Georg Ebers
The Emperor. Complete
But sleep avoided the artist who was too much excited by his rapid night’s work, and as soon as Selene opened the door he sat upright and peeped through an opening between the frames of his place of retirement. When he saw the tall draped figure in whose hand a lamp was trembling, when he watched her cross the spacious hall, and then suddenly stand still, he was not a little startled, but this did not hinder him from noting every step of the nocturnal spectre with far more curiosity than alarm. Then, when Selene looked round her, and the lamp illuminated her face, be recognized the steward’s daughter, and immediately knew what she must be seeking.
Her vain attempts to rouse the sleeper, though somewhat pathetic, had in them at the same time something irresistibly ludicrous, and Pollux felt sorely tempted to laugh. But as soon as Selene began to weep so bitterly he hastily pushed apart two of the laths of the screen, went up and called her name, at first softly not to frighten her, and then more loudly. When she turned her head he begged her warmly not to be alarmed far he was no ghost, only a very humble and ordinary mortal, in fact-as she might see—nothing more, alas! than the son of Euphorian, the gate-keeper, good for nothing as yet, but treading the path to something better.
“You, Pollux?” asked the girl with surprise.
“The very man. But you—can I help you?”
“My poor father,” sobbed Selene. “He does not stir, he is immovable—and his face—oh! merciful gods.”
“A man who snores is not dead,” said the sculptor. “But the doctor told him—”
“He is not even ill! Pontius only gave him stronger wine to drink than he is used to. Let him be; he is sleeping with the pillow under his neck, as comfortably as a child. When he began just now to trumpet a little too loud I whistled as loud as a plover, for that often silences a snorer; but I could more easily have made those stone Muses dance than have roused him.”
“If only we could get him to bed.”
“Well, if you have four horses at hand.”
“You are as bad as you ever were!”
“A little less so, Selene, only you must become accustomed again to my way of speaking. This time I only mean that we two together are not strong enough to carry him away.”
“But what can I do, then? The doctor said—”
“Never mind the doctor. The complaint your father is suffering from is one I know well. It will be gone to-morrow, perhaps by sundown, and the only pain it will leave behind, he will feel under his wig. Only leave him to sleep.”
“But it is so cold here.”
“Take my cloak and cover him with that.”
“Then you will be frozen.”
“I am used to it. How long has Keraunus had dealings with the doctor?”
Selene related the accident that had befallen her father and how justified were her fears. The sculptor listened to her in silence and then said in a quite altered tone:
“I am truly sorry to hear it. Let us put some cold water on his forehead, and until the slaves come back again I will change the wet cloth every quarter of an hour. Here is a jar and a handkerchief—good, they might have been left on purpose. Perhaps, too, it will wake him, and if not the people shall carry him to his own rooms.”
“Disgraceful, disgraceful!” sighed the girl.
“Not at all; the high-priest of Serapis even is sometimes unwell. Only let me see to it.”
“It will excite him afresh if he sees you. He is so angry with you—so very angry.”
“Omnipotent Zeus, what harm have I done you, fat father! The gods forgive the sins of the wise, and a man will not forgive the fault committed by a stupid lad in a moment of imprudence.”
“You mocked at him.”
“I set a clay head that was like him on the shoulders of the fat Silenus near the gate, that had lost its own head. It was my first piece of independent work.”
“But you did it to vex my father.”
“Certainly not, Selene; I was delighted with the joke and nothing more.”
“But you knew how touchy he is.”
“And does a wild boy of fifteen ever reflect on the consequences of his audacity? If he had but given me a thrashing his annoyance would have discharged itself like thunder and lightning, and the air would have been clear again. But, as it was, he cut the face off the work with a knife, and deliberately trod the pieces under foot as they lay on the ground. He gave me one single blow—with his thumb—which I still feel, it is true, and then he treated me and my parents with such scorn, so coldly and hardly, with such bitter contempt—”
“He never is really violent, but wrath seems to eat him inwardly, and I have rarely seen him so angry as he was that time.”
“But if he had only settled the account with me on the spot! but my father was by, and hot words fell like rain, and my mother added her share, and from that time there has been utter hostility between our little house and you up here. What hurt me most was that you and your sister were forbidden to come to see us and to play with me.”
“That has spoilt many pleasant hours for me, too.”
“It was nice when we used to dress up in my father’s theatrical finery and cloaks.”
“And when you made us dolls out of clay.”.
“Or when we performed the Olympian games.”
“I was always the teacher when we played at school with our little brothers and sisters.”
“Arsinoe gave you most trouble.”
“Oh! and what fun when we went fishing!”
“And when we brought home the fishes and mother gave us meal and raisins to cook them.”
“Do you remember the festival of Adonis, and how I stopped the runaway horse of that Numidian officer?”
“The horse had knocked over Arsinoe, and when we got home mother gave you an almond-cake.”
“And your ungrateful sister bit a great piece out of it and left me only a tiny morsel. Is Arsinoe as pretty as she promised to become? It is two years since I last saw her; at our place we never have time to leave work till it is dark. For eight months I had to work for the master at Ptolemais, and often saw the old folks but once in the month.”
“We go out very little, too, and we are not allowed to go into your parents’ house. My sister—”
“Is she pretty?”
“Yes, I think she is. Whenever she can get hold of a piece of ribbon she plaits it in her hair, and the men in the street turn round to look at her. She is sixteen now.”
“Sixteen! What, little Arsinoe! Why, how long then is it since your mother died?”
“Four years and eight months.”
“You remember the date very exactly; such a mother is not easily forgotten, indeed. She was a good woman and a kinder I never met. I know, too, that she tried to mollify your father’s feeling, but she could not succeed, and then she need must die!”
“Yes,” said Selene gloomily. “How could the gods decree it! They are often more cruel than the hardest hearted man.”
“Your poor little brothers and sisters!”
The girl bowed her head sadly and Pollux stood for some time with his eyes fixed on the ground. Then he raised his head and exclaimed:
“I have something for you that will please you.”
“Nothing ever pleases me now she is dead.”
“Yes, yes indeed,” replied the young sculptor eagerly. “I could not forget the good soul, and once in my idle moments I modelled her bust from memory. To-morrow I will bring it to you.”
“Oh!” cried Selene, and her large heavy eyes brightened with a sunny gleam.
“Now, is not it true, you are pleased?”
“Yes indeed, very much. But when my father learns that it is you who have given me the portrait—”
“Is he capable of destroying it?”
“If he does not destroy it, he will not suffer it in the house as soon as he knows that you made it.” Pollux took the handkerchief from the steward’s head, moistened it afresh, and exclaimed as he rearranged it on the forehead of the sleeping man:
“I have an idea. All that matters is that my bust should serve to remind you often of your mother; the bust need not stand in your rooms. The busts of the women of the house of Ptolemy stand on the rotunda, which you can see from your balcony, and which you can pass whenever you please; some of them are badly mutilated and must be got rid of. I will undertake to restore the Berenice and put your mother’s head on her shoulders. Then you have only to go out and look at her. Will that do?”
“Yes, Pollux; you are a good man.”
“So I told you just now. I am beginning to improve. But time—time! if I am to undertake to repair Berenice I must begin by saving the minutes.”
“Go back to your work now; I know how to apply a wet compress only too well.”
With these words Selene threw back her mantle over her shoulders so as to leave her hands free for use, and stood with her slender figure, her pale face, and the fine broadly-flowing folds of rich stuff, like a statue in the eyes of the young sculptor.
“Stop—stay so—just so,” cried Pollux to the astonished girl, so loudly and eagerly that she was startled.
“Your cloak hangs with a wonderfully-free flow from your shoulders—in the name of all the gods do not touch it. If only I might model from it I should in a few minutes gain a whole day for our Berenice. I will wet the handkerchief at intervals in the pauses.” Without waiting for Selene’s answer the sculptor hastened into his nook and returned first with one of the lamps he worked by in each hand, and some small tools in his mouth, and then fetched his wax model which he placed on the outer side of the table, behind which the steward was sleeping. The tapers were put out, the lamps pushed aside, and raised or lowered, and when at last a tolerably suitable light was procured Pollux threw himself on a stool, straddled his legs, craned his head forward as far as his neck would allow, looking, with his hooked nose, like a vulture that strives to descry his distant prey-cast his eyes down, raised them again to take in something fresh, and after a long gaze looked down again while his fingers and nails moved over the surface of the wax-figure, sinking into the plastic material, applying new pieces to apparently complete portions, removing others with a decided nip and rounding them off with bewildering rapidity to use them for a fresh purpose.
He seemed to be seized with cramp in his hands, but still under his knotted brow his eye shone earnest, resolute and calm, and yet full of profound and speechless inspiration. Selene had said not a word that permitted his using her as a model; but, as if his enthusiasm was infectious, she remained motionless, and when, as he worked, his gaze met hers she could detect the stern earnestness which at this moment possessed her eager companion.
Neither of them opened their lips for some time. At last he stood back from his work, stooping low to look first at Selene and then at his statuette with keen examination from head to foot; and then, drawing a deep breath, and rubbing the wax over with his finger, he said:
“There, that is how it must go! Now I will wet your father’s handkerchief and then we can go on again. If you are tired you can rest.”
She availed herself but little of this permission and presently he began work again. As he proceeded carefully to replace some folds of her drapery which had fallen out of place, she moved her foot as if to draw back, but he begged her earnestly to stand still and she obeyed his request.
Pollux now used his fingers and modelling tools more calmly; his gaze was less wistful and he began to talk again.
“You are very pale,” he said. “To be sure the lamp-light and a sleepless night have something to do with it.”
“I look just the same by daylight, but I am not ill.”
“I thought Arsinoe would have been like your mother, but now I see many features of her face in yours again. The oval of their form is the same and, in both, the line of the nose runs almost straight to the forehead; you have her eyes and the same bend of the brow, but your mouth is smaller and more sharply cut, and she could hardly have made such a heavy knot of her hair. I fancy, too, that yours is lighter than hers.”
“As a girl she must have had still more hair, and perhaps she may have been as fair as I was—I am brown now.”
“Another thing you inherit from her is that your hair, without being curly, lies upon your head in such soft waves.”
“It is easy to keep in order.”
“Are not you taller than she was?”
“I fancy so, but as she was stouter she looked shorter. Will you soon have done?”
“You are getting tired of standing?”
“Not very.”
“Then have a little more patience. Your face reminds me more and more of our early years; I should be glad to see Arsinoe once more. I feel at this moment as if time had moved backwards a good piece. Have you the same feeling?”
Selene shook her head.
“You are not happy?”
“No.”
“I know full well that you have very heavy duties to perform for your age.”
“Things go as they may.”
“Nay, nay. I know you do not let things go haphazard. You take care of your brothers and sisters like a mother.”
“Like a mother!” repeated Selene, and she smiled a bitter negative.
“Of course a mother’s love is a thing by itself, but your father and the little ones have every reason to be satisfied with yours.”
“The little ones are perhaps, and Helios who is blind, but Arsinoe does what she can.”
“You certainly are not content, I can hear it in your voice, and you used formerly to be as merry and happy as your sister, though perhaps not so saucy.”
“Formerly—”
“How sadly that sounds! And yet you are handsome, you are young, and life lies before you.”
“But what a life!”
“Well, what?” asked the sculptor, and taking his hands from his work he looked ardently at the fair pale girl before him and cried out fervently:
“A life which might be full of happiness and satisfied affection.”
The girl shook her head in negation and answered coldly:
“‘Love is joy,’ says the Christian woman who superintends us at work in the papyrus factory, and since my mother died I have had no love. I enjoyed all my share of happiness once for all in my childhood, now I am content if only we are spared the worst misfortunes. Otherwise I take what each day brings, because I can not do otherwise. My heart is empty, and if I ever feel anything keenly, it is dread. I have long since ceased to expect any thing good of the future.”
“Girl!” exclaimed Pollux. “Why, what has been happening to you? I do not understand half of what you are saying. How came you in the papyrus factory?”
“Do not betray me,” begged Selene. “If my father were to hear of it.”
“He is asleep, and what you confide to me no one will ever hear of again.”
“Why should I conceal it? I go every day with Arsinoe for two hours to the manufactory, and we work there to earn a little money.”
“Behind your father’s back?”
“Yes, he would rather that we should starve than allow it. Every day I feel the same loathing for the deceit; but we could not get on without it, for Arsinoe thinks of nothing but herself, plays draughts with my father, curls his hair, plays with the children as if they were dolls, but it is my part to take care of them.”
“And you, you say, have no share of love. Happily no one believes you, and I least of all. Only lately my mother was telling me about you, and I thought you were a girl who might turn out just such a wife as a woman ought to be.”
“And now?”
“Now, I know it for certain.”
“You may be mistaken.”
“No, no! your name is Selene, and you are as gentle as the kindly moonlight; names, even, have their significance.”
“And my blind brother who has never even seen the light is called Helios!” answered the girl.
Pollux had spoken with much warmth, but Selene’s last words startled him and checked the effervescence of his feelings. Finding he did not answer her bitter exclamation, she said, at first coolly, but with increasing warmth:
“You are beginning to believe me, and you are right, for what I do for the children is not done out of love, or out of kindness, or because I set their welfare above my own. I have inherited my father’s pride, and it would be odious to me if my brothers and sisters went about in rags, and people thought we were as poor and helpless as we really are. What is most horrible to me is sickness in the house, for that increases the anxiety I always feel and swallows up my last coin; the children must not perish for want of it. I do not want to make myself out worse than I am; it grieves me too to see them drooping. But nothing that I do brings me happiness—at most it moderates my fears. You ask what I am afraid of?—of everything, everything that can happen to me, for I have no reason to look forward to anything good. When there is a knock, it may be a creditor; when people look at Arsinoe in the street, I seem to see dishonor lurking round her; when my father acts against the advice of the physician I feel as if we were standing already roofless in the open street. What is there that I can do with a happy mind? I certainly am not idle, still I envy the woman who can sit with her hands in her lap and be waited on by slaves, and if a golden treasure fell into my possession, I would never stir a finger again, and would sleep every day till the sun was high and make slaves look after my father and the children. My life is sheer misery. If ever we see better days I shall be astonished, and before I have got over my astonishment it will all be over.”
The sculptor felt a cold chill, and his heart which had opened wide to his old playfellow shrank again within him. Before he could find the right words of encouragement which he sought, they heard in the hall, where the workmen and slaves were sleeping, the blast of a trumpet intended to awake them. Selene started, drew her mantle more closely round her, begged Pollux to take care of her father, and to hide the wine-jar which was standing near him from the work-people and then, forgetting her lamp, she went hastily toward the door by which she had entered. Pollux hurried after her to light the way and while he accompanied her as far as the door of her rooms, by his warm and urgent words which appealed wonderfully to her heart, he extracted from her a promise to stand once more in her mantle as his model.
A quarter of an hour later the steward was safe in bed and still sleeping soundly, while Pollux, who had stretched himself on a mattress behind his screen, could not for a long time cease to think of the pale girl with her benumbed soul. At last sleep overcame him too, and a sweet dream showed him pretty little Arsinoe, who but for him must infallibly have been killed by the Numidian’s restive horse, taking away her sister Selene’s almond-cake and giving it to him. The pale girl submitted quietly to the robbery and only smiled coldly and silently to herself.
CHAPTER VI
Alexandria was in the greatest excitement
The Emperor’s visit now immediately impending had tempted the busy hive of citizens away from the common round of life in which, day after day,—swarming, hurrying, pushing each other on, or running each other down—they raced for bread and for the means of filling their hours of leisure with pleasures and amusements. The unceasing wheel of industry to-day had pause in the factories, workshops, storehouses and courts of justice, for all sorts and conditions of men were inspired by the same desire to celebrate Hadrian’s visit with unheard-of splendor. All that the citizens could command of inventive skill, of wealth, and of beauty was called forth to be displayed in the games and processions which were to fill up a number of days. The richest of the heathen citizens had undertaken the management of the pieces to be performed in the Theatre, of the mock fight on the lake, and of the sanguinary games in the Amphitheatre; and so great was the number of opulent persons that many more were prepared to pay for smaller projects, for which there was no opening. Nevertheless the arrangements for certain portions of the procession, in which even the less wealthy were to take a share, the erection of the building in the Hippodrome, the decorations in the streets, and the preparations for entertaining the Roman visitors absorbed sums so large that they seemed extravagant even to the prefect Titianus, who was accustomed to see his fellow-officials in Rome squander millions.
As the Emperor’s viceroy it behoved him to give his assent to all that was planned to feast his sovereign’s eye and ear. On the whole, he left the citizens of the great town free to act as they would; but he had, more than once, to exert a decided opposition to their overdoing the thing; for though the Emperor might be able to endure a vast amount of pleasure, what the Alexandrians originally proposed to provide for him to see and hear would have exhausted the most indefatigable human energy.
That which gave the greatest trouble, not merely to him, but also to the masters of the revels chosen by the municipality, were the never-dormant hostility between the heathen and the Jewish sections of the inhabitants, and the processions, since no division chose to come last, nor would any number be satisfied to be only the third or the fourth.
It was from a meeting, where his determined intervention had at last brought all these preliminaries to a decision beyond appeal, that Titianus proceeded to the Caesareum to pay the Empress the visit which she expected of him daily. He was glad to have come to some conclusion, at any rate provisionally, with regard to these matters, for six days had slipped away since the works had been begun in the palace of Lochias, and Hadrian’s arrival was nearing rapidly.
He found Sabina, as usual, on her divan, but on this occasion the Empress was sitting upright on her cushions. She seemed quite to have got over the fatigues of the sea-voyage, and in token that she felt better she had applied more red to her cheeks and lips than three days ago, and because she was to receive a visit from the sculptors, Papias and Aristeas, she had had her hair arranged as it was worn in the statue of Venus Victrix, with whose attributes she had, five years previously—though not, it is true, without some resistance—been represented in marble. When a copy of this statue had been erected in Alexandria, an evil tongue had made a speech which was often repeated among the citizens.
“This Aphrodite is triumphant to be sure, for all who see her make haste to fly; she should be called Cypris the scatterer.”
Titianus was still under the excitement of the embittered squabbles and unpleasing exhibitions of character at which he had just been present when he entered the presence of the Empress, whom he found in a small room with no one but the chamberlain and a few ladies-in-waiting. To the prefect’s respectful inquiries after her health, she shrugged her shoulders and replied:
“How should I be? If I said well it would not be true; if I said ill, I should be surrounded with pitiful faces, which are not pleasant to look at. After all we must endure life. Still, the innumerable doors in these rooms will be the death of me if I am compelled to remain here long.”
Titianus glanced at the two doors of the room in which the Empress was sitting, and began to express his regrets at their bad condition, which had escaped his notice; but Sabina interrupted him, saying:
“You men never do observe what hurts us women. Our Verus is the only man who can feel and understand—who can divine it, as I might say. There are five and thirty doors in my rooms! I had them counted-five and thirty! If they were not old and made of valuable wood I should really believe they had been made as a practical joke on me.”
“Some of them might be supplemented with curtains.”
“Oh! never mind—a few miseries, more or less in any life do not matter. Are the Alexandrians ready at last with their preparations?”
“I am sure I hope so,” said the prefect with a sigh. “They are bent on giving all that is their best; but in the endeavor to outvie each other every one is at war with his neighbor, and I still feel the effects of the odious wrangling which I have had to listen to for hours, and that I have been obliged to check again and again with threats of ‘I shall be down upon you.’”
“Indeed,” said the Empress with a pinched smile, as if she had heard some thing that pleased her.
“Tell me something about your meeting. I am bored to death, for Verus, Balbilla and the others have asked for leave of absence that they may go to inspect the work doing at Lochias; I am accustomed to find that people would rather be any where than with me. Can I wonder then that my presence is not enough to enable a friend of my husband’s to forget a little annoyance—the impression left by some slight misunderstanding? But my fugitives are a long time away; there must be a great deal that is beautiful to be seen at Lochias.”
The prefect suppressed his annoyance and did not express his anxiety lest the architect and his assistants should be disturbed, but began in the tone of the messenger in a tragedy:
“The first quarrel was fought over the order of the procession.”
“Sit a little farther off,” said Sabina pressing her jewelled right-hand on her ear, as if she were suffering a pain in it. The prefect colored slightly, but he obeyed the desire of Caesar’s wife and went on with his story, pitching his voice in a somewhat lower key than before:
“Well, it was about the procession, that the first breach of the peace arose.”
“I have heard that once already,” replied the lady, yawning. “I like processions.”
“But,” said the prefect, a man in the beginning of the sixties—and he spoke with some irritation, “here as in Rome and every where else, where they are not controlled by the absolute will of a single individual, processions are the children of strife, and they bring forth strife, even when they are planned in honor of a festival of Peace.”
“It seems to annoy you that they should be organized in honor of Hadrian?”
“You are in jest; it is precisely because I care particularly that they should be carried out with all possible splendor, that I am troubling myself about them in person, even as to details; and to my great satisfaction I have been able even to subdue the most obstinate; still it was scarcely my duty—”
“I fancied that you not only served the state but were my husband’s friend.”
“I am proud to call myself so.”
“Aye—Hadrian has many, very many friends since he has worn the purple. Have you got over your ill temper Titianus? You must have become very touchy. Poor Julia has an irritable husband!”
“She is less to be pitied than you think,” said Titianus with dignity, “for my official duties so entirely claim my time that she is not often likely to know what disturbs me. If I have forgotten to dissimulate my vexation before you, I beg you to pardon me, and to attribute it to my zeal in securing a worthy reception for Hadrian.”
“As if I had scolded you! But to return to your wife—as I understand she shares the fate I endure. We poor women have nothing to expect from our husbands, but the stale leavings that remain after business has absorbed the rest! But your story—go on with your story.”
“The worst moments I had at all were given me by the bad feeling of the Jews towards the other citizens.”
“I hate all these infamous sects—Jews, Christians or whatever they are called! Do they dare to grudge their money for the reception of Caesar?”
“On the contrary Alabarchos, their wealthy chief, has offered to defray all the cost of the Naumachia and his co-religionist Artemion.”
“Well, take their money, take their money.”
“The Greek citizens feel that they are rich enough to pay all the expenses, which will amount to many millions of sesterces, and they wish to exclude the Jews, if possible, from all the processions and games.”
“They are perfectly right.”
“But allow me to ask you whether it is just to prohibit half the population of Alexandria doing honor to their Emperor!”
“Oh! Hadrian will, with pleasure, dispense with the honor. Our conquering heroes have thought it redounded to their glory to be called Africanus, Germanicus and Dacianus, but Titus refused to be called Judaicus when he had destroyed Jerusalem.”
“That was because he dreaded the remembrance of the rivers of blood which had to be shed in order to break the fearfully obstinate resistance of that nation. The besieged had to be conquered limb by limb, and finger by finger, before they would make up their minds to yield.”
“Again you are speaking half poetically, or have these people elected you as their advocate?”
“I know them and make every effort to secure them justice, just as much as any other citizen of this country which I govern in the name of the Empire and of Caesar. They pay taxes as well as the rest of the Alexandrians; nay more, for there are many wealthy men among them who are honorably prominent in trade, in professions, learning and art, and I therefore mete to them the same measure as to the other inhabitants of this city. Their superstition offends me no more than that of the Egyptians.”
“But it really is above all measure. At Aelia Capitolina which Hadrian had decorated with several buildings, they refused to sacrifice to the statues of Zeus and Hera. That is to say they scorn to do homage to me and my husband!”
“They are forbidden to worship any other divinity than their own God. Aelia rose up on the very soil where their ruined Jerusalem had stood, and the statues of which you speak stand in their holy places.”
“What has that to do with us?”
“You know that even Caius—[Caligula]—could not reduce them by placing his statue in the Holy of Holies of their temple; and Petronius, the governor, had to confess that to subdue them meant to exterminate them.”
“Then let them meet with the fate they deserve, let them be exterminated!” cried Sabina.
“Exterminated?” asked the prefect. “In Alexandria they constitute nearly half of the citizens, that is to say several hundred thousand of obedient subjects, exterminated!”
“So many?” asked the Empress in alarm. “But that is frightful. Omnipotent Jove! supposing that mass were to revolt against us! No one ever told me of this danger. In Cyrenaica, and at Salamis in Cyprus, they killed their fellow-citizens by thousands.”
“They had been provoked to extremities and they were superior to their oppressors in force.”
