CHAPTER V.
A year passed, and that young wife received at her domestic hearthalmost divine honor; to her husband she was the sight of his eyes, love,wisdom, light. But Cinna, comparing his happiness with the sea, forgotthat the sea has its ebbs.
After a year Antea fell into an illness cruel and unknown. Her dreamschanged into terrible visions, which exhausted her life. In her face therays of light were quenched; there remained only the paleness ofmother-of-pearl. Her hands began to be transparent; her eyes sank deeplyunder her forehead; and the rosy lotus became more and more a whitelotus, white as the face of the dead. It was noticed that falcons beganto circle above Cinna's house, which in Egypt was a herald of death. Thevisions grew more and more terrible.
When at midday the sun filled the world with bright light, and the citywas buried in silence, it seemed to Antea that she heard around her thequick steps of invisible beings, and in the depth of the air she saw adry, yellow, corpse-like face gazing with black eyes at her. Those eyesgazed persistently, as if summoning her to go somewhere into a darknessfull of mysteries and dread. Then Antea's body began to tremble, as in afever; her forehead was covered with pallor, with drops of cold sweat;and that honored priestess of the domestic hearth was changed into ahelpless and terrified child, who, hiding on her husband's breast,repeated with pale lips,--
"Save me, O Caius! defend me!"
And Caius would have hurled himself at every spectre which Persephonemight send from the nether world, but in vain did he strain his eyesinto space round about. As is usual in midday hours, it was lonely.White light filled the city; the sea seemed to burn in the sun, and inthe silence was heard only the calling of falcons circling above thehouse.
The visions grew more and more frequent, and at last they came daily.They pursued Antea in the interior of the house, as well as in theatrium and the chambers. Cinna, by advice of physicians, brought inEgyptian sambuka players, and Bedouins, blowing clay whistles; thenoisy music of these was to drown the sound made by the invisiblebeings. But all this proved futile. Antea heard the sound amid thegreatest uproar; and when the sun became so high that a man's shadow wasnear his feet, like a garment hanging from the arm, in the air quiveringfrom heat appeared the face of the corpse, and looking at Antea withglassy eyes it moved away gradually, as if to say, "Follow me!"
Sometimes it seemed to Antea that the lips of the corpse moved slowly;sometimes that black disgusting beetles came out from between them andflew through the air toward her. At the very thought of that vision hereyes were filled with terror, and at last life became such a dreadfultorture that she begged Cinna to hold a sword for her, or to let herdrink poison.
But he knew that he had not strength for the deed. With that very swordhe would have opened his own veins to serve Antea, but he could not takeher life. When he imagined that dear face of hers dead, with closedeyes, filled with icy composure, and that breast opened with his sword,he felt that he must go mad before he could kill her.
A certain Greek physician told him that Hecate appeared to Antea, andthat those invisible beings whose noise frightened the sick woman werethe attendants of the ominous divinity. According to him, there was nosalvation for Antea, for whoso has seen Hecate must die.
Then Cinna, who not long before would have laughed at faith in Hecate,sacrificed a hecatomb to her. But the sacrifice was useless, and nextday the gloomy eyes were gazing at Antea about midday.
Attendants covered her head; but she saw the face even through thethickest covering. Then they confined her in a dark room; the facelooked at her from the walls, illuminating the darkness with its palegleam of a corpse.
Every evening the sick woman grew better, and fell into such a deepsleep that to Cinna and Timon it seemed more than once as though shewould not wake again. Soon she grew so weak that she could not walkwithout assistance. She was borne about in a litter.
Cinna's former disquiet returned with a hundredfold greater force andtook complete possession of him. He was terrified regarding the life ofAntea; but there was also a wonderful feeling that her sickness was insome way mysteriously connected with that of which he had spoken in hisfirst conversation with Timon. Perhaps the old sage had the samethought; but Cinna would not ask him, and feared to talk concerning thismatter.
Meanwhile the sick woman withered like a flower in whose cup a poisonousspider has settled.
But the despairing Cinna strove against hope to save her. First he tookher to the desert near Memphis; but when a stay in the quiet of thepyramids gave no respite from the dreadful visions, he returned toAlexandria and surrounded her with soothsayers, who professed to enchantaway diseases. He brought in from every kind of shameless rabble peoplewho exploited the credulity of mankind by marvellous medicines. But hehad no choice left, and snatched at every method.
At this time there came from Caesarea a renowned physician, a Hebrew,Joseph, son of Khuza. Cinna brought him at once to his wife, and for atime hope returned to his heart. Joseph, who had no faith in Greek andRoman gods, rejected contemptuously the opinion about Hecate. Hesupposed it more likely that demons had entered the sick woman, andadvised Cinna to leave Egypt, where, in addition to demons, marshyeffluvia of the Delta might injure Antea. He advised also, perhapsbecause he was a Hebrew, to go to Jerusalem,--a place where demons haveno entrance, and where the air is dry and wholesome.
Cinna followed this advice the more willingly,--first, because there wasno other, and second, because Jerusalem was governed by an acquaintanceof his, a procurator whose ancestors were formerly clients of the houseof Cinna.
In fact, when they came, the procurator, Pontius, received them withopen arms and gave them as dwelling his own summer residence, whichstood near the walls of the city. But Cinna's hope was swept away beforehis arrival. The corpse-like face looked at Antea even on the deck ofthe galley; on coming to the city the sick woman waited for midday withthe same deathly terror as on a time in Alexandria.
And so their days began to pass in oppression, despair, and fear ofdeath.