Produced by David Widger
A THORNY PATH
By Georg Ebers
Volume 1.
CHAPTER I.
The green screen slowly rose, covering the lower portion of the broadstudio window where Heron, the gem-cutter, was at work. It was Melissa,the artist's daughter, who had pulled it up, with bended knees andoutstretched arms, panting for breath.
"That is enough!" cried her father's impatient voice. He glanced up atthe flood of light which the blinding sun of Alexandria was pouring intothe room, as it did every autumn afternoon; but as soon as the shadowfell on his work-table the old man's busy fingers were at work again,and he heeded his daughter no more.
An hour later Melissa again, and without any bidding, pulled up thescreen as before, but it was so much too heavy for her that the effortbrought the blood into her calm, fair face, as the deep, rough "That isenough" was again heard from the work-table.
Then silence reigned once more. Only the artist's low whistling ashe worked, or the patter and pipe of the birds in their cages by thewindow, broke the stillness of the spacious room, till the voice andstep of a man were presently heard in the anteroom.
Heron laid by his graver and Melissa her gold embroidery, and the eyesof father and daughter met for the first time for some hours. The verybirds seemed excited, and a starling, which had sat moping since thescreen had shut the sun out, now cried out, "Olympias!" Melissa rose,and after a swift glance round the room she went to the door, come whomight.
Ay, even if the brother she was expecting should bring a companion, ora patron of art who desired her father's work, the room need not fear acritical eye; and she was so well assured of the faultless neatness ofher own person, that she only passed a hand over her brown hair, andwith an involuntary movement pulled her simple white robe more tightlythrough her girdle.
Heron's studio was as clean and as simple as his daughter's attire,though it seemed larger than enough for the purpose it served, for onlya very small part of it was occupied by the artist, who sat as if inexile behind the work-table on which his belongings were laid out: a setof small instruments in a case, a tray filled with shells and bitsof onyx and other agates, a yellow ball of Cyrenian modeling-wax,pumice-stone, bottles, boxes, and bowls.
Melissa had no sooner crossed the threshold, than the sculptor drew uphis broad shoulders and brawny person, and raised his hand to fling awaythe slender stylus he had been using; however, he thought better ofit, and laid it carefully aside with the other tools. But this act ofself-control must have cost the hot-headed, powerful man a great effort;for he shot a fierce look at the instrument which had had so narrow anescape, and gave it a push of vexation with the back of his hand.
Then he turned towards the door, his sunburnt face looking surly enough,in its frame of tangled gray hair and beard; and, as he waited for thevisitor whom Melissa was greeting outside, he tossed back his big head,and threw out his broad, deep chest, as though preparing to wrestle.
Melissa presently returned, and the youth whose hand she still held was,as might be seen in every feature, none other than the sculptor's son.Both were dark-eyed, with noble and splendid heads, and in statureperfectly equal; but while the son's countenance beamed with heartyenjoyment, and seemed by its peculiar attractiveness to be made--andto be accustomed--to charm men and women alike, his father's face wasexpressive of disgust and misanthropy. It seemed, indeed, as thoughthe newcomer had roused his ire, for Heron answered his son's cheerfulgreeting with no word but a reproachful "At last!" and paid no heed tothe hand the youth held out to him.
Alexander was no doubt inured to such a reception; he did not disturbhimself about the old man's ill-humor, but slapped him on the shoulderwith rough geniality, went up to the work-table with easy composure,took up the vice which held the nearly finished gem, and, after holdingit to the light and examining it carefully, exclaimed: "Well done,father! You have done nothing better than that for a long time."
"Poor stuff!" said his father. But his son laughed.
"If you will have it so. But I will give one of my eyes to see the manin Alexandria who can do the like!"
At this the old man broke out, and shaking his fist he cried: "Becausethe man who can find anything worth doing, takes good care not to wastehis time here, making divine art a mere mockery by such trifling withtoys! By Sirius! I should like to fling all those pebbles into thefire, the onyx and shells and jasper and what not, and smash all thosewretched tools with these fists, which were certainly made for otherwork than this."
The youth laid an arm round his father's stalwart neck, and gaylyinterrupted his wrath. "Oh yes, Father Heron, Philip and I have feltoften enough that they know how to hit hard."
"Not nearly often enough," growled the artist, and the young man wenton:
"That I grant, though every blow from you was equal to a dozen from thehand of any other father in Alexandria. But that those mighty fists onhuman arms should have evoked the bewitching smile on the sweet lips ofthis Psyche, if it is not a miracle of art, is--"
"The degradation of art," the old man put in; but Alexander hastilyadded:
"The victory of the exquisite over the coarse."
"A victory!" exclaimed Heron, with a scornful flourish of his hand."I know, boy, why you are trying to garland the oppressive yoke withflowers of flattery. So long as your surly old father sits over thevice, he only whistles a song and spares you his complaints. And then,there is the money his work brings in!"
He laughed bitterly, and as Melissa looked anxiously up at him, herbrother exclaimed:
"If I did not know you well, master, and if it would not be too greata pity, I would throw that lovely Psyche to the ostrich in Scopas'scourt-yard; for, by Herakles! he would swallow your gem more easily thanwe can swallow such cruel taunts. We do indeed bless the Muses that workbrings you some surcease of gloomy thoughts. But for the rest--I hate tospeak the word gold. We want it no more than you, who, when the cofferis full, bury it or hide it with the rest. Apollodorus forced a wholetalent of the yellow curse upon me for painting his men's room. Thesailor's cap, into which I tossed it with the rest, will burst whenSeleukus pays me for the portrait of his daughter; and if a thief robsyou, and me too, we need not fret over it. My brush and your styluswill earn us more in no time. And what are our needs? We do not bet onquail-fights; we do not run races; I always had a loathing for purchasedlove; we do not want to wear a heap of garments bought merely becausethey take our fancy--indeed, I am too hot as it is under this scorchingsun. The house is your own. The rent paid by Glaukias, for the work-roomand garden you inherited from your father, pays for half at least ofwhat we and the birds and the slaves eat. As for Philip, he lives on airand philosophy; and, besides, he is fed out of the great breadbasket ofthe Museum."
At this point the starling interrupted the youth's vehement speech withthe appropriate cry, "My strength! my strength!" The brother and sisterlooked at each other, and Alexander went on with genuine enthusiasm:
"But it is not in you to believe us capable of such meanness. Dedicateyour next finished work to Isis or Serapis. Let your masterpiece gracethe goddess's head-gear, or the god's robe. We shall be quite content,and perhaps the immortals may restore your joy in life as a reward."
The bird repeated its lamentable cry, "My strength!" and the youthproceeded with increased vehemence:
"It would really be better that you should throw your vice and yourgraver and your burnisher, and all that heap of dainty tools, into thesea, and carve an Atlas such as we have heard you talk about ever sincewe could first speak Greek. Come, set to work on a colossus! You havebut to speak the word, and the finest clay shall be ready on yourmodeling-table by to-morrow, either here or in Glaukias's work-
room,which is indeed your own. I know where the best is to be found, and canbring it to you in any quantity. Scopas will lend me his wagon. I cansee it now, and you valiantly struggling with it till your mighty armsache. You will not whistle and hum over that, but sing out with allyour might, as you used when my mother was alive, when you and yourapprentices joined Dionysus's drunken rout. Then your brow will growsmooth again; and if the model is a success, and you want to buy marble,or pay the founder, then out with your gold, out of the coffer and itshiding-place! Then you can make use of all your strength, and your dreamof producing an Atlas such as the world has not seen--your beautifuldream-will become a reality!"
Heron had listened eagerly to his son's rhapsody, but he now cast atimid glance at the table where the wax and tools lay, pushed the roughhair from his brow, and broke in with a bitter laugh: "My dream, do yousay--my dream? As if I did not know too well that I am no longer the manto create an Atlas! As if I did not feel, without your words, that mystrength for it is a thing of the past!"
"Nay, father," exclaimed the painter. "Is it right to cast away thesword before the battle? And even if you did not succeed--"
"You would be all the better pleased," the sculptor put in. "What surerway could there be to teach the old simpleton, once for all, that thetime when he could do great work is over and gone?"
"That is unjust, father; that is unworthy of you," the young maninterrupted in great excitement; but his father went on, raising hisvoice; "Silence, boy! One thing at any rate is left to me, as youknow--my keen eyes; and they did not fail me when you two looked at eachother as the starling cried, 'My strength!' Ay, the bird is in the rightwhen he bewails what was once so great and is now a mere laughing-stock.But you--you ought to reverence the man to whom you owe your existenceand all you know; you allow yourself to shrug your shoulders overyour own father's humbler art, since your first pictures were fairlysuccessful.--How puffed up he is, since, by my devoted care, he has beena painter! How he looks down on the poor wretch who, by the pinch ofnecessity, has come down from being a sculptor of the highest promise tobeing a mere gem-cutter! In the depths of your soul--and I know it--youregard my laborious art as half a handicraft. Well, perhaps it deservesno better name; but that you--both of you--should make common cause witha bird, and mock the sacred fire which still burns in an old man, andmoves him to serve true and noble art and to mold something great--anAtlas such as the world has never seen on a heroic scale; that--"
He covered his face with his hands and sobbed aloud. And the strongman's passionate grief cut his children to the heart, though, sincetheir mother's death, their father's rage and discontent had many a timeere now broken down into childish lamentation.
To-day no doubt the old man was in worse spirits than usual, for it wasthe day of the Nekysia--the feast of the dead kept every autumn; and hehad that morning visited his wife's grave, accompanied by his daughter,and had anointed the tombstone and decked it with flowers. The youngpeople tried to comfort him; and when at last he was more composed andhad dried his tears, he said, in so melancholy and subdued a tone thatthe angry blusterer was scarcely recognizable: "There--leave me alone;it will soon be over. I will finish this gem to-morrow, and then I mustdo the Serapis I promised Theophilus, the high-priest. Nothing can comeof the Atlas. Perhaps you meant it in all sincerity, Alexander; butsince your mother left me, children, since then--my arms are no weakerthan they were; but in here--what it was that shriveled, broke, leakedaway--I can not find words for it. If you care for me--and I know youdo--you must not be vexed with me if my gall rises now and then; thereis too much bitterness in my soul. I can not reach the goal I striveafter and was meant to win; I have lost what I loved best, and where amI to find comfort or compensation?"
His children tenderly assured him of their affection, and he allowedMelissa to kiss him, and stroked Alexander's hair.
Then he inquired for Philip, his eldest son and his favorite; and onlearning that he, the only person who, as he believed, could understandhim, would not come to see him this day above all others, he again brokeout in wrath, abusing the degeneracy of the age and the ingratitude ofthe young.
"Is it a visit which detains him again?" he inquired, and when Alexanderthought not, he exclaimed contemptuously: "Then it is some war of wordsat the Museum. And for such poor stuff as that a son can forget his dutyto his father and mother!"
"But you, too, used to enjoy these conflicts of intellect," his daughterhumbly remarked; but the old man broke in:
"Only because they help a miserable world to forget the torments ofexistence, and the hideous certainty of having been born only to diesome horrible death. But what can you know of this?"
"By my mother's death-bed," replied the girl, "we, too, had a glimpseinto the terrible mystery." And Alexander gravely added, "And sincewe last met, father, I may certainly account myself as one of theinitiated."
"You have painted a dead body?" asked his father.
"Yes, father," replied the lad with a deep breath. "I warned you," saidHeron, in a tone of superior experience.
And then, as Melissa rearranged the folds of his blue robe, he saidhe should go for a walk. He sighed as he spoke, and his childrenknew whither he would go. It was to the grave to which Melissa hadaccompanied him that morning; and he would visit it alone, to meditateundisturbed on the wife he had lost.