Orion made his way home under the moonlit and starry night. He held his
head high, and not since that evening on the water with Paula had he felt
so glad or so hopeful. On the other side of the bridge he did not at
once turn his horse's head homewards; the fresh night air was so
delightful, his heart beat so high that he shrunk from the oppression of
a room. Full of renewed life, freed from a burden as it were, he made
his way at a round pace to the house that held his beloved, picturing to
himself how gladly she would welcome the news that he had found Amru
ready to encourage him in his projects, indeed, to be a fatherly friend.
The Arab general, whose lofty character, intellect, and rectitude his
father had esteemed highly, had impressed him, too, as the ideal of noble
manliness, and as he compared him with the highest officials and warriors
he had met at the Court of Byzantium he could not help smiling. By the
side of this dignified, but impetuous and warm-hearted man they appeared
like the old, rigid idols of his ancestors in comparison with the freely-
wrought works of Greek art. He could bless the memory of his father for
having freed the land from that degenerate race. Now, he felt, that lost
parent, whose image lived in his soul, was satisfied with him, and this
gave him a sense of happiness which he meant to cling to and enhance by
every thought and deed in the future. "Life is a function, a ministry,
and a duty!" this watchword, which had been given him by those beloved
lips, should keep him in the new path; and soon he hoped to feel sure of
himself, to be able to look back on such deeds of valor as would give him
a right in his own judgment to unite his lot to that of this noblest of
women.
Full of such thoughts as these, he made his way to the house of Rufinus.
The windows of the corner room on the upper floor were lighted up; two of
these windows looked out on the river and the quay. He did not know
which rooms were Paula's, but he looked up at the late-burning light with
a vague feeling that it must be hers; a female figure which now appeared
framed m the opening, showed him that he was not mistaken; it was that of
Perpetua. The sound of hoofs had roused her curiosity, but she did not
seem to recognize him in the dim starlight.
He slowly rode past, and when he presently turned back and again looked
up, in the hope this time of seeing Paula, the place was vacant: however,
he perceived a tall dark shadow moving across from one side of the room
to the other, which could not be that of the nurse nor of her slender
mistress. It must indeed be that of a remarkably big man, and stopping
to gaze with anxious and unpleasant apprehension, he plainly recognized
Philippus.
It was past midnight. How could he account for his being with Paula at
this hour?--Was she ill?--Was this room hers after all?--Was it merely by
chance that the nurse was in Rufinus' room with the physician.
No. The woman whom he could now see pass across the window and go
straight up to the man, with outstretched hands, was Paula and none
other. Isis heart was already beating fast, and now a suspicion grew
strong in him which his vanity had hitherto held in check, though he had
often seen the friendly relations that subsisted between Paula and the
leech.--Perhaps it was a warmer feeling than friendship and guileless
trust, which had led her so unreservedly to claim this man's protection
and service. Could he have won Paula's heart--Paula's love?
Was it conceivable!--But why not?
What was there against Philippus but his homely face and humble birth?
And how many a woman had he not seen set her heart on quite other things!
The physician was not more than five years his senior; and recalling the
expression in his eyes as he looked at Paula only that morning Orion felt
more and more uneasy.
Philippus loved Paula.--A trifling incident suddenly occurred to his mind
which made him certain on that point; he had only too much experience in
such matters. Yesterday, it had struck him that ever since his father's
death--that was ever since Paula's change of residence--Philippus dressed
more carefully than had been his wont. "Now this," thought he, "is a
change that does not come over so serious a man unless it is caused by
love."
A mingled torment of pain and rage shot through him as he again saw the
tall shadow cross the window. For the first time in his life he felt the
pangs of jealousy, which he had so often laughed at in his friends; but
was it not absurd to allow it to torture him; was he not sure, since that
morning's meeting, quite sure of Paula? And Philippus! Even if he,
Orion, must retire into the background before a higher judge, in the eyes
of a woman he surely had the advantage!--But in spite of all this it
troubled him to know that the physician was with Paula at such an hour;
he angrily pulled his horse's head round, and it was a pleasure to him to
feel the fiery creature, unused as it was to such rough treatment, turn
restive at it now. By the time he had gone a hundred steps from those
windows with their cursed glare, the horse was displaying all the temper
and vice that had been taken out of him as a foal. Orion had to fight a
pitched battle with his steed, and it was a relief to him to exercise his
power with curb and knee. In vain did the creature dance round and
round; in vain did he rear and plunge; the steady rider was his master;
and it was not till he had brought him to quietness and submission that
Orion drew breath and looked about him while he patted the horse's smooth
neck.
Close at hand, behind a low hedge, spread the thick, dark groves of
Susannah's garden and between them the back of the house was visible,
being more brilliantly lighted than even Paula's rooms. Three of the
windows showed lights; two were rather dim, however, the result probably
of one lamp only.
All this could not matter to him; nevertheless he remained gazing at the
roof of the colonnade which went round the house below the upper floor;
for, on the terrace it formed, leaning against a window-frame, stood a
small figure with her head thrust so far forth to listen that the light
shone through the curls that framed it. Katharina was trying to overhear
a dialogue between the Patriarch Benjamin--whose bearded and apostolic
head Orion could clearly recognize--and the priest John, an insignificant
looking little man, of whom, however, the deceased Mukaukas had testified
that he was far superior to old Plotinus the Bishop in intellect and
energy.
The young man could easily have watched Katharina's every movement, but
he did not think it worth while. Nevertheless, as he rode on, the water-
wagtail's little figure dwelt in his mind; not alone, however, for that
of Paula immediately rose by her side; and the smaller Katharina's
seemed, the more ample and noble did the other appear. Every word he
had heard that day from Paula's lips rushed to his remembrance, and
the vivid and lovely memory drove out all care. That woman, who only a
few hours since, had declared herself ready, with him, to hope all
things, to believe all things, and to accept his protection--that lordly
maiden whom he had been glad to bid fix her eye, with him, on the goal of
his future efforts, whose pure gaze could restrain his passion and
impetuosity as by a charm, and who yet granted him the right to strive to
possess her--that proud daughter of heroes, whom even his father would
have clasped to his heart as a daughter--was it possible that she should
betray him like some pleasure-seeking city beauty? Could she forget her
dignity as a woman?--No! and a thousand times no. To doubt her was to
insult her--was to wrong her and himself.
The physician loved her; but it certainly was not any warmer feeling than
friendship on her part that made her receive him at this late hour. The
shame would be his own, if he ever again allowed such base suspicion to
find place in his soul!
He breathed a deep sigh of relief. And when his servant, who had
lingered to pay the toll at the bridge, came up with him, Orion
dismounted and desired him to lead his horse home, for he himself wished
to return on foot, alone with his thoughts. He walked meditatively and
slowly under the sycamores, but he had not gone far when, on the other
side of the deserted road, he heard some one overtaking him with long,
quick strides. He recognized the leech Philippus at a glance and was
glad, for this proved to him how senseless and unjust his doubts had
been, and how little ground he had for regarding the physician as a
rival; for indeed this man did not look like a happy lover. He hurried
on with his head bent, as though under a heavy burthen, and clasped his
hand to his forehead with a gesture of despair. No, this nocturnal
wanderer had left no hour of bliss behind him; and if his demeanor was
calculated to rouse any feeling it was not envy, but pity.
Philippus did not heed Orion; absorbed in himself, he strode on, moaning
dully, as if in pain. For a few minutes he disappeared into a house
whence came loud cries of suffering, and when he came out again, he
walked on, shaking his head now and then, as a man who sees many things
happen which his understanding fails to account for.
The end of his walk was a large, palatial building. The stucco had
fallen off in places, and in the upper story the windows had been broken
away till their open ings were a world too wide. In former times this
house had accommodated the State officers of Finance for the province,
and the ground-floor rooms had been suitably and comfortably fitted up
for the Ideologos--the supreme controller of this department, who usually
resided at Alexandria, but who often spent some weeks at Memphis when on
a tour of inspection. But the Arabians had transferred the management of
the finances of the whole country to the new capital of Fostat on the
other shore of the river, and that of the monetary affairs of the
decaying city had been incorporated with the treasurer's department of
the Mukaukas' household. The senate of the city had found the expense of
this huge building too heavy, and had been well content to let the lower
rooms to Philippus and his Egyptian friend, Horapollo.
The two men occupied different rooms, but the same slaves attended to
their common housekeeping and also waited on the physician's assistant, a
modest and well-informed Alexandrian.
When Philippus entered his old friend's lofty and spacious study he found
him still up, sitting before a great number of rolls of manuscript, and
so absorbed in his work that he did not notice his late-coming comrade
till the leech bid him good-evening. His only reply was an
unintelligible murmur, for some minutes longer the old man was lost in
study; at last, however, he looked up at Philippus, impatiently tossing
an ivory ruler-which he had been using to open and smooth the papyrus on
to the table; and at the same moment a dark bundle under it began to
move--this was the old man's slave who had long been sleeping there.
Three lamps on the writing-table threw a bright light on the old man and
his surroundings, while the physician, who had thrown himself on a couch
in a corner of the large room, remained in the dark.
What startled the midnight student was his housemate's unwonted silence;
it disturbed him as the cessation of the clatter of the wheel disturbs a
man who lives in a mill. He looked at his friend with surprised enquiry,
but Philippus was dumb, and the old man turned once more to his rolls of
manuscript. But he had lost the necessary concentration; his brown hand,
in which the blue veins stood out like cords, fidgeted with the scrolls
and the ivory rule, and his sunken lips, which had before been firmly
closed, were now twitching restlessly.
The man's whole aspect was singular and not altogether pleasing: his lean
brown figure was bent with age, his thoroughly Egyptian face, with broad
cheekbones and outstanding ears, was seamed and wrinkled like oak-bark;
his scalp was bare of its last hair, and his face clean-shaved, but for a
few tufts of grey hair by way of beard, sprouting from the deep furrows
on his cheeks and chin, like reeds from the narrow bed of a brook; the
razor could not reach them there, and they gave him an untidy and
uncared-for appearance. His dress answered to his face--if indeed that
could be called dress which consisted of a linen apron and a white
kerchief thrown over his shoulders after sundown. Still, no one meeting
him in the road could have taken him for a beggar; for his linen was fine
and as white as snow, and his keen, far-seeing eyes, above which, exactly
in the middle, his bristly eyebrows grew strangely long and thick, shone
and sparkled with clear intelligence, firm self-reliance, and a repellent
severity which would no more have become an intending mendicant than the
resolute and often scornful expression which played about his lips.
There was nothing amiable, nothing prepossessing, nothing soft in this
man's face; and those who knew what his life had been could not wonder
that the years had failed to sweeten his abrupt and contradictory
acerbity or to transmute them into that kindly forbearance which old men,
remembering how often they have stumbled and how many they have seen
fall, sometimes find pleasure in practising.
He had been born, eighty years before, in the lovely island of Philae,
beyond the cataract in the district of the temple of Isis, and under the
shadow of the only Egyptian sanctuary in which the heathen cultus was
kept up, and that publicly, as late as in his youth. Since Theodosius
the Great, one emperor and one Praefectus Augustalis after another had
sent foot-soldiers and cavalry above the falls to put an end to idolatry
in the beautiful isle; but they had always been routed or destroyed by
the brave Blemmyes who haunted the desert between the Nile and the Red
Sea. These restless nomad tribes acknowledged the Isis of Philae as
their tutelary goddess, and, by a very ancient agreement, the image of
their patroness was carried every year by her priests in a solemn
procession to the Blemmyes, and then remained for a few weeks in their
keeping. Horapollo's father was the last of the horoscope readers, and
his grandfather had been the last high-priest of the Isis of Philae. His
childhood had been passed on the island but then a Byzantine legion had
succeeded in beating the Blemmyes, in investing the island, and in
plundering and closing the temple. The priests of Isis escaped the
imperial raid and Horapollo had spent all his early years with his
father, his grandfather, and two younger sisters, in constant peril and
flight. His youthful spirit was unremittingly fed with hatred of the
persecutors, the cruel contemners and exterminators of the faith of his
forefathers; and this hatred rose to irreconcilable bitterness after the
massacre at Antioch where the imperial soldiery fell upon all his family,
and his grandfather and two innocent sisters were murdered. These
horrors were committed at the instigation of the Bishop, who denounced
the Egyptian strangers as idolaters, and to whom the Roman prefect, a
proud and haughty patrician, had readily lent the support of an armed
force. It was owing to the narrowest chance--or, as the old man would
have it, to the interposition of great Isis, that his father had been so
happy as to get away with him and the treasures he had brought from the
temple at Philae. Thus they had means to enable them to travel farther
under an assumed name, and they finally settled in Alexandria. Here the
persecuted youth changed his name, Horus, to its Greek equivalent, and
henceforth he was known at home and in the schools as Apollo. He was
highly gifted by nature, and availed himself with the utmost zeal of the
means of learning that abounded in Alexandria; he labored indefatigably
and dug deep into every field of Greek science, gaining, under his
father's guidance, all the knowledge of Egyptian horoscopy, which
was not wholly lost even at this late period.
In the midst of the contentious Christian sects of the capital, both
father and son remained heathen and worshippers of Isis; and when the old
priest died at an advanced age, Horapollo moved to Memphis where he led
the quiet and secluded life of a student, mingling only now and then with
the astronomers, astrologers, and calendar-makers at the observatory, or
visiting the alchemists' laboratories, where, even in Christian Egypt,
they still devoted themselves to attempts to transmute the baser into the
noble metals. Alchemists and star-readers alike soon detected the old
man's superior knowledge, and in spite of his acrid and often
offensively-repellent demeanor, took counsel of him on difficult
questions. His fame had even reached the Arabs, and, when it was
necessary to find the exact direction towards Mecca for the prayer niche
in Amru's new mosque, he was appealed to, and his decision was final.
Philippus had, some years since, been called to the old man's bedside in
sickness, and being then a beginner and in no great request, he had given
the best of his time and powers to the case. Horapollo had been much
attracted by the young physician's wide culture and earnest studiousness;
he had conceived a warm liking for him, the warmest perhaps that he had
ever felt for any fellow-human since the death of his own family. At
last the elder took the younger man into his heart with such overflowing
affection, that it seemed as though his spirit longed to make up now for
the stint of love it had hitherto shown. No father could have clung to
his son with more fervent devotion, and when a relapse once more brought
him to death's door he took Philippus wholly into his confidence,
unrolled before his eyes the scroll of his inner and outer life from its
beginnings, and made him his heir on condition that he should abide by
him to the end.
Philippus, who, from the first, had felt a sympathetic attraction to
this venerable and talented man, agreed to the bargain; and when he
subsequently became associated with the old man in his studies, assisting
him from time to time, Horapollo desired that he would help him to
complete a work he hoped to finish before he died. It was a treatise on
hieroglyphic writing, and was to interpret the various signs so far as
was still possible, and make them intelligible to posterity.
Tne old man disliked writing anything but Egyptian, using Greek
unwillingly and clumsily, so he entrusted to his young friend the task
of rendering his explanations into that language. Thus the two men--
so different in age and character, but so closely allied in intellectual
aims--led a joint existence which was both pleasant and helpful to both,
in spite of the various eccentricities, the harshness and severity of the
elder.
Horapollo lived after the manner of the early Egyptian priests,
subjecting himself to much ablution and shaving; eating little but bread,
vegetables, and poultry, and abstaining from pulse and the flesh of all
beasts--not merely of the prohibited animal, swine; wearing nothing but
pure linen clothing, and setting apart certain hours for the recitation
of those heathen forms of prayer whose magic power was to compel the gods
to grant the desires of those who thus appealed to them.
And if the old man had given his full confidence to Philippus, the
leech, on his part, had no secrets from him; or, if he withheld anything,
Horapollo, with wonderful acumen, was at once aware of it. Philippus had
often spoken of Paula to his parental friend, describing her charms with
all the fervor of a lover, but the old man was already prejudiced against
her, if only as the daughter of a patrician and a prefect. All who bore
these titles were to him objects of hatred, for a patrician and a prefect
had been guilty of the blood of those he had held most dear. The
Governor of Antioch, to be sure, had acted only under the orders of the
bishop; but old Horapollo, and his father before him, from the first
had chosen to throw all the blame on the prefect, for it afforded some
satisfaction to the descendant of an ancestral race of priests to be able
to vent all his wrathful spite on any one rather than on the minister of
a god--be that god who or what he might.
So when Philippus praised Paula's dignified grandeur, her superior
elegance, the height of her stature or the loftiness of her mind, the
old man would bound up exclaiming: "Of course--of course!--Beware boy,
beware! You are disguising haughtiness, conceit, and arrogance under
noble names. The word 'patrician' includes everything we can conceive of
as most insolent and inhuman; and those apes in purple who disgrace the
Imperial throne pick out the worst of them, the most cold-hearted and
covetous, to make prefects of them. And as they are, so are their
children! Everything which they in their vainglory regard as 'beneath
them' they tread into the dust--and we--you and I, all who labor with
their hands in the service of the state--we, in their dull eyes, are
beneath them. Mark me, boy! To-day the governor's daughter, the
patrician maiden, can smile at you because she needs you; tomorrow she
will cast you aside as I push away the old panther-skin which keeps my
feet warm in winter, as soon as the March days come!"
Nor was his aversion less for the son of the Mukaukas, whom, however,
he had never seen; when the leech had confessed to him how deep a grudge
against Orion dwelt in the heart of Paula, old Horapollo had chuckled
scornfully, and he exclaimed, as though he could read hearts and look
into the future--: "They snap at each other now, and in a day or two they
will kiss again! Hatred and love are the opposite ends of the same rod;
and how easily it is reversed!--Those two!--Like in blood is like in
kind;--such people attract each other as the lodestone tends towards the
iron and the iron towards the lodestone!"
But these and similar admonitions had produced little effect on the
physician's sentiments; even Paula's repulse of his ardent appeal after
she had moved to the house of Rufinus had failed to extinguish his hope
of winning her at last. This very morning, in the course of the
discussion as to the stewardship of her fortune, Paula had been ready and
glad to accept him as her Kyrios--her legal protector and representative;
but he now thought that he could perceive by various signs that his
venerable friend was right: that the rod had been reversed, and that
aversion had been transformed to love in the girl's heart. The anguish
of this discovery was hard to bear. And yet Paula had never shown him
such hearty warmth of manner, never had she spoken to him in a voice so
soft and so full of feeling, as this evening in the garden. More
cheerful and talkative than usual, she had constantly turned to address
him, while he had felt his pain and torment of mind gradually eased, till
in him too, sentiment had blossomed anew, and his intellectual power had
expanded. Never--so he believed--had he expressed his thoughts better or
more brilliantly than in that hour. Nor had she withheld her approval;
she had heartily agreed with his views; and when, half an hour before
midnight, he had gone with her to visit his patients, rapturous hopes
had sprung once more in his breast. Ecstatically happy, like a man
intoxicated, he had, by her own desire, accompanied her into her sitting-
room, and then--and there....
Poor, disappointed man, sitting on the divan in a dark corner of the
spacious room! In his soul hitherto the intellect had alone made itself
heard, the voice of the heart had never been listened to.
How he had found his way home he never knew. All he remembered was that,
in the course of duty, he had gone into the house of a man whose wife--
the mother of several children--he had left at noon in a dying state;
that he had seen her a corpse, surrounded by loud but sincere mourners;
that he had gone on his way, weighed down by their grief and his own, and
that he had entered his friend's rooms rather than his own, to feel safe
from himself. Life had no charm, no value for him now; still, he felt
ashamed to think that a woman could thus divert him from the fairest aims
of life, that he could allow her to destroy the peace of mind he needed
to enable him to carry out his calling in the spirit of his friend
Rufinus. He knew his house-mate well and felt that he would only pour
vitriol into his wounds, but it was best so. The old man had already
often tried to bring down Paula's image from its high pedestal in his
soul, but always in vain; and even now he should not succeed. He would
mar nothing, scatter nothing to the winds, tread nothing in the dust but
the burning passion, the fevered longing for her, which had fired his
blood ever since that night when he had vanquished the raving Masdakite.
That old sage by the table, on whose stern, cold features the light fell
so brightly, was the very man to accomplish such a work of destruction,
and Philippus awaited his first words as a wounded man watches the
surgeon heating the iron with which to cauterize the sore.
Poor disappointed wretch, sorely in need of a healing hand!
He lay back on the divan, and saw how his friend leaned over his scroll
as if listening, and fidgeted up and down in his arm-chair.
It was clear that Horapollo was uneasy at Philippus' long silence, and
his pointed eyebrows, raised high on his brow, plainly showed that he was
drawing his own conclusions from it--no doubt the right ones. The peace
must soon be broken, and Philippus awaited the attack. He was prepared
for the worst; but how could he bring himself to make his torturer's task
easy for him. Thus many minutes slipped away; while the leech was
waiting for the old man to speak, Horapollo waited for Philippus.
However, the impatience and curiosity of the elder were stronger than the
young man's craving for comfort; he suddenly laid down the roll of
manuscript, impatiently snatched up the ivory stick which he had thrown
aside, set his heavy seat at an angle with a shove of amazing vigor for
his age, turned full on Philippus, and asked him, in a loud voice,
pointing his ruler at him as if threatening him with it:
"So the play is out. A tragedy, of course!"
"Hardly, since I am still alive," replied the other.
"But there is inward bleeding, and the wound is painful," retorted the
old man. Then, after a short pause, he went on: "Those who will not
listen must feel! The fox was warned of the trap, but the bait was too
tempting! Yesterday there would still have been time to pull his foot
out of the spring, if only he had sincerely desired it; he knew the
hunter's guile. Now the foe is down on the victim; he has not spared his
weapons, and there lies the prey dumb with pain and ignominy, cursing his
own folly.--You seem inclined for silence this evening. Shall I tell you
just how it all came about?"
"I know only too well," said Philippus.
"While I, to be sure, can only imagine it!" growled the old man.
"So long as that patrician hussy needed the poor beast of burthen she
could pet it and throw barley and dates to it. Now she is rolling in
gold and living under a sheltering roof, and hey presto, the discarded
protector is sent to the right about in no time. This mistress of the
hearts of our weak and bondage-loving sex raises this rich Adonis to fill
the place of the hapless, overgrown leech, just as the sky lets the sun
rise when the pale moon sinks behind the hills. If that is not the fact
give me the lie!"
"I only wish I could," sighed Philippus. "You have seen rightly,
wonderfully rightly--and yet, as wrongly as possible."
"Dark indeed!" said the old man quietly. "But I can see even in the
dark. The facts are certain, though you are still so blinded as not
to see their first cause. However, I am satisfied to know that your
delusion has come to so abrupt, and in my opinion so happy, an end. To
its cause--a woman, as usual--I am perfectly indifferent. Why should I
needlessly ascribe to her any worse sin than she had committed? If only
for your sake I will avoid doing so, for an honorable soul clings to
those whom it sees maligned. Still, it seems to me that it is for you to
speak, not for me. I should know you for a philosopher, without such
persistent silence; and as for myself, I am not altogether bereft of
curiosity, in spite of my eighty years."
At this Philippus hastily rose and pacing the room while he spoke, or
pausing occasionally in front of the old man, he poured out with glowing
cheeks and eager gestures, the history of his hopes and sufferings--how
Paula had filled him with fresh confidence, and had invited him to her
rooms--only to show him her whole heart; she had been strongly moved,
surprised at herself, but unable and unwilling to conceal from him the
happiness that had come into her life. She had spoken to him, her best
friend, as a burthened soul pours itself out to a priest: had confessed
all that she had felt since the funeral of the deceased Mukaukas, and
said that she felt convinced now that Orion had come to a right mind
again after his great sin.
"And that there, was so much joy over him in heaven," interrupted
Horapollo, "that she really could not delay doing her cast-off lover
the honor of inviting his sympathy!"
"On the contrary. It was with the utmost effort that she uttered all
her heart prompted her to tell; she had nothing to look for from me but
mockery, warning, and reproach, and yet she opened her heart to me."
"But why? To what end?" shrieked the old man. "Shall I tell you.
Because a man who is a friend must still be half a lover, and a woman
cannot bear to give up even a quarter of one."
"Not so!" exclaimed Philippus, indignantly interrupting him. "It was
because she esteems and values me,--because she regards me as a brother,
and--I am not a vain man--and could not bear--those were her very words
--to cheat me of my affection for even an hour! It was noble, it was
generous, worthy of her! And though every fibre of my nature rebelled I
found myself compelled to admire her sincerity, her true friendship, her
disregard of her own feelings, and her womanly tenderness!--Nay, do not
interrupt me again, do not laugh at me. It is no small matter for a
proud girl, conscious of her own dignity, to lay bare her heart's
weakness to a man who, as she knows, loves her, as she did just now to
me. She called me her benefactor and said she would be a sister to me;
and whatever motive you--who hate her out of a habit of prejudice without
really knowing her--may choose to ascribe her conduct to, I--I believe in
her, and understand her.
"Could I refuse to grasp the hand she held out to me as she entreated me
with tears in her eyes to be still her friend, her protector, and her
Kyrios! And yet, and yet!--Where shall I find resolution enough to ask
of her who excites me to the height of passion no more than a kind
glance, a clasp of the hand, an intelligent interest in what I say? How
am I to preserve self-control, calmness, patience, when I see her in the
arms of that handsome young demi-god whom I scorned only yesterday as a
worthless scoundrel? What ice may cool the fire of this burning heart?
What spear can transfix the dragon of passion which rages here? I have
lived almost half my life without ever feeling or yearning for the love
of which the poets sing. I have never known anything of such feelings
but through the pangs of some friend whose weakness had roused my pity;
and now, when love has come upon me so late with all its irresistible
force--has subjugated me, cast me into bondage--how shall I, how can I
get free?
"My faithful friend, you who call me your son, whom I am glad to hear
speak to me as 'boy,' and 'child,' who have taken the place of the father
I lost so young--there is but one issue: I must leave you and this city--
flee from her neighborhood--seek a new home far from her with whom I
could have been as happy as the Saints in bliss, and who has made me more
wretched than the damned in everlasting fire. Away, away! I will go--I
must go unless you, who can do so much, can teach me to kill this passion
or to transmute it into calm, brotherly regard."
He stood still, close in front of the old man and hid his face in his
hands. At his favorite's concluding words, Horapollo had started to his
feet with all the vigor of youth; he now snatched his hand down from his
face, and exclaimed in a voice hoarse with indignation and the deepest
concern:
"And you can say that in earnest? Can a sensible man like you have sunk
so deep in folly? Is it not enough that your own peace of mind should
have been sacrificed, flung at the feet of this--what can I call her?--
Do you understand at last why I warned you against the Patrician brood?
--The faith, gratitude, and love of a good man!--What does she care for
them? Unhook the whiting; away with him in the dust! Here comes a fine
large fish who perhaps may swallow the bait!--Do you want to ruin, for
her sake, and the sake of that rascally son of the governor, the comfort
and happiness of an old man's last years when he has become accustomed to
love you, who so well deserve it, as his own son? Will you--an energetic
student, you--a man of powerful intellect, zealous in your duty, and in
favor with the gods--will you pine like a deserted maiden or spring from
the Leucadian rock like love-sick Sappho in the play while the spectators
shake with laughter? You must stay, Boy, you must stay; and I will show
you how a man must deal with a passion that dishonors him."
"Show me," replied Philippus in a dull voice. "I ask no more. Do you
suppose that I am not myself ashamed of my own weakness? It ill beseems
me of all men, formed by fate for anything rather than to be a sighing
and rapturous lover. I will struggle with it, wrestle with it with all
the strength that is in me; but here, in Memphis, close to her and as her
Kyrios, I should be forced every day to see her, and day after day be
exposed to fresh and humiliating defeat! Here, constantly near her and
with her, the struggle must wear me out--I should perish, body and soul.
The same place, the same city, cannot hold her and me."
"Then she must make way for you," croaked Horus. Philippus raised his
bowed head and asked, in some surprise and with stern reproof:
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing," replied the other airily. He shrugged his shoulders and went
on more gently: "Memphis has greater need of you than of the patrician
hussy." Then he shook himself as if he were cold, struck his breast and
added: "All is turmoil here within; I can neither help nor advise you.
Day must soon be dawning in the east; we will try to sleep. A knot can
often be untied by daylight which by lamplight seems inextricable, and
perhaps on my sleepless couch the goddess may reveal to me the way I have
promised to show you. A little more lightness of heart would do neither
of us any harm.--Try to forget your own griefs in those of others; you
see enough of them every day. To wish you a good night would probably be
waste of words, but I may wish you a soothing one, You may count on my
aid; but you will not let me, a poor old man, hear another word about
flight and departure and the like, will you? No, no. I know you better,
Philippus--you will never treat your lonely old friend so!"
These were the tenderest words that the leech had ever heard from the
old man's lips, and it comforted him when Horapollo pressed him to his
heart in a hasty embrace. He thought no more of the hint that it was
Paula's part to make room for him. But the old man had spoken in all
seriousness, for, no sooner was he alone than he petulantly flung down
the ivory ruler on the table, and murmured, at first angrily and then
scornfully, his eyes sparkling the while:
"For this true heart, and to preserve myself and the world from losing
such a man, I would send a dozen such born hussies to Amentis--[The
Nether world of the ancient Egyptians.]--Hey, hey! My beauty! So this
noble leech is not good enough for the like of us; he may be tossed away
like a date-stone that we spit out? Well, every one to his taste; but
how would it be if old Horapollo taught us his value? Wait a bit, wait!
--With a definite aim before my eyes I have never yet failed to find my
way--in the realm of science, of course; but what is life--the life of
the sage but applied knowledge? And why should not old Horapollo, for
once before he dies, try what his brains can contrive to achieve in the
busy world of outside human existence? Pleasant as you may think it to
be in Memphis with your lover, fair heart-breaker, you will have to make
way for the plaything you have so lightly tossed aside! Aye, you
certainly will, depend upon that my beauty, depend upon that!--Here,
Anubis!"
He gave the slave, who had fallen asleep again under the table, a kick
with his bare foot, and while Anubis lighted his master to his sleeping-
room, and helped him in his long and elaborate ablutions, Horapollo never
ceased muttering broken sentences and curses, or laughing maliciously to
himself.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A knot can often be untied by daylight
Hatred and love are the opposite ends of the same rod
Life is a function, a ministry, a duty
So hard is it to forego the right of hating
Those who will not listen must feel
Use their physical helplessness as a defence