The light in the town, which had attracted Paulus, was in Petrus' house,
and burnt in Polykarp's room, which formed the whole of a small upper-
story, which the senator had constructed for his son over the northern
portion of the spacious flat roof of the main building. The young man
had arrived about noon with the slaves he had just procured, had learned
all that had happened in his absence, and had silently withdrawn into his
own room after supper was ended. Here he still lingered over his work.
A bed, a table on and under which lay a multitude of wax-tablets,
papyrus-rolls, metal-points, and writing-reeds, with a small bench, on
which stood a water-jar and basin, composed the furniture of this room;
on its whitewashed walls hung several admirable carvings in relief, and
figures of men and animals stood near them in long rows. In one corner,
near a stone water-jar, lay a large, damp, shining mass of clay.
Three lamps fastened to stands abundantly lighted this work-room, but
chiefly a figure standing on a high trestle, which Polykarp's fingers
were industriously moulding.
Phoebicius had called the young sculptor a fop, and not altogether
unjustly, for he loved to be well dressed and was choice as to the cut
and color of his simple garments, and he rarely neglected to arrange his
abundant hair with care, and to anoint it well; and yet it was almost
indifferent to him, whether his appearance pleased other people or no,
but he knew nothing nobler than the human form, and an instinct, which he
did not attempt to check, impelled him to keep his own person as nice as
he liked to see that of his neighbor.
Now at this hour of the night, he wore only a shirt of white woollen
stuff, with a deep red border. His locks, usually so well-kept, seemed
to stand out from his head separately, and instead of smoothing and
confining them, he added to their wild disorder, for, as be worked, he
frequently passed his hand through them with a hasty movement. A bat,
attracted by the bright light, flew in at the open window--which was
screened only at the bottom by a dark curtain--and fluttered round the
ceiling; but he did not observe it, for his work absorbed his whole soul
and mind. In this eager and passionate occupation, in which every nerve
and vein in his being seemed to bear a part, no cry for help would have
struck his ear--even a flame breaking out close to him would not have
caught his eye. His cheeks glowed, a fine dew of glistening sweat
covered his brow, and his very gaze seemed to become more and more firmly
riveted to the sculpture as it took form under his hand. Now and again
he stepped back from it, and leaned backwards from his hips, raising his
hands to the level of his temples, as if to narrow the field of vision;
then he went up to the model, and clutched the plastic mass of clay, as
though it were the flesh of his enemy.
He was now at work on the flowing hair of the figure before him, which
had already taken the outline of a female head, and he flung the bits of
clay, which he removed from the back of it, to the ground, as violently
as though he were casting them at an antagonist at his feet. Again his
finger-tips and modelling-tool were busy with the mouth, nose, cheeks,
and eyes, and his own eyes took a softer expression, which gradually grew
to be a gaze of ecstatic delight, as the features he was moulding began
to agree more and more with the image, which at this time excluded every
other from his imagination.
At last, with glowing cheeks, he had finished rounding the soft form of
the shoulders, and drew back once more to contemplate the effect of the
completed work; a cold shiver seized him, and he felt himself impelled
to lift it up, and dash it to the ground with all his force. But he soon
mastered this stormy excitement, he pushed his hand through his hair
again and again, and posted himself, with a melancholy smile and with
folded hands, in front of his creation; sunk deeper and deeper in his
contemplation of it, he did not observe that the door behind him was
opened, although the flame of his lamps flickered in the draught, and
that his mother had entered the work-room, and by no means endeavored to
approach him unheard, or to surprise him. In her anxiety for her
darling, who had gone through so many bitter experiences during the past
day, she had not been able to sleep. Polykarp's room lay above her
bedroom, and when his steps over head betrayed that, though it was now
near morning, he had not yet gone to rest, she had risen from her bed
without waking Petrus, who seemed to be sleeping. She obeyed her
motherly impulse to encourage Polykarp with some loving words, and
climbing up the narrow stair that led to the roof, she went into his
room. Surprised, irresolute, and speechless she stood for some time
behind the young man, and looked at the strongly illuminated and
beautiful features of the newly-formed bust, which was only too like its
well-known prototype. At last she laid her hand on her son's shoulder,
and spoke his name. Polykarp stepped back, and looked at his mother in
bewilderment, like a man roused from sleep; but she interrupted the
stammering speech with which he tried to greet her, by saying, gravely
and not without severity, as she pointed to the statue, "What does this
mean?"
"What should it mean, mother?" answered Polykarp in a low tone, and
shaking his head sadly. "Ask me no more at present, for if you gave me
no rest, and even if I tried to explain to you how to-day--this very day
--I have felt impelled and driven to make this woman's image, still you
could not understand me--no, nor any one else."
"God forbid that I should ever understand it!" cried Dorothea. "'Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,' was the commandment of the Lord on
this mountain. And you? You think I could not understand you? Who
should understand you then, if not your mother? This I certainly do not
comprehend, that a son of Petrus and of mine should have thrown all the
teaching and the example of his parents so utterly to the wind. But what
you are aiming at with this statue, it seems to me is not hard to guess.
As the forbidden-fruit hangs too high for you, you degrade your art, and
make to yourself an image that resembles her according to your taste.
Simply and plainly it comes to this; as you can no longer see the Gaul's
wife in her own person, and yet cannot exist without the sweet presence
of the fair one, you make a portrait of clay to make love to, and you
will carry on idolatry before it, as once the Jews did before the golden
calf and the brazen serpent."
Polykarp submitted to his mother's angry blame in silence, but in painful
emotion. Dorothea had never before spoken to him thus, and to hear such
words from the very lips which were used to address him with such heart-
felt tenderness, gave him unspeakable pain. Hitherto she had always been
inclined to make excuses for his weaknesses and little faults, nay, the
zeal with which she had observed and pointed out his merits and
performances before strangers as well as before their own family, had
often seemed to him embarrassing. And now? She had indeed reason to
blame him, for Sirona was the wife of another, she had never even noticed
his admiration, and now, they all said, had committed a crime for the
sake of a stranger. It must seem both a mad and a sinful thing in the
eyes of men that he of all others should sacrifice the best he had--his
Art--and how little could Dorothea, who usually endeavored to understand
him, comprehend the overpowering impulse which had driven him to his
task.
He loved and honored his mother with his whole heart, and feeling that
she was doing herself an injustice by her false and low estimate of his
proceedings, he interrupted her eager discourse, raising his hands
imploringly to her.
"No, mother, no!" he exclaimed. "As truly as God is my helper, it is
not so. It is true that I have moulded this head, but not to keep it,
and commit the sin of worshipping it, but rather to free myself from the
image that stands before my mind's eye by day and by night, in the city
and in the desert, whose beauty distracts my mind when I think, and my
devotions when I try to pray. To whom is it given to read the soul of
man? And is not Sirona's form and face the loveliest image of the Most
High? So to represent it, that the whole charm that her presence
exercises over me might also be felt by every beholder, is a task that I
have set myself ever since her arrival in our house. I had to go back to
the capital, and the work I longed to achieve took a clearer form; at
every hour I discovered something to change and to improve in the pose of
the head, the glance of the eye or the expression of the mouth. But
still I lacked courage to put the work in hand, for it seemed too
audacious to attempt to give reality to the glorious image in my soul, by
the aid of gray clay and pale cold marble; to reproduce it so that the
perfect work should delight the eye of sense, no less than the image
enshrined in my breast delights my inward eye. At the same time I was
not idle, I gained the prize for the model of the lions, and if I have
succeeded with the Good Shepherd blessing the flock, which is for the
sarcophagus of Comes, and if the master could praise the expression of
devoted tenderness in the look of the Redeemer, I know--nay, do not
interrupt me, mother, for what I felt was a pure emotion and no sin--
I know that it was because I was myself so full of love, that I was
enabled to inspire the very stone with love. At last I had no peace, and
even without my father's orders I must have returned home; then I saw her
again, and found her even more lovely than the image which reigned in my
soul. I heard her voice, and her silvery bell-like laughter--and then--
and then--. You know very well what I learned yesterday. The unworthy
wife of an unworthy husband, the woman Sirona, is gone from me for ever,
and I was striving to drive her image from my soul, to annihilate it and
dissipate it--but in vain! and by degrees a wonderful stress of creative
power came upon me. I hastily placed the lamps, took the clay in my
hand, and feature by feature I brought forth with bitter joy the image
that is deeply graven in my heart, believing that thus I might be
released from the spell. There is the fruit which was ripened in my
heart, but there, where it so long has dwelt, I feel a dismal void, and
if the husk which so long tenderly enfolded this image were to wither and
fall asunder, I should not wonder at it.--To that thing there clings the
best part of my life."
"Enough!" exclaimed Dorothea, interrupting her son who stood before her
in great agitation and with trembling lips. "God forbid that that mask
there should destroy your life and soul. I suffer nothing impure within
my house, and you should not in your heart. That which is evil can never
more be fair, and however lovely the face there may look to you, it looks
quite as repulsive to me when I reflect that it probably smiled still
more fascinatingly on some strolling beggar. If the Gaul brings her back
I will turn her out of my house, and I will destroy her image with my own
hands if you do not break it in pieces on the spot."
Dorothea's eyes were swimming in tears as she spoke these words. She had
felt with pride and emotion during her son's speech how noble and high-
minded he was, and the idea that this rare and precious treasure should
be spoilt or perhaps altogether ruined for the sake of a lost woman,
drove her to desperation, and filled her motherly heart with indignation.
Firmly resolved to carry out her threat she stepped towards the figure,
but Polykarp placed himself in her way, raising his arm imploringly to
defend it, and saying, "Not to-day--not yet, mother! I will cover it up,
and will not look at it again till to-morrow, but once--only once--I must
see it again by sunlight."
"So that to-morrow the old madness may revive in you!" cried Dorothea.
"Move out of my way or take the hammer yourself."
"You order it, and you are my mother," said Polykarp.
He slowly went up to the chest in which his tools and instruments lay,
and bitter tears ran down his cheeks, as he took his heaviest hammer in
his hand.
When the sky has shown for many days in summer-blue, and then suddenly
the clouds gather for a storm, when the first silent but fearful flash
with it noisy but harmless associate the thunder-clap has terrified the
world, a second and third thunder-bolt immediately follow. Since the
stormy night of yesterday had broken in on the peaceful, industrious, and
monotonous life by the senator's hearth, many things had happened that
had filled him and his wife with fresh anxiety.
In other houses it was nothing remarkable that a slave should run away,
but in the senator's it was more than twenty years since such a thing had
occurred, and yesterday the goat-herd Miriam had disappeared. This was
vexatious, but the silent sorrow of his son Polykarp was a greater
anxiety to Petrus. It did not please him that the youth, who was usually
so vehement, should submit unresistingly and almost indifferently to the
Bishop Agapitus, who prohibited his completing his lions. His son's sad
gaze, his crushed and broken aspect were still in his mind when at last
he went to rest for the night; it was already late, but sleep avoided him
even as it had avoided Dorothea. While the mother was thinking of her
son's sinful love and the bleeding wound in his young and betrayed heart,
the father grieved for Polykarp's baffled hopes of exercising his art on
a great work and recalled the saddest, bitterest day of his own youth;
for he too had served his apprenticeship under a sculptor in Alexandria,
had looked up to the works of the heathen as noble models, and striven to
form himself upon them. He had already been permitted by his master to
execute designs of his own, and out of the abundance of subjects which
offered themselves, he had chosen to model an Ariadne, waiting and
longing for the return of Thescus, as a symbolic image of his own
soul awaiting its salvation. How this work had filled his mind! how
delightful had the hours of labor seemed to him!--when, suddenly, his
stern father had come to the city, had seen his work before it was quite
finished, and instead of praising it had scorned it; had abused it as a
heathen idol, and had commanded Petrus to return home with him
immediately, and to remain there, for that his son should be a pious
Christian, and a good stone-mason withal--not half a heathen, and a maker
of false gods.
Petrus had much loved his art, but he offered no resistance to his
father's orders; he followed him back to the oasis, there to superintend
the work of the slaves who hewed the stone, to measure granite-blocks for
sarcophagi and pillars, and to direct the cutting of them. His father
was a man of steel, and he himself a lad of iron, and when he saw himself
compelled to yield to his father and to leave his master's workshop, to
abandon his cherished and unfinished work and to become an artizan and
mail of business, he swore never again to take a piece of clay in his
hand, or to wield a chisel. And he kept his word even after his fathers
death; but his creative instincts and love of art continued to live and
work in him, and were transmitted to his two sons.
Antonius was a highly gifted artist, and if Polykarp's master was not
mistaken, and if he himself were not misled by fatherly affection, his
second son was on the high road to the very first rank in art--to a
position reached only by elect spirits.
Petrus knew the models for the Good Shepherd and for the lions, and
declared to himself that these last were unsurpassable in truth, power,
and majesty. How eagerly must the young artist long to execute them in
hard stone, and to see them placed in the honored, though indeed pagan,
spot, which was intended for them. And now the bishop forbade him the
work, and the poor fellow might well be feeling just as he himself had
felt thirty years ago, when he had been commanded to abandon the immature
first-fruits of his labor.
Was the bishop indeed right? This and many other questions agitated the
sleepless father, and as soon as he heard that his wife had risen from
her bed to go to her son, whose footsteps he too could hear overhead, he
got up and followed her.
He found the door of the work-room open, and, himself unseen and unheard,
he was witness to his wife's vehement speech, and to the lad's
justification, while Polykarp's work stood in the full light of the
lamps, exactly in front of him.
His gaze was spell-bound to the mass of clay; he looked and looked, and
was not weary of looking, and his soul swelled with the same awe-struck
sense of devout admiration that it had experienced, when for the first
time, in his early youth, he saw with his own eyes the works of the great
old Athenian masters in the Caesareum.
And this head was his son's work!
He stood there greatly overcome, his hands clasped together, holding his
breath till his mouth was dry, and swallowing his tears to keep them from
falling. At the same time he listened with anxious attention, so as not
to lose one word of Polykarp's.
"Aye, thus and thus only are great works of art begotten," said he to
himself, "and if the Lord had bestowed on me such gifts as on this lad,
no father, nay, no god, should have compelled me to leave my Ariadne
unfinished. The attitude of the body was not bad I should say--but the
head, the face--Aye, the man who can mould such a likeness as that has
his hand and eye guided by the holy spirits of art. He who has done that
head will be praised in the latter days together with the great Athenian
masters--and he-yes, he, merciful Heaven! he is my own beloved son!"
A blessed sense of rejoicing, such as he had not felt since his early
youth, filled his heart, and Dorothea's ardor seemed to him half pitiful
and half amusing.
It was not till his duteous son took the hammer in his hand, that he
stepped between his wife and the bust, saying kindly:
"There will be time enough to-morrow to destroy the work. Forget the
model, my son, now that you have taken advantage of it so successfully.
I know of a better mistress for you--Art--to whom belongs everything of
beauty that the Most High has created--In Art in all its breadth and
fulness, not fettered and narrowed by any Agapitus."
Polykarp flung himself into his father's arms, and the stern man, hardly
master of his emotions, kissed the boy's forehead, his eyes, and his
cheeks.