never been introduced by any
Hellene into the religion of the people? If you were not so averse to
the Hebrew nation, and if you, like my husband and myself, had diligently
occupied yourself with their concerns and their belief you would be
juster to them and to their scriptures, and to the great creating and
preserving spirit, their god--"
"You are confounding this jealous and most unamiable and ill-tempered
tyrant of the universe with the Absolute of Aristotle!" cried Euergetes;
"he stigmatises most of what you and I and all rational Greeks require
for the enjoyment of life as sin--sin upon sin. And yet if my easily
persuadable brother governed at Alexandria, I believe the shrewd priests
might succeed in stamping him as a worshipper of that magnified
schoolmaster, who punishes his untutored brood with fire and torment."
"I cannot deny," replied Cleopatra, "that even to me the doctrine of the
Jews has something very fearful in it, and that to adopt it seems to me
tantamount to confiscating all the pleasures of life.--But enough of such
things, which I should no more relish as a daily food than you do.
Let us rejoice in that we are Hellenes, and let us now go to the banquet.
I fear you have found a very unsatisfactory substitute for what you
sought in coming up here."
"No--no. I feel strangely excited to-day, and my work with Aristarchus
would have led to no issue. It is a pity that we should have begun to
talk of that barbarian rubbish; there are so many other subjects more
pleasing and more cheering to the mind. Do you remember how we used to
read the great tragedians and Plato together?"
"And how you would often interrupt our tutor Agatharchides in his
lectures on geography, to point out some mistake! Did you prosecute
those studies in Cyrene?"
"Of course. It really is a pity, Cleopatra, that we should no longer
live together as we did formerly. There is no one, not even Aristarchus,
with whom I find it more pleasant and profitable to converse and discuss
than with you. If only you had lived at Athens in the time of Pericles,
who knows if you might not have been his friend instead of the immortal
Aspasia. This Memphis is certainly not the right place for you; for a
few months in the year you ought to come to Alexandria, which has now
risen to be superior to Athens."
"I do not know you to-day!" exclaimed Cleopatra, gazing at her brother
in astonishment. "I have never heard you speak so kindly and brotherly
since the death of my mother. You must have some great request to make
of us."
"You see how thankless a thing it is for me to let my heart speak for
once, like other people. I am like the boy in the fable when the wolf
came! I have so often behaved in an unbrotherly fashion that when I show
the aspect of a brother you think I have put on a mask. If I had had
anything special to ask of you I should have waited till to-morrow, for
in this part of the country even a blind beggar does not like to refuse
his lame comrade anything on his birthday."
"If only we knew what you wish for! Philometor and I would do it more
than gladly, although you always want something monstrous. Our
performance to-morrow will--at any rate--but--Zoe, pray be good enough
to retire with the maids; I have a few words to say to my brother alone."
As soon as the queen's ladies had withdrawn, she went on:
"It is a real grief to use, but the best part of the festival in honor of
your birthday will not be particularly successful, for the priests of
Serapis spitefully refuse us the Hebe about whom Lysias has made us so
curious. Asclepiodorus, it would seem, keeps her in concealment, and
carries his audacity so far as to tell us that someone has carried her
off from the temple. He insinuates that we have stolen her, and demands
her restitution in the name of all his associates."
"You are doing the man an injustice; our dove has followed the lure of a
dove-catcher who will not allow me to have her, and who is now billing
and cooing with her in his own nest. I am cheated, but I can scarcely
be angry with the Roman, for his claim was of older standing than mine."
"The Roman?" asked Cleopatra, rising from her seat and turning pale.
"But that is impossible. You are making common cause with Eulaeus, and
want to set me against Publius Scipio. At the banquet last night you
showed plainly enough your ill-feeling against him."
"You seem to feel more warmly towards him. But before I prove to you
that I am neither lying nor joking, may I enquire what has this man, this
many-named Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, to recommend him above any
handsome well-grown Macedonian, who is resolute in my cause, in the whole
corps of your body guard, excepting his patrician pride? He is as bitter
and ungenial as a sour apple, and all the very best that you--a subtle
thinker, a brilliant and cultivated philosopher--can find to say is no
more appreciated by his meanly cultivated intellect than the odes of
Sappho by a Nubian boatman."
"It is exactly for that," cried the queen, "that I value him; he is
different from all of us; we who--how shall I express myself--who always
think at second-hand, and always set our foot in the rut trodden by the
master of the school we adhere to; who squeeze our minds into the moulds
that others have carved out, and when we speak hesitate to step beyond
the outlines of those figures of rhetoric which we learned at school!
You have burst these bonds, but even your mighty spirit still shows
traces of them. Publius Scipio, on the contrary, thinks and sees and
speaks with perfect independence, and his upright sense guides him to the
truth without any trouble or special training. His society revives me
like the fresh air that I breathe when I come out into the open air from
the temple filled with the smoke of incense--like the milk and bread
which a peasant offered us during our late excursion to the coast, after
we had been living for a year on nothing but dainties."
"He has all the admirable characteristics of a child!" interrupted
Euergetes. "And if that is all that appears estimable to you in the
Roman your son may soon replace the great Cornelius."
"Not soon! no, not till he shall have grown older than you are, and a
man, a thorough man, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,
for such a man is Publius! I believe--nay, I am sure--that he is
incapable of any mean action, that he could not be false in word or
even in look, nor feign a sentiment be did not feel."
"Why so vehement, sister? So much zeal is quite unnecessary on this
occasion! You know well enough that I have my easy days, and that this
excitement is not good for you; nor has the Roman deserved that you
should be quite beside yourself for his sake. The fellow dared in my
presence to look at you as Paris might at Helen before he carried her
off, and to drink out of your cup; and this morning he no doubt did not
contradict what he conveyed to you last night with his eyes--nay, perhaps
by his words. And yet, scarcely an hour before, he had been to the
Necropolis to bear his sweetheart away from the temple of the gloomy
Serapis into that of the smiling Eros."
"You shall prove this!" cried the queen in great excitement. "Publius is
my friend--"
"And I am yours!"
"You have often proved the reverse, and now again with lies
and cheating--"
"You seem," interrupted Euergetes, "to have learned from your
unphilosophical favorite to express your indignation with extraordinary
frankness; to-day however I am, as I have said, as gentle as a kitten--"
"Euergetes and gentleness!" cried Cleopatra with a forced laugh. "No,
you only step softly like a cat when she is watching a bird, and your
gentleness covers some ruthless scheme, which we shall find out soon
enough to our cost. You have been talking with Eulaeus to-day; Eulaeus,
who fears and hates Publius, and it seems to me that you have hatched
some conspiracy against him; but if you dare to cast a single stone in
his path, to touch a single hair of his head, I will show you that even a
weak woman can be terrible. Nemesis and the Erinnyes from Alecto to
Megaera, the most terrible of all the gods, are women!"
Cleopatra had hissed rather than spoken these words, with her teeth set
with rage, and had raised her small fist to threaten her brother; but
Euergetes preserved a perfect composure till she had ceased speaking.
Then he took a step closer to her, crossed his arms over his breast, and
asked her in the deepest bass of his fine deep voice:
"Are you idiotically in love with this Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica,
or do you purpose to make use of him and his kith and kin in Rome against
me?"
Transported with rage, and without blenching in the least at her
brother's piercing gaze, she hastily retorted: "Up to this moment only
the first perhaps--for what is my husband to me? But if you go on as you
have begun I shall begin to consider how I may make use of his influence
and of his liking for me, on the shores of the Tiber."
"Liking!" cried Euergetes, and he laughed so loud and violently that
Zoe, who was listening at the tent door, gave a little scream, and
Cleopatra drew back a step. "And to think that you--the most prudent of
the prudent--who can hear the dew fall and the grass grow, and smell here
in Memphis the smoke of every fire that is lighted in Alexandria or in
Syria or even in Rome--that you, my mother's daughter, should be caught
over head and ears by a broad-shouldered lout, for all the world like a
clumsy town-girl or a wench at a loom. This ignorant Adonis, who knows
so well how to make use of his own strange and resolute personality, and
of the power that stands in his background, thinks no more of the hearts
he sets in flames than I of the earthen jar out of which water is drawn
when I am thirsty. You think to make use of him by the 'Tiber; but he
has anticipated you, and learns from you all that is going on by the Nile
and everything they most want to know in the Senate.
"You do not believe me, for no one ever is ready to believe anything that
can diminish his self-esteem--and why should you believe me? I frankly
confess that I do not hesitate to lie when I hope to gain more by untruth
than by that much-belauded and divine truth, which, according to your
favorite Plato, is allied to all earthly beauty; but it is often just as
useless as beauty itself, for the useful and the beautiful exclude each
other in a thousand cases, for ten when they coincide. There, the gong
is sounding for the third time. If you care for plain proof that the
Roman, only an hour before he visited you this morning, had our
little Hebe carried off from the temple, and conveyed to the house of
Apollodorus, the sculptor, at Memphis, you have only to come to see me in
my rooms early to-morrow after the first morning sacrifice. You will at
any rate wish to come and congratulate me; bring your children with you,
as I propose making them presents. You might even question the Roman
himself at the banquet to-day, but he will hardly appear, for the
sweetest gifts of Eros are bestowed at night, and as the temple of
Serapis is closed at sunset Publius has never yet seen his Irene in the
evening. May I expect you and the children after morning sacrifice?"
Before Cleopatra had time to answer this question another trumpet-blast
was heard, and she exclaimed: "That is Philometor, come to fetch us to
the banquet. I will ere long give the Roman the opportunity of defending
himself, though--in spite of your accusations--I trust him entirely.
This morning I asked him solemnly whether it was true that he was in love
with his friend's charming Hebe, and he denied it in his firm and manly
way, and his replies were admirable and worthy of the noblest mind, when
I ventured to doubt his sincerity. He takes truth more seriously than
you do. He regards it not only as beautiful and right to be truthful,
he says, but as prudent too; for lies can only procure us a small short-
lived advantage, as transitory as the mists of night which vanish as soon
as the sun appears, while truth is like the sunlight itself, which as
often as it is dimmed by clouds reappears again and again. And, he says,
what makes a liar so particularly contemptible in his eyes is, that to
attain his end, he must be constantly declaring and repeating the horror
he has of those who are and do the very same thing as he himself. The
ruler of a state cannot always be truthful, and I often have failed in
truth; but my intercourse with Publius has aroused much that is good in
me, and which had been slumbering with closed eyes; and if this man
should prove to be the same as all the rest of you, then I will follow
your road, Euergetes, and laugh at virtue and truth, and set the busts of
Aristippus and Strato on the pedestals where those of Zeno and
Antisthenes now stand."
"You mean to have the busts of the philosophers moved again?" asked King
Philometor, who, as he entered the tent, had heard the queen's last
words. "And Aristippus is to have the place of honor? I have no
objection--though he teaches that man must subjugate matter and not
become subject to it.--["Mihi res, non me rebus subjungere."]--This
indeed is easier to say than to do, and there is no man to whom it is
more impossible than to a king who has to keep on good terms with Greeks
and Egyptians, as we have, and with Rome as well. And besides all this
to avoid quarrelling with a jealous brother, who shares our kingdom! If
men could only know how much they would have to do as kings only in
reading and writing, they would take care never to struggle for a crown!
Up to this last half hour I have been examining and deciding applications
and petitions. Have you got through yours, Euergetes? Even more had
accumulated for you than for us."
"All were settled in an hour," replied the other promptly. "My eye is
quicker than the mouth of your reader, and my decisions commonly consist
of three words while you dictate long treatises to your scribes. So I
had done when you had scarcely begun, and yet I could tell you at once,
if it were not too tedious a matter, every single case that has come
before me for months, and explain it in all its details."
"That I could not indeed," said Philometor modestly, "but I know and
admire your swift intelligence and accurate memory."
"You see I am more fit for a king than you are;" laughed Euergetes. "You
are too gentle and debonair for a throne! Hand over your government to
me. I will fill your treasury every year with gold. I beg you now, come
to Alexandria with Cleopatra for good, and share with me the palace and
the gardens in the Bruchion. I will nominate your little Philopator heir
to the throne, for I have no wish to contract a permanent tie with any
woman, as Cleopatra belongs to you. This is a bold proposal, but
reflect, Philometor, if you were to accept it, how much time it would
give you for your music, your disputations with the Jews, and all your
other favorite occupations."
"You never know how far you may go with your jest!" interrupted
Cleopatra. "Besides, you devote quite as much time to your studies in
philology and natural history as he does to music and improving
conversations with his learned friends."
"Just so," assented Philometor, "and you may be counted among the sages
of the Museum with far more reason than I."
"But the difference between us," replied Euergetes, "is that I despise
all the philosophical prattlers and rubbish-collectors in Alexandria
almost to the point of hating them, while for science I have as great a
passion as for a lover. You, on the contrary, make much of the learned
men, but trouble yourself precious little about science."
"Drop the subject, pray," begged Cleopatra. "I believe that you two have
never yet been together for half an hour without Euergetes having begun
some dispute, and Philometor having at last given in, to pacify him. Our
guests must have been waiting for us a long time. Had Publius Scipio
made his appearance?"
"He had sent to excuse himself," replied the king as he scratched the
poll of Cleopatra's parrot, parting its feathers with the tips of his
fingers. "Lysias, the Corinthian, is sitting below, and he says he does
not know where his friend can be gone."
"But we know very well," said Euergetes, casting an ironical glance at
the queen. "It is pleasant to be with Philometor and Cleopatra, but
better still with Eros and Hebe. Sister, you look pale--shall I call for
Zoe?"
Cleopatra shook her head in negation, but she dropped into a seat, and
sat stooping, with her head bowed over her knees as if she were
dreadfully tired. Euergetes turned his back on her, and spoke to his
brother of indifferent subjects, while she drew lines, some straight and
some crooked, with her fan-stick through the pile of the soft rug on the
floor, and sat gazing thoughtfully at her feet. As she sat thus her eye
was caught by her sandals, richly set with precious stones, and the
slender toes she had so often contemplated with pleasure; but now the
sight of them seemed to vex her, for in obedience to a swift impulse she
loosened the straps, pushed off her right sandal with her left foot,
kicked it from her, and said, turning to her husband:
"It is late and I do not feel well, and you may sup without me."
"By the healing Isis!" exclaimed Philometor, going up to her. "You look
suffering. Shall I send for the physicians? Is it really nothing more
than your usual headache? The gods be thanked! But that you should be
unwell just to-day! I had so much to say to you; and the chief thing of
all was that we are still a long way from completeness in our
preparations for our performance. If this luckless Hebe were not--"
"She is in good hands," interrupted Euergetes. "The Roman, Publius
Scipio, has taken her to a place of safety; perhaps in order to present
her to me to morrow morning in return for the horses from Cyrene which I
sent him to-day. How brightly your eyes sparkle, sister--with joy no
doubt at this good idea. This evening, I dare say he is rehearsing the
little one in her part that she may perform it well to-morrow. If we are
mistaken--if Publius is ungrateful and proposes keeping the dove, then
Thais, your pretty Athenian waiting-woman, may play the part of Hebe.
What do you think of that suggestion, Cleopatra?"
"That I forbid such jesting with me!" cried the queen vehemently.
"No one has any consideration for me--no one pities me, and I suffer
fearfully! Euergetes scorns me--you, Philometor, would be glad to drag
me down! If only the banquet is not interfered with, and so long as
nothing spoils your pleasure!--Whether I die or no, no one cares!"
With these words the queen burst into tears, and roughly pushed away her
husband as he endeavored to soothe her. At last she dried her eyes, and
said: "Go down-the guests are waiting."
"Immediately, my love," replied Philometor. "But one thing I must tell
you, for I know that it will arouse your sympathy. The Roman read to you
the petition for pardon for Philotas, the chief of the Chrematistes
and 'relative of the king,' which contains such serious charges against
Eulaeus. I was ready with all my heart to grant your wish and to pardon
the man who is the father of these miserable water-bearers; but, before
having the decree drawn up, I had the lists of the exiles to the gold-
mines carefully looked through, and there it was discovered that Philotas
and his wife have both been dead more than half a year. Death has
settled this question, and I cannot grant to Publius the first service he
has asked of me--asked with great urgency too. I am sorry for this, both
for his sake and for that of poor Philotas, who was held in high esteem
by our mother."
"May the ravens devour them!" answered Cleopatra, pressing her forehead
against the ivory frame which surrounded the stuffed back of her seat.
"Once more I beg of you excuse me from all further speech." This time
the two kings obeyed her wishes. When Euergetes offered her his hand she
said with downcast eyes, and poking her fan-stick into the wool of the
carpet:
"I will visit you early to-morrow."
"After the first sacrifice," added Euergetes. "If I know you well,
something that you will then hear will please you greatly; very greatly
indeed, I should think. Bring the children with you; that I ask of you
as a birthday request."
CHAPTER XX.
The royal chariot in which Klea was standing, wrapped in the cloak and
wearing the hat of the captain of the civic guard, went swiftly and
without stopping through the streets of Memphis. As long as she saw
houses with lighted windows on each side of the way, and met riotous
soldiers and quiet citizens going home from the taverns, or from working
late in their workshops, with lanterns in their hands or carried by their
slaves--so long her predominant feeling was one of hatred to Publius; and
mixed with this was a sentiment altogether new to her--a sentiment that
made her blood boil, and her heart now stand still and then again beat
wildly--the thought that he might be a wretched deceiver. Had he not
attempted to entrap one of them--whether her sister or herself it was all
the same--wickedly to betray her, and to get her into his power!
"With me," thought she, "he could not hope to gain his evil ends, and
when he saw that I knew how to protect myself he lured the poor
unresisting child away with him, in order to ruin her and to drag her
into shame and misery. Just like Rome herself, who seizes on one country
after another to make them her own, so is this ruthless man. No sooner
had that villain Eulaeus' letter reached him, than he thought himself
justified in believing that I too was spellbound by a glance from his
eyes, and would spread my wings to fly into his arms; and so he put out
his greedy hand to catch me too, and threw aside the splendor and
delights of a royal banquet to hurry by night out into the desert, and to
risk a hideous death--for the avenging deities still punish the
evildoer."
By this time she was shrouded in total darkness, for the moon was still
hidden by black clouds. Memphis was already behind her, and the chariot
was passing through a tall-stemmed palm-grove, where even at mid-day deep
shades intermingled with the sunlight. When, just at this spot, the
thought once more pierced her soul that the seducer was devoted to death,
she felt as though suddenly a bright glaring light had flashed up in her
and round her, and she could have broken out into a shout of joy like one
who, seeking retribution for blood, places his foot at last on the breast
of his fallen foe. She clenched her teeth tightly and grasped her
girdle, in which she had stuck the knife given her by the smith.
If the charioteer by her side had been Publius, she would have stabbed
him to the heart with the weapon with delight, and then have thrown
herself under the horses' hoofs and the brazen wheels of the chariot.
But no! Still more gladly would she have found him dying in the desert,
and before his heart had ceased to beat have shouted in his ear how much
she hated him; and then, when his breast no longer heaved a breath--then
she would have flung herself upon him, and have kissed his dimmed eyes.
Her wildest thoughts of vengeance were as inseparable from tender pity
and the warmest longings of a heart overflowing with love, as the dark
waters of a river are from the brighter flood of a stream with which it
has recently mingled. All the passionate impulses which had hitherto
been slumbering in her soul were set free, and now raised their clamorous
voices as she was whirled across the desert through the gloom of night.
The wishes roused in her breast by her hatred appealing to her on one
side and her love singing in her ear, in tempting flute-tones, on the
other, jostled and hustled one another, each displacing the other as they
crowded her mind in wild confusion. As she proceeded on her journey she
felt that she could have thrown herself like a tigress on her victim, and
yet--like an outcast woman--have flung herself at Publius' knees in
supplication for the love that was denied her. She had lost all idea of
time and distance, and started as from a wild and bewildering dream when
the chariot suddenly halted, and the driver said in his rough tones:
"Here we are, I must turn back again."
She shuddered, drew the cloak more closely round her, sprang out on to
the road, and stood there motionless till the charioteer said:
"I have not spared my horses, my noble gentleman. Won't you give me
something to get a drop of wine?" Klea's whole possessions were two
silver drachma, of which she herself owned one and the other belonged to
Irene. On the last anniversary but one of his mother's death, the king
had given at the temple a sum to be divided among all the attendants,
male and female, who served Serapis, and a piece of silver had fallen to
the share of herself and her sister. Klea had them both about her in a
little bag, which also contained a ring that her mother had given her at
parting, and the amulet belonging to Serapion. The girl took out the two
silver coins and gave them to the driver, who, after testing the liberal
gift with his fingers, cried out as he turned his horses:
"A pleasant night to you, and may Aphrodite and all the Loves be
favorable!"
"Irene's drachma!" muttered Klea to herself, as the chariot rolled away.
The sweet form of her sister rose before her mind; she recalled the hour
when the girl--still but a child--had entrusted it to her, because she
lost everything unless Klea took charge of it for her.
"Who will watch her and care for her now?" she asked herself, and she
stood thinking, trying to defend herself against the wild wishes which
again began to stir in her, and to collect her scattered thoughts. She
had involuntarily avoided the beam of light which fell across the road
from the tavern-window, and yet she could not help raising her eyes and
looking along it, and she found herself looking through the darkness
which enveloped her, straight into the faces of two men whose gaze was
directed to the very spot where she was standing. And what faces they
were that she saw! One, a fat face, framed in thick hair and a short,
thick and ragged beard, was of a dusky brown and as coarse and brutal as
the other was smooth, colorless and lean, cruel and crafty. The eyes of
the first of these ruffians were prominent, weak and bloodshot, with a
fixed glassy stare, while those of the other seemed always to be on the
watch with a restless and uneasy leer.
These were Euergetes' assassins--they must be! Spellbound with terror
and revulsion she stood quite still, fearing only that the ruffians might
hear the beating of her heart, for she felt as if it were a hammer swung
up and down in an empty space, and beating with loud echoes, now in her
bosom and now in her throat.
"The young gentleman must have gone round behind the tavern--he knows the
shortest way to the 'tombs. Let us go after him, and finish off the
business at once," said the broad-shouldered villain in a hoarse whisper
that broke down every now and then, and which seemed to Klea even more
repulsive than the monster's face.
"So that he may hear us go after him-stupid!" answered the other. "When
he has been waiting for his sweetheart about a quarter of an hour I will
call his name in a woman's voice, and at his first step towards the
desert do you break his neck with the sand-bag. We have plenty of time
yet, for it must still be a good half hour before midnight."
"So much the better," said the other. "Our wine-jar is not nearly empty
yet, and we paid the lazy landlord for it in advance, before he crept
into bed."
"You shall only drink two cups more," said the punier villain. "For this
time we have to do with a sturdy fellow, Setnam is not with us now to
lend a hand in the work, and the dead meat must show no gaping thrusts or
cuts. My teeth are not like yours when you are fasting--even cooked food
must not be too tough for them to chew it, now-a-days. If you soak
yourself in drink and fail in your blow, and I am not ready with the
poisoned stiletto the thing won't come off neatly. But why did not the
Roman let his chariot wait?"
"Aye! why did he let it go away?" asked the other staring open-mouthed
in the direction where the sound of wheels was still to be heard. His
companion mean while laid his hand to his ear, and listened. Both were
silent for a few minutes, then the thin one said:
"The chariot has stopped at the first tavern. So much the better. The
Roman has valuable cattle in his shafts, and at the inn down there, there
is a shed for horses. Here in this hole there is hardly a stall for an
ass, and nothing but sour wine and mouldy beer. I don't like the
rubbish, and save my coin for Alexandria and white Mariotic; that is
strengthening and purifies the blood. For the present I only wish we
were as well off as those horses; they will have plenty of time to
recover their breath."
"Yes, plenty of time," answered the other with a broad grin, and then he
with his companion withdrew into the room to fill his cup.
Klea too could hear that the chariot which had brought her hither, had
halted at the farther tavern, but it did not occur to her that the driver
had gone in to treat himself to wine with half of Irene's drachma. The
horses should make up for the lost time, and they could easily do it, for
when did the king's banquets ever end before midnight?
As soon as Plea saw that the assassins were filling their earthen cups,
she slipped softly on tiptoe behind the tavern; the moon came out from
behind the clouds for a few minutes, she sought and found the short way
by the desert-path to the Apis-tombs, and hastened rapidly along it. She
looked straight before her, for whenever she glanced at the road-side,
and her eye was caught by some dried up shrub of the desert, silvery in
the pale moonlight, she fancied she saw behind it the face of a murderer.
The skeletons of fallen beasts standing up out of the dust, and the
bleached jawbones of camels and asses, which shone much whiter than the
desert-sand on which they lay, seemed to have come to life and motion,
and made her think of the tiger-teeth of the bearded ruffian.
The clouds of dust driven in her face by the warm west wind, which had
risen higher, increased her alarm, for they were mingled with the colder
current of the night-breeze; and again and again she felt as if spirits
were driving her onwards with their hot breath, and stroking her face
with their cold fingers. Every thing that her senses perceived was
transformed by her heated imagination into a fearful something; but more
fearful and more horrible than anything she heard, than any phantom that
met her eye in the ghastly moonlight, were her own thoughts of what was
to be done now, in the immediate future--of the fearful fate that
threatened the Roman and Irene; and she was incapable of separating one
from the other in her mind, for one influence alone possessed her, heart
and soul: dread, dread; the same boundless, nameless, deadly dread--alike
of mortal peril and irremediable shame, and of the airiest phantoms and
the merest nothings.
A large black cloud floated slowly across the moon and utter darkness hid
everything around, even the undefined forms which her imagination had
turned to images of dread. She was forced to moderate her pace, and find
her way, feeling each step; and just as to a child some hideous form that
looms before him vanishes into nothingness when he covers his eyes with
his hand, so the profound darkness which now enveloped her, suddenly
released her soul from a hundred imaginary terrors.
She stood still, drew a deep breath, collected the whole natural force of
her will, and asked herself what she could do to avert the horrid issue.
Since seeing the murderers every thought of revenge, every wish to punish
the seducer with death, had vanished from her mind; one desire alone
possessed her now--that of rescuing him, the man, from the clutches of
these ravening beasts. Walking slowly onwards she repeated to herself
every word she had heard that referred to Publius and Irene as spoken by
Euergetes, Eulaeus, the recluse, and the assassins, and recalled every
step she had taken since she left the temple; thus she brought herself
back to the consciousness that she had come out and faced danger and
endured terror, solely and exclusively for Irene's sake. The image of
her sister rose clearly before her mind in all its bright charm, undimmed
by any jealous grudge which, indeed, ever since her passion had held her
in its toils had never for the smallest fraction of a minute possessed
her.
Irene had grown up under her eye, sheltered by her care, in the sunshine
of her love. To take care of her, to deny herself, and bear the severest
fatigue for her had been her pleasure; and now as she appealed to her
father--as she wont to do--as if he were present, and asked him in an
inaudible cry: "Tell me, have I not done all for her that I could do?"
and said to herself that he could not possibly answer her appeal but with
assent, her eyes filled with tears; the bitterness and discontent which
had lately filled her breast gradually disappeared, and a gentle, calm,
refreshing sense of satisfaction came over her spirit, like a cooling
breeze after a scorching day.
As she now again stood still, straining her eyes which were growing more
accustomed to the darkness, to discover one of the temples at the end of
the alley of sphinxes, suddenly and unexpectedly at her right hand a
solemn and many-voiced hymn of lamentation fell upon her ear. This was
from the priests of Osiris-Apis who were performing the sacred mysteries
of their god, at midnight, on the roof of the temple. She knew the hymn
well--a lament for the deceased Osiris which implored him with urgent
supplication to break the power of death, to rise again, to bestow new
light and new vitality on the world and on men, and to vouchsafe to all
the departed a new existence.
The pious lament had a powerful effect on her excited spirit. Her
parents too perhaps had passed through death, and were now taking part in
the conduct of the destiny of the world and of men in union with the life
giving God. Her breath came fast, she threw up her arms, and, for the
first time since in her wrath she had turned her back on the holy of
holies in the temple of Serapis, she poured forth her whole soul with
passionate fervor in a deep and silent prayer for strength to fulfil her
duty to the end,--for some sign to show her the way to save Irene from
misfortune, and Publius from death. And as she prayed she felt no longer
alone--no, it seemed to her that she stood face to face with the
invincible Power which protects the good, in whom she now again had
faith, though for Him she knew no name; as a daughter, pursued by foes,
might clasp her powerful father's knees and claim his succor.
She had not stood thus with uplifted arms for many minutes when the moon,
once more appearing, recalled her to herself and to actuality. She now
perceived close to her, at hardly a hundred paces from where she stood,
the line of sphinxes by the side of which lay the tombs of Apis near
which she was to await Publius. Her heart began to beat faster again,
and her dread of her own weakness revived. In a few minutes she must
meet the Roman, and, involuntarily putting up her hand to smooth her
hair, she was reminded that she still wore Glaucus' hat on her head and
his cloak wrapped round her shoulders. Lifting up her heart again in a
brief prayer for a calm and collected mind, she slowly arranged her dress
and its folds, and as she did so the key of the tomb-cave, which she
still had about her, fell under her hand. An idea flashed through her
brain--she caught at it, and with hurried breath followed it out, till
she thought she had now hit upon the right way to preserve from death the
man who was so rich and powerful, who had given her nothing but taken
everything from her, and to whom, nevertheless, she--the poor water-
bearer whom he had thought to trifle with--could now bestow the most
precious of the gifts of the immortals, namely, life.
Serapion had said, and she was willing to believe, that Publius was not
base, and he certainly was not one of those who could prove ungrateful to
a preserver. She longed to earn the right to demand something of him,
and that could be nothing else but that he should give up her sister and
bring Irene back to her.
When could it be that he had come to an understanding with the
inexperienced and easily wooed maiden? How ready she must have been to
clasp the hand held out to her by this man! Nothing surprised her in
Irene, the child of the present; she could comprehend too that Irene's
charm might quickly win the heart even of a grave and serious man.
And yet--in all the processions it was never Irene that he had gazed at,
but always herself, and how came it to pass that he had given a prompt
and ready assent to the false invitation to go out to meet her in the
desert at midnight? Perhaps she was still nearer to his heart than
Irene, and if gratitude drew him to her with fresh force then--aye then--
he might perhaps woo her, and forget his pride and her lowly position,
and ask her to be his wife.
She thought this out fully, but before she had reached the half circle
enclosed by the Philosophers' busts the question occurred to her mind.
And Irene?
Had she gone with him and quitted her without bidding her farewell
because the young heart was possessed with a passionate love for Publius
--who was indeed the most lovable of men? And he? Would he indeed, out
of gratitude for what she hoped to do for him, make up his mind, if she
demanded it, to make her Irene his wife--the poor but more than lovely
daughter of a noble house?
And if this were possible, if these two could be happy in love and honor,
should she Klea come between the couple to divide them? Should she
jealously snatch Irene from his arms and carry her back to the gloomy
temple which now--after she had fluttered awhile in sportive freedom
in the sunny air--would certainly seem to her doubly sinister and
unendurable? Should she be the one to plunge Irene into misery--Irene,
her child, the treasure confided to her care, whom she had sworn to
cherish?
"No, and again no," she said resolutely. "She was born for happiness,
and I for endurance, and if I dare beseech thee to grant me one thing
more, O thou infinite Divinity! it is that Thou wouldst cut out from my
soul this love which is eating into my heart as though it were rotten
wood, and keep me far from envy and jealousy when I see her happy in his
arms. It is hard--very hard to drive one's own heart out into the desert
in order that spring may blossom in that of another: but it is well so--
and my mother would commend me and my father would say I had acted after
his own heart, and in obedience to the teaching of the great men on these
pedestals. Be still, be still my aching heart--there--that is right!"
Thus reflecting she went past the busts of Zeno and Chrysippus, glancing
at their features distinct in the moonlight: and her eyes falling on the
smooth slabs of stone with which the open space was paved, her own shadow
caught her attention, black and sharply defined, and exactly resembling
that of some man travelling from one town to another in his cloak and
broad-brimmed hat.
"Just like a man!" she muttered to herself; and as, at the same moment,
she saw a figure resembling her own, and, like herself, wearing a hat,
appear near the entrance to the tombs, and fancied she recognized it as
Publius, a thought, a scheme, flashed through her excited brain, which at
first appalled her, but in the next instant filled her with the ecstasy
which an eagle may feel when he spreads his mighty wings and soars above
the dust of the earth into the pure and infinite ether. Her heart beat
high, she breathed deeply and slowly, but she advanced to meet the Roman,
drawn up to her full height like a queen, who goes forward to receive
some equal sovereign; her hat, which she had taken off, in her left hand,
and the Smith's key in her right-straight on towards the door of the
Apis-tombs.
CHAPTER XXI.
The man whom Klea had seen was in fact none other than Publius. He was
now at the end of a busy day, for after he had assured himself that Irene
had been received by the sculptor and his wife, and welcomed as if she
were their own child, he had returned to his tent to write once more a
dispatch to Rome. But this he could not accomplish, for his friend
Lysias paced restlessly up and down by him as he sat, and as often as he
put the reed to the papyrus disturbed him with enquiries about the
recluse, the sculptor, and their rescued protegee.
When, finally, the Corinthian desired to know whether he, Publius,
considered Irene's eyes to be brown or blue, he had sprung up
impatiently, and exclaimed indignantly:
"And supposing they were red or green, what would it matter to me!"
Lysias seemed pleased rather than vexed with this reply, and he was on
the point of confessing to his friend that Irene had caused in his heart
a perfect conflagration--as of a forest or a city in flames--when a
master of the horse had appeared from Euergetes, to present the four
splendid horses from Cyrene, which his master requested the noble Roman
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica to accept in token of his friendship.
The two friends, who both were judges and lovers of horses, spent at
least an hour in admiring the fine build and easy paces of these valuable
beasts. Then came a chamberlain from the queen to invite Publius to go
to her at once.
The Roman followed the messenger after a short delay in his tent, in
order to take with him the gems representing the marriage of Hebe, for on
his way from the sculptor's to the palace it had occurred to him that he
would offer them to the queen, after he had informed her of the parentage
of the two water-carriers. Publius had keen eyes, and the queen's
weaknesses had not escaped him, but he had never suspected her of being
capable of abetting her licentious brother in forcibly possessing himself
of the innocent daughter of a noble father. He now purposed to make her
a present--as in some degree a substitute for the representation his
friend had projected, and which had come to nothing--of the picture which
she had hoped to find pleasure in reproducing.
Cleopatra received him on her roof, a favor of which few could boast; she
allowed him to sit at her feet while she reclined on her couch, and gave
him to understand, by every glance of her eyes and every word she spoke,
that his presence was a happiness to her, and filled her with passionate
delight. Publius soon contrived to lead the conversation to the subject
of the innocent parents of the water-bearers, who had been sent off to
the goldmines; but Cleopatra interrupted his speech in their favor and
asked him plainly, undisguisedly, and without any agitation, whether it
was true that he himself desired to win the youthful Hebe. And she met
his absolute denial with such persistent and repeated expressions of
disbelief, assuming at last a tone of reproach, that he grew vexed and
broke out into a positive declaration that he regarded lying as unmanly
and disgraceful, and could endure any insult rather than a doubt of his
veracity.
Such a vehement and energetic remonstrance from a man she had
distinguished was a novelty to Cleopatra, and she did not take it amiss,
for she might now believe--what she much wished to believe--that Publius
wanted to have nothing to do with the fair Hebe, that Eulaeus had
slandered her friend, and that Zoe had been in error when, after her vain
expedition to the temple--from which she had then just returned--she had
told her that the Roman was Irene's lover, and must at the earliest hour
have betrayed to the girl herself, or to the priests in the Serapeum,
what was their purpose regarding her.
In the soul of this noble youth there was nothing false--there could be
nothing false! And she, who was accustomed never to hear a word from the
men who surrounded her without asking herself with what aim it was
spoken, and how much of it was dissimulation or downright falsehood,
trusted the Roman, and was so happy in her trust that, full of gracious
gaiety, she herself invited Publius to give her the recluse's petition
to read. The Roman at once gave her the roll, saying that since it
contained so much that was sad, much as he hoped she would make herself
acquainted with it, he felt himself called upon also to give her some
pleasure, though in truth but a very small one. Thus speaking he
produced the gems, and she showed as much delight over this little work
of art as if, instead of being a rich queen and possessed of the finest
engraved gems in the world, she were some poor girl receiving her first
gift of some long-desired gold ornament.
"Exquisite, splendid!" she cried again and again. "And besides, they
are an imperishable memorial of you, dear friend, and of your visit to
Egypt. I will have them set with the most precious stones; even diamonds
will seem worthless to me compared with this gift from you. This has
already decided my sentence as to Eulaeus and his unhappy victims before
I read your petition. Still I will read that roll, and read it
attentively, for my husband regards Eulaeus as a useful--almost an
indispensable-tool, and I must give good reasons for my verdict and for
the pardon. I believe in the innocence of the unfortunate Philotas, but
if he had committed a hundred murders, after this present I would procure
his freedom all the same."
The words vexed the Roman, and they made her who had spoken them in order
to please him appear to him at that moment more in the light of a
corruptible official than of a queen. He found the time hang heavy that
he spent with Cleopatra, who, in spite of his reserve, gave him to
understand with more and more insistence how warmly she felt towards him;
but the more she talked and the more she told him, the more silent he
became, and he breathed a sigh of relief when her husband at last
appeared to fetch him and Cleopatra away to their mid-day meal.
At table Philometor promised to take up the cause of Philotas and his
wife, both of whom he had known, and whose fate had much grieved him;
still he begged his wife and the Roman not to bring Eulaeus to justice
till Euergetes should have left Memphis, for, during his brother's
presence, beset as he was with difficulties, he could not spare him; and
if he might judge of Publius by himself he cared far more to reinstate
the innocent in their rights, and to release them from their miserable
lot--a lot of which he had only learned the full horrors quite recently
from his tutor Agatharchides--than to drag a wretch before the judges
to-morrow or the day after, who was unworthy of his anger, and who at
any rate should not escape punishment.
Before the letter from Asclepiodorus--stating the mistaken hypothesis
entertained by the priests of Serapis that Irene had been carried off by
the king's order--could reach the palace, Publius had found an
opportunity of excusing himself and quitting the royal couple. Not even
Cleopatra herself could raise any objection to his distinct assurance
that he must write to Rome today on matters of importance. Philometor's
favor was easy to win, and as soon as he was alone with his wife he could
not find words enough in praise of the noble qualities of the young man,
who seemed destined in the future to be of the greatest service to him
and to his interests at Rome, and whose friendly attitude towards himself
was one more advantage that he owed--as he was happy to acknowledge--to
the irresistible talents and grace of his wife.
When Publius had quitted the palace and hurried back to his tent, he felt
like a journeyman returning from a hard day's labor, or a man acquitted
from a serious charge; like one who had lost his way, and has found the
right road again.
The heavy air in the arbors and alleys of the embowered gardens seemed to
him easier to breathe than the cool breeze that fanned Cleopatra's raised
roof. He felt the queen's presence to be at once exciting and
oppressive, and in spite of all that was flattering to himself in the
advances made to him by the powerful princess, it was no more gratifying
to his taste than an elegantly prepared dish served on gold plate, which
we are forced to partake of though poison may be hidden in it, and which
when at last we taste it is sickeningly sweet.
Publius was an honest man, and it seemed to him--as to all who resemble
him--that love which was forced upon him was like a decoration of honor
bestowed by a hand which we do not respect, and that we would rather
refuse than accept; or like praise out of all proportion to our merit,
which may indeed delight a fool, but rouses the indignation rather than
the gratitude of a wise man. It struck him too that Cleopatra intended
to make use of him, in the first place as a toy to amuse herself, and
then as a useful instrument or underling, and this so gravely incensed
and discomfited the serious and sensitive young man that he would
willingly have quitted Memphis and Egypt at once and without any leave-
taking. However, it was not quite easy for him to get away, for all his
thoughts of Cleopatra were mixed up with others of Klea, as inseparably
as when we picture to ourselves the shades of night, the tender light of
the calm moon rises too before our fancy.
Having saved Irene, his present desire was to restore her parents to
liberty; to quit Egypt without having seen Klea once more seemed to him
absolutely impossible. He endeavored once more to revive in his mind the
image of her proud tall figure; he felt he must tell her that she was
beautiful, a woman worthy of a king--that he was her friend and hated
injustice, and was ready to sacrifice much for justice's sake and for her
own in the service of her parents and herself. To-day again, before the
banquet, he purposed to go to the temple, and to entreat the recluse to
help him to an interview with his adopted daughter.
If only Klea could know beforehand what he had been doing for Irene and
their parents she must surely let him see that her haughty eyes could
look kindly on him, must offer him her hand in farewell, and then he
should clasp it in both his, and press it to his breast. Then would he
tell her in the warmest and most inspired words he could command how
happy he was to have seen her and known her, and how painful it was to
bid her farewell; perhaps she might leave her hand in his, and give him
some kind word in return. One kind word--one phrase of thanks from
Klea's firm but beautiful mouth--seemed to him of higher value than a
kiss or an embrace from the great and wealthy Queen of Egypt.
When Publius was excited he could be altogether carried away by a sudden
sweep of passion, but his imagination was neither particularly lively nor
glowing. While his horses were being harnessed, and then while he was
driving to the Serapeum, the tall form of the water-bearer was constantly
before him; again and again he pictured himself holding her hand instead
of the reins, and while he repeated to himself all he meant to say at
parting, and in fancy heard her thank him with a trembling voice for his
valuable help, and say that she would never forget him, he felt his eyes
moisten--unused as they had been to tears for many years. He could not
help recalling the day when he had taken leave of his family to go to the
wars for the first time. Then it had not been his own eyes but his
mother's that had sparkled through tears, and it struck him that Klea,
if she could be compared to any other woman, was most like to that noble
matron to whom he owed his life, and that she might stand by the side of
the daughter of the great Scipio Africanus like a youthful Minerva by the
side of Juno, the stately mother of the gods.
His disappointment was great when he found the door of the temple closed,
and was forced to return to Memphis without having seen either Klea or
the recluse.
He could try again to-morrow to accomplish what had been impossible to-
day, but his wish to see the girl he loved, rose to a torturing longing,
and as he sat once more in his tent to finish his second despatch to Rome
the thought of Klea came again to disturb his serious work. Twenty times
he started up to collect his thoughts, and as often flung away his reed
as the figure of the water-bearer interposed between him and the writing
under his hand; at last, out of patience with himself, he struck the
table in front of him with some force, set his fists in his sides hard
enough to hurt himself, and held them there for a minute, ordering
himself firmly and angrily to do his duty before he thought of anything
else.
His iron will won the victory; by the time it was growing dusk the
despatch was written. He was in the very act of stamping the wax of the
seal with the signet of his family--engraved on the sardonyx of his ring-
-when one of his servants announced a black slave who desired to speak
with him. Publius ordered that he should be admitted, and the negro
handed him the tile on which Eulaeus had treacherously written Klea's
invitation to meet her at midnight near the Apis-tombs. His enemy's
crafty-looking emissary seemed to the young man as a messenger from the
gods; in a transport of haste and, without the faintest shadow of a
suspicion he wrote, "I will be there," on the luckless piece of clay.
Publius was anxious to give the letter to the Senate, which he had just
finished, with his own hand, and privately, to the messenger who had
yesterday brought him the despatch from Rome; and as he would rather have
set aside an invitation to carry off a royal treasure that same night
than have neglected to meet Klea, he could not in any case be a guest at
the king's banquet, though Cleopatra would expect to see him there in
accordance with his promise. At this juncture he was annoyed to miss his
friend Lysias, for he wished to avoid offending the queen; and the
Corinthian, who at this moment was doubtless occupied in some perfectly
useless manner, was as clever in inventing plausible excuses as he
himself was dull in such matters. He hastily wrote a few lines to the
friend who shared his tent, requesting him to inform the king that he had
been prevented by urgent business from appearing among his guests that
evening; then he threw on his cloak, put on his travelling-hat which
shaded his face, and proceeded on foot and without any servant to the
harbor, with his letter in one hand and a staff in the other.
The soldiers and civic guards which filled the courts of the palace,
taking him for a messenger, did not challenge him as he walked swiftly
and firmly on, and so, without being detained or recognized, he reached
the inn by the harbor, where he was forced to wait an hour before the
messenger came home from the gay strangers' quarter where he had gone to
amuse himself. He had a great deal to talk of with this man, who was to
set out next morning for Alexandria and Rome; but Publius hardly gave
himself the necessary time, for he meant to start for the meeting place
in the Necropolis indicated by Klea, and well-known to himself, a full
hour before midnight, although he knew that be could reach his
destination in a very much shorter time.
The sun seems to move too slowly to those who long and wait, and a planet
would be more likely to fail in punctuality than a lover when called by
love.
In order to avoid observation he did not take a chariot but a strong mule
which the host of the inn lent him with pleasure; for the Roman was so
full of happy excitement in the hope of meeting Klea that he had slipped
a gold piece into the small, lightly-closed fingers of the innkeeper's
pretty child, which lay asleep on a bench by the side of the table,
besides paying double as much for the country wine he had drunk as if it
had been fine Falernian and without asking for his reckoning. The host
looked at him in astonishment when, finally, he sprang with a grand leap
on to the back of the tall beast, without laying his hand on it; and it
seemed even to Publius himself as though he had never since boyhood felt
so fresh, so extravagantly happy as at this moment.
The road to the tombs from the harbor was a different one to that which
led thither from the king's palace, and which Klea had taken, nor did it
lead past the tavern in which she had seen the murderers. By day it was
much used by pilgrims, and the Roman could not miss it even by night, for
the mule he was riding knew it well. That he had learned, for in answer
to his question as to what the innkeeper kept the beast for he had said
that it was wanted every day to carry pilgrims arriving from Upper Egypt
to the temple of Serapis and the tombs of the sacred bulls; he could
therefore very decidedly refuse the host's offer to send a driver with
the beast. All who saw him set out supposed that he was returning to the
city and the palace.
Publius rode through the streets of the city at an easy trot, and, as the
laughter of soldiers carousing in a tavern fell upon his ear, he could
have joined heartily in their merriment. But when the silent desert lay
around him, and the stars showed him that he would be much too early at
the appointed place, he brought the mule to a slower pace, and the nearer
he came to his destination the graver he grew, and the stronger his heart
beat. It must be something important and pressing indeed that Klea
desired to tell him in such a place and at such an hour. Or was she like
a thousand other women--was he now on the way to a lover's meeting with
her, who only a few days before had responded to his glance and accepted
his violets?
This thought flashed once through his mind with importunate distinctness,
but he dismissed it as absurd and unworthy of himself. A king would be
more likely to offer to share his throne with a beggar than this girl
would be to invite him to enjoy the sweet follies of love-making with her
in a secret spot.
Of course she wanted above all things to acquire some certainty as to her
sister's fate, perhaps too to speak to him of her parents; still, she
would hardly have made up her mind to invite him if she had not learned
to trust him, and this confidence filled him with pride, and at the same
time with an eager longing to see her, which seemed to storm his heart
with more violence with every minute that passed.
While the mule sought and found its way in the deep darkness with slow
and sure steps, he gazed up at the firmament, at the play of the clouds
which now covered the moon with their black masses, and now parted,
floating off in white sheeny billows while the silver crescent of the
moon showed between them like a swan against the dark mirror of a lake.
And all the time he thought incessantly of Klea--thinking in a dreamy way
that he saw her before him, but different and taller than before, her
form growing more and more before his eyes till at last it was so tall
that her head touched the sky, the clouds seemed to be her veil, and the
moon a brilliant diadem in her abundant dark hair. Powerfully stirred by
this vision he let the bridle fall on the mule's neck, and spread open
his arms to the beautiful phantom, but as he rode forwards it ever
retired, and when presently the west wind blew the sand in his face, and
he had to cover his eyes with his hand it vanished entirely, and did not
return before he found himself at the Apis-tombs.
He had hoped to find here a soldier or a watchman to whom he could
entrust the beast, but when the midnight chant of the priests of the
temple of Osiris-Apis had died away not a sound was to be heard far or
near; all that lay around him was as still and as motionless as though
all that had ever lived there were dead. Or had some demon robbed him of
his hearing? He could hear the rush of his own swift pulses in his ears-
not the faintest sound besides.
Such silence is there nowhere but in the city of the dead and at night,
nowhere but in the desert.
He tied the mule's bridle to a stela of granite covered with
inscriptions, and went forward to the appointed place. Midnight must be
past--that he saw by the position of the moon, and he was beginning to
ask himself whether he should remain standing where he was or go on to
meet the water-bearer when he heard first a light footstep, and then saw
a tall erect figure wrapped in a long mantle advancing straight towards
him along the avenue of sphinxes. Was it a man or a woman--was it she
whom he expected? and if it were she, was there ever a woman who had come
to meet a lover at an assignation with so measured, nay so solemn,
a step? Now he recognized her face--was it the pale moonlight that made
it look so bloodless and marble-white? There was something rigid in her
features, and yet they had never--not even when she blushingly accepted
his violets--looked to him so faultlessly beautiful, so regular and so
nobly cut, so dignified, nay impressive.
For fully a minute the two stood face to face, speechless and yet quite
near to each other. Then Publius broke the silence, uttering with the
warmest feeling and yet with anxiety in his deep, pure voice, only one
single word; and the word was her name "Klea."
The music of this single word stirred the girl's heart like a message and
blessing from heaven, like the sweetest harmony of the siren's song, like
the word of acquittal from a judge's lips when the verdict is life or
death, and her lips were already parted to say 'Publius' in a tone no
less deep and heartfelt-but, with all the force of her soul, she
restrained herself, and said softly and quickly:
"You are here at a late hour, and it is well that you have come."
"You sent for me," replied the Roman.
"It was another that did that, not I," replied Klea in a slow dull tone,
as if she were lifting a heavy weight, and could hardly draw her breath.
"Now--follow me, for this is not the place to explain everything in."
With these words Klea went towards the locked door of the Apis-tombs, and
tried, as she stood in front of it, to insert into the lock the key that
Krates had given her; but the lock was still so new, and her fingers
shook so much, that she could not immediately succeed. Publius meanwhile
was standing close by her side, and as he tried to help her his fingers
touched hers.
And when he--certainly not by mistake--laid his strong and yet trembling
hand on hers, she let it stay for a moment, for she felt as if a tide of
warm mist rose up in her bosom dimming her perceptions, and paralyzing
her will and blurring her sight.
"Klea," he repeated, and he tried to take her left hand in his own; but
she, like a person suddenly aroused to consciousness after a short dream,
immediately withdrew the hand on which his was resting, put the key into
the lock, opened the door, and exclaimed in a voice of almost stern
command, "Go in first."
Publius obeyed and entered the spacious antechamber of the venerable
cave, hewn out of the rock and now dimly lighted. A curved passage of
which he could not see the end lay before him, and on both sides, to the
right and left of him, opened out the chambers in which stood the
sarcophagi of the deceased sacred bulls. Over each of the enormous stone
coffins a lamp burnt day and night, and wherever a vault stood open their
glimmer fell across the deep gloom of the cave, throwing a bright beam of
light on the dusky path that led into the heart of the rock, like a
carpet woven of rays of light.
What place was this that Klea had chosen to speak with him in.
But though her voice sounded firm, she herself was not cool and
insensible as Orcus--which this place, which was filled with the fumes of
incense and weighed upon his senses, much resembled--for he had felt her
fingers tremble under his, and when he went up to her, to help her, her
heart beat no less violently and rapidly than his own. Ah! the man who
should succeed in touching that heart of hard, but pure and precious
crystal would indeed enjoy a glorious draught of the most perfect bliss.
"This is our destination," said Klea; and then she went on in short
broken sentences. "Remain where you are. Leave me this place near the
door. Now, answer me first one question. My sister Irene has vanished
from the temple. Did you cause her to be carried off?"
"I did," replied Publius eagerly. "She desired me to greet you from her,
and to tell you how much she likes her new friends. When I shall have
told you--"
"Not now" interrupted Klea excitedly. "Turn round--there where you see
the lamp-light." Publius did as he was desired, and a slight shudder
shook even his bold heart, for the girl's sayings and doings seemed to
him not solemn merely, but mysterious like those of a prophetess. A
violent crash sounded through the silent and sacred place, and loud
echoes were tossed from side to side, ringing ominously throughout the
grotto. Publius turned anxiously round, and his eye, seeking Klea, found
her no more; then, hurrying to the door of the cave, he heard her lock it
on the outside.
The water-bearer had escaped him, had flung the heavy door to, and
imprisoned him; and this idea was to the Roman so degrading and
unendurable that, lost to every feeling but rage, wounded pride, and the
wild desire to be free, he kicked the door with all his might, and called
out angrily to Klea:
"Open this door--I command you. Let me free this moment or, by all the
gods--"
He did not finish his threat, for in the middle of the right-hand panel
of the door a small wicket was opened through which the priests were wont
to puff incense into the tomb of the sacred bulls--and twice, thrice,
finally, when he still would not be pacified, a fourth time, Klea called
out to him:
"Listen to me--listen to me, Publius." Publius ceased storming, and she
went on:
"Do not threaten me, for you will certainly repent it when you have heard
what I have to tell you. Do not interrupt me; I may tell you at once
this door is opened every day before sunrise, so your imprisonment will
not last long; and you must submit to it, for I shut you in to save your
life--yes, your life which was in danger. Do you think my anxiety was
folly? No, Publius, it is only too well founded, and if you, as a man,
are strong and bold, so am I as a woman. I never was afraid of an
imaginary nothing. Judge yourself whether I was not right to be afraid
for you.
"King Euergetes and Eulaeus have bribed two hideous monsters to murder
you. When I went to seek out Irene I overheard all, and I have seen with
my own eyes the two horrible wolves who are lurking to fall upon you, and
heard with these ears their scheme for doing it. I never wrote the note
on the tile which was signed with my name; Eulaeus did it, and you took
his bait and came out into the desert by night. In a few minutes the
ruffians will have stolen up to this place to seek their victim, but they
will not find you, Publius, for I have saved you--I, Klea, whom you first
met with smiles--whose sister you have stolen away--the same Klea that
you a minute since were ready to threaten. Now, at once, I am going into
the desert, dressed like a traveller in a coat and hat, so that in the
doubtful light of the moon I may easily be taken for you--going to give
my weary heart as a prey to the assassins' knife."
"You are mad!" cried Publius, and he flung himself with his whole weight
on the door, and kicked it with all his strength. "What you purpose is
pure madness open the door, I command you! However strong the villains
may be that Euergetes has bribed, I am man enough to defend myself."
"You are unarmed, Publius, and they have cords and daggers."
"Then open the door, and stay here with me till day dawns. It is not
noble, it is wicked to cast away your life. Open the door at once, I
entreat you, I command you!"
At any other time the words would not have failed of their effect on
Klea's reasonable nature, but the fearful storm of feeling which had
broken over her during the last few hours had borne away in its whirl all
her composure and self-command. The one idea, the one resolution, the
one desire, which wholly possessed her was to close the life that had
been so full of self-sacrifice by the greatest sacrifice of all--that of
life itself, and not only in order to secure Irene's happiness and to
save the Roman, but because it pleased her--her father's daughter--
to make a noble end; because she, the maiden, would fain show Publius
what a woman might be capable of who loved him above all others;
because, at this moment, death did not seem a misfortune; and her mind,
overwrought by hours of terrific tension, could not free itself from the
fixed idea that she would and must sacrifice herself.
She no longer thought these things--she was possessed by them; they had
the mastery, and as a madman feels forced to repeat the same words again
and again to himself, so no prayer, no argument at this moment would have
prevailed to divert her from her purpose of giving up her young life for
Publius and Irene. She contemplated this resolve with affection and
pride as justifying her in looking up to herself as to some nobler
creature. She turned a deaf ear to the Roman's entreaty, and said in a
tone of which the softness surprised him:
"Be silent Publius, and hear me further. You too are noble, and
certainly you owe me some gratitude for having saved your life."
"I owe you much, and I will pay it," cried Publius, "as long as there is
breath in this body--but open the door, I beseech you, I implore you--"
"Hear me to the end, time presses; hear me out, Publius. My sister Irene
went away with you. I need say nothing about her beauty, but how bright,
how sweet her nature is you do not know, you cannot know, but you will
find out. She, you must be told, is as poor as I am, but the child of
freeborn and noble parents. Now swear to me, swear--no, do not interrupt
me--swear by the head of your father that you will never, abandon her,
that you will never behave to her otherwise than as if she were the
daughter of your dearest friend or of your own brother."
"I swear it and I will keep my oath--by the life of the man whose head is
more sacred to me than the names of all the gods. But now I beseech you,
I command you open this door, Klea--that I may not lose you--that I may
tell you that my whole heart is yours, and yours alone--that I love you,
love you unboundedly."
"I have your oath," cried the girl in great excitement, for she could now
see a shadow moving backwards and forwards at some distance in the
desert. "You have sworn by the head of your father. Never let Irene
repent having gone with you, and love her always as you fancy now, in
this moment, that you love me, your preserver. Remember both of you the
hapless Klea who would gladly have lived for you, but who now gladly dies
for you. Do not forget me, Publius, for I have never but this once
opened my heart to love, but I have loved you Publius, with pain and
torment, and with sweet delight--as no other woman ever yet revelled in
the ecstasy of love or was consumed in its torments." She almost shouted
the last words at the Roman as if she were chanting a hymn of triumph,
beside herself, forgetting everything and as if intoxicated.
Why was he now silent, why had he nothing to answer, since she had
confessed to him the deepest secret of her breast, and allowed him to
look into the inmost sanctuary of her heart? A rush of burning words
from his lips would have driven her off at once to the desert and to
death; his silence held her back--it puzzled her and dropped like cool
rain on the soaring flames of her pride, fell on the raging turmoil of
her soul like oil on troubled water. She could not part from him thus,
and her lips parted to call him once more by his name.
While she had been making confession of her love to the Roman as if
it were her last will and testament, Publius felt like a man dying of
thirst, who has been led to a flowing well only to be forbidden to
moisten his lips with the limpid fluid. His soul was filled with
passionate rage approaching to despair, and as with rolling eyes he
glanced round his prison an iron crow-bar leaning against the wall met
his gaze; it had been used by the workmen to lift the sarcophagus of the
last deceased Apis into its right place. He seized upon this tool, as a
drowning man flings himself on a floating plank: still he heard Klea's
last words, and did not lose one of them, though the sweat poured from
his brow as he inserted the metal lever like a wedge between the two
halves of the door, just above the threshold.
All was now silent outside; perhaps the distracted girl was already
hurrying towards the assassins--and the door was fearfully heavy and
would not open nor yield. But he must force it--he flung himself on the
earth and thrust his shoulder under the lever, pushing his whole body
against the iron bar, so that it seemed to him that every joint
threatened to give way and every sinew to crack; the door rose--once more
he put forth the whole strength of his manly vigor, and now the seam in
the wood cracked, the door flew open, and Klea, seized with terror, flew
off and away--into the desert--straight towards the murderers.
Publius leaped to his feet and flung himself out of his prison; as he saw
Klea escape he flew after her with, hasty leaps, and caught her in a few
steps, for her mantle hindered her in running, and when she would not
obey his desire that she should stand still he stood in front of her and
said, not tenderly but sternly and decidedly:
"You do not go a step farther, I forbid it."
"I am going where I must go," cried the girl in great agitation. "Let me
go, at once!"
"You will stay here--here with me," snarled Publius, and taking both
her hands by the wrists he clasped them with his iron fingers as with
handcuffs. "I am the man and you are the woman, and I will teach you
who is to give orders here and who is to obey."
Anger and rage prompted these quite unpremeditated words, and as Klea--
while he spoke them with quivering lips--had attempted with the exertion
of all her strength, which was by no means contemptible, to wrench her
hands from his grasp, he forced her--angry as he still was, but
nevertheless with due regard for her womanliness--forced her by a gentle
and yet irresistible pressure on her arms to bend before him, and
compelled her slowly to sink down on both knees.
As soon as she was in this position, Publius let her free; she covered
her eyes with her aching hands and sobbed aloud, partly from anger, and
because she felt herself bitterly humiliated.
"Now, stand up," said Publius in an altered tone as he heard her weeping.
"Is it then such a hard matter to submit to the will of a man who will
not and cannot let you go, and whom you love, besides?" How gentle and
kind the words sounded! Klea, when she heard them, raised her eyes to
Publius, and as she saw him looking down on her as a supplicant her anger
melted and turned to grateful emotion--she went closer to him on her
knees, laid her head against him and said:
"I have always been obliged to rely upon myself, and to guide another
person with loving counsel, but it must be sweeter far to be led by
affection and I will always, always obey you."
"I will thank you with heart and soul henceforth from this hour!" cried
Publius, lifting her up. "You were ready to sacrifice your life for me,
and now mine belongs to you. I am yours and you are mine--I your
husband, you my wife till our life's end!"
He laid his hands on her shoulders, and turned her face round to his; she
resisted no longer, for it was sweet to her to yield her will to that of
this strong man. And how happy was she, who from her childhood had taken
it upon herself to be always strong, and self-reliant, to feel herself
the weaker, and to be permitted to trust in a stronger arm than her own.
Somewhat thus a young rose-tree might feel, which for the first time
receives the support of the prop to which it is tied by the careful
gardener.
Her eyes rested blissfully and yet anxiously on his, and his lips had
just touched hers in a first kiss when they started apart in terror, for
Klea's name was clearly shouted through the still night-air, and in the
next instant a loud scream rang out close to them followed by dull cries
of pain.
"The murderers!" shrieked Klea, and trembling for herself and for him
she clung closely to her lover's breast. In one brief moment the self-
reliant heroine--proud in her death-defying valor--had become a weak,
submissive, dependent woman.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Created the world out of nothing for no other purpose
Dreamless sleep after a day brimful of enjoyment
Man must subjugate matter and not become subject to it
No one believes anything that can diminish his self-esteem
Praise out of all proportion to our merit
Save them the trouble of thinking for themselves
She no longer thought these things--she was possessed by them
Taken it upon herself to be always strong, and self-reliant
The most terrible of all the gods, are women
The sun seems to move too slowly to those who long and wait
We seek for truth; the Jews believe they possess it entirely
Who always think at second-hand
Why so vehement, sister? So much zeal is quite unnecessary
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