THE FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS
The Academy of Epicurus was by no means a trifle spun for vainglory in
the fertile fancy of Demedes; but a fact just as the Brotherhoods of
the City were facts, and much more notorious than many of them.
Wiseacres are generally pessimistic. Academy of Epicurus indeed! For
once there was a great deal in a name. The class mentioned repeated it
sneeringly; it spoke to them, and loudly, of some philosophical
wickedness.
Stories of the miraculous growth of the society were at first amusing;
then the announcement of its housing excited loud laughter; but when
its votaries attached the high sounding term _Temple_ to their place of
meeting, the clergy and all the devoutly inclined looked sober. In
their view the word savored of outright paganism. Temple of the Academy
of Epicurus! Church had been better--Church was at least Christian.
At length, in ease of the increasing interest, notice was
authoritatively issued of a Festival of Flowers by the Academicians,
their first public appearance, and great were the anticipations aroused
by the further advertisement that they would march from their Temple to
the Hippodrome.
The festival took place the afternoon of the third day of the Prince of
India's voyage to Plati. More particularly, while that distinguished
foreigner on the deck of the galley was quietly sleeping off the
fatigue and wear of body and spirit consequent on the visit to the
desolate island, the philosophers were on parade with an immense quota
of Byzantines of both sexes in observation. About three thousand were
in the procession, and from head to foot it was a mass of flowers.
The extravaganza deserved the applause it drew. Some of its features
nevertheless were doubtfully regarded. Between the sections into which
the column was divided there marched small groups, apparently officers,
clad in gowns and vestments, carrying insignia and smoking tripods well
known to have belonged to various priesthoods of mythologic fame. When
the cortege reached the Hippodrome every one in the galleries was
reminded of the glory the first Constantine gained from his merciless
forays upon those identical properties.
In the next place, the motto of the society--Patience, Courage,
Judgment--was too frequently and ostentatiously exhibited not to
attract attention. The words, it was observed, were not merely on
banners lettered in gold, but illustrated by portable tableaux of
exquisite appositeness and beauty. They troubled the wiseacres; for
while they might mean a world of good, they might also stand for
several worlds of bad. Withal, however, the youthfulness of the
Academicians wrought the profoundest sensation upon the multitude of
spectators. The march was three times round the interior, affording
excellent opportunity to study the appearances; and the sober thinking,
whom the rarity and tastefulness of the display did not hoodwink, when
they discovered that much the greater number participating were
beardless lads, shook their heads while saying to each other, At the
rate these are going what is to become of the Empire? As if the
decadence were not already in progress, and they, the croakers,
responsible for it!
At the end of the first round, upon the arrival of the sections in
front of the triple-headed bronze serpent, one of the wonders of the
Hippodrome then as now, the bearers of the tripods turned out, and set
them down, until at length the impious relic was partially veiled in
perfumed smoke, as was the wont in its better Delphian days.
Nothing more shocking to the religionists could have been invented;
they united in denouncing the defiant indecency. Hundreds of persons,
not all of them venerable and frocked, were seen to rise and depart,
shaking the dust from their feet. In course of tile third circuit, the
tripods were coolly picked up and returned to their several places in
the procession.
From a seat directly over the course, Sergius beheld the gay spectacle
from its earliest appearance through the portal of the Blues to its
exit by the portal of the Greens. [Footnote: The Blues and the
Greens--two celebrated factions of Constantinople. See Gibbon, vii. pp.
79-89. Four gates, each flanked with towers, gave entrance to the
Hippodrome from the city. The northwestern was called the gate of the
Blues; the northeastern of the Greens; the southeastern gate bore the
sullen title, "Gate of the Dead."--Prof. Edwin A. Grosvenor.] His
interest, the reader will bear reminding, was peculiar. He had been
honored by a special invitation to become a member of the Academy--in
fact, there was a seat in the Temple at the moment reserved for him. He
had the great advantage, moreover, of exact knowledge of the objects of
the order. Godless itself, it had been organized to promote
godlessness. He had given much thought to it since Demedes unfolded the
scheme to him, and found it impossible to believe persons of sound
sense could undertake a sin so elaborate. If for any reason the State
and Church were unmindful of it, Heaven certainly could not be.
Aside from the desire to satisfy himself of the strength of the
Academy, Sergius was drawn to the Hippodrome to learn, if possible, the
position Demedes held in it. His sympathy with the venerable Hegumen,
with whom mourning for the boy astray was incessant, and sometimes
pathetic as the Jewish king's, gradually became a grief for the
prodigal himself, and he revolved plans for his reformation. What
happiness could he one day lead the son to the father, and say: "Your
prayers and lamentations have been heard; see--God's kiss of peace on
his forehead!"
And then in what he had seen of Demedes--what courage, dash, and
audacity--what efficiency--what store of resources! The last play of
his--attending the fete of the Princess Irene as a bear tender--who but
Demedes would have thought of such a role? Who else could have made
himself the hero of the occasion, with none to divide honors with him
except Joqard? And what a bold ready transition from bear tender to
captain in the boat race! Demedes writhing in the grip of Nilo over the
edge of the wall, death in the swish of waves beneath, had been an
object of pity tinged with contempt--Demedes winner of the prize at
Therapia was a very different person.
This feeling for the Greek, it is to be said next, was dashed with a
lurking dread of him. If he had a design against Lael, what was there
to prevent him from attempting it? That he had such a design, Sergius
could not deny. How often he repeated the close of the note left on the
stool after the Fisherman's fete. "Thou mayst find the fan of the
Princess of India useful; with me it is embalmed in sentiment." He
shall write with a pen wondrous fine who makes the difference between
love and sentiment clear. Behind the fete, moreover, there was the
confession heard on the wall, illustrated by the story of the plague of
crime. Instead of fading out in the Russian's mind it had become better
understood--a consequence of the brightening process of residence in
the city.
Twice the procession rounded the great curriculum. Twice Sergius had
opportunity to look for the Greek, but without avail. So were the
celebrants literally clothed in flowers that recognition of individuals
was almost impossible. The first time, he sought him in the body of
each passing section; the second time, he scanned the bearers of the
standards and symbols; the third time, he was successful.
At the head of the parade, six or eight persons were moving on
horseback. It was singular Sergius had not looked for Demedes amongst
them, since the idea of him would have entitled the Greek to a chief
seat in the Temple and a leading place when in the eye of the public.
As it was, he could not repress an exclamation on making the discovery.
Like his associates, Demedes was in armor _cap-a-pie_. He also carried
an unshod lance, a shield on arm, and a bow and quiver at his back; but
helmet, breastplate, shield, lance and bow were masked in flowers, and
only now and then a glint betrayed the underdress of polished steel.
The steed he bestrode was housed in cloth which dragged the ground; but
of the color of the cloth or its material not a word can be said, so
entirely was it covered with floral embroidery of diverse hues and
figures.
The decoration contributed little of grace to man or beast;
nevertheless its richness was undeniable. To the spendthrifts in the
galleries the effect was indescribably attractive. They studied its
elaboration, conjecturing how many gardens along the Bosphorus, and out
in the Isles of the Princes, had been laid under contribution for the
accomplishment of the splendor. Thus in the saddle, Demedes could not
have been accused of diminutiveness; he appeared tall, even burly;
indeed, Sergius would never have recognized him had he not been going
with raised visor, and at the instant of passing turned his face up,
permitting it to be distinctly seen.
The exclamation wrung from the monk was not merely because of his
finding the man; in sober truth, it was an unconventional expression
provoked by finding him in the place he occupied, and a quick jump to
the logical conclusion that the foremost person in the march was also
the chief priest--if such were the title--in the Academy.
Thenceforward Sergius beheld little else of the show than Demedes. He
forgot the impiety of the honors to the bronze serpent. There is no
enigma to us like him who is broadly our antipodes in moral being, and
whether ours is the good or the bad nature does not affect the saying.
His feelings the while were strangely diverse. The election of the evil
genius to the first place in the insidious movement was well done for
the Academy; there would be no failure with him in control; but the
poor Hegumen!
And now, the last circuit completed, the head of the bright array
approached the Gate of the Greens. There the horsemen drew out and
formed line on the right hand to permit the brethren to march past
them. The afternoon was going rapidly. The shadow of the building on
the west crept more noticeably across the carefully kept field. Still
Sergius retained his seat watchful of Demedes. He saw him signal the
riders to turn out--he saw the line form, and the sections begin to
march past it--then an incident occurred of no appreciable importance
at the moment, but replete with significancy a little later.
A man appeared on the cornice above the Gate--the Grate on the interior
having a face resembling a very tall but shallow portico resting on
slender pillars--and commenced lowering himself as if he meant to
descend. The danger of the attempt drew all eyes to him. Demedes looked
up, and hastily rode through the column toward the spot where the
adventurer must alight. The spectators credited the young chief with a
generous intent to be of assistance; but agile as a cat, and master of
every nerve and muscle, the man gained one of the pillars and slid to
the ground. The galleries of the Hippodrome found voice immediately.
While the acrobat hung from the cornice striving to get hold of the
pillar with his feet and legs, Sergius was wrestling with the question,
what could impel a fellow being to tempt Providence so rashly? If a
messenger with intelligence for some one in the procession, why not
wait for him outside? In short, the monk was a trifle vexed; but doubly
observant now, he saw the man hasten to Demedes, and Demedes bend low
in the saddle to receive a communication from him. The courier then
hurried away through the Gate, while the chief returned to his place;
but, instructed probably by some power of divination proceeding from
sympathy and often from suspicion, one of the many psychological
mysteries about which we keep promising ourselves a day of
enlightenment, Sergius observed a change in the latter. He was
restless, impatient, and somewhat too imperative in hastening the
retirement of the brethren. The message had obviously excited him.
Now Sergius would have freely given the best of his earthly possessions
to have known at that moment the subject of the communication delivered
by a route so extraordinary; but leaving him to his conjectures, there
is no reason why the reader should not be more confidentially treated.
"Sir," the messenger had whispered to Demedes, "she has left her
father's, and is coming this way."
"How is she coming?"
"In her sedan."
"Who is with her?"
"She is alone."
"And her porters?"
"The Bulgarians."
"Thank you. Go now--out by the Gate--to the keeper of the Imperial
Cistern. Tell him to await me under the wall in the Bucoleon garden
with my chair. He will understand. Come to the Temple tomorrow for your
salary."