Early next morning the singers set out for the house of Porphyrius. The
party was not complete, however, for Dada had been forced to remain at
home. The shoes that the old man had flung to scare away the daemon had
caught in the girl’s dress which she had just washed, and had dragged
it down on to the earth; she had found it in the morning full of holes
burnt by the ashes into the damp material. Dada had no other presentable
garment, so, in spite of her indignant refusal and many tears, she had
to remain indoors with Papias. Agne’s anxious offers to stay in her
place with the little boy and to lend Dada her dress, both Karnis and
his wife had positively refused; and Dada had lent her aid--at first
silently though willingly and then with her usual merriment--in twining
garlands for the others and in dressing Agne’s smooth black plaits with
a wreath of ivy and violets.
The men were already washed, anointed and crowned with poplar and laurel
when a steward arrived from Porphyrius to bid them follow him to his
master’s house. But a small sacrifice was necessary, for the messenger
desired them to lay aside their wreaths, which would excite ill-feeling
among the monks, and certainly be snatched off by the Christian mob.
Karnis when he started was greatly disappointed, and as much depressed
as he had been triumphant and hopeful a short time before.
The monks, who had gathered outside the Xenodochium, glanced with
scowling suspicion at the party, who could not recover the good spirits
with which they had begun the day till they were fairly out of the
narrow, gloomy alleys, reeking with tar and salt fish, that adjoined the
harbor, and where they had to push their way through a dense throng.
The steward led the van with Herse, talking freely in reply to her
enquiries.
His master, he said, was one of the great merchants of the city, whose
wife had died twenty years since in giving birth to Gorgo. His two sons
were at present absent on their travels. The old lady who had been
so liberal in her treatment of the singers was Damia, the mother of
Porphyrius. She had a fine fortune of her own, and notwithstanding her
great age was still respected as the soul of business in the household,
and as a woman deeply versed in the mysterious sciences. Mary, the pious
Christian, who had founded the “House of the Holy Martyr,” was the
widow of Apelles, the brother of Porphyrius, but she had ceased all
intercourse with her husband’s family. This was but natural, as she was
at the head of the Christian women of Alexandria, while the household
of Porphyrius--though the master himself had been baptized--was as
thoroughly heathen as any in Alexandria.
Karnis heard nothing of all this, for he came last of the party. Orpheus
and Agne followed next to Herse and the steward, and after them came two
slaves, carrying the lutes and pipes. Agne walked with downcast eyes,
as if she desired to avoid seeing all that surrounded her, though when
Orpheus addressed her she shyly glanced up at him and answered briefly
and timidly. They presently came out of an obscure alley by the canal
connecting Kibotus with Lake Mareotis where the Nile-boats lay at
anchor. Karnis drew a deeper breath, for here the air was clear and
balmy; a light northerly breeze brought the refreshing fragrance of
the sea, and the slender palm-trees that bordered the canal threw long
shadows mingling with the massive shade of the sycamores. The road was
astir with busy groups, birds sang in the trees, and the old musician
drank in the exciting and aromatic atmosphere of the Egyptian Spring
with keen enjoyment.
As they reached the middle of the steep bridge across the canal he
involuntarily stood still, riveted by the view of the southwest. In his
excitement he threw up his arms, his eyes glistened with moisture and
with the enthusiasm of youth, and, as was always the case when his
emotions were stirred by some glorious work of God or man, an image rose
to his mind, all unbidden--the image of his eldest son, now dead, but
in life his closest and most sympathetic comrade. He felt as though
his hand could grasp the shoulder of that son, too early snatched away,
whose gifts had far transcended those of the surviving Orpheus--as
though he too could gaze with him on the grand scene that lay before
him.
On a platform of rocks and mighty masonry rose a structure of wonderful
magnificence and beauty, so brilliantly illuminated by the morning
sun that its noble proportions and gorgeous colors showed in dazzling
splendor and relief. Over the gilt dome bent the cloudless blue of the
African sky, and the polished hemisphere shone, as radiant as the sun
whose beams it reflected. Sloping planes for vehicles, and flights
of steps for pedestrians led up to the gates. The lower part of this
wonderful edifice--the great Temple of Serapis--was built to stand
forever, and the pillars of the vestibule supported a roof more fitted
to the majesty of the gods than to the insignificance of mortals;
priests and worshippers moved here like children among the trunks of
some gigantic forest. Round the cornice, in hundreds of niches, and on
every projection, all the gods of Olympus and all the heroes and sages
of Greece seemed to have met in conclave, and stood gazing down on the
world in gleaming brass or tinted marble. Every portion of the building
blazed with gold and vivid coloring; the painter’s hand had added life
to the marble groups in high relief that filled the pediments and the
smaller figures in the long row of metopes. All the population of a town
might have found refuge in the vast edifice and its effect on the mind
was like that of a harmonious symphony of adoration sung by a chorus of
giants.
“All hail! Great Serapis! I greet thee in joyful humility, thankful that
Thou hast granted to my old eyes to see Thy glorious and eternal temple
once again!” murmured Karnis in devout contemplation. Then, appealing
to his wife and son, he pointed in silence to the building. Presently,
however, as he watched Orpheus gazing in speechless delight at its
magnificent proportions he could not forbear.
“This,” he began with fervid enthusiasm, “is the stronghold of Serapis
the King of the Gods! A work for all time. Its youth has lasted five
hundred years, its future will extend to all eternity.--Aye, so it
is; and so long as it endures in all its glory the old gods cannot be
deposed!”
“No one will ever dare to touch a stone of it,” said the steward. “Every
child in Alexandria knows that the world will crumble into dust and
ashes if a finger is laid on that Temple, and the man who ventures to
touch the sacred image...”
“The god can protect himself!” interrupted the singer. “But you--you
Christian hypocrites who pretend to hate life and love death--if you
really long so vehemently for the end of all things, you have only to
fall upon this glorious structure.--Do that, do that--only do that!”
The old man shook his fist at the invisible foe and Herse echoed his
words:
“Aye, aye, only do that!” Then she added more calmly: “Well, if
everything comes to an end at once the enemies of the gods will die with
us; and there can be nothing terrible in perishing at the same time with
everything that is beautiful or dear to us.”
“Nevertheless,” said the steward, “the Bishop has put out his hand
to touch the sanctuary. But our noble Olympius would not suffer the
sacrilegious host to approach, and they had to retire with broken
heads. Serapis will not be mocked; he will stand though all else perish.
‘Eternity,’ the priest tells us, ‘is to him but as an instant, and while
millions of generations bloom and fade, he is still and forever the
same!’”
“Hail, all hail to the great god!” cried Orpheus with hands outstretched
towards the temple.
“Yea, hail! for everlasting glory shall be his!” repeated his father.
“Great is Serapis, and his house and his image shall last...”
“Till the next full moon!” said a passer-by in a tone of sinister
mockery, shaking his fist in the face, as it were, of the god. Orpheus
turned quickly to punish the prophet of evil; but he had disappeared in
the crowd and the tide of men had borne him onwards. “Till the next full
moon!” murmured Agne, who had shuddered at her companion’s rapturous
ejaculations, and she glanced uneasily at Orpheus; but by the time Herse
addressed her a minute or two later she had controlled the expression of
her features, and the matron’s heart was gladdened by her bright
smile. Nay, many a young Alexandrian, passing the group on foot or in a
carriage, looked at her a second time, for that smile lent a mysterious
charm to her pale, calm face. Nor had it faded away when they had
crossed the bridge and were nearing the shores of the lake, for an idea
once conceived lingered long in Agne’s mind; and as she walked on in
the bright glory of the morning’s sun her mind’s eye was fixed on a
nocturnal scene--on the full moon, high in the sky--on the overthrow
of the great idol and a glittering army among the marble ruins of the
Serapeum. Apostles and martyrs soared around, the Saviour sat enthroned
in glory and triumph, while angels, cradled on the clouds that were his
footstool, were singing beatific hymns which sounded clearly in her ear
above the many-voiced tumult of the quays. The vision did not vanish
till she was desired to get into the boat.
Herse was a native of Alexandria and Karnis had passed some of the best
years of his life there; but to Orpheus and Agne all was new, and even
the girl, when once she had escaped from the crowd and noise which
oppressed her, took an interest in the scene and asked a question now
and then. The younger man had not eyes enough to see all that claimed
his attention and admiration.
There were the great sluice-gates at the entrance to the canal that
joined the lake to the sea--there, in a separate dock, lay the splendid
imperial Nile-boats which served to keep up communication between the
garrison of Alexandria and the military stations on the river--there,
again, were the gaudy barges intended for the use of the ‘comes’, the
prefect and other high officials--and there merchant-vessels of every
size lay at anchor in countless number. Long trains of many-colored
sails swept over the rippling lake like flights of birds across a
cornfield, and every inch of the shore was covered with stores or
buildings. Far away to the south long trellices of vine covered the
slopes, broken by the silvery glaucous tones of the olive-groves, and
by clumps of towering palms whose crowns mingled to form a lofty canopy.
White walls, gaudily-painted temples and private villas gleamed among
the green, and the slanting rays of the low sun, shining on the drops
that fell from the never-resting wheels and buckets that irrigated the
land, turned them into showers of diamonds. These water-works, of the
most ingenious construction, many of them invented and contrived by
scientific engineers, were the weapons with which man had conquered
the desert that originally surrounded this lake, forcing it into green
fertility and productiveness of grain and fruit. Nay, the desert had,
for many centuries, here ceased to exist. Dionysus the generous, and the
kindly garden-gods had blest the toil of men, and yet, now, in many
a plot--in all which belonged to Christian owners--their altars lay
scattered and overthrown.
During the last thirty years much indeed was changed, and nothing to
the satisfaction of old Karnis; Herse, too, shook her head, and when
the rowers had pulled them about half-way across, she pointed to a broad
vacant spot on the bank where a new building was just rising above the
soil, and said sadly to her husband:
“Would you know that place again? Where is our dear old temple gone? The
temple of Dionysus.” Karnis started up so hastily that he almost upset
the boat, and their conductor was obliged to insist on his keeping
quiet; he obeyed but badly, however, for his arms were never still as he
broke out:
“And do you suppose that because we are in Egypt I can keep my living
body as still as one of your dead mummies? Let others keep still if they
can! I say it is shameful, disgraceful; a dove’s gall might rise at it!
That splendid building, the pride of the city and the delight of men’s
eyes, destroyed--swept away like dust from the road! Do you see? Do you
see, I say? Broken columns, marble capitals, here, there and everywhere
at the bottom of the lake--here a head and there a torso! Great
and noble masters formed those statues by the aid of the gods, and
they--they, small and ignoble as they are, have destroyed them by the
aid of evil daemons. They have annihilated and drowned works that were
worthy to live forever! And why? Shall I tell you? Because they shun
the Beautiful as an owl shuns light. Aye, they do! There is nothing they
hate or dread so much as beauty; wherever they find it, they deface and
destroy it, even if it is the work of the Divinity. I accuse them before
the Immortals--for where is the grove even, not the work of man but
the special work of Heaven itself? Where is our grove, with its cool
grottos, its primaeval trees, its shady nooks, and all the peace and
enjoyment of which it was as full as a ripe grape is full of sweet
juice?”
“It was cut down and rooted up,” replied the steward. “The emperor gave
the sanctuary over to Bishop Theophilus and he set to work at once to
destroy it. The temple was pulled down, the sacred vessels went into the
melting-pot, and the images were mutilated and insulted before they were
thrown into the lime-kiln. The place they are building now is to be a
Christian church. Oh! to think of the airy, beautiful colonnades that
once stood there, and then of the dingy barn that is to take their
place!”
“Why do the gods endure it? Has Zeus lost his thunderbolts?” cried
Orpheus clenching his hands, and paying no heed to Agne who sat pale and
sternly silent during this conversation.
“Nay, he only sleeps, to wake with awful power,” said the old man.
“See those blocks of marble and ruins under the waves. Swift work
is destruction! And men lost their wits and looked on at the crime,
flinging the delight of the gods into the water and the kiln. They were
wise, very wise; fishes and flames are dumb and cannot cry to heaven.
One barbarian, in one hour can destroy what it has taken the sublimest
souls years, centuries, to create. They glory in destruction and ruin
and they can no more build up again such a temple as stood there than
they can restore trees that have taken six hundred years to grow.
There--out there, Herse, in the hollow where those black fellows are
stirring mortar--they have given them shirts too, because they are
ashamed of the beauty of men’s bodies--that is where the grotto was
where we found your poor father.”
“The grotto?” repeated his wife, looking at the spot through her tears,
and thinking of the day when, as a girl, she had hurried to the feast
of Dionysus and sought her father in the temple. He had been famous as
a gem-cutter. In obedience to the time-honored tradition in Alexandria,
after intoxicating himself with new wine in honor of the god, he had
rushed out into the street to join the procession. The next morning he
had not returned; the afternoon passed and evening came and still he
did not appear, so his daughter had gone in search of him. Karnis was
at that time a young student and, as her father’s lodger, had rented the
best room in the house. He had met her going on her errand and had been
very ready to help her in the search; before long they had found the
old man in the ivy-grown grotto in the grove of Dionysus--motionless and
cold, as if struck by lightning. The bystanders believed that the god
had snatched him away in his intoxicated legion.
In this hour of sorrow Karnis had proved himself her friend, and a few
months after Herse had become his wife and gone with him to Tauromenium
in Sicily.
All this rose before her mind, and even Karnis sat gazing dumbly at the
waves; for every spot where some decisive change has occurred in our
lives has power to revive the past when we see it again after a long
absence. Thus they all sat in silence till Orpheus, touching his father,
pointed out the temple of Isis where he had met the fair Gorgo on the
previous day. The old man turned to look at the sanctuary which, as yet,
remained intact.
“A barbarous structure!” he said bitterly. “The art of the Egyptians
has long been numbered with the dead and the tiger hungers only for the
living!”
“Nay, it is not such a bad piece of work,” replied the steward, “but it
is out of their reach; for the ground on which it stands belongs to my
old mistress, and the law protects private property.--You must at your
leisure inspect the ship-yard here; it is perhaps the most extensive in
the world. The timber that is piled there--cedar of Lebanon, oak from
Pontus and heavy iron-wood from Ethiopia--is worth hundreds of talents.”
“And does all that belong to your master?”
“No; the owner is the grandson of a freedman, formerly in his family.
Now they are very rich and highly respected, and Master Clemens sits in
the Senate. There he is--that man in a white robe.”
“A Christian, I should imagine,” observed the singer.
“Very true;” replied the steward. “But what is good remains good, and
he is a worthy and excellent man notwithstanding. He keeps a tight
hand over the ship-yard here and over the others too by the harbor
of Eunostus. Only Clemens can never let other people have their own
opinions; in that he is just like the rest of them. Every slave he buys
must become a Christian and his sons are the same; even Constantine,
though he is an officer in the imperial army and as smart and clever a
soldier as lives.--As far as we are concerned we leave every man to his
own beliefs. Porphyrius makes no secret of his views and all the vessels
we use in the corn-trade are built by Christians.--But here we are.”
The boat stopped at a broad flight of marble steps which led from the
lake into the garden of Porphyrius’ house. Karnis as he walked through
the grounds felt himself at greater ease, for here the old gods were
at home; their statues gleamed among the dark clumps of evergreens, and
were mirrored in the clear tanks, while delicious perfumes were wafted
from the garlanded shrines and freshly anointed altars, to greet the
newcomers.