The house facing the garden of the Paneum, where Barine lived, was the
property of her mother, who had inherited it from her parents. The
artist Leonax, the young beauty's father, son of the old philosopher
Didymus, had died long before.
After Barine's unhappy marriage with Philostratus was dissolved, she had
returned to her mother, who managed the affairs of the household. She
too, belonged to a family of scholars and had a brother who had won high
repute as a philosopher, and had directed the studies of the young
Octavianus. This had occurred long before the commencement of the
hostility which separated the heirs of Cæsar and Mark Antony. But even
after the latter had deserted Octavia, the sister of Octavianus, to
return to Cleopatra, the object of his love, and there was an open
breach between the two rivals for the sovereignty of the world, Antony
had been friendly to Arius and borne him no grudge for his close
relations to his rival. The generous Roman had even given his enemy's
former tutor a fine house, to show him that he was glad to have him in
Alexandria and near his person.
The widow Berenike, Barine's mother, was warmly attached to her only
brother, who often joined her daughter's guests. She was a quiet, modest
woman whose happiest days had been passed in superintending the
education of her children, Barine, the fiery Hippias, and the quiet
Helena, who for several years had lived with her grandparents and, with
faithful devotion, assumed the duty of caring for them. She had been
more easily guided than the two older children; for the boy's aspiring
spirit had often drawn him beyond his mother's control, and the
beautiful, vivacious girl had early possessed charms so unusual that she
could not remain unnoticed.
Hippias had studied oratory, first in Alexandria and later in Athens and
Rhodes. Three years before, his uncle Arius had sent him with excellent
letters of introduction to Rome to become acquainted with the life of
the capital and try whether, in spite of his origin, his brilliant gifts
of eloquence would forward his fortunes there.
Two miserable years with an infamous, unloved husband had changed the
wild spirits of Barine's childhood into the sunny cheerfulness now one
of her special charms. Her mother was conscious of having desired only
her best good in uniting the girl of sixteen to Philostratus, whom the
grandfather Didymus then considered a very promising young man, and
whose advancement, in addition to his own talents, his brother Alexas,
Antony's favourite, promised to aid. She had believed that this step
would afford the gay, beautiful girl the best protection from the perils
of the corrupt capital; but the worthless husband had caused both mother
and daughter much care and sorrow, while his brother Alexas, who
constantly pursued his young sister-in-law with insulting attentions,
was the source of almost equal trouble. Berenike often gazed in silent
astonishment at the child, who, spite of such sore grief and
humiliation, had preserved the innocent light-heartedness which made her
seem as if life had offered her only thornless roses.
Her father, Leonax, had been one of the most distinguished artists of
the day, and Barine had inherited from him the elastic artist
temperament which speedily rebounds from the heaviest pressure. To him
also she owed the rare gift of song, which had been carefully cultivated
and had already secured her the first position in the woman's chorus at
the festival of the great goddesses of the city. Every one was full of
her praises, and after she had sung the Yalemos in the palace over the
waxen image of the favourite of the gods, slain by the boar, her name
was eagerly applauded. To have heard her was esteemed a privilege, for
she sang only in her own house or at religious ceremonials "for the
honour of the gods."
The Queen, too, had heard her, and, after the Adonis festival, her uncle
Arius had presented her to Antony, who expressed his admiration with all
the fervour of his frank nature, and afterwards came to her house a
second time, accompanied by his son Antyllus. Doubtless he would have
called on her frequently and tested upon her heart his peculiar power
over women, had he not been compelled to leave the city on the day after
his last visit.
Berenike had reproved her brother for bringing the Queen's lover to
Barine, for her anxiety was increased by the repeated visits of Antony's
son, and still more aroused by that of Cæsarion, who was presented by
Antyllus.
These youths were not numbered among the guests whose presence she
welcomed and whose conversation afforded her pleasure. It was flattering
that they should honour her simple home by their visits, but she knew
that Cæsarion came without his tutor's knowledge, and perceived, by the
expression of his eyes, what drew him to her daughter. Besides,
Berenike, in rearing the two children, who had been the source of so
much anxiety had lost the joyous confidence which had characterized her
own youth. Whenever life presented any new phase, she saw the dark side
first. If a burning candle stood before her, the shadow of the
candlestick caught her eye before the light. Her whole mental existence
became a chain of fears, but the kind-hearted woman loved her children
too tenderly to permit them to see it. Only it was a relief to her heart
when some of her evil forebodings were realized, to say that she had
foreseen it all.
No trace of this was legible in her face, a countenance still pretty and
pleasing in its unruffled placidity. She talked very little, but what
she did say was sensible, and proved how attentively she understood how
to listen. So she was welcome among Barine's guests. Even the most
distinguished received something from her, because he felt that the
quiet woman understood him.
Before Barine had returned that evening, something had occurred which
made her mother doubly regret the accident to her brother Arius the day
before. On his way home from his sister's he had been run over by a
chariot darting recklessly along the Street of the King, and was
carried, severely injured, to his home, where he now lay helpless and
fevered. Nor did it lessen his sufferings to hear his two sons threaten
to take vengeance on the reckless fellow who had wrought their father
this mischief, for he had reason to believe Antyllus the perpetrator of
the deed, and a collision between the youths and the son of Antony could
only result in fresh disaster to him and his, especially as the young
Roman seemed to have inherited little of his father's magnanimous
generosity. Yet Arius could not be vexed with his sons for stigmatizing,
in the harshest terms, the conduct of the man who had gone on without
heeding the accident. He had cautioned his sister against the utterly
unbridled youth whose father he had himself brought to her house. With
what good reason he had raised his voice in warning was now evident. At
sunset that very day several guests had arrived as usual, followed by
Antyllus, a youth of nineteen. When the door-keeper refused to admit
him, he had rudely demanded to see Barine, thrust aside the prudent old
porter, who endeavoured to detain him, and, in spite of his
protestations, forced his way into his dead master's work-room, where
the ladies usually received their visitors. Not until he found it empty
would he retire, and then he first fastened a bouquet of flowers he had
brought to a statue of Eros in burnt clay, which stood there. Both the
porter and Barine's waiting-maid declared that he was drunk; they saw it
when he staggered away with the companions who had waited for him in the
garden outside.
This unseemly and insulting conduct filled Berenike with the deepest
indignation. It must not remain unpunished, and, while waiting for her
daughter, she imagined what evil consequences might ensue if Antyllus
were forbidden the house and accused to his tutor, and how unbearable,
on the other hand, he might become if they omitted to do so.
She was full of sad presentiments, and as, with such good reason, she
feared the worst, she cherished a faint hope that her daughter might
perhaps bring home some pleasant tidings; for she had had the experience
that events which had filled her with the utmost anxiety sometimes
resulted in good fortune.
At last Barine appeared, and it was indeed long since she had clasped
her mother in her arms with such joyous cheerfulness.
The widow's troubled heart grew lighter. Her daughter must have met with
something unusually gratifying, she looked so happy, although she had
surely heard what had happened here; for her cloak was laid aside and
her hair newly arranged, so she must have been to her chamber, where she
was dressed by her loquacious Cyprian slave, who certainly could not
keep to herself anything that was worth mentioning. The nimble maid had
shown her skill that day.
"Any stranger would take her for nineteen," thought her mother. "How
becoming the white robe and blue-bordered peplum are to her; how softly
the azure bombyx ribbon is wound around the thick waves of her hair! Who
would believe that no curling-irons had touched the little golden locks
that rest so gracefully on her brow, that no paint-brush had any share
in producing the rose and white hues on her cheek, or the alabaster
glimmer of her arms? Such beauty easily becomes a Danae dower; but it is
a magnificent gift of the gods! Yet why did she put on the bracelet
which Antony gave her after his last visit? Scarcely on my account. She
can hardly expect Dion at so late an hour. Even while I am rejoicing in
the sight of her beauty, some new misfortune may be impending."
So ran the current of her thoughts while her daughter was gaily
describing what she had witnessed at her grandfather's. Meanwhile she
had nestled comfortably among the cushions of a lounge; and when she
mentioned Antyllus's unseemly conduct, she spoke of it, with a
carelessness that startled Berenike, as a vexatious piece of rudeness
which must not occur again.
"But who is to prevent it?" asked the mother anxiously.
"Who, save ourselves?" replied Barine.
"He will not be admitted."
"And if he forced his way in?"
Barine's big blue eyes flashed angrily, and there was no lack of
decision in her voice as she exclaimed, "Let him try it!"
"But what power have we to restrain the son of Antony?" asked Berenike.
"I do not know."
"I do," replied her daughter. "I will be brief, for a visitor is
coming."
"So late?" asked the mother anxiously.
"Archibius wishes to discuss an important matter with us."
The lines on the brow of the older woman smoothed, but it contracted
again as she exclaimed inquiringly: "Important business at so unusual an
hour! Ah, I have expected nothing good since early morning! On my way to
my brother's a raven flew up before me and fluttered towards the left
into the garden."
"But I," replied Barine, after receiving, in reply to her inquiry, a
favourable report concerning her uncle's health--"I met seven--there
were neither more nor less; for seven is the best of numbers--seven
snow-white doves, which all flew swiftly towards the right. The fairest
of all came first, bearing in its beak a little basket which contained
the power that will keep Antony's son away from us. Don't look at me in
such amazement, you dear receptacle of every terror."
"But, child, you said that Archibius was coming so late to discuss an
important matter," rejoined the mother.
"He must be here soon."
"Then cease this talking in riddles; I do not guess them quickly."
"You will solve this one," returned Barine; "but we really have no time
to lose. So--my beautiful dove was a good, wise thought, and what it
carried in its basket you shall hear presently. You see, mother, many
will blame us, though here and there some one may pity; but this state
of things must not continue. I feel it more and more plainly with each
passing day; and several years must yet elapse ere this scruple becomes
wholly needless. I am too young to welcome as a guest every one whom
this or that man presents to me. True, our reception-hall was my
father's work-room and you, my own estimable, blameless mother, are the
hostess here; but though superior to me in every respect, you are so
modest that you shield yourself behind your daughter until the guests
think of you only when you are absent. So those who seek us both merely
say, 'I am going to visit Barine'--and there are too many who say
this--I can no longer choose, and this thought----"
"Child! child!" interrupted her mother joyfully, "what god met you as
you went out this morning?"
"Surely you know," she answered gaily; "it was seven doves, and, when I
took the little basket from the bill of the first and prettiest one, it
told me a story. Do you want to hear it?"
"Yes, yes; but be quick, or we shall be interrupted."
Then Barine leaned farther back among the cushions, lowered her long
lashes, and began: "Once upon a time there was a woman who had a garden
in the most aristocratic quarter of the city--here near the Paneum, if
you please. In the autumn, when the fruit was ripening, she left the
gate open, though all her neighbours did the opposite. To keep away
unbidden lovers of her nice figs and dates, she fastened on the gate a
tablet bearing the inscription: 'All may enter and enjoy the sight of
the garden; but the dogs will bite any one who breaks a flower, treads
upon the grass, or steals the fruit.'
"The woman had nothing but a lap-dog, and that did not always obey her.
But the tablet fulfilled its purpose; for at first none came except her
neighbours in the aristocratic quarter. They read the threat, and
probably without it would have respected the property of the woman who
so kindly opened the door to them. Thus matters went on for a time,
until first a beggar came, and then a Phœnician sailor, and a thievish
Egyptian from the Rhakotis--neither of whom could read. So the tablet
told them nothing; and as, moreover, they distinguished less carefully
between mine and thine, one trampled the turf and another snatched from
the boughs a flower or fruit. More and more of the rabble came, and you
can imagine what followed. No one punished them for the crime, for they
did not fear the barking of the lap-dog, and this gave even those who
could read, courage not to heed the warning. So the woman's pretty
garden soon lost its peculiar charm; and the fruit, too, was stolen.
When the rain at last washed the inscription from the tablet, and saucy
boys scrawled on it, there was no harm done; for the garden no longer
offered any attractions, and no one who looked into it cared to enter.
Then the owner closed her gate like the neighbours, and the next year
she again enjoyed the green grass and the bright hues of the flowers.
She ate her fruit herself, and the lap-dog no longer disturbed her by
its barking."
"That is," said her mother, "if everybody was as courteous and as well
bred as Gorgias, Lysias, and the others, we would gladly continue to
receive them. But since there are rude fellows like Antyllus----"
"You have understood the story correctly," Barine interrupted. "We are
certainly at liberty to invite to our house those who have learned to
read our inscription. To-morrow visitors will be informed that we can no
longer receive them as before."
"Antyllus's conduct affords an excellent pretext," her mother added.
"Every fair-minded person must understand----"
"Certainly," said Barine, "and if you, shrewdest of women, will do your
part----"
"Then for the first time we can act as we please in our own home.
Believe me, child--if you only do not----"
"No ifs!--not this time!" cried the young beauty, raising her hand
beseechingly. "It gives me such delight to think of the new life, and if
matters come to pass as I hope and wish--then--do not you also believe,
mother, that the gods owe me reparation?"
"For what?" asked the deep voice of Archibius, who had entered
unannounced, and was now first noticed by the widow and her daughter.
Barine hastily rose and held out both hands to her old friend,
exclaiming, "Since they bring you to us, they are already beginning the
payment."