Hermas had hastened onwards without delay. He had already reached the
last bend of the path he had followed down the ravine, and he saw at his
feet the long narrow valley and the gleaming waters of the stream, which
here fertilized the soil of the desert. He looked down on lofty palms
and tamarisk shrubs innumerable, among which rose the houses of
the inhabitants, surrounded by their little gardens and small
carefully-irrigated fields; already he could hear the crowing of a cock
and the hospitable barking of a dog, sounds which came to him like a
welcome from the midst of that life for which he yearned, accustomed as
he was to be surrounded day and night by the deep and lonely stillness
of the rocky heights.
He stayed his steps, and his eyes followed the thin columns of smoke,
which floated tremulously up in the clear light of the ever mounting sun
from the numerous hearths that lay below him.
“They are cooking breakfast now,” thought he, “the wives for their
husbands, the mothers for their children, and there, where that dark
smoke rises, very likely a splendid feast is being prepared for guests;
but I am nowhere at home, and no one will invite me in.” The contest
with Paulus had excited and cheered him, but the sight of the city
filled his young heart with renewed bitterness, and his lips trembled
as he looked down on his sheepskin and his unwashed limbs. With hasty
resolve he turned his back on the oasis and hurried up the mountain.
By the side of the brooklet that he knew of he threw off his coarse
garment, let the cool water flow over his body, washed himself carefully
and with much enjoyment, stroked clown his thick hair with his fingers,
and then hurried down again into the valley.
The gorge through which he had descended debouched by a hillock that
rose from the valley-plain; a small newly-built church leaned against
its eastern declivity, and it was fortified on all sides by walls and
dikes, behind which the citizens found shelter when they were threatened
by the Saracen robbers of the oasis. This hill passed for a particularly
sacred spot. Moses was supposed to have prayed on its summit during the
battle with the Amalekites while his arms were held up by Aaron and Hur.
But there were other notable spots in the neighborhood of the oasis.
There farther to the north was the rock whence Moses had struck the
water; there higher up, and more to the south-east, was the hill, where
the Lord had spoken to the law-giver face to face, and where he had
seen the burning bush; there again was the spring where he had met the
daughters of Jethro, Zippora and Ledja, so called in the legend. Pious
pilgrims came to these holy places in great numbers, and among them many
natives of the peninsula, particularly Nabateans, who had previously
visited the holy mountain in order to sacrifice on its summit to their
gods, the sun, moon, and planets. At the outlet, towards the north,
stood a castle, which ever since the Syrian Prefect, Cornelius Palma,
had subdued Arabia Petraea in the time of Trajan, had been held by a
Roman garrison for the protection of the blooming city of the desert
against the incursions of the marauding Saracens and Blemmyes.
But the citizens of Pharan themselves had taken measures for the
security of their property. On the topmost cliffs of the jagged crown
of the giant mountain--the most favorable spots for a look-out far and
wide--they placed sentinels, who day and night scanned the distance, so
as to give a warning-signal in case of approaching clanger. Each house
resembled a citadel, for it was built of strong masonry, and the younger
men were all well exercised bowmen. The more distinguished families
dwelt near the church-hill, and there too stood the houses of the Bishop
Agapitus, and of the city councillors of Pharan.
Among these the Senator Petrus enjoyed the greatest respect, partly
by reason of his solid abilities, and of his possessions in quarries,
garden-ground, date palms, and cattle; partly in consequence of the rare
qualities of his wife, the deaconess Dorothea, the granddaughter of the
long-deceased and venerable Bishop Chaeremon, who had fled hither with
his wife during the persecution of the Christians under Decius, and who
had converted many of the Pharanites to the knowledge of the Redeemer.
The house of Petrus was of strong and well-joined stone, and the palm
garden adjoining was carefully tended. Twenty slaves, many camels, and
even two horses belonged to him, and the centurion in command of the
Imperial garrison, the Gaul Phoebicius, and his wife Sirona, lived as
lodgers under his roof; not quite to the satisfaction of the councillor,
for the centurion was no Christian, but a worshipper of Mithras, in
whose mysteries the wild Gaul had risen to the grade of a ‘Lion,’ whence
his people, and with them the Pharanites in general, were wont to speak
of him as “the Lion.”
His predecessor had been an officer of much lower rank but a believing
Christian, whom Petrus had himself requested to live in his house, and
when, about a year since, the Lion Phoebicius had taken the place of the
pious Pankratius, the senator could not refuse him the quarters, which
had become a right.
Hermas went shyly and timidly towards the court of Petrus’ house, and
his embarrassment increased when he found himself in the hall of the
stately stone-house, which he had entered without let or hindrance, and
did not know which way to turn. There was no one there to direct him,
and he dared not go up the stairs which led to the upper story, although
it seemed that Petrus must be there. Yes, there was no doubt, for he
heard talking overhead and clearly distinguished the senator’s deep
voice. Hermas advanced, and set his foot on the first step of the
stairs; but he had scarcely begun to go up with some decision, and
feeling ashamed of his bashfulness, when he heard a door fly open just
above him, and from it there poured a flood of fresh laughing children’s
voices, like a pent up stream when the miller opens the sluice gate.
He glanced upwards in surprise, but there was no time for consideration,
for the shouting troop of released little ones had already reached the
stairs. In front of all hastened a beautiful young woman with golden
hair; she was laughing gaily, and held a gaudily-dressed doll high above
her head. She came backwards towards the steps, turning her fair face
beaming with fun and delight towards the children, who, full of their
longing, half demanding, half begging, half laughing, half crying,
shouted in confusion, “Let us be, Sirona,” “Do not take it away again,
Sirona,” “Do stay here, Sirona,” again and again, “Sirona--Sirona.”
A lovely six year old maiden stretched up as far as she could to reach
the round white arm that held the play-thing; with her left hand, which
was free, she gaily pushed away three smaller children, who tried to
cling to her knees and exclaimed, still stepping backwards, “No, no; you
shall not have it till it has a new gown; it shall be as long and as gay
as the Emperors’s robe. Let me go, Caecilia, or you will fall down as
naughty Nikon did the other day.”
By this time she had reached the steps; she turned suddenly, and with
outstretched arms she stopped the way of the narrow stair on which
Hermas was standing, gazing open-mouthed at the merry scene above his
head. Just as Sirona was preparing to run down, she perceived him and
started; but when she saw that the anchorite from pure embarrassment
could find no words in which to answer her question as to what he
wanted, she laughed heartily again and called out: “Come up, we shall
not hurt you--shall we children?”
Meanwhile Hermas had found courage enough to give utterance to his
wish to speak with the senator, and the young woman, who looked with
complacency on his strong and youthful frame, offered to conduct him to
him.
Petrus had been talking to his grown up elder sons; they were tall men,
but their father was even taller than they, and of unusual breadth of
shoulder.
While the young men were speaking, he stroked his short grey beard and
looked down at the ground in sombre gravity, as it might have seemed
to the careless observer; but any one who looked closer might quickly
perceive that not seldom a pleased smile, though not less often a
somewhat bitter one, played upon the lips of the prudent and judicious
man. He was one of those who can play with their children like a young
mother, take the sorrows of another as much to heart as if they were
their own, and yet who look so gloomy, and allow themselves to make such
sharp speeches, that only those who are on terms of perfect confidence
with them, cease to misunderstand them and fear them. There was
something fretting the soul of this man, who nevertheless possessed all
that could contribute to human happiness. His was a thankful nature,
and yet he was conscious that he might have been destined to something
greater than fate had permitted him to achieve or to be. He had remained
a stone-cutter, but his sons had both completed their education in good
schools in Alexandria. The elder, Antonius, who already had a house of
his own and a wife and children, was an architect and artist-mechanic;
the younger, Polykarp, was a gifted young sculptor. The noble church
of the oasis-city had been built under the direction of the elder;
Polykarp, who had only come home a month since, was preparing to
establish and carry on works of great extent in his father’s quarries,
for he had received a commission to decorate the new court of
the Sebasteion or Caesareum, as it was called--a grand pile in
Alexandria--with twenty granite lions. More than thirty artists had
competed with him for this work, but the prize was unanimously adjudged
to his models by qualified judges. The architect whose function it was
to construct the colonnades and pavement of the court was his friend,
and had agreed to procure the blocks of granite, the flags and the
columns which he required from Petrus’ quarries, and not, as had
formerly been the custom, from those of Syene by the first Cataract.
Antonius and Polykarp were now standing with their father before a large
table, explaining to him a plan which they had worked out together and
traced on the thin wax surface of a wooden tablet. The young architect’s
proposal was to bridge over a deep but narrow gorge, which the beasts of
burden were obliged to avoid by making a wide circuit, and so to make a
new way from the quarries to the sea, which should be shorter by a third
than the old one. The cost of this structure would soon be recouped
by the saving in labor, and with perfect certainty, if only the
transport-ships were laden at Clysma with a profitable return freight
of Alexandrian manufactures, instead of returning empty as they
had hitherto done. Petrus, who could shine as a speaker in the
council-meetings, in private life spoke but little. At each of his son’s
new projects he raised his eyes to the speaker’s face, as if to see
whether the young man had not lost his wits, while his mouth, only half
hidden by his grey beard, smiled approvingly.
When Antonius began to unfold his plan for remedying the inconvenience
of the ravine that impeded the way, the senator muttered, “Only get
feathers to grow on the slaves, and turn the black ones into ravens and
the white ones into gulls, and then they might fly across. What do not
people learn in the metropolis!”
When he heard the word ‘bridge’ he stared at the young artist. “The only
question,” said he, “is whether Heaven will lend us a rainbow.” But when
Polykarp proposed to get some cedar trunks from Syria through his friend
in Alexandria, and when his elder son explained his drawings of the arch
with which he promised to span the gorge and make it strong and safe,
he followed their words with attention; at the same time he knit his
eyebrows as gloomily and looked as stern as if he were listening to some
narrative of crime. Still, he let them speak on to the end, and though
at first he only muttered that it was mere “fancy-work” or “Aye, indeed,
if I were the emperor;” he afterwards asked clear and precise questions,
to which he received positive and well considered answers. Antonius
proved by figures that the profit on the delivery of material for the
Caesareum only would cover more than three quarters of the outlay.
Then Polykarp began to speak and declared that the granite of the Holy
Mountain was finer in color and in larger blocks than that from Syene.
“We work cheaper here than at the Cataract,” interrupted Antonius. “And
the transport of the blocks will not come too dear when we have the
bridge and command the road to the sea, and avail ourselves of the
canal of Trajan, which joins the Nile to the Red Sea, and which in a few
months will again be navigable.”
“And if my lions are a success,” added Polykarp, “and if Zenodotus is
satisfied with our stone and our work, it may easily happen that we
outstrip Syene in competition, and that some of the enormous orders that
now flow from Constantine’s new residence to the quarries at Syene, may
find their way to us.”
“Polykarp is not over sanguine,” continued Antonius, “for the emperor is
beautifying and adding to Byzantium with eager haste. Whoever erects a
new house has a yearly allowance of corn, and in order to attract folks
of our stamp--of whom he cannot get enough--he promises entire exemption
from taxation to all sculptors, architects, and even to skilled
laborers. If we finish the blocks and pillars here exactly to the
designs, they will take up no superfluous room in the ships, and no one
will be able to deliver them so cheaply as we.”
“No, nor so good,” cried Polykarp, “for you yourself are an artist,
father, and understand stone-work as well as any man. I never saw a
finer or more equally colored granite than the block you picked out for
my first lion. I am finishing it here on the spot, and I fancy it will
make a show. Certainly it will be difficult to take a foremost place
among the noble works of the most splendid period of art, which already
fill the Caesareum, but I will do my best.”
“The Lions will be admirable,” cried Antonius with a glance of pride
at his brother. “Nothing like them has been done by any one these ten
years, and I know the Alexandrians. If the master’s work is praised that
is made out of granite from the Holy Mountain, all the world will have
granite from thence and from no where else. It all depends on whether
the transport of the stone to the sea can be made less difficult and
costly.”
“Let us try it then,” said Petrus, who during his son’s talk had walked
up and down before them in silence. “Let us try the building of the
bridge in the name of the Lord. We will work out the road if the
municipality will declare themselves ready to bear half the cost; not
otherwise, and I tell you frankly, you have both grown most able men.”
The younger son grasped his father’s hand and pressed it with warm
affection to his lips. Petrus hastily stroked his brown locks, then
he offered his strong right hand to his eldest-born and said: “We must
increase the number of our slaves. Call your mother, Polykarp.” The
youth obeyed with cheerful alacrity, and when Dame Dorothea--who was
sitting at the loom with her daughter Marthana and some of her female
slaves--saw him rush into the women’s room with a glowing face, she rose
with youthful briskness in spite of her stout and dignified figure, and
called out to her son:
“He has approved of your plans?”
“Bridge and all, mother, everything,” cried the young man. “Finer
granite for my lions, than my father has picked out for me is nowhere
to be found, and how glad I am for Antonius! only we must have patience
about the roadway. He wants to speak to you at once.”
Dorothea signed to her son to moderate his ecstasy, for he had seized
her hand, and was pulling her away with him, but the tears that stood
in her kind eyes testified how deeply she sympathized in her favorite’s
excitement.
“Patience, patience, I am coming directly,” cried she, drawing away her
hand in order to arrange her dress and her grey hair, which was abundant
and carefully dressed, and formed a meet setting for her still pleasing
and unwrinkled face.
“I knew it would be so; when you have a reasonable thing to propose to
your father, he will always listen to you and agree with you without my
intervention; women should not mix themselves up with men’s work. Youth
draws a strong bow and often shoots beyond the mark. It would be a
pretty thing if out of foolish affection for you I were to try to
play the siren that should ensnare the steersman of the house--your
father--with flattering words. You laugh at the grey-haired siren? But
love overlooks the ravages of years and has a good memory for all that
was once pleasing. Besides, men have not always wax in their ears when
they should have. Come now to your father.”
Dorothea went out past Polykarp and her daughter. The former held his
sister back by the hand and asked--“Was not Sirona with you?”
The sculptor tried to appear quite indifferent, but he blushed as he
spoke; Marthana observed this and replied not without a roguish glance:
“She did show us her pretty face; but important business called her
away.”
“Sirona?” asked Polykarp incredulously.
“Certainly, why not!” answered Marthana laughing. “She had to sew a new
gown for the children’s doll.”
“Why do you mock at her kindness?” said Polykarp reproachfully.
“How sensitive you are!” said Marthana softly. “Sirona is as kind and
sweet as an angel; but you had better look at her rather less, for she
is not one of us, and repulsive as the choleric centurion is to me--”
She said no more, for Dame Dorothea, having reached the door of the
sitting-room, looked around for her children.
Petrus received his wife with no less gravity than was usual with him,
but there was an arch sparkle in his half closed eyes as he asked: “You
scarcely know what is going on, I suppose?”
“You are madmen, who would fain take Heaven by storm,” she answered
gaily.
“If the undertaking fails,” said Petrus, pointing to his sons, “those
young ones will feel the loss longer than we shall.”
“But it will succeed,” cried Dorothea. “An old commander and young
soldiers can win any battle.” She held out her small plump hand with
frank briskness to her husband, he clasped it cheerily and said: “I
think I can carry the project for the road through the Senate. To build
our bridge we must also procure helping hands, and for that we need your
aid, Dorothea. Our slaves will not suffice.”
“Wait,” cried the lady eagerly; she went to the window and called,
“Jethro, Jethro!”
The person thus addressed, the old house-steward, appeared, and Dorothea
began to discuss with him as to which of the inhabitants of the oasis
might be disposed to let them have some able-bodied men, and whether it
might not be possible to employ one or another of the house-slaves at
the building.
All that she said was judicious and precise, and showed that she herself
superintended her household in every detail, and was accustomed to
command with complete freedom.
“That tall Anubis then is really indispensable in the stable?” she asked
in conclusion. The steward, who up to this moment had spoken shortly
and intelligently, hesitated to answer; at the same time he looked up at
Petrus, who, sunk in the contemplation of the plan, had his back to him;
his glance, and a deprecating movement, expressed very clearly that
he had something to tell, but feared to speak in the presence of
his master. Dame Dorothea was quick of comprehension, and she quite
understood Jethro’s meaning; it was for that very reason that she said
with more of surprise than displeasure: “What does the man mean with his
winks? What I may hear, Petrus may hear too.”
The senator turned, and looked at the steward from head to foot with so
dark a glance, that he drew back, and began to speak quickly. But he was
interrupted by the children’s clamors on the stairs and by Sirona, who
brought Hermas to the senator, and said laughing: “I found this great
fellow on the stairs, he was seeking you.”
Petrus looked at the youth, not very kindly, and asked: “Who are
you? what is your business?” Hermas struggled in vain for speech; the
presence of so many human beings, of whom three were women, filled him
with the utmost confusion. His fingers twisted the woolly curls on his
sheep-skin, and his lips moved but gave no sound; at last he succeeded
in stammering out, “I am the son of old Stephanus, who was wounded in
the last raid of the Saracens. My father has hardly slept these
five nights, and now Paulus has sent me to you--the pious Paulus of
Alexandria--but you know--and so I--”
“I see, I see,” said Petrus with encouraging kindness. “You want some
medicine for the old man. See Dorothea, what a fine young fellow he is
grown, this is the little man that the Antiochian took with him up the
mountain.”
Hermas colored, and drew himself up; then he observed with great
satisfaction that he was taller than the senator’s sons, who were of
about the same age as he, and for whom he had a stronger feeling,
allied to aversion and fear, than even for their stern father. Polykarp
measured him with a glance, and said aloud to Sirona, with whom he had
exchanged a greeting, are off whom he had never once taken his eyes
since she had come in: “If we could get twenty slaves with such
shoulders as those, we should get on well. There is work to be done
here, you big fellow--”
“My name is not ‘fellow,’ but Hermas,” said the anchorite, and the veins
of his forehead began to swell. Polykarp felt that his father’s visitor
was something more than his poor clothing would seem to indicate
and that he had hurt his feelings. He had certainly seen some old
anchorites, who led a contemplative and penitential life up on the
sacred mountain, but it had never occurred to him that a strong youth
could be long to the brotherhood of hermits. So he said to him kindly:
“Hermas--is that your name? We all use our hands here and labor is no
disgrace; what is your handicraft?”
This question roused the young anchorite to the highest excitement, and
Dame Dorothea, who perceives what was passing in his mind, said with
quick decision: “He nurses his sick father. That is what you do, my son
is it not? Petrus will not refuse you his help.”
“Certainly not,” the senator added, “I will accompany you by-and-bye to
see him. You must know my children, that this youth’s father was a great
Lord, who gave up rich possessions in order to forget the world, where
he had gone through bitter experiences, and to serve God in his own way,
which we ought to respect though it is not our own. Sit down there, my
son. First we must finish some important business, and then I will go
with you.”
“We live high up on the mountain,” stammered Hermas.
“Then the air will be all the purer,” replied the senator. “But
stay--perhaps the old man is alone no? The good Paulus, you say, is with
him? Then he is in good hands, and you may wait.”
For a moment Petrus stood considering, then he beckoned to his sons, and
said, “Antonius, go at once and see about some slaves--you, Polykarp,
find some strong beasts of burden. You are generally rather easy with
your money, and in this case it is worth while to buy the dearest. The
sooner you return well supplied the better. Action must not halt behind
decision, but follow it quickly and sharply, as the sound follows the
blow. You, Marthana, mix some of the brown fever-potion, and prepare
some bandages; you have the key.”
“I will help her,” cried Sirona, who was glad to prove herself useful,
and who was sincerely sorry for the sick old hermit; besides, Hermas
seemed to her like a discovery of her own, for whom she involuntarily
felt more consideration since she had learned that he was the son of a
man of rank.
While the young women were busy at the medicine-cupboard, Antonius and
Polykarp left the room.
The latter had already crossed the threshold, when he turned once more,
and cast a long look at Sirona. Then, with a hasty movement, he went on,
closed the door, and with a heavy sigh descended the stairs.
As soon as his sons were gone, Petrus turned to the steward again.
“What is wrong with the slave Anubis?” he asked.
“He is--wounded, hurt,” answered Jethro, “and for the next few days will
be useless. The goat-girl Miriam--the wild cat--cut his forehead with
her reaping hook.”
“Why did I not hear of this sooner?” cried Dorothea reprovingly. “What
have you done to the girl?”
“We have shut her up in the hay loft,” answered Jethro, “and there she
is raging and storming.”
The mistress shook her head disapprovingly. “The girl will not be
improved by that treatment,” she said. “Go and bring her to me.”
As soon as the intendant had left the room, she exclaimed, turning to
her husband, “One may well be perplexed about these poor creatures, when
one sees how they behave to each other. I have seen it a thousand times!
No judgment is so hard as that dealt by a slave to slaves!”
Jethro and a woman now led Miriam into the room. The girl’s hands were
bound with thick cords, and dry grass clung to her dress and rough black
hair. A dark fire glowed in her eyes, and the muscles of her face moved
incessantly, as if she had St. Vitus’ dance. When Dorothea looked at
her she drew herself up defiantly, and looked around the room, as if to
estimate the strength of her enemies.
She then perceived Hermas; the blood left her lips, with a violent
effort she tore her slender hands out of the loops that confined them,
covering her face with them, and fled to the door. But Jethro put
himself in her way, and seized her shoulder with a strong grasp.
Miriam shrieked aloud, and the senator’s daughter, who had set down the
medicines she had had in her hand, and had watched the girl’s movements
with much sympathy, hastened towards her. She pushed away the old man’s
hand, and said, “Do not be frightened, Miriam. Whatever you may have
done, my father can forgive you.”
Her voice had a tone of sisterly affection, and the shepherdess followed
Marthana unresistingly to the table, on which the plans for the bridge
were lying, and stood there by her side.
For a minute all were silent; at last Dame Dorothea went up to Miriam,
and asked, “What did they do to you, my poor child, that you could so
forget yourself?”
Miriam could not understand what was happening to her; she had been
prepared for scoldings and blows, nay for bonds and imprisonment, and
now these gentle words and kind looks! Her defiant spirit was quelled,
her eyes met the friendly eyes of her mistress, and she said in a low
voice: “he had followed me for such a long time, and wanted to ask you
for me as his wife; but I cannot bear him--I hate him as I do all your
slaves.” At these words her eyes sparkled wildly again, and with her old
fire she went on, “I wish I had only hit him with a stick instead of a
sickle; but I took what first came to hand to defend myself. When a man
touches me--I cannot bear it, it is horrible, dreadful! Yesterday I came
home later than usual with the beasts, and by the time I had milked the
goats, and was going to bed, every one in the house was asleep. Then
Anubis met me, and began chattering about love; I repelled him, but he
seized me, and held me with his hand here on my head and wanted to kiss
me; then my blood rose, I caught hold of my reaping hook, that hung by
my side, and it was not till I saw him roaring on the ground, that I saw
I had done wrong. How it happened I really cannot tell--something seemed
to rise up in me--something--I don’t know what to call it. It drives me
on as the wind drives the leaves that lie on the road, and I cannot help
it. The best thing you can do is to let me die, for then you would be
safe once for all from my wickedness, and all would be over and done
with.”
“How can you speak so?” interrupted Marthana. “You are wild and
ungovernable, but not wicked.”
“Only ask him!” cried the girl, pointing with flashing eyes to Hermas,
who, on his part, looked down a the floor in confusion. The senator
exchanged a hasty glance with his wife, they were accustomed to under
stand each other without speech, and Dorothea said: “He who feels that
he is not what he ought to be is already on the high-road to amendment.
We let you keep the goats because you were always running after the
flocks, and never can rest in the house. You are up on the mountain
before morning-prayer, and never come home till after supper is over,
and no one takes any thought for the better part of you. Half of your
guilt recoils upon us, and we have no right to punish you. You need
not be so astonished; every one some times does wrong. Petrus and I are
human beings like you, neither more nor less; but we are Christians, and
it is our duty to look after the souls which God has entrusted to our
care, be they our children or our slaves. You must go no more up the
mountain, but shall stay with us in the house. I shall willingly forgive
your hasty deed if Petrus does not think it necessary to punish you.”
The senator gravely shook his head in sign of agreement, and Dorothea
turned to enquire of Jethro: “Is Anubis badly wounded and does he need
any care?’
“He is lying in a fever and wanders in his talk,” was the answer. “Old
Praxinoa is cooling his wound with water.”
“Then Miriam can take her place and try to remedy the mischief which
she was the cause of,” said Dorothea. “Half of your guilt will be atoned
for, girl, if Anubis recovers under your care. I will come presently
with Marthana, and show you how to make a bandage.” The shepherdess
cast down her eyes, and passively allowed herself to be conducted to the
wounded man.
Meanwhile Marthana had prepared the brown mixture. Petrus had his staff
and felt-hat brought to him, gave Hermas the medicine and desired him to
follow him.
Sirona looked after the couple as they went. “What a pity for such a
fine lad!” she exclaimed. “A purple coat would suit him better than that
wretched sheepskin.”
The mistress shrugged her shoulders, and signing to her daughter said:
“Come to work, Marthana, the sun is already high. How the days fly! the
older one grows the quicker the hours hurry away.”
“I must be very young then,” said the centurion’s wife, “for in this
wilderness time seems to me to creep along frightfully slow. One day is
the same as another, and I often feel as if life were standing perfectly
still, and my heart pulses with it. What should I be without your house
and the children?--always the same mountain, the same palm-trees, the
same faces!--”
“But the mountain is glorious, the trees are beautiful!” answered
Dorothea. “And if we love the people with whom we are in daily
intercourse, even here we may be contented and happy. At least we
ourselves are, so far as the difficulties of life allow. I have often
told you, what you want is work.”
“Work! but for whom?” asked Sirona. “If indeed I had children like you!
Even in Rome I was not happy, far from it; and yet there was plenty to
do and to think about. Here a procession, there a theatre; but here! And
for whom should I dress even? My jewels grow dull in my chest, and the
moths eat my best clothes. I am making doll’s clothes now of my colored
cloak for your little ones. If some demon were to transform me into a
hedge-hog or a grey owl, it would be all the same to me.”
“Do not be so sinful,” said Dorothea gravely, but looking with kindly
admiration at the golden hair and lovely sweet face of the young woman.
“It ought to be a pleasure to you to dress yourself for your husband.”
“For him?” said Sirona. “He never looks at me, or if he does it is only
to abuse me. The only wonder to me is that I can still be merry at all;
nor am I, except in your house, and not there even but when I forget him
altogether.”
“I will not hear such things said--not another word,” interrupted
Dorothea severely. “Take the linen and cooling lotion, Marthana, we will
go and bind up Anubis’ wound.”