The houses of the embalmers, which earlier in the evening had shone
brightly out of the darkness, now made a less splendid display. The dust
kicked up by the crowd dimmed the few lamps and torches which had not by
this time burned out or been extinguished, and an oppressive atmosphere
of balsamic resin and spices met the brother and sister on the very
threshold. The vast hall which they now entered was one of a long row
of buildings of unburned bricks; but the Greeks insisted on some
ornamentation of the simplest structure, if it served a public purpose,
and the embalming-houses had a colonnade along their front, and their
walls were covered with stucco, painted in gaudy colors, here in the
Egyptian and there in the Greek taste. There were scenes from the
Egyptian realm of the dead, and others from the Hellenic myths; for
the painters had been enjoined to satisfy the requirements and views of
visitors of every race. The chief attraction, however, this night
was within; for the men whose duties were exercised on the dead had
displayed the finest and best of what they had to offer to their
customers.
The ancient Greek practice of burning the dead had died out under the
Antonines. Of old, the objects used to deck the pyre had also been
on show here; now there was nothing to be seen but what related to
interment or entombment.
Side by side with the marble sarcophagus, or those of coarser stone,
were wooden coffins and mummy-cases, with a place at the head for the
portrait of the deceased. Vases and jars of every kind, amulets of
various forms, spices and balsams in vials and boxes, little images in
burned clay of the gods and of men, of which none but the Egyptians knew
the allegorical meaning, stood in long rows on low wooden shelves. On
the higher shelves were mummy bands and shrouds, some coarse, others of
the very finest texture, wigs for the bald heads of shaven corpses, or
woolen fillets, and simply or elaborately embroidered ribbons for the
Greek dead.
Nothing was lacking of the various things in use for decking the corpse
of an Alexandrian, whatever his race or faith.
Some mummy-cases, too, were there, ready to be packed off to other
towns. The most costly were covered with fine red linen, wound about
with strings of beads and gold ornaments, and with the name of the
dead painted on the upper side. In a long, narrow room apart hung the
portraits, waiting to be attached to the upper end of the mummy-cases of
those lately deceased, and still in the hands of embalmers. Here, too,
most of the lamps were out, and the upper end of the room was already
dark. Only in the middle, where the best pictures were on show, the
lights had been renewed.
The portraits were painted on thin panels of sycamore or of cypress,
and in most of them the execution betrayed that their destiny was to be
hidden in the gloom of a tomb.
Alexander’s portrait of Korinna was in the middle of the gallery, in
a good light, and stood out from the paintings on each side of it as
a genuine emerald amid green glass. It was constantly surrounded by a
crowd of the curious and connoisseurs. They pointed out the beautiful
work to each other; but, though most of them acknowledged the skill
of the master who had painted it, many ascribed its superiority to
the magical charm of the model. One could see in those wonderfully
harmonious features that Aristotle was right when he discerned beauty
in order and proportion; while another declared that he found there
the evidence of Plato’s doctrine of the identity of the good and the
beautiful--for this face was so lovely because it was the mirror of a
soul which had been disembodied in the plenitude of maiden purity
and virtue, unjarred by any discord; and this gave rise to a vehement
discussion as to the essential nature of beauty and of virtue.
Others longed to know more about the early-dead original of this
enchanting portrait. Korinna’s wealthy father and his brothers were
among the best-known men of the city. The elder, Timotheus, was
high-priest of the Temple of Serapis; and Zeno, the younger, had set
the whole world talking when he, who in his youth had been notoriously
dissipated, had retired from any concern in the corn-trade carried on
by his family, the greatest business of the kind in the world, perhaps,
and--for this was an open secret--had been baptized.
The body of the maiden, when embalmed and graced with her portrait, was
to be transported to the family tomb in the district of Arsinoe, where
they had large possessions, and the gossip of the embalmer was eagerly
swallowed as he expatiated on the splendor with which her liberal father
proposed to escort her thither.
Alexander and Melissa had entered the portrait-gallery before the
beginning of this narrative, and listened to it, standing behind several
rows of gazers who were between them and the portrait.
As the speaker ceased, the little crowd broke up, and when Melissa could
at last see her brother’s work at her ease, she stood speechless for
some time; and then she turned to the artist, and exclaimed, from the
depths of her heart, “Beauty is perhaps the noblest thing in the world!”
“It is,” replied Alexander, with perfect assurance. And he, bewitched
once more by the spell which had held him by Korinna’s couch, gazed into
the dark eyes in his own picture, whose living glance his had never met,
and which he nevertheless had faithfully reproduced, giving them a look
of the longing of a pure soul for all that is lovely and worthy.
Melissa, an artist’s daughter, as she looked at this portrait,
understood what it was that had so deeply stirred her brother while he
painted it; but this was not the place to tell him so. She soon tore
herself away, to look about for Philip once more and then to be taken
home.
Alexander, too, was seeking Philip; but, sharp as the artist’s eyes
were, Melissa’s seemed to be keener, for, just as they were giving it up
and turning to go, she pointed to a dark corner and said softly, “There
he is.”
And there, in fact, her brother was, sitting with two men, one very tall
and the other a little man, his brow resting on his hand in the deep
shadow of a sarcophagus, between the wall and a mummy-case set on end,
which till now had hidden him from Alexander and Melissa.
Who could the man be who had kept the young philosopher, somewhat
inaccessible in his pride of learning, so long in talk in that half-dark
corner? He was not one of the learned society at the Museum; Alexander
knew them all. Besides, he was not dressed like them, in the Greek
fashion, but in the flowing robe of a Magian. And the stranger was a man
of consequence, for he wore his splendid garment with a superior air,
and as Alexander approached him he remembered having somewhere seen this
tall, bearded figure, with the powerful head garnished with flowing and
carefully oiled black curls. Such handsome and well-chiseled features,
such fine eyes, and such a lordly, waving beard were not easily
forgotten; his memory suddenly awoke and threw a light on the man as he
sat in the gloom, and on the surroundings in which he had met him for
the first time.
It was at the feast of Dionysus. Among a drunken crowd, which was
rushing wildly along the streets, and which Alexander had joined,
himself one of the wildest, this man had marched, sober and dignified
as he was at this moment, in the same flowing raiment. This had provoked
the feasters, who, being full of wine and of the god, would have nothing
that could remind them of the serious side of life. Such sullen reserve
on a day of rejoicing was an insult to the jolly giver of the fruits
of the earth, and to wine itself, the care-killer; and the mad troop of
artists, disguised as Silenus, satyrs, and fauns, had crowded round the
stranger to compel him to join their rout and empty the wine-jar which a
burly Silenus was carrying before him on his ass.
At first the man had paid no heed to the youths’ light mockery; but as
they grew bolder, he suddenly stood still, seized the tall faun, who
was trying to force the wine-jar on him, by both arms, and, holding him
firmly, fixed his grave, dark eyes on those of the youth. Alexander had
not forgotten the half-comical, half-threatening incident, but what he
remembered most clearly was the strange scene that followed: for, after
the Magian had released his enemy, he bade him take the jar back to
Silenus, and proceed on his way, like the ass, on all-fours. And the
tall faun, a headstrong, irascible Lesbian, had actually obeyed the
stately despot, and crept along on his hands and feet by the side of the
donkey. No threats nor mockery of his companions could persuade him to
rise. The high spirits of the boisterous crew were quite broken, and
before they could turn on the magician he had vanished.
Alexander had afterward learned that he was Serapion, the star-gazer and
thaumaturgist, whom all the spirits of heaven and earth obeyed.
When, at the time, the painter had told the story to Philip, the
philosopher had laughed at him, though Alexander had reminded him that
Plato even had spoken of the daimons as being the guardian spirits of
men; that in Alexandria, great and small alike believed in them as a
fact to be reckoned with; and that he--Philip himself--had told him that
they played a prominent part in the newest systems of philosophy.
But to the skeptic nothing was sure: and if he would deny the existence
of the Divinity, he naturally must disbelieve that of any beings in a
sphere between the supersensual immortals and sentient human creatures.
That a man, the weaker nature, could have any power over daimons, who,
as having a nearer affinity to the gods, must, if they existed, be the
stronger, he could refute with convincing arguments; and when he saw
others nibbling whitethorn-leaves, or daubing their thresholds with
pitch to preserve themselves and the house from evil spirits, he
shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, though his father often did such
things.
Here was Philip, deep in conversation with the man he had mocked at,
and Alexander was flattered by seeing that wise and famous Serapion,
in whose powers he himself believed, was talking almost humbly to his
brother, as though to a superior. The magician was standing, while the
philosopher, as though it were his right, remained seated.
Of what could they be conversing?
Alexander himself was anxious to be going, and only his desire to hear
at any rate a few sentences of the talk of two such men detained him
longer.
As he expected, it bore on Serapion’s magical powers; but the bearded
man spoke in a very low tone, and if the painter ventured any nearer he
would be seen. He could only catch a few incoherent words, till Philip
exclaimed in a louder voice: “All that is well-reasoned. But you will be
able to write an enduring inscription on the shifting wave sooner than
you will shake my conviction that for our spirit, such as Nature has
made it, there is nothing infallible or certain.”
The painter was familiar with this postulate, and was curious to hear
the Magian’s reply; but he could not follow his argument till he
ended by saying, rather more emphatically: “You, even, do not deny the
physical connection of things; but I know the power that causes it. It
is the magical sympathy which displays itself more powerfully in the
universe, and among human beings, than any other force.”
“That is just what remains to be proved,” was the reply. But as
the other declared in all confidence, “And I can prove it,” and was
proceeding to do so, Serapion’s companion, a stunted, sharp-featured
little Syrian, caught sight of Alexander. The discourse was interrupted,
and Alexander, pointing to Melissa, begged his brother to grant them a
few minutes’ speech with him. Philip, however, scarcely spared a moment
for greeting his brother and sister; and when, in answer to his request
that they be brief in what they had to say, they replied that a few
words would not suffice, Philip was for putting them off till the
morrow, as he did not choose to be disturbed just now.
At this Melissa took courage; she turned to Serapion and modestly
addressed him:
“You, sir, look like a grave, kind man, and seem to have a regard for my
brother. You, then, will help us, no doubt, to cure him of an illusion
which troubles us. A dead girl, he says, met him, and he touched her
hand.”
“And do you, sweet child, think that impossible?” the Magian asked with
gentle gravity. “Have the thousands who bring not merely fruit and wine
and money for their dead, but who even burn a black sheep for them--you,
perhaps, have done the same--have they, I ask, done this so long in
vain? I can not believe it. Nay, I know from the ghosts themselves that
this gives them pleasure; so they must have the organs of sense.”
“That we may rejoice departed souls by food and drink,” said Melissa,
eagerly, “and that daimons at times mingle with the living, every one
of course, believes; but who ever heard that warm blood stirred in them?
And how can it be possible that they should remunerate a service with
money, which certainly was not coined in their airy realm, but in the
mint here?”
“Not too fast, fair maid,” replied the Magian, raising a warning hand.
“There is no form which these intermediate beings can not assume. They
have the control of all and everything which mortals may use, so the
soul of Korinna revisiting these scenes may quite well have paid the
ferryman with an obolus.”
“Then you know of it?” asked Melissa in surprise; but the Magian broke
in, saying:
“Few such things remain hidden from him who knows, not even the
smallest, if he strives after such knowledge.”
As he spoke he gave the girl such a look as made her eyelids fall, and
he went on with greater warmth: “There would be fewer tears shed by
death-beds, my child, if we could but show the world the means by which
the initiated hold converse with the souls of the dead.”
Melissa shook her pretty head sadly, and the Magian kindly stroked her
waving hair; then, looking her straight in the eyes, he said: “The dead
live. What once has been can never cease to be, any more than out
of nothing can anything come. It is so simple; and so, too, are the
workings of magic, which amaze you so much. What you call magic, when I
practice it, Eros, the great god of love, has wrought a thousand times
in your breast. When your heart leaps at your brother’s caress, when
the god’s arrow pierces you, and the glance of a lover fills you with
gladness, when the sweet harmonies of fine music wrap your soul above
this earth, or the wail of a child moves you to compassion, you have
felt the magic power stirring in your own soul. You feel it when some
mysterious power, without any will of your own, prompts you to some act,
be it what it may. And, besides all this, if a leaf flutters off the
table without being touched by any visible hand, you do not doubt that
a draught of air, which you can neither hear nor see, has swept through
the room. If at noon the world is suddenly darkened, you know, without
looking up at the sky, that it is overcast by a cloud. In the very same
way you can feel the nearness of a soul that was dear to you without
being able to see it. All that is necessary is to strengthen the faculty
which knows its presence, and give it the proper training, and then you
will see and hear them. The Magians have the key which unlocks the door
of the world of spirits to the human senses. Your noble brother, in whom
the claims of the spirit have long since triumphed over those of sense,
has found this key without seeking it, since he has been permitted to
see Korinna’s soul. And if he follows a competent guide he will see her
again.”
“But why? What good will it do him?” asked Melissa, with a reproachful
and anxious look at the man whose influence, as she divined would be
pernicious to her brother, in spite of his knowledge. The Magian gave
a compassionate shrug, and in the look he cast at the philosopher, the
question was legible, “What have such as these to do with the highest
things?”
Philip nodded in impatient assent, and, without paying any further heed
to his brother and sister, besought his friend to give him the proofs
of the theory that the physical causation of things is weaker than the
sympathy which connects them. Melissa knew full well that any attempt
now to separate Philip from Serapion would be futile; however, she would
not leave the last chance untried, and asked him gravely whether he had
forgotten his mother’s tomb.
He hastily assured her that he fully intended to visit it presently.
Fruit and fragrant oil could be had here at any hour of the night.
“And your two wreaths?” she said, in mild reproach, for she had observed
them both below the portrait of Korinna.
“I had another use for them,” he said, evasively; and then he added,
apologetically: “You have brought flowers enough, I know. If I can find
time, I will go to-morrow to see my father.” He nodded to them both,
turned to the Magian, and went on eagerly:
“Then that magical sympathy--”
They did not wait to hear the discussion; Alexander signed to his sister
to follow him.
He, too, knew that his brother’s ear was deaf now to anything he could
say. What Serapion had said had riveted even his attention, and the
question whether it might indeed be vouchsafed to living mortals to see
the souls of the departed, and hear their voices, exercised his mind so
greatly that he could not forbear asking his sister’s opinion on such
matters.
But Melissa’s good sense had felt that there was something not quite
sound in the Magian’s argument--nor did she conceal her conviction that
Philip, who was always hard to convince, had accepted Serapion’s views,
not because he yielded to the weight of his reasons, but because he--and
Alexander, too, for that matter--hoped by his mediation to see the
beautiful Korinna again.
This the artist admitted; but when he jested of the danger of a jealous
quarrel between him and his brother, for the sake of a dead girl, there
was something hard in his tone, and very unlike him, which Melissa did
not like.
They breathed more freely as they got out into the open air, and
her efforts to change the subject of their conversation were happily
seconded; for at the door they met the family of their neighbor Skopas,
the owner of a stone-quarry, whose grave-plot adjoined theirs, and
Melissa was happy again as she heard her brother laughing as gayly as
ever with Skopas’s pretty daughter. The mania had not taken such deep
hold of the light-hearted young painter as of Philip, the poring and
gloomy philosopher; and she was glad as she heard her friend Ino call
Alexander a faithless butterfly, while her sister Helena declared that
he was a godless scoffer.