At last he ruined himself. His creditors tore his property to pieces,
and in place of it there remained to Cinna weariness, as after great
toil, satiety, and one more unexpected thing, a certain deep disquiet.
He had tried wealth; he had tried love, as that age understood it; he
had tried pleasure, military glory, and dangers. He had come to know the
limits of human thought more or less; he had come in contact with poetry
and art. Hence he might suppose that from life he had taken what it had
to give. Now he felt as though he had overlooked something--and that
the most important. But he did not know what it was, and tortured his
head over this problem in vain. More than once had he striven to shake
himself out of these thoughts, and out of this disquiet. He had tried to
persuade himself that there was nothing more in life, and could not be;
but straightway his disquiet, instead of diminishing, increased quickly
to such a degree that it seemed to him that he was disquieted not only
for himself, but for all Rome. He envied the Sceptics and also
considered them fools, for they insisted that one may fill completely
the void with the empty. There existed in him then two men, as it were,
one of whom was astonished at the disquiet which he felt, while the
other was forced to recognize it as perfectly normal.
Soon after the loss of his property, thanks to great family influence,
Cinna was sent to an official post in Alexandria, partly to build up a
new fortune in a rich country. His disquiet entered the ship at
Brundisium, and sailed across the sea with him. In Alexandria Cinna
thought that questions concerning office, new people, another society,
new impressions, would relieve him of the intrusive companion. But he
was mistaken.
Two months passed, and just as the grain of Demeter, brought from Italy,
grew still more luxuriantly in the rich soil of the Delta, so his
disquiet from a sturdy twig changed, as it were, into a spreading cedar,
and began to cast a still greater shadow on the soul of Cinna.
At first he strove to free himself of this shadow by the same life that
he had led in Rome formerly. Alexandria was a place of pleasure, full of
Grecian women with golden hair and clear complexions, which the Egyptian
sun covered with a transparent, amber lustre. In their society he sought
rest.
But when this also proved vain he began to think of suicide. Many of his
comrades had freed themselves from life's cares in that manner, and for
causes still more foolish than those which Cinna had,--frequently from
weariness alone, from the emptiness of life, or a lack of desire to make
further use of it. When a slave held a sword adroitly and with
sufficient strength, one instant ended all. Cinna caught at this idea;
but when he had almost resolved to obey it, a wonderful dream held him
back. Behold, it seemed to him that when he was borne across the
river[1] he saw on the other bank his disquiet in the form of a wretched
slave; it bowed to him, saying, "I have come in advance to receive
thee." Cinna was terrified for the first time in life; because he
understood that if he could not think of existence beyond the grave
without disquiet, then they would both go there.
In this extreme, he resolved to make the acquaintance of sages with whom
the Serapeum was crowded, judging that among them perhaps he might find
the solution of his riddle. They, it is true, were unable to solve any
doubt of his; but to make up they entitled him "of the museum," which
title they offered usually to Romans of high birth and position. That
was small consolation at first; and the stamp of sage, given a man who
could not explain that which concerned him most highly, might seem to
Cinna ironical. He supposed, however, that the Serapeum did not reveal
all its wisdom at once, perhaps; and he did not lose hope altogether.
The most active sage in Alexandria was the noble Timon of Athens, a man
of wealth, and a Roman citizen. He had lived a number of years in
Alexandria, whither he had come to sound the depths of Egyptian science.
It was said of him that there was no parchment or papyrus in the Library
which he had not read, and that he possessed all the wisdom of mankind.
He was, moreover, mild and forbearing. Cinna distinguished him at once
among the multitude of pedants and commentators with stiffened brains,
and soon formed with him an acquaintance which, after a time, was
changed into close intimacy, and even into friendship. The young Roman
admired the dialectic skill, the eloquence and dignity, with which the
old man spoke of lofty themes touching man's destiny, and that of the
world. He was struck especially by this, that that dignity was joined to
a certain sadness. Later, when they had grown more intimate, Cinna was
seized frequently by the wish to inquire of the old sage the cause of
that sadness, and to open his own heart to him. In fact, it came to that
finally.