"'_ ...punica rostra lacu._'"
"Astounding! inimitable!" murmured Lampridius, shutting his eyes.
Julian was ashamed and amused at this verbal intoxication.
"Words should be, to a certain extent, devoid of meaning," continued
Lampridius gravely; "they should flow, roar, chant, without ever
bringing up short either the ear or the emotion. Then only real
enjoyment of their beauty is possible."
On the threshold of the door, from which the gaze of Julian had seldom
departed, there now appeared, quietly as a shadow, a white and haughty
figure.
The open shutters allowed the moonlight to fall in, mingling with the
ruddy shine of torches on the mosaic of the mirror-smooth floor, and
on the wall frescoes, portraying Endymion asleep under the caresses of
Selene. The apparition kept still as a statue. The antique Greek
peplum of soft white wool fell in long folds, cinctured high under the
breast. Moonlight illumined the robe, but the face remained in shadow.
The new-comer looked at Julian and Julian looked at her. They smiled
at each other, knowing that nobody observed them, and finger on lip
she listened to the anecdotes of the guests.
Suddenly Mamertinus, who was discussing with Lampridius grammatical
peculiarities of the first and second aorist, exclaimed--
"Arsinoë! At last! So you've made up your mind to abandon physics and
modelling for our company?"
She came in and deigned a smile to everyone.
She was the same disk-thrower whom a month before Julian had seen in
the abandoned wrestling-ground. The poet Publius, knowing everybody
and everything in Athens, had sought the acquaintance of Hortensius
and Arsinoë, and had introduced Julian to the house.
Arsinoë's father, an old Roman senator, Helvidius Priscus, had died
during the last years of Constantine the Great, bequeathing Arsinoë
and Myrrha, his two daughters by a Goth woman-prisoner, to Hortensius,
whom he respected on account of his love for antique Rome and hatred
for Christianity. A distant relative of Arsinoë, owner of factories of
purple at Sidon, had left his incalculable wealth to the young girl.
To Arsinoë, Christian virtues and the patriarchal customs of Rome
seemed equally contemptible. The figures of independent women,
Aspasia, Cleopatra, and Sappho, alone captivated her girlish
imagination. Had she not declared naïvely one day, to the horror of
Hortensius, that she would rather become a beautiful and free
courtesan, than be transformed into the mother of a family, slave of a
husband, "like everybody else"? Those three words, "like everybody
else," filled her with melancholy disgust. At one time Arsinoë was
attracted by natural science, and had worked with illustrious men of
science at the museum in Alexandria. Then the atomic theories of
Epicurus, Democrates, and Lucretius had enthralled her. She loved a
study which should deliver her soul from the "terror of the gods."
With the same almost morbid intensity, she had afterwards applied
herself to sculpture, and had come to Athens in order to study the
best works, the masterpieces of Phidias, Scopas, and Praxiteles.
"You are still discussing grammar?" asked the daughter of Helvidius
Priscus of the guests, as she came into the dining-hall. She continued
ironically: "Don't trouble yourselves; go on. I won't argue or
complain, because I'm too hungry after my day's work. Slave, some
wine!..."
"My friends," continued Arsinoë when seated, "you'll ruin your minds
with quotations from Demosthenes and your rules from Quintilian!...
Take care! Rhetoric will ruin you.... I want to see a man who doesn't
care a fig for Homer or for Cicero, who speaks without thinking of the
aspirates, of syntax, or of the conjunction of letters. Julian, let us
go down to the beach after supper; I am disinclined for discussions on
dactyls and anapæsts."
"Precisely my own mood, Arsinoë," stammered Garguillus, who had eaten
too much _foie gras_ and who almost always, at the end of dinner, felt
an aversion for literature proportionate to the weight upon his
stomach.
"_Litterarum intemperantia laboramus_," as Seneca used to say. "We are
suffering from literary indigestion. We are simply poisoning
ourselves!" and he thoughtfully took a tooth-pick from a pocket. His
large face expressed weariness and disgust.