CHAPTER XXV.
Orion made his way home under the moonlit and starry night. He held hishead high, and not since that evening on the water with Paula had hefelt so glad or so hopeful. On the other side of the bridge he did notat once turn his horse's head homewards; the fresh night air was sodelightful, his heart beat so high that he shrunk from the oppressionof a room. Full of renewed life, freed from a burden as it were, he madehis way at a round pace to the house that held his beloved, picturingto himself how gladly she would welcome the news that he had found Amruready to encourage him in his projects, indeed, to be a fatherly friend.
The Arab general, whose lofty character, intellect, and rectitude hisfather had esteemed highly, had impressed him, too, as the ideal ofnoble manliness, and as he compared him with the highest officials andwarriors he had met at the Court of Byzantium he could not help smiling.By the side of this dignified, but impetuous and warm-hearted man theyappeared like the old, rigid idols of his ancestors in comparison withthe freely-wrought works of Greek art. He could bless the memory ofhis father for having freed the land from that degenerate race. Now,he felt, that lost parent, whose image lived in his soul, was satisfiedwith him, and this gave him a sense of happiness which he meant tocling to and enhance by every thought and deed in the future. "Life is afunction, a ministry, and a duty!" this watchword, which had been givenhim by those beloved lips, should keep him in the new path; and soon hehoped to feel sure of himself, to be able to look back on such deeds ofvalor as would give him a right in his own judgment to unite his lot tothat of this noblest of women.
Full of such thoughts as these, he made his way to the house of Rufinus.The windows of the corner room on the upper floor were lighted up; twoof these windows looked out on the river and the quay. He did not knowwhich rooms were Paula's, but he looked up at the late-burning lightwith a vague feeling that it must be hers; a female figure which nowappeared framed in the opening, showed him that he was not mistaken; itwas that of Perpetua. The sound of hoofs had roused her curiosity, butshe did not seem to recognize him in the dim starlight.
He slowly rode past, and when he presently turned back and againlooked up, in the hope this time of seeing Paula, the place was vacant:however, he perceived a tall dark shadow moving across from one side ofthe room to the other, which could not be that of the nurse nor of herslender mistress. It must indeed be that of a remarkably big man, andstopping to gaze with anxious and unpleasant apprehension, he plainlyrecognized Philippus.
It was past midnight. How could he account for his being with Paula atthis hour?--Was she ill?--Was this room hers after all?--Was it merelyby chance that the nurse was in Rufinus' room with the physician.
No. The woman whom he could now see pass across the window and gostraight up to the man, with outstretched hands, was Paula and noneother. Isis heart was already beating fast, and now a suspicion grewstrong in him which his vanity had hitherto held in check, though he hadoften seen the friendly relations that subsisted between Paula and theleech.--Perhaps it was a warmer feeling than friendship and guilelesstrust, which had led her so unreservedly to claim this man's protectionand service. Could he have won Paula's heart--Paula's love?
Was it conceivable!--But why not?
What was there against Philippus but his homely face and humble birth?And how many a woman had he not seen set her heart on quite otherthings! The physician was not more than five years his senior; andrecalling the expression in his eyes as he looked at Paula only thatmorning Orion felt more and more uneasy.
Philippus loved Paula.--A trifling incident suddenly occurred tohis mind which made him certain on that point; he had only too muchexperience in such matters. Yesterday, it had struck him that eversince his father's death--that was ever since Paula's change ofresidence--Philippus dressed more carefully than had been his wont. "Nowthis," thought he, "is a change that does not come over so serious a manunless it is caused by love."
A mingled torment of pain and rage shot through him as he again saw thetall shadow cross the window. For the first time in his life he felt thepangs of jealousy, which he had so often laughed at in his friends; butwas it not absurd to allow it to torture him; was he not sure, sincethat morning's meeting, quite sure of Paula? And Philippus! Even if he,Orion, must retire into the background before a higher judge, in theeyes of a woman he surely had the advantage!--But in spite of all thisit troubled him to know that the physician was with Paula at such anhour; he angrily pulled his horse's head round, and it was a pleasureto him to feel the fiery creature, unused as it was to such roughtreatment, turn restive at it now. By the time he had gone a hundredsteps from those windows with their cursed glare, the horse wasdisplaying all the temper and vice that had been taken out of him as afoal. Orion had to fight a pitched battle with his steed, and it was arelief to him to exercise his power with curb and knee. In vain didthe creature dance round and round; in vain did he rear and plunge; thesteady rider was his master; and it was not till he had brought him toquietness and submission that Orion drew breath and looked about himwhile he patted the horse's smooth neck.
Close at hand, behind a low hedge, spread the thick, dark groves ofSusannah's garden and between them the back of the house was visible,being more brilliantly lighted than even Paula's rooms. Three of thewindows showed lights; two were rather dim, however, the result probablyof one lamp only.
All this could not matter to him; nevertheless he remained gazing at theroof of the colonnade which went round the house below the upper floor;for, on the terrace it formed, leaning against a window-frame, stood asmall figure with her head thrust so far forth to listen that the lightshone through the curls that framed it. Katharina was trying to overheara dialogue between the Patriarch Benjamin--whose bearded andapostolic head Orion could clearly recognize--and the priest John,an insignificant looking little man, of whom, however, the deceasedMukaukas had testified that he was far superior to old Plotinus theBishop in intellect and energy.
The young man could easily have watched Katharina's every movement,but he did not think it worth while. Nevertheless, as he rode on, thewater-wagtail's little figure dwelt in his mind; not alone, however, forthat of Paula immediately rose by her side; and the smaller Katharina'sseemed, the more ample and noble did the other appear. Every word hehad heard that day from Paula's lips rushed to his remembrance, and thevivid and lovely memory drove out all care. That woman, who only a fewhours since, had declared herself ready, with him, to hope all things,to believe all things, and to accept his protection--that lordly maidenwhom he had been glad to bid fix her eye, with him, on the goal ofhis future efforts, whose pure gaze could restrain his passion andimpetuosity as by a charm, and who yet granted him the right to striveto possess her--that proud daughter of heroes, whom even his fatherwould have clasped to his heart as a daughter--was it possible thatshe should betray him like some pleasure-seeking city beauty? Could sheforget her dignity as a woman?--No! and a thousand times no. To doubther was to insult her--was to wrong her and himself.
The physician loved her; but it certainly was not any warmer feelingthan friendship on her part that made her receive him at this late hour.The shame would be his own, if he ever again allowed such base suspicionto find place in his soul!
He breathed a deep sigh of relief. And when his servant, who hadlingered to pay the toll at the bridge, came up with him, Oriondismounted and desired him to lead his horse home, for he himself wishedto return on foot, alone with his thoughts. He walked meditatively andslowly under the sycamores, but he had not gone far when, on the otherside of the deserted road, he heard some one overtaking him with long,quick strides. He recognized the leech Philippus at a glance and wasglad, for this proved to him how senseless and unjust his doubts hadbeen, and how little ground he had for regarding the physician as arival; for indeed this man did not look like a happy lover. He hurriedon with his head bent, as though under a heavy burthen, and claspedhis hand to his forehead with a gesture of despair. No, this nocturnalwanderer had left no hour of
bliss behind him; and if his demeanor wascalculated to rouse any feeling it was not envy, but pity.
Philippus did not heed Orion; absorbed in himself, he strode on, moaningdully, as if in pain. For a few minutes he disappeared into a housewhence came loud cries of suffering, and when he came out again, hewalked on, shaking his head now and then, as a man who sees many thingshappen which his understanding fails to account for.
The end of his walk was a large, palatial building. The stucco hadfallen off in places, and in the upper story the windows had been brokenaway till their open ings were a world too wide. In former times thishouse had accommodated the State officers of Finance for the province,and the ground-floor rooms had been suitably and comfortably fittedup for the Ideologos--the supreme controller of this department, whousually resided at Alexandria, but who often spent some weeks at Memphiswhen on a tour of inspection. But the Arabians had transferred themanagement of the finances of the whole country to the new capital ofFostat on the other shore of the river, and that of the monetaryaffairs of the decaying city had been incorporated with the treasurer'sdepartment of the Mukaukas' household. The senate of the city had foundthe expense of this huge building too heavy, and had been well contentto let the lower rooms to Philippus and his Egyptian friend, Horapollo.
The two men occupied different rooms, but the same slaves attended totheir common housekeeping and also waited on the physician's assistant,a modest and well-informed Alexandrian.
When Philippus entered his old friend's lofty and spacious studyhe found him still up, sitting before a great number of rolls ofmanuscript, and so absorbed in his work that he did not notice hislate-coming comrade till the leech bid him good-evening. His only replywas an unintelligible murmur, for some minutes longer the old man waslost in study; at last, however, he looked up at Philippus, impatientlytossing an ivory ruler-which he had been using to open and smooth thepapyrus on to the table; and at the same moment a dark bundle under itbegan to move--this was the old man's slave who had long been sleepingthere.
Three lamps on the writing-table threw a bright light on the old man andhis surroundings, while the physician, who had thrown himself on a couchin a corner of the large room, remained in the dark.
What startled the midnight student was his housemate's unwonted silence;it disturbed him as the cessation of the clatter of the wheel disturbs aman who lives in a mill. He looked at his friend with surprised enquiry,but Philippus was dumb, and the old man turned once more to his rolls ofmanuscript. But he had lost the necessary concentration; his brown hand,in which the blue veins stood out like cords, fidgeted with the scrollsand the ivory rule, and his sunken lips, which had before been firmlyclosed, were now twitching restlessly.
The man's whole aspect was singular and not altogether pleasing: hislean brown figure was bent with age, his thoroughly Egyptian face, withbroad cheekbones and outstanding ears, was seamed and wrinkledlike oak-bark; his scalp was bare of its last hair, and his faceclean-shaved, but for a few tufts of grey hair by way of beard,sprouting from the deep furrows on his cheeks and chin, like reeds fromthe narrow bed of a brook; the razor could not reach them there, andthey gave him an untidy and uncared-for appearance. His dress answeredto his face--if indeed that could be called dress which consisted ofa linen apron and a white kerchief thrown over his shoulders aftersundown. Still, no one meeting him in the road could have taken him fora beggar; for his linen was fine and as white as snow, and his keen,far-seeing eyes, above which, exactly in the middle, his bristlyeyebrows grew strangely long and thick, shone and sparkled with clearintelligence, firm self-reliance, and a repellent severity which wouldno more have become an intending mendicant than the resolute and oftenscornful expression which played about his lips. There was nothingamiable, nothing prepossessing, nothing soft in this man's face; andthose who knew what his life had been could not wonder that the yearshad failed to sweeten his abrupt and contradictory acerbity or totransmute them into that kindly forbearance which old men, rememberinghow often they have stumbled and how many they have seen fall, sometimesfind pleasure in practising.
He had been born, eighty years before, in the lovely island of Philae,beyond the cataract in the district of the temple of Isis, and under theshadow of the only Egyptian sanctuary in which the heathen cultus waskept up, and that publicly, as late as in his youth. Since Theodosiusthe Great, one emperor and one Praefectus Augustalis after another hadsent foot-soldiers and cavalry above the falls to put an end to idolatryin the beautiful isle; but they had always been routed or destroyed bythe brave Blemmyes who haunted the desert between the Nile and the RedSea. These restless nomad tribes acknowledged the Isis of Philae astheir tutelary goddess, and, by a very ancient agreement, the imageof their patroness was carried every year by her priests in a solemnprocession to the Blemmyes, and then remained for a few weeks in theirkeeping. Horapollo's father was the last of the horoscope readers, andhis grandfather had been the last high-priest of the Isis of Philae. Hischildhood had been passed on the island but then a Byzantine legionhad succeeded in beating the Blemmyes, in investing the island, andin plundering and closing the temple. The priests of Isis escaped theimperial raid and Horapollo had spent all his early years with hisfather, his grandfather, and two younger sisters, in constant peril andflight. His youthful spirit was unremittingly fed with hatred of thepersecutors, the cruel contemners and exterminators of the faith of hisforefathers; and this hatred rose to irreconcilable bitterness afterthe massacre at Antioch where the imperial soldiery fell upon all hisfamily, and his grandfather and two innocent sisters were murdered.These horrors were committed at the instigation of the Bishop, whodenounced the Egyptian strangers as idolaters, and to whom the Romanprefect, a proud and haughty patrician, had readily lent the support ofan armed force. It was owing to the narrowest chance--or, as the old manwould have it, to the interposition of great Isis, that his father hadbeen so happy as to get away with him and the treasures he had broughtfrom the temple at Philae. Thus they had means to enable them to travelfarther under an assumed name, and they finally settled in Alexandria.Here the persecuted youth changed his name, Horus, to its Greekequivalent, and henceforth he was known at home and in the schools asApollo. He was highly gifted by nature, and availed himself with theutmost zeal of the means of learning that abounded in Alexandria; helabored indefatigably and dug deep into every field of Greek science,gaining, under his father's guidance, all the knowledge of Egyptianhoroscopy, which was not wholly lost even at this late period.
In the midst of the contentious Christian sects of the capital, bothfather and son remained heathen and worshippers of Isis; and when theold priest died at an advanced age, Horapollo moved to Memphis where heled the quiet and secluded life of a student, mingling only now andthen with the astronomers, astrologers, and calendar-makers at theobservatory, or visiting the alchemists' laboratories, where, even inChristian Egypt, they still devoted themselves to attempts to transmutethe baser into the noble metals. Alchemists and star-readers alike soondetected the old man's superior knowledge, and in spite of his acrid andoften offensively-repellent demeanor, took counsel of him on difficultquestions. His fame had even reached the Arabs, and, when it wasnecessary to find the exact direction towards Mecca for the prayer nichein Amru's new mosque, he was appealed to, and his decision was final.
Philippus had, some years since, been called to the old man's bedsidein sickness, and being then a beginner and in no great request, he hadgiven the best of his time and powers to the case. Horapollo hadbeen much attracted by the young physician's wide culture and earneststudiousness; he had conceived a warm liking for him, the warmestperhaps that he had ever felt for any fellow-human since the death ofhis own family. At last the elder took the younger man into his heartwith such overflowing affection, that it seemed as though his spiritlonged to make up now for the stint of love it had hitherto shown. Nofather could have clung to his son with more fervent devotion, and whena relapse once more brought him to death's door he took Philippus whollyinto his confid
ence, unrolled before his eyes the scroll of his innerand outer life from its beginnings, and made him his heir on conditionthat he should abide by him to the end.
Philippus, who, from the first, had felt a sympathetic attraction tothis venerable and talented man, agreed to the bargain; and whenhe subsequently became associated with the old man in his studies,assisting him from time to time, Horapollo desired that he would helphim to complete a work he hoped to finish before he died. It was atreatise on hieroglyphic writing, and was to interpret the various signsso far as was still possible, and make them intelligible to posterity.
The old man disliked writing anything but Egyptian, using Greekunwillingly and clumsily, so he entrusted to his young friend the taskof rendering his explanations into that language. Thus the two men--sodifferent in age and character, but so closely allied in intellectualaims--led a joint existence which was both pleasant and helpful to both,in spite of the various eccentricities, the harshness and severity ofthe elder.
Horapollo lived after the manner of the early Egyptian priests,subjecting himself to much ablution and shaving; eating little butbread, vegetables, and poultry, and abstaining from pulse and the fleshof all beasts--not merely of the prohibited animal, swine; wearingnothing but pure linen clothing, and setting apart certain hours forthe recitation of those heathen forms of prayer whose magic power was tocompel the gods to grant the desires of those who thus appealed to them.
And if the old man had given his full confidence to Philippus, theleech, on his part, had no secrets from him; or, if he withheldanything, Horapollo, with wonderful acumen, was at once aware of it.Philippus had often spoken of Paula to his parental friend, describingher charms with all the fervor of a lover, but the old man was alreadyprejudiced against her, if only as the daughter of a patrician and aprefect. All who bore these titles were to him objects of hatred, fora patrician and a prefect had been guilty of the blood of those he hadheld most dear. The Governor of Antioch, to be sure, had acted onlyunder the orders of the bishop; but old Horapollo, and his father beforehim, from the first had chosen to throw all the blame on the prefect,for it afforded some satisfaction to the descendant of an ancestral raceof priests to be able to vent all his wrathful spite on any one ratherthan on the minister of a god--be that god who or what he might.
So when Philippus praised Paula's dignified grandeur, her superiorelegance, the height of her stature or the loftiness of her mind, theold man would bound up exclaiming: "Of course--of course!--Beware boy,beware! You are disguising haughtiness, conceit, and arrogance undernoble names. The word 'patrician' includes everything we can conceive ofas most insolent and inhuman; and those apes in purple who disgrace theImperial throne pick out the worst of them, the most cold-heartedand covetous, to make prefects of them. And as they are, so are theirchildren! Everything which they in their vainglory regard as 'beneaththem' they tread into the dust--and we--you and I, all who labor withtheir hands in the service of the state--we, in their dull eyes,are beneath them. Mark me, boy! To-day the governor's daughter, thepatrician maiden, can smile at you because she needs you; tomorrow shewill cast you aside as I push away the old panther-skin which keeps myfeet warm in winter, as soon as the March days come!"
Nor was his aversion less for the son of the Mukaukas, whom, however,he had never seen; when the leech had confessed to him how deep a grudgeagainst Orion dwelt in the heart of Paula, old Horapollo had chuckledscornfully, and he exclaimed, as though he could read hearts and lookinto the future--: "They snap at each other now, and in a day or twothey will kiss again! Hatred and love are the opposite ends of the samerod; and how easily it is reversed!--Those two!--Like in blood is likein kind;--such people attract each other as the lodestone tends towardsthe iron and the iron towards the lodestone!"
But these and similar admonitions had produced little effect on thephysician's sentiments; even Paula's repulse of his ardent appeal aftershe had moved to the house of Rufinus had failed to extinguish hishope of winning her at last. This very morning, in the course of thediscussion as to the stewardship of her fortune, Paula had beenready and glad to accept him as her Kyrios--her legal protector andrepresentative; but he now thought that he could perceive by varioussigns that his venerable friend was right: that the rod had beenreversed, and that aversion had been transformed to love in the girl'sheart. The anguish of this discovery was hard to bear. And yet Paula hadnever shown him such hearty warmth of manner, never had she spoken tohim in a voice so soft and so full of feeling, as this evening in thegarden. More cheerful and talkative than usual, she had constantlyturned to address him, while he had felt his pain and torment of mindgradually eased, till in him too, sentiment had blossomed anew, and hisintellectual power had expanded. Never--so he believed--had he expressedhis thoughts better or more brilliantly than in that hour. Nor had shewithheld her approval; she had heartily agreed with his views; andwhen, half an hour before midnight, he had gone with her to visithis patients, rapturous hopes had sprung once more in his breast.Ecstatically happy, like a man intoxicated, he had, by her own desire,accompanied her into her sitting-room, and then--and there....
Poor, disappointed man, sitting on the divan in a dark corner of thespacious room! In his soul hitherto the intellect had alone made itselfheard, the voice of the heart had never been listened to.
How he had found his way home he never knew. All he remembered wasthat, in the course of duty, he had gone into the house of a man whosewife--the mother of several children--he had left at noon in a dyingstate; that he had seen her a corpse, surrounded by loud but sinceremourners; that he had gone on his way, weighed down by their grief andhis own, and that he had entered his friend's rooms rather than hisown, to feel safe from himself. Life had no charm, no value for him now;still, he felt ashamed to think that a woman could thus divert him fromthe fairest aims of life, that he could allow her to destroy the peaceof mind he needed to enable him to carry out his calling in the spiritof his friend Rufinus. He knew his house-mate well and felt that hewould only pour vitriol into his wounds, but it was best so. The oldman had already often tried to bring down Paula's image from its highpedestal in his soul, but always in vain; and even now he should notsucceed. He would mar nothing, scatter nothing to the winds, treadnothing in the dust but the burning passion, the fevered longingfor her, which had fired his blood ever since that night when he hadvanquished the raving Masdakite. That old sage by the table, on whosestern, cold features the light fell so brightly, was the very man toaccomplish such a work of destruction, and Philippus awaited his firstwords as a wounded man watches the surgeon heating the iron with whichto cauterize the sore.
Poor disappointed wretch, sorely in need of a healing hand!
He lay back on the divan, and saw how his friend leaned over his scrollas if listening, and fidgeted up and down in his arm-chair.
It was clear that Horapollo was uneasy at Philippus' long silence, andhis pointed eyebrows, raised high on his brow, plainly showed that hewas drawing his own conclusions from it--no doubt the right ones. Thepeace must soon be broken, and Philippus awaited the attack. He wasprepared for the worst; but how could he bring himself to make historturer's task easy for him. Thus many minutes slipped away; whilethe leech was waiting for the old man to speak, Horapollo waited forPhilippus. However, the impatience and curiosity of the elder werestronger than the young man's craving for comfort; he suddenly laid downthe roll of manuscript, impatiently snatched up the ivory stick which hehad thrown aside, set his heavy seat at an angle with a shove of amazingvigor for his age, turned full on Philippus, and asked him, in a loudvoice, pointing his ruler at him as if threatening him with it:
"So the play is out. A tragedy, of course!"
"Hardly, since I am still alive," replied the other.
"But there is inward bleeding, and the wound is painful," retorted theold man. Then, after a short pause, he went on: "Those who will notlisten must feel! The fox was warned of the trap, but the bait was tootempting! Yesterday there would still have been time to pul
l his footout of the spring, if only he had sincerely desired it; he knew thehunter's guile. Now the foe is down on the victim; he has not spared hisweapons, and there lies the prey dumb with pain and ignominy, cursinghis own folly.--You seem inclined for silence this evening. Shall I tellyou just how it all came about?"
"I know only too well," said Philippus.
"While I, to be sure, can only imagine it!" growled the old man. "Solong as that patrician hussy needed the poor beast of burthen she couldpet it and throw barley and dates to it. Now she is rolling in gold andliving under a sheltering roof, and hey presto, the discarded protectoris sent to the right about in no time. This mistress of the hearts ofour weak and bondage-loving sex raises this rich Adonis to fill theplace of the hapless, overgrown leech, just as the sky lets the sun risewhen the pale moon sinks behind the hills. If that is not the fact giveme the lie!"
"I only wish I could," sighed Philippus. "You have seen rightly,wonderfully rightly--and yet, as wrongly as possible."
"Dark indeed!" said the old man quietly. "But I can see even in thedark. The facts are certain, though you are still so blinded as notto see their first cause. However, I am satisfied to know that yourdelusion has come to so abrupt, and in my opinion so happy, an end. Toits cause--a woman, as usual--I am perfectly indifferent. Why should Ineedlessly ascribe to her any worse sin than she had committed? If onlyfor your sake I will avoid doing so, for an honorable soul clings tothose whom it sees maligned. Still, it seems to me that it is for youto speak, not for me. I should know you for a philosopher, without suchpersistent silence; and as for myself, I am not altogether bereft ofcuriosity, in spite of my eighty years."
At this Philippus hastily rose and pacing the room while he spoke, orpausing occasionally in front of the old man, he poured out with glowingcheeks and eager gestures, the history of his hopes and sufferings--howPaula had filled him with fresh confidence, and had invited him to herrooms--only to show him her whole heart; she had been strongly moved,surprised at herself, but unable and unwilling to conceal from him thehappiness that had come into her life. She had spoken to him, her bestfriend, as a burthened soul pours itself out to a priest: had confessedall that she had felt since the funeral of the deceased Mukaukas, andsaid that she felt convinced now that Orion had come to a right mindagain after his great sin.
"And that there, was so much joy over him in heaven," interruptedHorapollo, "that she really could not delay doing her cast-off lover thehonor of inviting his sympathy!"
"On the contrary. It was with the utmost effort that she uttered allher heart prompted her to tell; she had nothing to look for from me butmockery, warning, and reproach, and yet she opened her heart to me."
"But why? To what end?" shrieked the old man. "Shall I tell you. Becausea man who is a friend must still be half a lover, and a woman cannotbear to give up even a quarter of one."
"Not so!" exclaimed Philippus, indignantly interrupting him. "It wasbecause she esteems and values me,--because she regards me as a brother,and--I am not a vain man--and could not bear--those were her verywords--to cheat me of my affection for even an hour! It was noble,it was generous, worthy of her! And though every fibre of my naturerebelled I found myself compelled to admire her sincerity, hertrue friendship, her disregard of her own feelings, and her womanlytenderness!--Nay, do not interrupt me again, do not laugh at me. It isno small matter for a proud girl, conscious of her own dignity, to laybare her heart's weakness to a man who, as she knows, loves her, as shedid just now to me. She called me her benefactor and said she would bea sister to me; and whatever motive you--who hate her out of a habit ofprejudice without really knowing her--may choose to ascribe her conductto, I--I believe in her, and understand her.
"Could I refuse to grasp the hand she held out to me as she entreatedme with tears in her eyes to be still her friend, her protector, and herKyrios! And yet, and yet!--Where shall I find resolution enough toask of her who excites me to the height of passion no more than a kindglance, a clasp of the hand, an intelligent interest in what I say? Howam I to preserve self-control, calmness, patience, when I see her in thearms of that handsome young demi-god whom I scorned only yesterday as aworthless scoundrel? What ice may cool the fire of this burning heart?What spear can transfix the dragon of passion which rages here? I havelived almost half my life without ever feeling or yearning for the loveof which the poets sing. I have never known anything of such feelingsbut through the pangs of some friend whose weakness had roused my pity;and now, when love has come upon me so late with all its irresistibleforce--has subjugated me, cast me into bondage--how shall I, how can Iget free?
"My faithful friend, you who call me your son, whom I am glad to hearspeak to me as 'boy,' and 'child,' who have taken the place of thefather I lost so young--there is but one issue: I must leave you andthis city--flee from her neighborhood--seek a new home far from her withwhom I could have been as happy as the Saints in bliss, and who has mademe more wretched than the damned in everlasting fire. Away, away! I willgo--I must go unless you, who can do so much, can teach me to kill thispassion or to transmute it into calm, brotherly regard."
He stood still, close in front of the old man and hid his face in hishands. At his favorite's concluding words, Horapollo had started to hisfeet with all the vigor of youth; he now snatched his hand down from hisface, and exclaimed in a voice hoarse with indignation and the deepestconcern:
"And you can say that in earnest? Can a sensible man like you have sunkso deep in folly? Is it not enough that your own peace of mind shouldhave been sacrificed, flung at the feet of this--what can I callher?--Do you understand at last why I warned you against the Patricianbrood?--The faith, gratitude, and love of a good man!--What does shecare for them? Unhook the whiting; away with him in the dust! Here comesa fine large fish who perhaps may swallow the bait!--Do you want toruin, for her sake, and the sake of that rascally son of the governor,the comfort and happiness of an old man's last years when he has becomeaccustomed to love you, who so well deserve it, as his own son? Willyou--an energetic student, you--a man of powerful intellect, zealousin your duty, and in favor with the gods--will you pine like a desertedmaiden or spring from the Leucadian rock like love-sick Sappho in theplay while the spectators shake with laughter? You must stay, Boy, youmust stay; and I will show you how a man must deal with a passion thatdishonors him."
"Show me," replied Philippus in a dull voice. "I ask no more. Do yousuppose that I am not myself ashamed of my own weakness? It ill beseemsme of all men, formed by fate for anything rather than to be a sighingand rapturous lover. I will struggle with it, wrestle with it with allthe strength that is in me; but here, in Memphis, close to her and asher Kyrios, I should be forced every day to see her, and day after daybe exposed to fresh and humiliating defeat! Here, constantly near herand with her, the struggle must wear me out--I should perish, body andsoul. The same place, the same city, cannot hold her and me."
"Then she must make way for you," croaked Horus. Philippus raised hisbowed head and asked, in some surprise and with stern reproof:
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing," replied the other airily. He shrugged his shoulders and wenton more gently: "Memphis has greater need of you than of the patricianhussy." Then he shook himself as if he were cold, struck his breast andadded: "All is turmoil here within; I can neither help nor advise you.Day must soon be dawning in the east; we will try to sleep. A knot canoften be untied by daylight which by lamplight seems inextricable, andperhaps on my sleepless couch the goddess may reveal to me the way Ihave promised to show you. A little more lightness of heart would doneither of us any harm.--Try to forget your own griefs in those ofothers; you see enough of them every day. To wish you a good night wouldprobably be waste of words, but I may wish you a soothing one, You maycount on my aid; but you will not let me, a poor old man, hear anotherword about flight and departure and the like, will you? No, no. I knowyou better, Philippus--you will never treat your lonely old friend so!"
These were the
tenderest words that the leech had ever heard from theold man's lips, and it comforted him when Horapollo pressed him to hisheart in a hasty embrace. He thought no more of the hint that it wasPaula's part to make room for him. But the old man had spoken in allseriousness, for, no sooner was he alone than he petulantly flung downthe ivory ruler on the table, and murmured, at first angrily and thenscornfully, his eyes sparkling the while:
"For this true heart, and to preserve myself and the world from losingsuch a man, I would send a dozen such born hussies to Amentis--[TheNether world of the ancient Egyptians.]--Hey, hey! My beauty! So thisnoble leech is not good enough for the like of us; he may be tossed awaylike a date-stone that we spit out? Well, every one to his taste;but how would it be if old Horapollo taught us his value? Wait a bit,wait!--With a definite aim before my eyes I have never yet failed tofind my way--in the realm of science, of course; but what is life--thelife of the sage but applied knowledge? And why should not oldHorapollo, for once before he dies, try what his brains can contrive toachieve in the busy world of outside human existence? Pleasant as youmay think it to be in Memphis with your lover, fair heart-breaker,you will have to make way for the plaything you have so lightly tossedaside! Aye, you certainly will, depend upon that my beauty, depend uponthat!--Here, Anubis!"
He gave the slave, who had fallen asleep again under the table, akick with his bare foot, and while Anubis lighted his master to hissleeping-room, and helped him in his long and elaborate ablutions,Horapollo never ceased muttering broken sentences and curses, orlaughing maliciously to himself.
BOOK 2.