A Thorny Path — Complete, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  The brother and sister were left together. Melissa sighed deeply; buther brother went up to her, laid his arm round her shoulder, and said:"Poor child! you have indeed a hard time of it. Eighteen years old, andas pretty as you are, to be kept locked up as if in prison! No one wouldenvy you, even if your fellow-captive and keeper were younger and lessgloomy than your father is! But we know what it all means. His griefeats into his soul, and it does him as much good to storm and scold, asit does us to laugh."

  "If only the world could know how kind his heart really is!" said thegirl.

  "He is not the same to his friends as to us," said Alexander; butMelissa shook her head, and said sadly: "He broke out yesterday againstApion, the dealer, and it was dreadful. For the fiftieth time he hadwaited supper for you two in vain, and in the twilight, when he haddone work, his grief overcame him, and to see him weep is quiteheartbreaking! The Syrian dealer came in and found him all tearful, andbeing so bold as to jest about it in his flippant way--"

  "The old man would give him his answer, I know!" cried her brother witha hearty laugh. "He will not again be in a hurry to stir up a woundedlion."

  "That is the very word," said Melissa, and her large eyes sparkled. "Atthe fight in the Circus, I could not help thinking of my father, whenthe huge king of the desert lay with a broken spear in his loins,whining loudly, and burying his maned head between his great paws. Thegods are pitiless!"

  "Indeed they are," replied the youth, with deep conviction; but hissister looked up at him in surprise.

  "Do you say so, Alexander? Yes, indeed--you looked just now as I neversaw you before. Has misfortune overtaken you too?"

  "Misfortune?" he repeated, and he gently stroked her hair. "No, notexactly; and you know my woes sit lightly enough on me. The immortalshave indeed shown me very plainly that it is their will sometimes tospoil the feast of life with a right bitter draught. But, like the moonitself, all it shines on is doomed to change--happily! Many things herebelow seem strangely ordered. Like ears and eyes, hands and feet, manythings are by nature double, and misfortunes, as they say, commonly comein couples yoked like oxen."

  "Then you have had some twofold blow?" asked Melissa, clasping her handsover her anxiously throbbing bosom.

  "I, child! No, indeed. Nothing has befallen your father's younger son;and if I were a philosopher, like Philip, I should be moved to wonderwhy a man can only be wet when the rain falls on him, and yet can be sowretched when disaster falls on another. But do not look at me with suchterror in your great eyes. I swear to you that, as a man and an artist,I never felt better, and so I ought properly to be in my usual frameof mind. But the skeleton at life's festival has been shown to me. Whatsort of thing is that? It is an image--the image of a dead man whichwas carried round by the Egyptians, and is to this day by the Romans,to remind the feasters that they should fill every hour with enjoyment,since enjoyment is all too soon at an end. Such an image, child--"

  "You are thinking of the dead girl--Seleukus's daughter--whose portraityou are painting?" asked Melissa.

  Alexander nodded, sat down on the bench by his sister, and, taking upher needlework, exclaimed "Give us some light, child. I want to see yourpretty face. I want to be sure that Diodorus did not perjure himselfwhen, at the 'Crane,' the other day, he swore that it had not its matchin Alexandria. Besides, I hate the darkness."

  When Melissa returned with the lighted lamp, she found her brother, whowas not wont to keep still, sitting in the place where she had left him.But he sprang up as she entered, and prevented her further greeting byexclaiming:

  "Patience! patience! You shall be told all. Only I did not want toworry you on the day of the festival of the dead. And besides, to-morrowperhaps he will be in a better frame of mind, and next day--"

  Melissa became urgent. "If Philip is ill--" she put in.

  "Not exactly ill," said he. "He has no fever, no ague-fit, no aches andpains. He is not in bed, and has no bitter draughts to swallow. Yet ishe not well, any more than I, though but just now, in the dining-hall atthe Elephant, I ate like a starving wolf, and could at this moment jumpover this table. Shall I prove it?"

  "No, no," said his sister, in growing distress. "But, if you love me,tell me at once and plainly--"

  "At once and plainly," sighed the painter. "That, in any case, will notbe easy. But I will do my best. You knew Korinna?"

  "Seleukus's daughter?"

  "She herself--the maiden from whose corpse I am painting her portrait."

  "No. But you wanted--"

  "I wanted to be brief, but I care even more to be understood; and if youhave never seen with your own eyes, if you do not yourself know what amiracle of beauty the gods wrought when they molded that maiden, youare indeed justified in regarding me as a fool and Philip as amadman--which, thank the gods, he certainly is not yet."

  "Then he too has seen the dead maiden?"

  "No, no. And yet--perhaps. That at present remains a mystery. I hardlyknow what happened even to myself. I succeeded in controlling myself inmy father's presence; but now, when it all rises up before me, before myvery eyes, so distinct, so real, so tangible, now--by Sirius! Melissa,if you interrupt me again--"

  "Begin again. I will be silent," she cried. "I can easily picture yourKorinna as a divinely beautiful creature."

  Alexander raised his hands to heaven, exclaiming with passionatevehemence: "Oh, how would I praise and glorify the gods, who formedthat marvel of their art, and my mouth should be full of their grace andmercy, if they had but allowed the world to sun itself in the charm ofthat glorious creature, and to worship their everlasting beauty inher who was their image! But they have wantonly destroyed their ownmasterpiece, have crushed the scarce-opened bud, have darkened the starere it has risen! If a man had done it, Melissa, a man what would hisdoom have been! If he--"

  Here the youth hid his face in his hands in passionate emotion; but,feeling his sister's arm round his shoulder, he recovered himself, andwent on more calmly: "Well, you heard that she was dead. She was of justyour age; she is dead at eighteen, and her father commissioned me topaint her in death.--Pour me out some water; then I will proceed ascoldly as a man crying the description of a runaway slave." He dranka deep draught, and wandered restlessly up and down in front of hissister, while he told her all that had happened to him during the lastfew days.

  The day before yesterday, at noon, he had left the inn where he had beencarousing with friends, gay and careless, and had obeyed the call ofSeleukus. Just before raising the knocker he had been singing cheerfullyto himself. Never had he felt more fully content--the gayest of the gay.One of the first men in the town, and a connoisseur, had honored himwith a fine commission, and the prospect of painting something dead hadpleased him. His old master had often admired the exquisite delicacy ofthe flesh-tones of a recently deceased body. As his glance fell on theimplements that his slave carried after him, he had drawn himself upwith the proud feeling of having before him a noble task, to which hefelt equal. Then the porter, a gray-bearded Gaul, had opened the doorto him, and as he looked into his care-worn face and received from him asilent permission to step in, he had already become more serious.

  He had heard marvels of the magnificence of the house that he nowentered; and the lofty vestibule into which he was admitted, the mosaicfloor that he trod; the marble statues and high reliefs round the upperhart of the walls, were well worth careful observation; yet he, whoseeyes usually carried away so vivid an impression of what he had onceseen that he could draw it from memory, gave no attention to anyparticular thing among the various objects worthy of admiration. Foralready in the anteroom a peculiar sensation had come over him. Thelarge halls, which were filled with odors of ambergris and incense, wereas still as the grave. And it seemed to him that even the sun, which hadbeen shining brilliantly a few minutes before in a cloudless sky, haddisappeared behind clouds, for a strange twilight, unlike anything hehad ever seen, surrounded him. Then he perceived that it came in throughthe bl
ack velarium with which they had closed the open roof of the roomthrough which he was passing.

  In the anteroom a young freedman had hurried silently past him--hadvanished like a shadow through the dusky rooms. His duty must have beento announce the artist's arrival to the mother of the dead girl; for,before Alexander had found time to feast his gaze on the luxurious massof flowering plants that surrounded the fountain in the middle of theimpluvium, a tall matron, in flowing mourning garments, came towardshim--Korinna's mother.

  Without lifting the black veil which enveloped her from head to foot,she speechlessly signed him to follow her. Till this moment not even awhisper had met his ear from any human lips in this house of death andmourning; and the stillness was so oppressive to the light-hearted youngpainter, that, merely to hear the sound of his own voice, he ex-plainedto the lady who he was and wherefore he had come. But the only answerwas a dumb assenting bow of the head.

  He had not far to go with his stately guide; their walk ended in aspacious room. It had been made a perfect flower-garden with hundredsof magnificent plants; piles of garlands strewed the floor, and in themidst stood the couch on which lay the dead girl. In this hall,too, reigned the same gloomy twilight which had startled him in thevestibule.

  The dim, shrouded form lying motionless on the couch before him, with aheavy wreath of lotus-flowers and white roses encircling it from headto foot, was the subject for his brush. He was to paint here, where hecould scarcely distinguish one plant from another, or make out the formof the vases which stood round the bed of death. The white blossomsalone gleamed like pale lights in the gloom, and with a sister radiancesomething smooth and round which lay on the couch--the bare arm of thedead maiden.

  His heart began to throb; the artist's love of his art had awaked withinhim; he had collected his wits, and explained to the matron that topaint in the darkness was impossible.

  Again she bowed in reply, but at a signal two waiting women, who weresquatting on the floor behind the couch, started up in the twilight, asif they had sprung from the earth, and approached their mistress.

  A fresh shock chilled the painter's blood, for at the same moment thelady's voice was suddenly audible close to his ear, almost as deep as aman's but not unmelodious, ordering the girls to draw back the curtainas far as the painter should desire.

  Now, he felt, the spell was broken; curiosity and eagerness tookthe place of reverence for death. He quietly gave his orders for thenecessary arrangements, lent the women the help of his stronger arm,took out his painting implements, and then requested the matron tounveil the dead girl, that he might see from which side it would be bestto take the portrait. But then again he was near losing his composure,for the lady raised her veil, and measured him with a glance as thoughhe had asked something strange and audacious indeed.

  Never had he met so piercing a glance from any woman's eyes; and yetthey were red with weeping and full of tears. Bitter grief spoke inevery line of her still youthful features, and their stern, majesticbeauty was in keeping with the deep tones of her speech. Oh that he hadbeen so happy as to see this woman in the bloom of youthful loveliness!She did not heed his admiring surprise; before acceding to his demand,her regal form trembled from head to foot, and she sighed as she liftedthe shroud from her daughter's face. Then, with a groan, she droppedon her knees by the couch and laid her cheek against that of the deadmaiden. At last she rose, and murmured to the painter that if he weresuccessful in his task her gratitude would be beyond expression.

  "What more she said," Alexander went on, "I could but half understand,for she wept all the time, and I could not collect my thoughts. Itwas not till afterward that I learned from her waiting-woman--aChristian--that she meant to tell me that the relations and wailingwomen were to come to-morrow morning. I could paint on till nightfall,but no longer. I had been chosen for the task because Seleukus had heardfrom my old teacher, Bion, that I should get a faithful likeness of theoriginal more quickly than any one else. She may have said more, butI heard nothing; I only saw. For when the veil no longer hid that facefrom my gaze, I felt as though the gods had revealed a mystery to mewhich till now only the immortals had been permitted to know. Never wasmy soul so steeped in devotion, never had my heart beat in such solemnuplifting as at that moment. What I was gazing at and had to representwas a thing neither human nor divine; it was beauty itself--that beautyof which I have often dreamed in blissful rapture.

  "And yet--do not misapprehend me--I never thought of bewailing themaiden, or grieving over her early death. She was but sleeping--I couldfancy: I watched one I loved in her slumbers. My heart beat high! Ay,child, and the work I did was pure joy, such joy as only the gods onOlympus know at their golden board. Every feature, every line was ofsuch perfection as only the artist's soul can conceive of, nay,even dream of. The ecstasy remained, but my unrest gave way to anindescribable and wordless bliss. I drew with the red chalk, and mixedthe colors with the grinder, and all the while I could not feel thepainful sense of painting a corpse. If she were slumbering, she hadfallen asleep with bright images in her memory. I even fancied againand again that her lips moved her exquisitely chiseled mouth, and that afaint breath played with her abundant, waving, shining brown hair, as itdoes with yours.

  "The Muse sped my hand and the portrait--Bion and the rest will praiseit, I think, though it is no more like the unapproachable original thanthat lamp is like the evening star yonder."

  "And shall we be allowed to see it?" asked Melissa, who had beenlistening breathlessly to her brother's narrative.

  The words seemed to have snatched the artist from a dream. He had topause and consider where he was and to whom he was speaking. He hastilypushed the curling hair off his damp brow, and said:

  "I do not understand. What is it you ask?"

  "I only asked whether we should be allowed to see the portrait," sheanswered timidly. "I was wrong to interrupt you. But how hot your headis! Drink again before you go on. Had you really finished by sundown?"

  Alexander shook his head, drank, and then went on more calmly: "No, no!It is a pity you spoke. In fancy I was painting her still. There is themoon rising already. I must make haste. I have told you all this forPhilip's sake, not for my own."

  "I will not interrupt you again, I assure you," said Melissa. "Well,well," said her brother. "There is not much that is pleasant left totell. Where was I?"

  "Painting, so long as it was light--"

  "To be sure--I remember. It began to grow dark. Then lamps werebrought in, large ones, and as many as I wished for. Just before sunsetSeleukus, Korinna's father, came in to look upon his daughter once more.He bore his grief with dignified composure; yet by his child's bier hefound it hard to be calm. But you can imagine all that. He invited me toeat, and the food they brought might have tempted a full man to excess,but I could only swallow a few mouthfuls. Berenike--the mother--did noteven moisten her lips, but Seleukus did duty for us both, and this Icould see displeased his wife. During supper the merchant made manyinquiries about me and my father; for he had heard Philip's praises fromhis brother Theophilus, the high-priest. I learned from him that Korinnahad caught her sickness from a slave girl she had nursed, and had diedof the fever in three days. But while I sat listening to him, as hetalked and ate, I could not keep my eyes off his wife who reclinedopposite to me silent and motionless, for the gods had created Korinnain her very image. The lady Berenike's eyes indeed sparkle with alurid, I might almost say an alarming, fire, but they are shaped likeKorinna's. I said so, and asked whether they were of the same color;I wanted to know for my portrait. On this Seleukus referred me to apicture painted by old Sosibius, who has lately gone to Rome to work inCaesar's new baths. He last year painted the wall of a room in the merchant's country house at Kanopus. In the center of the picture standsGalatea, and I know it now to be a good and true likeness.

  "The picture I finished that evening is to be placed at the head ofthe young girl's sarcophagus; but I am to keep it two days longer, toreproduce a second likenes
s more at my leisure, with the help of theGalatea, which is to remain in Seleukus's town house.

  "Then he left me alone with his wife.

  "What a delightful commission! I set to work with renewed pleasure,and more composure than at first. I had no need to hurry, for the firstpicture is to be hidden in the tomb, and I could give all my care to thesecond. Besides, Korinna's features were indelibly impressed on my eye.

  "I generally can not paint at all by lamp-light; but this time I foundno difficulty, and I soon recovered that blissful, solemn mood which Ihad felt in the presence of the dead. Only now and then it was cloudedby a sigh, or a faint moan from Berenike: 'Gone, gone! There is nocomfort--none, none!'

  "And what could I answer? When did Death ever give back what he hassnatched away?

  "' I can not even picture her as she was,' she murmured sadly toherself--but this I might remedy by the help of my art, so I painted onwith increasing zeal; and at last her lamentations ceased to troubleme, for she fell asleep, and her handsome head sank on her breast. Thewatchers, too, had dropped asleep, and only their deep breathing brokethe stillness.

  "Suddenly it flashed upon me that I was alone with Korinna, and thefeeling grew stronger and stronger; I fancied her lovely lips had moved,that a smile gently parted them, inviting me to kiss them. As often asI looked at them--and they bewitched me--I saw and felt the same, and atlast every impulse within me drove me toward her, and I could no longerresist: my lips pressed hers in a kiss!"

  Melissa softly sighed, but the artist did not hear; he went on: "Andin that kiss I became hers; she took the heart and soul of me. I can nolonger escape from her; awake or asleep, her image is before my eyes,and my spirit is in her power."

  Again he drank, emptying the cup at one deep gulp. Then he went on: "Sobe it! Who sees a god, they say, must die. And it is well, for he hasknown something more glorious than other men. Our brother Philip, too,lives with his heart in bonds to that one alone, unless a demon hascheated his senses. I am troubled about him, and you must help me."

  He sprang up, pacing the room again with long strides, but his sisterclung to his arm and besought him to shake off the bewitching vision.How earnest was her prayer, what eager tenderness rang in her everyword, as she entreated him to tell her when and where her elder brother,too, had met the daughter of Seleukus!

  The artist's soft heart was easily moved. Stroking the hair ofthe loving creature at his side--so helpful as a rule, but nowbewildered--he tried to calm her by affecting a lighter mood than hereally felt, assuring her that he should soon recover his usual goodspirits. She knew full well, he said, that his living loves changed infrequent succession, and it would be strange indeed if a dead one couldbind him any longer. And his adventure, so far as it concerned the houseof Seleukus, ended with that kiss; for the lady Berenike had presentlywaked, and urged him to finish the portrait at his own house.

  Next morning he had completed it with the help of the Galatea in thevilla at Kanopus, and he had heard a great deal about the dead maiden.A young woman who was left in charge of the villa had supplied him withwhatever he needed. Her pretty face was swollen with weeping, and it wasin a voice choked with tears that she had told him that her husband, whowas a centurion in Caesar's pretorian guard, would arrive to-morrow ornext day at Alexandria, with his imperial master. She had not seen himfor a long time, and had an infant to show him which he had not yetseen; and yet she could not be glad, for her young mistress's death hadextinguished all her joy.

  "The affection which breathed in every word of the centurion's wife,"Alexander said, "helped me in my work. I could be satisfied with theresult.

  "The picture is so successful that I finished that for Seleukus in allconfidence, and for the sarcophagus I will copy it as well or as ill astime will allow. It will hardly be seen in the half-dark tomb, and howfew will ever go to see it! None but a Seleukus can afford to employso costly a brush as your brother's is--thank the Muses! But the secondportrait is quite another thing, for that may chance to be hung next apicture by Apelles; and it must restore to the parents so much of theirlost child as it lies in my power to give them. So, on my way, I made upmy mind to begin the copy at once by lamp-light, for it must be ready byto-morrow night at latest.

  "I hurried to my work-room, and my slave placed the picture on an easel,while I welcomed my brother Philip who had come to see me, and who hadlighted a lamp, and of course had brought a book. He was so absorbed init that he did not observe that I had come in till I addressed him. ThenI told him whence I came and what had happened, and he thought it allvery strange and interesting.

  "He was as usual rather hurried and hesitating, not quite clear,but understanding it all. Then he began telling me something about aphilosopher who has just come to the front, a porter by trade, from whomhe had heard sundry wonders, and it was not till Syrus brought me ina supper of oysters--for I could still eat nothing more solid--that heasked to see the portrait.

  "I pointed to the easel, and watched him; for the harder he is toplease, the more I value his opinion. This time I felt confident ofpraise, or even of some admiration, if only for the beauty of the model.

  "He threw off the veil from the picture with a hasty movement, but,instead of gazing at it calmly, as he is wont, and snapping out hissharp criticisms, he staggered backward, as though the noonday sun haddazzled his sight. Then, bending forward, he stared at the painting,panting as he might after racing for a wager. He stood in perfectsilence, for I know not how long, as though it were Medusa he was gazingon, and when at last he clasped his hand to his brow, I called him byname. He made no reply, but an impatient 'Leave me alone!' and thenhe still gazed at the face as though to devour it with his eyes, andwithout a sound.

  "I did not disturb him; for, thought I, he too is bewitched by theexquisite beauty of those virgin features. So we were both silent, tillhe asked, in a choked voice: 'And did you paint that? Is that, do yousay, the daughter that Seleukus has just lost?'

  "Of course I said 'Yes'; but then he turned on me in a rage, andreproached me bitterly for deceiving and cheating him, and jesting withthings that to him were sacred, though I might think them a subject forsport.

  "I assured him that my answer was as earnest as it was accurate, andthat every word of my story was true.

  "This only made him more furious. I, too, began to get angry, and ashe, evidently deeply agitated, still persisted in saying that my picturecould not have been painted from the dead Korinna, I swore to himsolemnly, with the most sacred oath I could think of, that it was reallyso.

  "On this he declared to me in words so tender and touching as I neverbefore heard from his lips, that if I were deceiving him his peace ofmind would be forever destroyed-nay, that he feared for his reason; andwhen I had repeatedly assured him, by the memory of our departed mother,that I had never dreamed of playing a trick upon him, he shook his head,grasped his brow, and turned to leave the room without another word."

  "And you let him go?" cried Melissa, in anxious alarm.

  "Certainly not," replied the painter. "On the contrary, I stood in hisway, and asked him whether he had known Korinna, and what all this mightmean. But he would make no reply, and tried to pass me and get away. Itmust have been a strange scene, for we two big men struggled as ifwe were at a wrestling-match. I got him down with one hand behind hisknees, and so he had to remain; and when I had promised to let him go,he confessed that he had seen Korinna at the house of her uncle, thehigh-priest, without knowing who she was or even speaking a word to her.And he, who usually flees from every creature wearing a woman's robe,had never forgotten that maiden and her noble beauty; and, though he didnot say so, it was obvious, from every word, that he was madly in love.Her eyes had followed him wherever he went, and this he deemed a greatmisfortune, for it had disturbed his power of thought. A month since hewent across Lake Mareotis to Polybius to visit Andreas, and while, onhis return, he was standing on the shore, he saw her again, with an oldman in white robes. But the last time he saw her was on
the morning ofthe very day when all this happened; and if he is to be believed, he notonly saw her but touched her hand. That, again, was by the lake; she wasjust stepping out of the ferry-boat. The obolus she had ready to pay theoarsman dropped on the ground, and Philip picked it up and returnedit to her. Then his fingers touched hers. He could feel it still, hedeclared, and yet she had then ceased to walk among the living.

  "Then it was my turn to doubt his word; but he maintained that his storywas true in every detail; he would hear nothing said about some oneresembling her, or anything of the kind, and spoke of daimons showinghim false visions, to cheat him and hinder him from working out hisinvestigations of the real nature of things to a successful issue. Butthis is in direct antagonism to his views of daimons; and when atlast he rushed out of the house, he looked like one possessed of evilspirits.

  "I hurried after him, but he disappeared down a dark alley. Then Ihad enough to do to finish my copy, and yesterday I carried it home toSeleukus.

  "Then I had time to look for Philip, but I could hear nothing of him,either in his own lodgings or at the Museum. To-day I have been huntingfor him since early in the morning. I even forgot to lay any flowerson my mother's grave, as usual on the day of the Nekysia, because I wasthinking only of him. But he no doubt is gone to the city of the dead;for, on my way hither, as I was ordering a garland in the flower-market,pretty little Doxion showed me two beauties which she had woven for him,and which he is presently to fetch. So he must now be in the Nekropolis;and I know for whom he intends the second; for the door-keeper atSeleukus's house told me that a man, who said he was my brother, hadtwice called, and had eagerly inquired whether my picture had yet beenattached to Korinna's sarcophagus. The old man told him it had not,because, of course, the embalming could not be complete as yet. But thepicture was to be displayed to-day, as being the feast of the dead, inthe hall of the embalmers. That was the plan, I know. So, now, child,set your wise little woman's head to work, and devise something bywhich he may be brought to his senses, and released from these crazyimaginings."

  "The first thing to be done," Melissa exclaimed, "is to follow himand talk to him.-Wait a moment; I must speak a word to the slaves. Myfather's night-draught can be mixed in a minute. He might perhaps returnhome before us, and I must leave his couch--I will be with you in aminute."