CHAPTER XVII.
But the young sculptor had not been at the gatehouse when Arsinoe wentby. He had thought of her often enough since meeting her again bythe bust of her mother; but on this particular afternoon his time andthoughts were fully claimed by another fair damsel. Balbilla had arrivedat Lochias about noon, accompanied, as was fitting, by the worthyClaudia, the not wealthy widow of a senator, who for many years hadfilled the place of lady-in-attendance and protecting companion to therich fatherless and motherless girl. At Rome, she conducted Balbilla'shousehold affairs with as much sense and skill as satisfaction in thetask. Still she was not perfectly content with her lot, for her ward'slove of travelling, often compelled her to leave the metropolis, and inher 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 theLigurian coast, to escape the cold of January and February--these shecould endure; for she was certain there to find, if not Rome, at anyrate Romans; but Balbilla's wish to venture in a tossing ship, to visitthe torrid shores of Africa, which she pictured to herself as a burningoven, she had opposed to the utmost. At last, however, she was obligedto put a good face on the matter, for the Empress herself expressedso decidedly her wish to take Balbilla with her to the Nile, that anyresistance would have been unduteous. Still; in her secret heart, shecould not but confess to herself that her high-spirited and wilfulfoster-child--for so she loved to call Balbilla--would undoubtedly havecarried out her purpose without the Empress' intervention.
Balbilla had come to the palace, as the reader knows, to sit for herbust.
When Selene was passing by the screen which concealed her playfellow andhis work from her gaze, the worthy matron had fallen gently asleep on acouch, and the sculptor was exerting all his zeal to convince the nobledamsel that the size to which her hair was dressed was an exaggeration,and that the super-encumbrance of such a mass must disfigure the effectof the delicate features of her face. He implored her to remember inhow simple a style the great Athenian masters, at the best period of theplastic arts, had taught their beautiful models to dress their hair, andrequested her to do her own hair in that manner next day, and to cometo him before she allowed her maid to put a single lock through thecurling-tongs; for to-day, as he said, the pretty little ringlets wouldfly back into shape, like the spring of a fibula when the pin was bentback. Balbilla contradicted him with gay vivacity, protested againsthis desire to play the part of lady's maid, and defended her style ofhair-dressing on the score of fashion.
"But the fashion is ugly, monstrous, a pain to one's eyes!" criedPollux. "Some vain Roman lady must have invented it, not to make herselfbeautiful, but to be conspicuous."
"I hate the idea of being conspicuous by my appearance," answeredBalbilla. "It is precisely by following the fashion, however conspicuousit may be, that we are less remarkable than when we carefully dress farmore simply and plainly--in short, differently to what it prescribes.Which do you regard as the vainer, the fashionably-dressed younggentleman on the Canopic way, or the cynical philosopher with hisunkempt hair, his carefully-ragged cloak over his shoulders, and a heavycudgel in his dirty hands?"
"The latter, certainly," replied Pollux. "Still he is sinning againstthe laws of beauty which I desire to win you over to, and which willsurvive every whim of fashion, as certainly as Homer's Iliad willsurvive the ballad of a street-singer, who celebrates the last murderthat excited the mob of this town.--Am I the first artist who hasattempted to represent your face?"
"No," said Balbilla, with a laugh. "Five Roman artists have alreadyexperimented 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-folddeformity?"
"Ah! no--I had them all destroyed."
"That was very good of them!" cried Pollux, eagerly. Then turning witha very simple gesture to the bust before him he said: "Hapless clay, ifthe lovely lady whom thou art destined to resemble will not sacrificethe chaos of her curls, thy fate will undoubtedly be that of thypredecessors."
The sleeping matron was roused by this speech. "You were speaking," shesaid, "of the broken busts of Balbilla?"
"Yes," replied the poetess.
"And perhaps this one may follow them," sighed Claudia. "Do you knowwhat 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 beenconspicuous not to dabble in sculpture."
"Perhaps."
"And she tried to improve in every bust all that particularly displeasedher," continued Claudia.
"I only began the work for the slaves to finish," Balbilla threw in,interrupting her companion. "Indeed, my people became quite expert inthe work of destruction."
"Then my work may, at any rate, hope for a short agony and speedydeath," sighed Pollux. "And it is true--all that lives comes into theworld 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 lestan undeservedly bad reputation is handed down to future generations."
"Certainly! but how then can you find courage to expose yourself for thesixth time to a form of calumny that it is difficult to counteract?"
"Because I can have anything destroyed that I choose," laughed thespoilt girl. "Otherwise sitting still is not much to my taste."
"That is very true," sighed Claudia. "But from you I expect somethingstrikingly good."
"Thank you," said Pollux, "and I will take the utmost pains to completesomething that may correspond to my own expectations of what a marbleportrait 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 asan artist. A plastic presentiment, to satisfy its creator, must fulfiltwo conditions; first it must record for posterity in forms of eternalresemblance all that lay in the nature of the person it represents;secondly, it must also show to posterity what the art of the time whenit 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 Famedoes 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 thephilosophers who wrote of the vanity of writers put their names to theirbooks all the same."
"Oh! I have no contempt for laurels, but I will not run after a thingwhich could have no value for me, unless it came unsought, and becauseit was my due."
"Well and good; but your first condition could only be fulfilled in itswidest sense if you could succeed in making yourself acquainted with mythoughts and feelings, with the whole of my inmost mind."
"I see you and talk to you," replied Pollux. Claudia laughed aloud, andsaid:
"If instead of two sittings of two hours you were to talk to her fortwice as many years you would always find something new in her. Not aweek 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 seethe restless spirit of my model in her brow and in her mouth, and hernature is revealed in her eyes."
"And i
n my snub-nose?" asked Balbilla.
"It bears witness to your wonderful and whimsical notions, whichastonish 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 thememory of this delightful hour." Pontius the architect here interruptedthe sculptor, begging Balbilla to excuse him for disturbing the sitting;Pollux must immediately attend to some business of importance, but inten minutes he would return to his work. No sooner were the two ladiesalone, than Balbilla rose and looked inquisitively round and about thesculptor'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 everypicture and tablet with the sculptor's studies in drawing, raised thecloth from the wax model of the Urania, tried the clang of the lutewhich hung against one of the canvas walls, was here, there, andeverywhere, 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 anyrate. In these close covered dishes we sometimes find the best meat. Letits unveil this shrouded portrait."
"Who knows what it may be?" said Claudia, as she loosened a twist in thecloths which enveloped the bust. There are often very remarkable thingsto 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. "Theseartists are such unfettered, unaccountable beings."
"Do you lift the top, I will pull here," and a moment later the youngRoman stood face to face with the caricature which Hadrian had mouldedon the previous evening, in all its grimacing ugliness. She recognizedherself in it at once, and at the first moment, laughed loudly, but thelonger she looked at the disfigured likeness, the more vexed, annoyedand angry she became. She knew her own face, feature for feature, allthat was pretty in it, and all that was plain, but this likeness ignoredeverything in her face that was not unpleasing, and this it emphasizedruthlessly, and exaggerated with a refinement of spitefulness. Thehead was hideous, horrible, and yet it was hers. As she studied it inprofile, she remembered what Pollux had declared he could read in herfeatures, and deep indignation rose up in her soul.
Her great inexhaustible riches, which allowed her the recklessgratification of every whim, and secured consideration, even for herfollies, had not availed to preserve her from many disappointments whichother girls, in more modest circumstances, would have been spared. Herkind heart and open hand had often been abused, even by artists, and itwas self-evident to her, that the man who could make this caricature,who had so enjoyed exaggerating all that was unlovely in her face, hadwished to exercise his art on her features, not for her own sake, butfor that of the high price she might be inclined to pay for a flatteringlikeness. She had found much to please her in the young sculptor's freshand happy artist nature, in his frank demeanor and his honest way ofspeech. She felt convinced that Pollux, more readily than anybody else,would understand what it was that lent a charm to her face, which was inno way strictly beautiful, a charm which could not be disputed in spiteof the coarse caricature which stood before her.
She felt herself the richer by a painful experience, indignant, andoffended. Accustomed as she was to give prompt utterance even to herdispleasure, she exclaimed hotly, and with tears in her eyes:
"It is shameful, it is base. Give me my wraps Claudia. I will not stayan instant longer to be the butt of this man's coarse and spitefuljesting."
"It is unworthy," cried the matron, "so to insult a person of yourposition. It is to be hoped our litters are waiting outside."
Pontius had overheard Balbilla's last words. He had come into thework-place without Pollux, who was still speaking to the prefect, and hesaid gravely as he approached Balbilla:
"You have every reason to be angry, noble lady. This thing is an insultin clay, malicious, and at the same time coarse in every detail; butit was not Pollux who did it, and it is not right to condemn without atrial."
"You take your friend's part!" exclaimed Balbilla. "I would not tell alie for my own brother."
"You know how to give your words the aspect of an honorable meaning inserious matters, as he does in jest."
"You are angry and unaccustomed to bridle your tongue," replied thearchitect. "Pollux, I repeat it, did not perpetrate the caricature, buta 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, Iwould let you go at once in your anger, and with the double charge onyour conscience of doing an injustice to two well-meaning men. But asyou are the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus, I feel it to be dueto myself to say, that if Pollux had really made this monstrous bust hewould not be in this palace now, for I should have turned him out andthrown the horrid object after him. You look surprised--you do not knowwho I am that can address you so."
"Yes, yes," cried Balbilla, much mollified, for she felt assured thatthe man who stood before her, as unflinching as if he were cast inbronze, and with an earnest frown, was speaking the truth, and that hemust have some right to speak to her with such unwonted decision. "Yesindeed, you are the principal architect of the city; Titianus, from whomwe have heard of you, has told us great things of you; but how am I toaccount 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 mygrandfather was your grandfather's slave."
"I did not know"--said Balbilla, with increasing confusion.
"Is it possible that your noble grandfather's instructor, the venerableSophinus, is altogether forgotten. Sophinus, whom your grandfatherfreed, and who continued to teach your father also."
"Certainly not--of course not," cried Balbilla. "He must have been asplendid man, and very learned besides."
"He was my father's father," said Pontius.
"Then you belong to our family," exclaimed Balbilla, offering him afriendly hand.
"I thank you for those words," answered Pontius. "Now, once more, Polluxhad nothing to do with that image."
"Take my cloak, Claudia," said the girl. "I will sit again to the youngman."
"Not to-day--it would spoil his work," replied Pontius. "I beg of you togo, and let the annoyance you so vehemently expressed die out somewhere else. The young sculptor must not know that you have seen thiscaricature, it would occasion him much embarrassment. But if you canreturn to-morrow in a calmer and more happy humor, with your livelyspirit tuned to a softer key, then Pollux will be able to make alikeness which may satisfy the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus."
"And, let us hope, the grandson of his learned teacher also," answeredBalbilla, with a kindly farewell greeting, as she went with hercompanion towards the door of the hall of the Muses, where her slaveswere waiting. Pontius escorted her so far in silence, then he returnedto the work-place, and safely wrapped the caricature up again in itscloths.
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. "Takethat 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, whoexpressed the wish to play the part of listener while Balbilla wassitting. When the architect, after begging him not t
o let Pollux know ofthe incident, told him of what had occurred in the screened-off studio,and how angry the young Roman lady had been at the caricature, whichwas certainly very offensive, Hadrian rubbed his hands and laughed aloudwith delight. Pontius ground his teeth, and then said very earnestly:
"Balbilla seems to me a merry-hearted girl, but of a noble nature. Isee no reason to laugh at her." Hadrian looked keenly into the daringarchitect's eyes, laid his hand on his shoulder, and replied with acertain threatening accent in his deep voice:
"It would be an evil moment for you, or for any one, who should do soin my presence. But age may venture to play with edged tools, whichchildren may not even touch."