As Melissa made her way with the philosopher through the crowd,
Philostratus said to her: “It is for your sake, child, that these
hundreds have had so long to wait to-day, and many hopes will be
disappointed. To satisfy all is a giant’s task. But Caracalla must do
it, well or ill.”
“Then he will forget me!” replied Melissa, with a sigh of relief.
“Hardly,” answered the philosopher. He was sorry for the terrified
girl, and in his wish to lighten her woes as far as he could, he said,
gravely: “You called him terrible, and he can be more terrible than
any man living. But he has been kind to you so far, and, if you take my
advice, you will always seem to expect nothing from him that is not good
and noble.”
“Then I must be a hypocrite,” replied Melissa. “Only to-day he has
murdered the noble Titianus.”
“That is an affair of state which does not concern you,” replied
Philostratus. “Read my description of Achilles. I represent him among
other heroes such as Caracalla might be. Try, on your part, to see him
in that light. I know that it is sometimes a pleasure to him to justify
the good opinion of others. Encourage your imagination to think the best
of him. I shall tell him that you regard him as magnanimous and noble.”
“No, no!” cried Melissa; “that would make everything worse.”
But the philosopher interrupted her.
“Trust my riper experience. I know him. If you let him know your true
opinion of him, I will answer for nothing. My Achilles reveals the good
qualities with which he came into the world; and if you look closely you
may still find sparks among the ashes.”
He here took his leave, for they had reached the vestibule leading
to the high-priest’s lodgings, and a few minutes later Melissa found
herself with Euryale, to whom she related all that she had seen and
felt. When she told her older friend what Philostratus had advised,
the lady stroked her hair, and said: “Try to follow the advice of so
experienced a man. It can not be very difficult. When a woman’s heart
has once been attached to a man--and pity is one of the strongest of
human ties--the bond may be strained and worn, but a few threads must
always remain.”
But Melissa hastily broke in:
“There is not a spider’s thread left which binds me to that cruel man.
The murder of Titianus has snapped them all.”
“Not so,” replied the lady, confidently. “Pity is the only form of love
which even the worst crime can not eradicate from a kind heart. You
prayed for Caesar before you knew him, and that was out of pure human
charity. Exercise now a wider compassion, and reflect that Fate has
called you to take care of a hapless creature raving in fever and
hard to deal with. How many Christian women, especially such as call
themselves deaconesses, voluntarily assume such duties! and good
is good, right is right for all, whether they pray to one God or to
several. If you keep your heart pure, and constantly think of the
time which shall be fulfilled for each of us, to our ruin or to our
salvation, you will pass unharmed through this great peril. I know it, I
feel it.”
“But you do not know him,” exclaimed Melissa, “and how terrible he can
be! And Diodoros! When he is well again, if he hears that I am with
Caesar, in obedience to his call whenever he sends for me, and if evil
tongues tell him dreadful things about me, he, too, will condemn me!”
“No, no,” the matron declared, kissing her brow and eyes. “If he loves
you truly, he will trust you.”
“He loves me,” sobbed Melissa; “but, even if he does not desert me when
I am thus branded, his father will come between us.”
“God forbid!” cried Euryale. “Remain what you are, and I will always be
the same to you, come what may; and those who love you will not refuse
to listen to an old woman who has grown gray in honor.”
And Melissa believed her motherly, kind, worthy friend; and, with the
new confidence which revived in her, her longing for her lover began to
stir irresistibly. She wanted a fond glance from the eyes of the youth
who loved her, and to whom, for another man’s sake, she could not give
all his due, nay, who had perhaps a right to complain of her. This she
frankly confessed, and the matron herself conducted the impatient girl
to see Diodoros.
Melissa again found Andreas in attendance on the sufferer, and she was
surprised at the warmth with which the high-priest’s wife greeted the
Christian.
Diodoros was already able to be dressed and to sit up. He was pale
and weak, and his head was still bound up, but he welcomed the girl
affectionately, though with a mild reproach as to the rarity of her
visits.
Andreas had already informed him that Melissa was kept away by her
mediation for the prisoners, and so he was comforted by her assurance
that if her duty would allow of it she would never leave him again.
And the joy of having her there, the delight of gazing into her sweet,
lovely face, and the youthful gift of forgetting the past in favor of
the present, silenced every bitter reflection. He was soon blissfully
listening to her with a fresh color in his cheeks, and never had he seen
her so tender, so devoted, so anxious to show him the fullness of her
great love. The quiet, reserved girl was to-day the wooer, and with the
zeal called forth by her ardent wish to do him good, she expressed all
the tenderness of her warm heart so frankly and gladly that to him it
seemed as though Eros had never till now pierced her with the right
shaft.
As soon as Euryale was absorbed in conversation with Andreas, she
offered him her lips with gay audacity, as though in defiance of some
stern dragon of virtue, and he, drunk with rapture, enjoyed what she
granted him. And soon it was he who became daring, declaring that there
would be time enough to talk another day; that for the present her rosy
mouth had nothing to do but to cure him with kisses. And during this
sweet give and take, she implored him with pathetic fervor never, never
to doubt her love, whatever he might hear of her. Their older friends,
who had turned their backs on the couple and were talking busily by a
window, paid no heed to them, and the blissful conviction of being loved
as ardently as she loved flooded her whole being.
Only now and then did the thought of Caesar trouble for a moment the
rapture of that hour, like a hideous form appearing out of distant
clouds. She felt prompted indeed to tell her lover everything, but it
seemed so difficult to make him understand exactly how everything had
happened, and Diodoros must not be distressed. And, indeed, intoxicated
as he was with heated passion, he made the attempt impossible.
When he spoke it was only to assure her of his love; and when the lady
Euryale at last called her to go, and looked in the girl’s glowing face,
Melissa felt as though she were snatched from a rapturous dream.
In the anteroom they were stopped by Andreas. Euryale had indeed
relieved his worst fears, still he was anxious to lay before the girl
the question whether she would not be wise to take advantage of this
very night to make her escape. She, however, her eyes still beaming
with happiness, laid her little hand coaxingly on his bearded mouth, and
begged him not to sadden her high spirits and hopes of a better time by
warnings and dismal forecasts. Even the lady Euryale had advised her to
trust fearlessly to herself, and sitting with her lover she had acquired
the certainty that it was best so. The freedman could not bear to
disturb this happy confidence, and only impressed on Melissa that
she should send for him if ever she needed him. He would find her
a hiding-place, and the lady Euryale had undertaken to provide a
messenger. He then bade them godspeed, and they returned to the
high-priest’s dwelling.
In the vestibule they found a servant from the lady Berenike; in his
mistress’s name he desired Euryale to send Melissa to spend the night
with her.
This invitation, which would remove Melissa from the Serapeum, was
welcome to them both, and the matron herself accompanied the young girl
down a private staircase leading to a small side-door. Argutis, who
had come to inquire for his young mistress, was to be her escort and to
bring her back early next morning to the same entrance.
The old slave had much to tell her. He had been on his feet all day. He
had been to the harbor to inquire as to the return of the vessel with
the prisoners on board; to the Serapeum to inquire for her; to Dido,
to give her the news. He had met Alexander in the forenoon on the quay
where the imperial galleys were moored. When the young man learned that
the trireme could not come in before next morning at the soonest, he had
set out to cross the lake and see Zeus and his daughter. He had charged
Argutis to let Melissa know that his longing for the fair Agatha gave
him no peace.
He and old Dido disapproved of their young master’s feather-brain, which
had not been made more steady and patient even by the serious events
of this day and his sister’s peril; however, he did not allow a word
of blame to escape him. He was happy only to be allowed to walk behind
Melissa, and to hear from her own lips that all was well with her, and
that Caesar was gracious.
Alexander, indeed, had also told the old man that he and Caesar were
“good friends”; and now the slave was thinking of Pandion, Theocritus,
and the other favorites of whom he had heard; and he assured Melissa
that, as soon as her father should be free, Caracalla would be certain
to raise him to the rank of knight, to give him lands and wealth,
perhaps one of the imperial residences on the Bruchium. Then he,
Argutis, would be house steward, and show that he knew other things
besides keeping the workroom and garden in order, splitting wood, and
buying cheaply at market.
Melissa laughed and said he should be no worse off if only the first
wish of her heart were fulfilled, and she were wife to Diodoros; and
Argutis declared he would be amply content if only she allowed him to
remain with her.
But she only half listened and answered absently, for she breathed
faster as she pictured to herself how she would show Caesar, on whom she
had already proved her power, that she had ceased to tremble before him.
Thus they came to the house of Seleukus.
A large force had taken up their quarters there. In the pillared
hall beyond the vestibule bearded soldiers were sitting on benches or
squatting in groups on the ground, drinking noisily and singing, or
laughing and squabbling as they threw the dice on the costly mosaic
pavement. A riotous party were toping and reveling in the beautiful
garden of the impluvium round a fire which they had lighted on the
velvet turf. A dozen or so of officers had stretched themselves on
cushions under one of the colonnades, and, without attempting to check
the wild behavior of their men, were watching the dancing of some
Egyptian girls who had been brought into the house of their involuntary
host. Although Melissa was closely veiled and accompanied by a servant,
she did not escape rude words and insolent glances. Indeed, an audacious
young praetorian had put out his hand to pull away her veil, but an
older officer stopped him.
The lady Berenike’s rooms had so far not been intruded on; for Macrinus,
the praetorian prefect, who knew Berenike through her brother-in-law the
senator Coeranus, had given orders that the women’s apartments were to
be exempt from the encroachments of the quartermaster of the body-guard.
Breathing rapidly and with a heightened color, Melissa at last entered
the room of Seleukus’s wife.
The matron’s voice was full of bitterness as she greeted her young
visitor with the exclamation “You look as if you had fled to escape
persecution! And in my house, too! Or”--and her large eyes flashed
brightly--“or is the blood-hound on the track of his prey? My boat is
quite ready--” When Melissa denied this, and related what had happened,
Berenike exclaimed: “But you know that the panther lies still and
gathers himself up before he springs; or, if you do not, you may see it
to-morrow at the Circus. There is to be a performance in Caesar’s honor,
the like of which not even Nero ever saw. My husband bears the chief
part cf the cost, and can think of nothing else. He has even forgotten
his only child, and all to please the man who insults us, robs and
humiliates us! Now that men kiss the hands which maltreat them, it is
the part of women to defy them. You must fly, child! The harbor is now
closed, but it will be open again to-morrow morning, and, if your folks
are set free in the course of the day, then away with you at once! Or
do you really hope for any good from the tyrant who has made this house
what you now see it?”
“I know him,” replied Melissa, “and I look for nothing but the worst.”
At this the elder woman warmly grasped the girl’s hand, but she was
interrupted by the waiting woman Johanna, who said that a Roman officer
of rank, a tribune, craved to be admitted.
When Berenike refused to receive him, the maid assured her that he was a
young man, and had expressed his wish to bring an urgent request to the
lady’s notice in a becoming and modest manner.
On this the matron allowed him to be shown in to her, and Melissa
hastily obeyed her instructions to withdraw into the adjoining room.
Only a half-drawn curtain divided it from the room where Berenike
received the soldier, and without listening she could hear the loud
voice which riveted her attention as soon as she had recognized it.
The young tribune, in a tone of courteous entreaty, begged his hostess
to provide a room for his brother, who was severely wounded. The
sufferer was in a high fever, and the physician said that the noise and
rattle of vehicles in the street, on which the room where he now
lay looked out, and the perpetual coming and going of the men, might
endanger his life. He had just been told that on the side of the women’s
apartments there was a row of rooms looking out on the impluvium, and he
ventured to entreat her to spare one of them for the injured man. If she
had a brother or a child, she would forgive the boldness of his request.
So far she listened in silence; then she suddenly raised her head and
measured the petitioner’s tall figure with a lurid fire in her eye.
Then she replied, while she looked into his handsome young face with a
half-scornful, half-indignant air: “Oh, yes! I know what it is to see
one we love suffer. I had an only child; she was the joy of my heart.
Death--death snatched her from me, and a few days later the sovereign
whom you serve commanded us to prepare a feast for him. It seemed to him
something new and delightful to hold a revel in a house of mourning. At
the last moment--all the guests were assembled--he sent us word that he
himself did not intend to appear. But his friends laughed and reveled
wildly enough! They enjoyed themselves, and no doubt praised our cook
and our wine. And now--another honor we can duly appreciate!--he
sends his praetorians to turn this house of mourning into a tavern, a
wine-shop, where they call creatures in from the street to dance and
sing. The rank to which you have risen while yet so young shows that you
are of good family, so you can imagine how highly we esteem the honor of
seeing your men trampling, destroying, and burning in their camp-fires
everything which years of labor and care had produced to make our
little garden a thing of beauty. ‘Only look down on them!’ Macrinus, who
commands you, promised me, moreover, that the women’s apartments should
be respected. ‘No praetorian, whether common soldier or commander,’ and
here she raised her voice, ‘shall set foot within them!’ Here is his
writing. The prefect set the seal beneath it in Caesar’s name.”
“I know of the order, noble lady,” interrupted Nemesianus, “and should
be the last to wish to act against it. I do not demand, I only appeal
humbly to the heart of a woman and a mother.’
“A mother!” broke in Berenike, scornfully; “yes! and one whose soul your
lord has pierced with daggers--a woman whose home has been dishonored
and made hateful to her. I have enjoyed sufficient honor now, and shall
stand firmly on my rights.”
“Hear but one thing more,” began the youth, timidly; but the lady
Berenike had already turned her back upon him, and returned with a proud
and stately carriage to Melissa in the adjoining apartment.
Breathing hard, as if stunned by her words, the tribune remained
standing on the threshold where the terrible lady had vanished from
his sight, and then, striving to regain his composure, pushed back the
curling locks from his brow. But scarcely had Berenike entered the other
room than Melissa whispered to her: “The wounded man is the unfortunate
Aurelius, whose face Caracalla wounded for my sake.”
At this the lady’s eyes suddenly flashed and blazed so strangely that
the girl’s blood ran cold. But she had no time to ask the reason of this
emotion, for the next moment the queenly woman grasped the weaker one by
the wrist with her strong right hand, and with a commanding “Come with
me,” drew her back into the room they had just quitted. She called to
the tribune, whose hand was already on the door, to come back.
The young man stood still, surprised and startled to see Melissa; but
the lady Berenike said, calmly, “Now that I have learned the honor that
has been accorded to you, too, by the master whom you so faithfully
serve, the poor injured man whom you call your brother shall be made
welcome within these walls. He is my companion in suffering. A quiet,
airy chamber shall be set apart for him, and he shall not lack careful
attention, nor anything which even his own mother could offer him. Only
two things I desire of you in return: that you admit no one of your
companions-in-arms, nor any man whatever, into this dwelling, save only
the physician whom I shall send to you. Furthermore, that you do
not betray, even to your nearest friend, whom you found here besides
myself.”
Under the mortification that had wounded his brotherly heart, Aurelius
Nemesianus had lost countenance; but now he replied with a soldier’s
ready presence of mind: “It is difficult for me to find a proper answer
to you, noble lady. I know right well that I owe you my warmest thanks,
and equally so that he whom you call our master has inflicted as deep a
wrong on us as on you; but Caesar is still my military chief.”
“Still!” broke in Berenike. “But you are too youthful a tribune for me
to believe that you took up the sword as a means of livelihood.”
“We are sons of the Aurelia,” answered Nemesianus, haughtily, “and it is
very possible that this day’s work may be the cause of our deserting the
eagles we have followed in order to win glory and taste the delights of
warfare. But all that is for the future to decide. Meanwhile, I thank
you, noble lady, and also in the name of my brother, who is my second
self. On behalf of Apollinaris, too, I beg you to pardon the rudeness
which we offered to this maiden--”
“I am not angry with you any more,” cried Melissa, eagerly and frankly,
and the tribune thanked her in his own and his brother’s name.
He began trying to explain the unfortunate occurrence, but Berenike
admonished him to lose no time. The soldier withdrew, and the lady
Berenike ordered her handmaiden to call the housekeeper and other
serving-women. Then she repaired quickly to the room she had destined
for the wounded man and his brother. But neither Melissa nor the other
women could succeed in really lending her any help, for she herself put
forth all her cleverness and power of head and hand, forgetting nothing
that might be useful or agreeable in the nursing of the sick. In that
wealthy, well-ordered house everything stood ready to hand; and in less
than a quarter of an hour the tribune Nemesianus was informed that the
chamber was ready for the reception of his brother.
The lady then returned with Melissa to her own sleeping apartment,
and took various little bottles and jars from a small medicine-chest,
begging the girl at the same time to excuse her, as she intended to
undertake the nursing of the wounded man herself. Here were books, and
there Korinna’s lute. Johanna would attend to the evening meal. Tomorrow
morning they could consult further as to what was necessary to be done;
then she kissed her guest and left the room.
Left to herself, Melissa gave herself up to varying thoughts, till
Johanna brought her repast. While she hardly nibbled at it, the
Christian told her that matters looked ill with the tribune, and that
the wound in the forehead especially caused the physician much anxiety.
Many questions were needed to draw this much from the freedwoman, for
she spoke but little. When she did speak, however, it was with great
kindliness, and there lay something so simple and gentle in her whole
manner that it awakened confidence. Having satisfied her appetite,
Melissa returned to the lady Berenike’s apartment; but there her heart
grew heavy at the thought of what awaited her on the morrow. When, at
the moment of leaving, Johanna inquired whether she desired anything
further, she asked her if she knew a saying of her fellow-believers,
which ran, “The fullness of time was come.”
“Yes, surely,” returned the other; “our Lord himself spoke them, and
Paul wrote them to the Galatians.”
“Who is this Paul?” Melissa asked; and the Christian replied that of all
the teachers of her faith he was the one she most dearly loved. Then,
hesitating a little, she asked if Melissa, being a heathen, had inquired
the meaning of this saying.
“Andrew, the freedman of Polybius and the lady Euryale, explained it to
me. Did the moment ever come to you in which you felt assured that for
you the time was fulfilled?”
“Yes,” replied Johanna, with decision; “and that moment comes, sooner or
later, in every life.”
“You are a maiden like myself,” began Melissa, simply. “A heavy task
lies before me, and if you would confide to me--”
But the Christian broke in: “My life has moved in other paths than
yours, and what has happened to me, the freedwoman and the Christian,
can have no interest for you. But the saying which has stirred your
soul refers to the coming of One who is all in all to us Christians. Did
Andrew tell you nothing of His life?”
“Only a little,” answered the girl, “but I would gladly hear more of
Him.”
Then the Christian seated herself at Melissa’s side, and, clasping the
maiden’s hand in hers, told her of the birth of the Saviour, of His
loving heart, and His willing death as a sacrifice for the sins of the
whole world. The girl listened with attentive ear. With no word did she
interrupt the narrative, and the image of the Crucified One rose before
her mind’s eye, pure and noble, and worthy of all love. A thousand
questions rose to her lips, but, before she could ask one, the Christian
was called away to attend the lady Berenike, and Melissa was again
alone.
What she had already heard of the teaching of the Christians occurred
to her once more, and above all that first saying from the sacred
Scriptures which had attracted her attention, and about which she
had just asked Johanna. Perhaps for her, too, the time was already
fulfilled, when she had taken courage to defy the emperor’s commands.
She rejoiced at this action, for she felt that the strength would never
fail her now to set her will against his. She felt as though she bore a
charm against his power since she had parted from her lover, and since
the murder of the governor had opened her eyes to the true character
of him on whom she had all too willingly expended her pity. And yet she
shuddered at the thought of meeting the emperor again, and of having
to show him that she felt safe with him because she trusted to his
generosity.
Lost in deep thought, she waited for the return of the lady and the
Christian waiting-woman, but in vain. At last her eye fell upon the
scrolls which the lady Berenike had pointed out to her. They lay in
beautiful alabaster caskets on an ebony stand. If they had only been
the writings of the Christians, telling of the life and death of their
Saviour! But how should writings such as those come here? The casket
only held the works of Philostratus, and she took from it the roll
containing the story of the hero of whom he had himself spoken to her.
Full of curiosity, she smoothed out the papyrus with the ivory stick,
and her attention was soon engaged by the lively conversation between
the vintner and his Phoenician guest. She passed rapidly over the
beginning, but soon reached the part of which Philostratus had told her.
Under the form of Achilles he had striven to represent Caracalla as
he appeared to the author’s indulgent imagination. But it was no true
portrait; it described the original at most as his mother would have
wished him to be. There it was written that the vehemence flashing from
the hero’s bright eyes, even when peacefully inclined, showed how easily
his wrath could break forth. But to those who loved him he was even more
endearing during these outbursts than before. The Athenians felt toward
him as they did toward a lion; for, if the king of beasts pleased them
when he was at rest, he charmed them infinitely more when, foaming
with bloodthirsty rage, he fell upon a bull, a wild boar, or some such
ferocious animal.
Yes, indeed! Caracalla, too, fell mercilessly upon his prey! Had she not
seen him hewing down Apollinaris a few hours ago?
Furthermore, Achilles was said to have declared that he could drive away
care by fearlessly encountering the greatest dangers for the sake of his
friends. But where were Caracalla’s friends?
At best, the allusion could only refer to the Roman state, for whose
sake the emperor certainly did endure many a hardship and many a
wearisome task, and he was not the only person who had told her so.
Then she turned back a little and found the words: “But because he was
easily inclined to anger, Chiron instructed him in music; for is it not
inherent in this art to soothe violence and wrath--And Achilles acquired
without trouble the laws of harmony and sang to the lyre.”
This all corresponded with the truth, and tomorrow she was to discover
what had suggested to Philostratus the story that when Achilles begged
Calliope to endow him with the gifts of music and poetry she had given
him so much of both as he required to enliven the feast and banish
sadness. He was also said to be a poet, and devoted himself most
ardently to verse when resting from the toils of war.
To hear that man unjustly blamed on whom her heart is set, only
increases a woman’s love; but unmerited praise makes her criticise him
more sharply, and is apt to transform a fond smile into a scornful one.
Thus the picture that raised Caracalla to the level of an Achilles made
Melissa shrug her shoulders over the man she dreaded; and while she even
doubted Caesar’s musical capacities, Diodoros’s young, fresh, bell-like
voice rose doubly beautiful and true upon her memory’s ear. The image of
her lover finally drove out that of the emperor, and, while she seemed
to hear the wedding song which the youths and maidens were so soon to
sing for them both, she fell asleep.
It was late when Johanna came to admonish her to retire to rest. Shortly
before sunrise she was awakened by Berenike, who wished to take some
rest, and who told her, before seeking her couch, that Apollinaris was
doing well. The lady was still sleeping when Johanna came to inform
Melissa that the slave Argutis was waiting to see her.
The Christian undertook to convey the maiden’s farewell greetings to her
mistress.
As they entered the living-room, the gardener had just brought in fresh
flowers, among them three rose-bushes covered with full-blown flowers
and half-opened, dewy buds. Melissa asked Johanna timidly if the lady
Berenike would permit her to pluck one--there were so many; to which the
Christian replied that it would depend on the use it was to be put to.
“Only for the sick tribune,” answered Melissa, reddening. So Johanna
plucked two of the fairest blooms and gave them to the maiden--one for
the man who had injured her and one for her betrothed. Melissa kissed
her, gratefully, and begged her to present the flowers to the sick man
in her name.
Johanna carried out her wish at once; but the wounded man, gazing
mournfully at the rose, murmured to himself: “Poor, lovely, gentle
child! She will be ruined or dead before Caracalla leaves Alexandria!”