The Emperor. Complete

“Good-night, sham Eros!” she retorted.

“You are decking yourself in borrowed feathers, Poetess,” replied he, laughing. “It is not you but the ill-mannered Alexandrians who invented that name!”

“Oh! and other and better ones,” cried she. “What I have heard and seen to-day passes all belief!”

“And you will celebrate it in your poems?”

“Only some of it, and that in a satire which I propose to aim at you.”

“I tremble!”

“With delight, it is to be hoped; my poem will embalm your memory for posterity.”

“That is true, and the more spiteful your verses, the more certainly will future generations believe that Verus was the Phaon of Balbilla’s Sappho, and that love scorned filled the fair singer with bitterness.”

“I thank you for the caution. To-day at any rate you are safe from my verse, for I am tired to death.”

“Did you venture into the streets?”

“It was quite safe, for I had a trustworthy escort.”

“May I be allowed to ask who?”

“Why not? It was Pontius the architect who was with me.”

“He knows the town well.”

“And in his care I would trust myself to descend, like Orpheus, into Hades.”

“Happy Pontius!”

“Most happy Verus!”

“What am I to understand by those words, charming Balbilla?”

“The poor architect is able to please by being a good guide, while to you belongs the whole heart of Lucilla, your sweet wife.”

“And she has the whole of mine so far as it is not full of Balbilla. Good-night, saucy Muse; sleep well.”

“Sleep ill, you incorrigible tormentor!” cried the girl, drawing the curtain across her window.

CHAPTER VIII

The sleepless wretch on whom some trouble has fallen, so long as night surrounds him, sees his future life as a boundless sea in which he is sailing round and round like a shipwrecked man, but when the darkness yields, the new and helpful day shows him a boat for escape close at hand, and friendly shores in the distance.

The unfortunate Pollux also awoke towards morning with sighs many and deep; for it seemed to him that last evening he had ruined his whole future prospects. The workshop of his former master was henceforth closed to him, and he no longer possessed even all the tools requisite for the exercise of his art.

Only yesterday he had hoped with happy confidence to establish himself on a footing of his own, to-day this seemed impossible, for the most indispensable means were lacking to him. As he felt his little money-bag, which he was wont to place under his pillow, he could not forbear smiling in spite of all his troubles, for his fingers sank into the flaccid leather, and found only two coins, one of which he knew alas! was of copper, and the dried merry-thought bone of a fowl, which he had saved to give to his little nieces.

Where was he to find the money he was accustomed to give his sister on the first day of every month? Papias was on friendly terms with all the sculptors of the city, and it was only to be expected that he would warn them against him, and do his best to make it difficult to him to find a new place as assistant. His old master had also been witness of Hadrian’s anger against him, and was quite the man to take every advantage of what he had overheard. It is never a recommendation for any one that he is an object of dislike to the powerful, and least of all does it help him with those who look for the favor and gifts of the great men of the world. When Hadrian should think proper to throw off his disguise, it might easily occur to him to let Pollux feel the effects of his power. Would it not be wise in him to quit Alexandria and seek work or daily bread in some other Greek city?

But for Arsinoe’s sake he could not turn his back on his native place. He loved her with all the passion of his artist’s soul, and his youthful courage would certainly not have been so quickly and utterly crushed if he could have deluded himself as to the fact that his hopes of possessing her had been driven into the remote background by the events of the preceding evening. How could he dare to drag her into his uncertain and compromised position? And what reception could he hope for from her father if he should now attempt to demand her for his wife. As these thoughts overpowered his mind he suddenly felt as if his eyes were smarting with sand that had blown into them, and he could not help springing out of bed; he paced his little room with long steps, and he held his forehead pressed against the wall.

The dawn of a new day appeared as a welcome comfort, and by the time he had eaten the morning porridge which his mother set before him—and her eyes were red with weeping—the idea struck him that he would go to Pontius, the architect. That was the lifeboat he espied.

Doris shared her son’s breakfast but, contrary to her usual custom, she spoke very little, only she frequently passed her hand over her son’s curly hair. Euphorion strode up and down the room, rummaging his brain for ideas for an ode in which he might address the Emperor and implore forgiveness for his son. Soon after breakfast Pollux went up to the rotunda where the Queens’ busts stood, hoping to see Arsinoe again, and a loud snatch of song soon brought her out on to the balcony. They exchanged greetings, and Pollux signed to her to come down to him. She would have obeyed him more than gladly, but her father had also heard the sculptor’s voice and drove her back into the room. Still the mere sight of his beloved fair one had done the artist good. Hardly had he got back to his father’s little house when Antinous came sauntering in—he represented in the artist’s mind the hospitable shores on which he might gaze. Hope revived his soul, and Hope is the sun before which despair flies as the shades of night flee at the rising of the day-star.

His artistic faculties were once more roused into play, and found a field for their freest exercise when Antinous told him that he was at his disposal till mid-day, since his master—or rather Caesar as he was now permitted to name him—was engaged in business. The prefect Titianus had come to him with a whole heap of papers, to work with him and his private secretary. Pollux at once led the favorite into a side room of the little house, with a northern aspect; here on a table lay the wax and the smaller implements which belonged to himself and which he had brought home last evening. His heart ached, and his nerves were in a painful state of tension as he began his work. All sorts of anxious thoughts disturbed his spirit, and yet he knew that if he put his whole soul into it he could do something good. Now, if ever, he must put forth his best powers, and he dreaded failure as an utter catastrophe, for on the face of the whole earth there was no second model to compare with this that stood before him.

But he did not take long to collect himself for the Bithynian’s beauty filled him with profound feeling and it was with a sort of pious exaltation that he grasped the plastic material and moulded it into a form resembling his sitter. For a whole hour not a word passed between them, but Pollux often sighed deeply and now then a groan of painful anxiety escaped him.

Antinous broke the silence to ask Pollux about Selene. His heart was full of her, and there was no other man who knew her, and whom he could venture to entrust with his secret. Indeed it was only to speak to her that he had come to the artist so early. While Pollux modelled and scraped Antinous told him of all that had happened the previous night. He lamented having lost the silver quiver when he was upset into the water and regretted that the rose-colored chiton should afterwards have suffered a reduction in length at the hands of his pursuer. An exclamation of surprise, a word of sympathy, a short pause in the movement of his hand and tool, were all the demonstration on the artist’s part, to which the story of Selene’s adventure and the loss of his master’s costly property gave rise; his whole attention was absorbed in his occupation. The farther his work progressed the higher rose his admiration for his model. He felt as if intoxicated with noble wine as he worked to reproduce this incarnation of the ideal of umblemished youthful and manly beauty. The passion of artistic procreation fired his blood, and threw every thing else—even the history of Selene’s fall into the sea, and her subsequent rescue—into the region of commonplace. Still he had not been inattentive, and what he heard must have had some effect in his mind; for long after Antinous had ended his narrative, he said in a low voice and as if speaking to the bust, which was already assuming definite form:

“It is a wonderful thing!” and again a little later; “There was always something grand in that unhappy creature.”

He had worked without interruption for nearly four hours, when standing back from the table, he looked anxiously, first at his work and then at Antinous, and then asked him:

“How will that do?”

The Bithynian gave eager expression to his approbation, and Pollux had, in fact, done wonders in the short time. The wax began to display in a much reduced scale the whole figure of the beautiful youth and in the very same attitude which the young Dionysus carried off by the pirates, had assumed the day before. The incomparable modelling of the favorite’s limbs and form was soft but not effeminate; and, as Pollux had said to himself the day before, no artist in his happiest mood, could conceive the Nysaean god as different from this.

While the sculptor in order to assure himself of the accuracy of his work was measuring his model’s limbs with wooden compasses and lengths of tape, the sound of chariot-wheels was heard at the gate of the palace, and soon after the yelping of the Graces. Doris called to the dogs to be quiet and another high-pitched woman’s voice mingled with hers. Antinous listened and what he heard seemed to be somewhat out of the common for he suddenly quitted the position in which the sculptor had placed him only a few minutes before, ran to the window and called to Pollux in a subdued voice:

“It is true! I am not mistaken! There is Hadrian’s wife Sabina talking out there to your mother.”

He had heard rightly; the Empress had come to Lochias to seek out her husband. She had got out of the chariot at the gate of the old palace for the paving of the court-yard would not be completed before that evening.

Dogs, of which her husband was so fond, she detested; the shrewd beasts returned her aversion, so dame Doris found it more difficult than usual to succeed in reducing her disobedient pets to silence when they flew viciously at the stranger. Sabina terrified, vehemently desired the old woman to release her from their persecution, while the chamberlain who had come with her and on whom she was leaning kicked out at the irrepressible little wretches and so increased their spite. At last the Graces withdrew into the house. Dame Doris drew a deep breath and turned to the Empress.

She did not suspect who the stranger was for she had never seen Sabina and had formed quite a different idea of her.

“Pardon me good lady,” she said in her frank confiding manner. “The little rascals mean no harm and never bite even a beggar, but they never could endure old women. Whom do you seek here mother?”

“That you shall soon know,” replied Sabina sharply, “what a state of things, Lentulus, your architect Pontius’ work has brought about. And what must the inside be like if this but is left standing to disgrace the entrance of the palace! It must go with its inhabitants. Desire that woman to conduct us to the Roman lord who dwells here.”

The chamberlain obeyed and Doris began to suspect who was standing before her, and she said as she smoothed down her dress and bowed low:

“What great honor befalls us illustrious lady; perhaps you are even the Emperor’s wife? If that be the case—”

Sabina made an impatient sign to the chamberlain who interrupted the old woman exclaiming:

“Be silent and show us the way.”

Doris was not feeling particularly strong that day, and her eyes already red with weeping about her son again filled with tears. No one had ever spoken so to her before, and yet, for her son’s sake she would not repay sharp words in the same coin, though she had plenty at her command.

She tottered on in front of Sabina, and conducted her to the hall of the Muses. There Pontius relieved her of the duty, and the respect he paid to the stranger made her sure that in fact she was none other than the Empress in person.

“An odious woman!” said Sabina, as she went on pointing to Doris, whom her words could not escape. This was too much for the old woman; past all self-control she flung herself on to a seat that was standing by, covered her face with her hands and began crying bitterly. She felt as if the very ground were snatched from under her feet.