But the young sculptor had not been at the gatehouse when Arsinoe went
by. He had thought of her often enough since meeting her again by the
bust of her mother; but on this particular afternoon his time and
thoughts were fully claimed by another fair damsel. Balbilla had arrived
at Lochias about noon, accompanied, as was fitting, by the worthy
Claudia, the not wealthy widow of a senator, who for many years had
filled the place of lady-in-attendance and protecting companion to the
rich fatherless and motherless girl. At Rome, she conducted Balbilla's
household affairs with as much sense and skill as satisfaction in the
task. Still she was not perfectly content with her lot, for her ward's
love of travelling, often compelled her to leave the metropolis, and in
her estimation, there was no place but Rome where life was worth living.
A visit to Baiae for bathing, or in the winter months a flight to the
Ligurian coast, to escape the cold of January and February--these she
could endure; for she was certain there to find, if not Rome, at any rate
Romans; but Balbilla's wish to venture in a tossing ship, to visit the
torrid shores of Africa, which she pictured to herself as a burning oven,
she had opposed to the utmost. At last, however, she was obliged to put
a good face on the matter, for the Empress herself expressed so decidedly
her wish to take Balbilla with her to the Nile, that any resistance would
have been unduteous. Still; in her secret heart, she could not but
confess to herself that her high-spirited and wilful foster-child--for
so she loved to call Balbilla--would undoubtedly have carried out her
purpose without the Empress' intervention.
Balbilla had come to the palace, as the reader knows, to sit for her
bust.
When Selene was passing by the screen which concealed her playfellow and
his work from her gaze, the worthy matron had fallen gently asleep on a
couch, and the sculptor was exerting all his zeal to convince the noble
damsel that the size to which her hair was dressed was an exaggeration,
and that the super-incumbence of such a mass must disfigure the effect of
the delicate features of her face. He implored her to remember in how
simple a style the great Athenian masters, at the best period of the
plastic arts, had taught their beautiful models to dress their hair, and
requested her to do her own hair in that manner next day, and to come to
him before she allowed her maid to put a single lock through the curling-
tongs; for to-day, as he said, the pretty little ringlets would fly back
into shape, like the spring of a fibula when the pin was bent back.
Balbilla contradicted him with gay vivacity, protested against his desire
to play the part of lady's maid, and defended her style of hair-dressing
on the score of fashion.
"But the fashion is ugly, monstrous, a pain to one's eyes!" cried
Pollux. "Some vain Roman lady must have invented it, not to make herself
beautiful, but to be conspicuous."
"I hate the idea of being conspicuous by my appearance," answered
Balbilla. "It is precisely by following the fashion, however conspicuous
it may be, that we are less remarkable than when we carefully dress far
more simply and plainly--in short, differently to what it prescribes.
Which do you regard as the vainer, the fashionably-dressed young
gentleman on the Canopic way, or the cynical philosopher with his unkempt
hair, his carefully-ragged cloak over his shoulders, and a heavy cudgel
in his dirty hands?"
"The latter, certainly," replied Pollux. "Still he is sinning against
the laws of beauty which I desire to win you over to, and which will
survive every whim of fashion, as certainly as Homer's Iliad will survive
the ballad of a street-singer, who celebrates the last murder that
excited the mob of this town.--Am I the first artist who has attempted to
represent your face?"
"No," said Balbilla, with a laugh. "Five Roman artists have already
experimented on my head."
"And did any one of their busts satisfy you?"
"Not one seemed to me better than utterly bad."
"And your pretty face is to be handed down to posterity in five-fold
deformity?"
"Ah! no--I had them all destroyed."
"That was very good of them!" cried Pollux, eagerly. Then turning with a
very simple gesture to the bust before him he said: "Hapless clay, if
the lovely lady whom thou art destined to resemble will not sacrifice
the chaos of her curls, thy fate will undoubtedly be that of thy
predecessors."
The sleeping matron was roused by this speech. "You were speaking," she
said, "of the broken busts of Balbilla?"
"Yes," replied the poetess.
"And perhaps this one may follow them," sighed Claudia. "Do you know
what lies before you in that case?"
"No, what?"
"This young lady knows something of your art."
"I learnt to knead clay a little of Aristaeus," interrupted Balbilla.
"Aha! because Caesar set the fashion, and in Rome it would have been
conspicuous not to dabble in sculpture."
"Perhaps."
"And she tried to improve in every bust all that particularly displeased
her," continued Claudia.
"I only began the work for the slaves to finish," Balbilla threw in,
interrupting her companion. "Indeed, my people became quite expert in
the work of destruction."
"Then my work may, at any rate, hope for a short agony and speedy death,"
sighed Pollux. "And it is true--all that lives comes into the world with
its end already preordained."
"Would an early demise of your work pain you much? "asked Balbilla.
"Yes, if I thought it successful; not if I felt it to be a failure."
"Any one who keeps a bad bust," said Balbilla, "must feel fearful lest an
undeservedly bad reputation is handed down to future generations."
"Certainly! but how then can you find courage to expose yourself for the
sixth time to a form of calumny that it is difficult to counteract?"
"Because I can have anything destroyed that I choose," laughed the spoilt
girl. "Otherwise sitting still is not much to my taste."
"That is very true," sighed Claudia. "But from you I expect something
strikingly good."
"Thank you," said Pollux, "and I will take the utmost pains to complete
something that may correspond to my own expectations of what a marble
portrait ought to be, that deserves to be preserved to posterity."
"And those expectations require--?"
Pollux considered for a moment, and then he replied:
"I have not always the right words at my command, for all that I feel as
an artist. A plastic presentiment, to satisfy its creator, must fulfil
two conditions; first it must record for posterity in forms of eternal
resemblance all that lay in the nature of the person it represents;
secondly, it must also show to posterity what the art of the time when it
was executed, was capable of."
"That is a matter of course--but you are forgetting your own share."
"My own fame you mean?"
"Certainly."
"I work for Papias and serve my art, and that is enough; meanwhile Fame
does not trouble herself about me, nor do I trouble myself about her."
"Still, you will put your name on my bust?"
"Why not?"
"You are as prudent as Cicero."
"Cicero?"
"Perhaps you would hardly know old Tullius' wise remark that the
philosophers who wrote of the vanity of writers put their names to their
books all the same."
"Oh! I have no contempt for laurels, but I will not run after a thing
which could have no value for me, unless it came unsought, and because it
was my due."
"Well and good; but your first condition could only be fulfilled in its
widest sense if you could succeed in making yourself acquainted with my
thoughts and feelings, with the whole of my inmost mind."
"I see you and talk to you," replied Pollux. Claudia laughed aloud, and
said:
"If instead of two sittings of two hours you were to talk to her for
twice as many years you would always find something new in her. Not a
week passes in which Rome does not find in her something to talk about.
That restless brain is never quiet, but her heart is as good as gold, and
always and everywhere the same."
"And did you suppose that that was new to me?" asked Pollux. "I can see
the restless spirit of my model in her brow and in her mouth, and her
nature is revealed in her eyes."
"And in my snub-nose?" asked Balbilla.
"It bears witness to your wonderful and whimsical notions, which astonish
Rome so much."
"Perhaps you are one more that works for the hammer of the slaves,"
laughed Balbilla.
"And even if it were so," said Pollux, "I should always retain the memory
of this delightful hour." Pontius the architect here interrupted the
sculptor, begging Balbilla to excuse him for disturbing the sitting;
Pollux must immediately attend to some business of importance, but in ten
minutes he would return to his work. No sooner were the two ladies
alone, than Balbilla rose and looked inquisitively round and about the
sculptor's enclosed work-room; but her companion said:
"A very polite young man, this Pollux, but rather too much at his ease,
and too enthusiastic."
"An artist," replied Balbilla, and she proceeded to turn over every
picture and tablet with the sculptor's studies in drawing, raised the
cloth from the wax model of the Urania, tried the clang of the lute which
hung against one of the canvas walls, was here, there, and everywhere,
and at last stood still in front of a large clay model, placed in a
corner of the studio, and closely wrapped in cloths.
"What may that be?" asked Claudia.
"No doubt a half-finished new model."
Balbilla felt the object in front of her with the tips of her fingers,
and said: "It seems to me to be a head. Something remarkable at any
rate. In these close covered dishes we sometimes find the best meat.
Let its unveil this shrouded portrait."
"Who knows what it may be?" said Claudia, as she loosened a twist in the
cloths which enveloped the bust. There are often very remarkable things
to be seen in such workshops.
"Hey, what, it is only a woman's head! I can feel it," cried Balbilla.
"But you can never tell," the older lady went on, untying a knot.
"These artists are such unfettered, unaccountable beings."
"Do you lift the top, I will pull here," and a moment later the young
Roman stood face to face with the caricature which Hadrian had moulded on
the previous evening, in all its grimacing ugliness. She recognized
herself in it at once, and at the first moment, laughed loudly, but the
longer she looked at the disfigured likeness, the more vexed, annoyed and
angry she became. She knew her own face, feature for feature, all that
was pretty in it, and all that was plain, but this likeness ignored
everything in her face that was not unpleasing, and this it emphasized
ruthlessly, and exaggerated with a refinement of spitefulness. The head
was hideous, horrible, and yet it was hers. As she studied it in
profile, she remembered what Pollux had declared he could read in her
features, and deep indignation rose up in her soul.
Her great inexhaustible riches, which allowed her the reckless
gratification of every whim, and secured consideration, even for her
follies, had not availed to preserve her from many disappointments which
other girls, in more modest circumstances, would have been spared. Her
kind heart and open hand had often been abused, even by artists, and it
was self-evident to her, that the man who could make this caricature, who
had so enjoyed exaggerating all that was unlovely in her face, had wished
to exercise his art on her features, not for her own sake, but for that
of the high price she might be inclined to pay for a flattering likeness.
She had found much to please her in the young sculptor's fresh and happy
artist nature, in his frank demeanor and his honest way of speech. She
felt convinced that Pollux, more readily than anybody else, would
understand what it was that lent a charm to her face, which was in no way
strictly beautiful, a charm which could not be disputed in spite of the
coarse caricature which stood before her.
She felt herself the richer by a painful experience, indignant, and
offended. Accustomed as she was to give prompt utterance even to her
displeasure, she exclaimed hotly, and with tears in her eyes:
"It is shameful, it is base. Give me my wraps Claudia. I will not stay
an instant longer to be the butt of this man's coarse and spiteful
jesting."
"It is unworthy," cried the matron, "so to insult a person of your
position. It is to be hoped our litters are waiting outside."
Pontius had overheard Balbilla's last words. He had come into the work-
place without Pollux, who was still speaking to the prefect, and he said
gravely as he approached Balbilla:
"You have every reason to be angry, noble lady. This thing is an insult
in clay, malicious, and at the same time coarse in every detail; but it
was not Pollux who did it, and it is not right to condemn without a
trial."
"You take your friend's part!" exclaimed Balbilla. "I would not tell a
lie for my own brother."
"You know how to give your words the aspect of an honorable meaning in
serious matters, as he does in jest."
"You are angry and unaccustomed to bridle your tongue," replied the
architect. "Pollux, I repeat it, did not perpetrate the caricature, but
a sculptor from Rome."
"Which of them? I know them all."
"I may not name him."
"There--you see.--Come away Claudia."
"Stay," said Pontius, decisively. "If you were any one but yourself, I
would let you go at once in your anger, and with the double charge on
your conscience of doing an injustice to two well-meaning men. But as
you are the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus, I feel it to be due to
myself to say, that if Pollux had really made this monstrous bust he
would not be in this palace now, for I should have turned him out and
thrown the horrid object after him. You look surprised--you do not know
who I am that can address you so."
"Yes, yes," cried Balbilla, much mollified, for she felt assured that the
man who stood before her, as unflinching as if he were cast in bronze,
and with an earnest frown, was speaking the truth, and that he must have
some right to speak to her with such unwonted decision. "Yes indeed, you
are the principal architect of the city; Titianus, from whom we have
heard of you, has told us great things of you; but how am I to account
for your special interest in me?"
"It is my duty to serve you--if necessary, even with my life."
"You," said Balbilla, puzzled. "But I never saw you till yesterday."
"And yet you may freely dispose of all that I have and am, for my
grandfather was your grandfather's slave."
"I did not know"--said Balbilla, with increasing confusion.
"Is it possible that your noble grandfather's instructor, the venerable
Sophinus, is altogether forgotten. Sophinus, whom your grandfather
freed, and who continued to teach your father also."
"Certainly not--of course not," cried Balbilla. "He must have been a
splendid man, and very learned besides."
"He was my father's father," said Pontius.
"Then you belong to our family," exclaimed Balbilla, offering him a
friendly hand.
"I thank you for those words," answered Pontius. "Now, once more, Pollux
had nothing to do with that image."
"Take my cloak, Claudia," said the girl. "I will sit again to the young
man."
"Not to-day--it would spoil his work," replied Pontius. "I beg of you to
go, and let the annoyance you so vehemently expressed die out some where
else. The young sculptor must not know that you have seen this
caricature, it would occasion him much embarrassment. But if you can
return to-morrow in a calmer and more happy humor, with your lively
spirit tuned to a softer key, then Pollux will be able to make a likeness
which may satisfy the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus."
"And, let us hope, the grandson of his learned teacher also," answered
Balbilla, with a kindly farewell greeting, as she went with her companion
towards the door of the hall of the Muses, where her slaves were waiting.
Pontius escorted her so far in silence, then he returned to the work-
place, and safely wrapped the caricature up again in its cloths.
As he went out into the hall again, Pollux hurried up to meet him,
exclaiming:
"The Roman architect wants to speak to you, he is a grand man!"
"Balbilla was called away, and bid me greet you," replied Pontius. "Take
that thing away for fear she should see it. It is coarse and hideous."
A few moments later he stood in the presence of the Emperor, who
expressed the wish to play the part of listener while Balbilla was
sitting. When the architect, after begging him not to let Pollux know of
the incident, told him of what had occurred in the screened-off studio,
and how angry the young Roman lady had been at the caricature, which was
certainly very offensive, Hadrian rubbed his hands and laughed aloud with
delight. Pontius ground his teeth, and then said very earnestly:
"Balbilla seems to me a merry-hearted girl, but of a noble nature. I see
no reason to laugh at her." Hadrian looked keenly into the daring
architect's eyes, laid his hand on his shoulder, and replied with a
certain threatening accent in his deep voice:
"It would be an evil moment for you, or for any one, who should do so in
my presence. But age may venture to play with edged tools, which
children may not even touch."