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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Emperor, by Georg Ebers, Volume 7.
+#51 in our series by Georg Ebers
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+Title: The Emperor, Part 2, Volume 7.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5489]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 28, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPEROR, BY GEORG EBERS, V7 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EMPEROR, Part 2.
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 7.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+While Pollux and his mother, who was much grieved, waited for Euphorion's
+return, and while Papias was ingratiating himself with the Emperor by
+pretending still to believe that Hadrian was nothing more than Claudius
+Venator, the architect, Aurelius Verus, nicknamed by the Alexandrians,
+"the sham Eros" had lived through strange experiences.
+
+In the afternoon he had visited the Empress, in the hope of persuading
+her to look on at the gay doings of the people, even if incognito; but
+Sabina was out of spirits, declared herself unwell, and was quite sure
+that the noise of the rabble would be the death of her.  Having, as she
+said, so vivacious a reporter as Verus, she might spare herself from
+exposing her own person to the dust and smell of the town, and the uproar
+of men.  As soon as Lucilla begged her husband to remember his rank and
+not to mingle with the excited multitude, at any rate after dark, the
+Empress strictly enjoined him to see with his own eyes everything that
+could be worth notice in the festival, and more particularly to give
+attention to everything that was peculiar to Alexandria and not to be
+seen in Rome.
+
+After sunset Verus had first gone to visit the veterans of the Twelfth
+Legion who had been in the field with him against the Numidians, and to
+whom he gave a dinner at an eating-house, as being his old fellow-
+soldiers.  For above an hour he sat drinking with the brave old fellows;
+then, quitting them, he went to look at the Canopic way by night, as it
+was but a few paces thither from the scene of his hospitality.  It was
+brilliantly lighted with tapers, torches, and lamps, and the large houses
+behind the colonnades were gaudy with rich hangings; only the handsomest
+and stateliest of them all had no kind of decoration.  This was the abode
+of the Jew Apollodorus.
+
+In former years the finest hangings had decorated his windows, which had
+been as gay with flowers and lamps as those of the other Israelites who
+dwelt in the Canopic way, and who were wont to keep the festival in
+common with their heathen fellow-citizens as jovially as though they were
+no less zealous to do homage to Dionysus.  Apollodorus had his own
+reasons for keeping aloof on this occasion from all that was connected
+with the holiday doings of the heathen.  Without dreaming that his
+withdrawal could involve him in any danger, he was quietly sitting in his
+house, which was so splendidly furnished as to seem fitted for some
+princely Greek rather than for a Hebrew.  This was especially the case
+with the men's living-room, in which Apollodorus sat, for the pictures on
+the walls and pavement of this beautiful hall--of which the roof, which
+was half open, was supported on columns of the finest porphyry--
+represented the loves of Eros and Psyche; while between the pillars stood
+busts of the greatest heathen philosophers, and in the background a fine
+statue of Plato was conspicuous.  Among all the Greeks and Romans there
+was the portrait of only one Jew, and this was that of Philo, whose
+intellectual and delicate features greatly resembled those of the most
+illustrious of his Greek companions.
+
+In this splendid room, lighted by silver lamps, there was no lack of easy
+couches, and on one of these Apollodorus was reclining; a fine-looking
+man of fifty, with his mild but shrewd eyes fixed on a tall and aged
+fellow-Israelite who was pacing up and down in front of him and talking
+eagerly; the old man's hands too were never still, now he used them in
+eager gesture, and again stroked his long white beard.  On an easy seat
+opposite to the master of the house sat a lean young man with pale and
+very regular finely-cut features, black hair and a black beard; he sat
+with his dark glowing eyes fixed on the ground, tracing lines and circles
+on the pavement with the stick he held in his hand, while the excited old
+man, his uncle, urgently addressed Apollodorus in a vehement but fluent
+torrent of words.  Apollodorus, however, shook his head from time to time
+at his speech and frequently met him with a brief contradiction.
+
+It was easy to see that what he was listening to touched him painfully,
+and that the two diametrically different men were fighting a battle which
+could never lead to any satisfactory issue.  For, though they both used
+the Greek tongue and confessed the same religion, all they felt and
+thought was grounded on views, as widely dissimilar as though the two men
+had been born in different spheres.  When two opponents of such different
+calibre meet, there is a great clatter of arms but no bloody wounds are
+dealt and neither rout nor victory can result.
+
+It was on account of this old man and his nephew that Apollodorus had
+forborne to-day to decorate his house, for the Rabbi Gamaliel, who had
+arrived only the day before from Palestine, and had been welcomed by his
+Alexandrian relatives, condemned every form of communion with the
+gentiles, and would undoubtedly have quitted the residence of his host if
+he had ventured to adorn it in honor of the feast-day of the false gods.
+Gamaliel's nephew, Rabbi Ben Jochai, enjoyed a reputation little inferior
+to that of his father, Ben Akiba.  The elder was the greatest sage and
+expounder of the law--the son the most illustrious astronomer and the
+most skilled interpreter of the mystical significance of the position of
+the heavenly bodies, among the Hebrews.
+
+It redounded greatly to the honor of Apollodorus that he should be
+privileged to shelter under his roof the sage Gamaliel and the famous son
+of so great a father, and in his hours of leisure he loved to occupy
+himself with learned subjects, so he had done his utmost to make their
+stay in his house in every way agreeable to them.  He had bought, on
+purpose for them, a kitchen slave, himself a strict Jew and familiar with
+the requirements of the Levitical law as to food, who during their stay
+was to preside over the mysteries of the hearth, instead of the Greek
+cook who usually served him, so that none but clean meat should be
+prepared according to the Jewish ritual.  He had forbidden his grown-up
+sons to invite any of their Greek friends into the house during the visit
+of the illustrious couple or to discuss the festival; they were also
+enjoined to avoid using the names of the gods of the heathen in their
+conversation--but he himself was the first to sin against this
+prohibition.
+
+He, like all the Hebrews of good position in Alexandria, had acquired
+Greek culture, felt and thought in Greek modes, and had remained a Jew
+only in name; for though they still believed in the one God of their
+fathers instead of in a crowd of Olympian deities, the One whom they
+worshipped was no longer the almighty and jealous God of their nation,
+but the all-pervading plasmic and life-giving Spirit with whom the Greeks
+had become familiar through Plato.
+
+Every hour that they had spent in each other's company had widened
+the gulf between Apollodorus and Gamaliel, and the relations of the
+Alexandrian to the sage had become almost intolerable, when he learnt
+that the old man--who was related to himself--had come to Egypt with his
+nephew, in order to demand the daughter of Apollodorus in marriage.  But
+the fair Ismene was not in the least disposed to listen to this grave and
+bigoted suitor.  The home of her people was to her a barbarous land, the
+young astronomer filled her with alarm, and besides all this her heart
+was already engaged; she had given it to the son of Alabarchos, who was
+the Superior of all the Israelites in Egypt, and this young man possessed
+the finest horse in the whole city, with which he had won several races
+in the Hippodrome, and he also had distinguished her above all the
+maidens.  To him, if to any one, would she give her hand, and she had
+explained herself to this effect to her father when he informed her of
+Ben Jochai's suit, and Apollodorus, who had lost his wife several years
+before, had neither the wish nor the power to put any pressure on his
+pretty darling.
+
+To be sure the temporizing nature of the man rendered it very difficult
+to him to give a decided no to his venerable old friend; but it had to be
+done sooner or later, and the present evening seemed to him an
+appropriate moment for this unpleasant task.
+
+He was alone with his guests.  His daughter had gone to the house of a
+friend to look on at the gay doings in the street, his three sons were
+out, all the slaves had leave to enjoy their holiday till midnight;
+nothing was likely to disturb them, and so, after many warm expressions
+of his deep respect, he found courage to confess to them that he could
+not support Ben Jochai's pretensions.  His child, he said, clung too
+fondly to Alexandria to wish to quit it, and his learned young friend
+would be but ill suited with a wife who was accustomed to freer manners
+and habits, and could hardly feel herself at ease in a home where the
+laws of her fathers were strictly observed, and in which therefore no
+kind of freedom of life would be tolerated.
+
+Gamaliel let the Alexandrian speak to the end, but then, as his nephew
+was beginning to argue against their host's hesitancy, the old man
+abruptly interrupted him.  Drawing up his figure, which was a little
+bent, to its full height, and passing his hand among the blue veins and
+fine wrinkles that marked his high forehead, he began:
+
+Our house was decimated in our wars against the Romans, and among the
+daughters of our race Ben Akiba found not one in Palestine who seemed to
+him worthy to marry his son.  But the report of the good fortune of the
+Alexandrian branch of our family had reached Judea, and Ben Akiba thought
+that he would do like our father Abraham, and he sent me, his Eliezer,
+into a strange land to win the daughter of a kinsman to wife for his
+Isaac.  Now, who and what the young man is, and the esteem in which he
+and his father are held by men--"
+
+"I know well," interrupted Apollodorus, "and my house has never been so
+highly honored as in your visit."
+
+"And notwithstanding," continued the Rabbi, "we must return home as we
+came; and indeed this will not only suit you best, but us too, and my
+brother, whose ambassador I am, for after what I have learnt from you
+within this last hour we must in any case withdraw our suit.  Do not
+interrupt me!  Your Ismene scorns to veil her face, and no doubt it is
+a very pretty one to look upon--you have trained her mind like that of
+a man, and so she seeks to go her own way.  That may be all very well for
+a Greek woman, but in the house of Ben Akiba the woman must obey her
+husband's will, as the ship obeys the helm, and have no will of her own;
+her husband's will always coincides with what the law commands, which you
+yourself learnt to obey."
+
+"We recognize its excellence," replied Apolloderus, but even if all the
+laws which Moses received on Sinai were binding on all mortals alike, the
+various ordinances which were wisely laid down for the regulation of the
+social life of our fathers, are not universally applicable for the
+children of our day.  And least of all can we observe them here, where,
+though true to our ancient faith, we live as Greeks among Greeks."
+
+"That I perceive," retorted Gamaliel, "for even the language--that
+clothing of our thoughts--the language of our fathers and of the
+scriptures, you have abandoned for another, sacrificed to another."
+
+"You and your nephew also speak Greek."
+
+"We do it here, because the heathen, because you and yours, no longer
+understand the tongue of Moses and the prophets."
+
+"But wherever the Great Alexander bore his arms Greek is spoken; and
+does not the Greek version of the scriptures, translated by the seventy
+interpreters under the direct guidance of our God, exactly reproduce the
+Hebrew text?"
+
+"And would you exchange the stone engraved by Bryasis that you wear on
+your finger, and showed me yesterday with so much pride, for a wax
+impression of the gem?"
+
+"The language of Plato is not an inferior thing; it is as noble as the
+costliest sapphire."
+
+"But ours came to us from the lips of the Most High.  What would you
+think of a child that, disdaining the tongue Of its father listened only
+to that of its neighbors and made use of an interpreter to be able to
+understand its parents' commands?"
+
+"You are speaking of parents who have long since left their native land.
+The ancestor need not be indignant with his descendants when they use the
+language of their new home, so long as they continue to act in accordance
+with his spirit."
+
+"We must live not merely in accordance with the spirit, but by the words
+of the Most High, for not a syllable proceeds from His lips in vain.  The
+more exalted the spirit of a discourse is, the more important is every
+word and syllable.  One single letter often changes the meaning of whole
+sentences.--What a noise the people outside are making!  The wild tumult
+penetrates even into this room which is so far from the street, and your
+sons take delight in the disorders of the heathen!  You do not even
+withhold them by force from adding to the number of those mad devotees of
+pleasure!"
+
+"I was young once myself, and I think it no sin to share in the universal
+rejoicing."
+
+"Say rather the disgraceful idolatry of the worshippers of Dionysus.  It
+is in name alone that you and your children belong to the elect people of
+God, in your hearts you are heathens!"
+
+"No, Father," exclaimed Apollodorus eagerly.  "The reverse is the case.
+In our hearts we are Jews but we wear the garments of Greeks."
+
+"Why your name is Apollodorus--the gift of Apollo."
+
+"A name chosen only to distinguish me from others.  Who would ever
+enquire into the meaning of a name if it sounds well."
+
+"You, everybody who is not devoid of sense," cried the Rabbi.  "You think
+to yourself 'need Zenodotus or Hermogenes, some Greek you meet at the
+bath or else where, know at once that the wealthy personage, with whom
+he discussed the latest interpretation of the Hellenic myths, is a Jew?'
+And how charming is the man who asks you whether you are not an Athenian,
+for your Greek has such a pure Attic accent!  And what we ourselves like,
+we favor in our children, so we choose names for them too which flatter
+our own vanity."
+
+"By Heracles!"
+
+A faint mocking smile crossed Gamaliel's lips and interrupting the
+Alexandrian he said:
+
+"Is there any particularly worthy man among our Alexandrian fellow-
+believers whose name is Heracles?"
+
+"No one" cried the Alexandrian "ever thinks of the son of Alcmene when he
+asseverates--it only means 'really,--truly--'"
+
+"To be sure you are not fastidiously accurate in the choice of your words
+and names, and where there is so much to be seen and enjoyed as there is
+here one's thoughts are not always connected.  That is intelligible--
+quite, peculiarly intelligible!  And in this city folks are so polite
+that they are fain to wrap truth in some graceful disguise.  May I, a
+barbarian from Judea, be allowed to set it before you, bare of clothing,
+naked and unadorned."
+
+"Speak, I beg you, speak."
+
+"You are Jews; but you had rather not be Jews, and you endure your origin
+as an inevitable evil.  It is only when you feel the mighty hand of the
+Most High that you recognize it and claim your right to be one of His
+chosen people.  In the smooth current of daily life you proudly number
+yourselves with his enemies.  Do not interrupt me, and answer honestly
+what I shall ask you.  In what hour of your life did you feel yourself
+that you owed the deepest gratitude to the God of your fathers?"
+
+"Why should I deny it?--In the hour when my lost wife presented me with
+my first-born son."
+
+"And you called him?"
+
+"You know his name is Benjamin."
+
+"Like the favorite son of our forefather Jacob, for in the hour when you
+thus named him you were honestly yourself, you felt thankful that it had
+been vouchsafed to you to add another link to the chain of your race--you
+were a Jew--you were confident in our God--in your own God.  The birth of
+your second son touched your soul less deeply and you gave him the name
+of Theophilus, and when your third male child was born you had altogether
+ceased to remember the God of your fathers, for he is named after one of
+the heathen gods, Hephaestion.  To put it shortly:  You are Jews when the
+Lord is most gracious to you, or threatens to try you most severely but
+you are heathen whenever your way does not lead you over the high hills
+or through the dark abysses of life.  I cannot change your hearts--but
+the wife of my brother's son, the daughter of Ben Akiba, must be a
+daughter of our people, morning, noon, and night.  I seek a Rebecca for
+my daughter and not an Ismene."
+
+"I did not ask you here," retorted Apollodorus.  "But if you quit us
+to-morrow, you as will be followed by our reverent regard.  Think no
+worse of us because we adapt ourselves, more, perhaps, than is fitting,
+to the ways and ideas of the people among whom we have grown up, and in
+whose midst we have been prosperous, and whose interests are ours.  We
+know how high our faith is beyond theirs.  In our hearts we still are
+Jews; but are we not bound to try to open and to cultivate and to elevate
+our spirits, which God certainly made of stuff no coarser than that of
+other nations, whenever and wherever we may?  And in what school may our
+minds be trained better or on sounder principles than in ours--I mean
+that of the Greek sages?  The knowledge of the Most High--"
+
+"That knowledge," cried the old man, gesticulating vehemently with his
+arms.  "The knowledge of God Most High and all that the most refined
+philosophy can prove, all the sublimest and purest of the thinkers of
+whom you speak can only apprehend by the gravest meditation and heart-
+searching--all this I say has been bestowed as a free gift of God on
+every child of our people.  The treasures which your sages painfully seek
+out we already possess in our scriptures, our law and our moral
+ordinances.  We are the chosen people, the first-born of the Lord, and
+when Messiah shall rise up in our midst--"
+
+"Then," interrupted Apollodorus, "that shall be fulfilled which, like
+Philo, I hope for, we shall be the priests and prophets for all nations.
+Then we shall in truth be a race of priests whose vocation it shall be to
+call down the blessing of the Most High on all mankind."
+
+"For us--for us alone shall the messenger of God appear, to make us the
+kings, and not the slaves of the nations."
+
+Apollodorus looked with surprise into the face of the excited old man,
+and asked with an incredulous smile: "The crucified Nazarene was a false
+Messiah; but when will the true Messiah appear?"
+
+"When will He appear?"  cried the Rabbi.  "When?  Can I tell when?  Only
+one thing I do know; the serpent is already sharpening its fangs to sting
+the heel of Him who shall tread upon it.  Have you heard the name of Bar
+Kochba?"
+
+"Uncle," said Ben Jochai, interrupting the old Rabbi's speech, and rising
+from his seat: "Say nothing you might regret."
+
+"Nay, nay," answered Gamaliel earnestly.  "Our friends here prefer the
+human above the divine, but they are not traitors."  Then turning again
+to Apollodorus he continued:
+
+"The oppressors in Israel have set up idols in our holy places, and
+strive again to force the people to bow down to them; but rather shall
+our back be broken than we will bend the knee or submit!"
+
+"You are meditating another revolt?"  asked the Alexandrian anxiously.
+
+"Answer me--have you heard the name of Bar Kochba?"
+
+"Yes, as that of the foolhardy leader of an armed troup."
+
+"He is a hero--perhaps the Redeemer."
+
+"And it was for him that you charged me to load my next corn vessel to
+Joppa with swords, shields and lance-heads?"
+
+"And are none but the Romans to be permitted to use iron?"
+
+"Nay--but I should hesitate to supply a friend with arms if he proposed
+to use them against an irresistible antagonist, who will inevitably
+annihilate him!"
+
+"The Lord of Hosts is stronger than a thousand legions!"
+
+"Be cautious uncle," said Ben Jochai again in a warning voice.
+
+Gamaliel turned wrathfully upon his nephew, but before he could retort on
+the young man's protest, he started in alarm, for a wild howling and the
+resounding clatter of violent blows on the brazen door of the house rang
+through the hall and shook its walls of marble.
+
+"They are attacking my house," shouted Apollodorus.
+
+"This is the gratitude of those for whom you have broken faith with the
+God of your fathers," said the old man gloomily.  Then throwing up his
+hands and eyes he cried aloud: "Hear me Adonai!  My years are many and I
+am ripe for the grave; but spare these, have mercy upon them."
+
+Ben Jochai followed his uncle's example and raised his arms in
+supplication, while his black eyes sparkled with a lowering glow in his
+pale face.
+
+But their prayers were brief, for the tumult came nearer and nearer;
+Apollodorus wrung his hands, and struck his fist against his forehead;
+his movements were violent--spasmodic.  Terror had entirely robbed him of
+the elegant, measured demeanor which be had acquired among his Greek
+fellow-citizens, and mingling heathen oaths and adjurations with appeals
+to the God of his fathers, he flew first one way and then another.  He
+searched for the key of the subterranean rooms of the house, but he could
+not find it, for it was in the charge of his steward, who, with all the
+other servants, was taking his pleasure in the streets, or over a
+brimming cup in some tavern.
+
+Now the newly-purchased kitchen-slave--the Jew to whom the keeping of the
+Dionysian feast was an abomination--rushed into the room shrieking out,
+as he plucked at his hair and beard:
+
+"The Philistines are upon us!  save us Rabbi, great Rabbi!  Cry for us
+to the Lord, oh! man of God!  They are coming with staves and spears and
+they will tread us down as grass and burn us in this house like the
+locusts cast into the oven."
+
+In deadly terror he threw himself at Gamaliel's feet and clasped them in
+his hands, but Apollodorus exclaimed: "Follow me, follow me up on to the
+roof."
+
+"No, no," howled the slave, "Amalek is making ready the firebrand to
+fling among our tents.  The heathen leap and rage, the flames they are
+flinging will consume us.  Rabbi, Rabbi, call upon the Hosts of the Lord!
+God of the just!  The gate has given way.  Lord!  Lord!  Lord!"
+
+The terrified wretch's teeth chattered and he covered his eyes with his
+hands, groaning and howling.
+
+Ben Jochai had remained perfectly calm, but he was quivering with rage.
+His prayer was ended, and turning to Gamaliel he said in deep tones:
+
+"I knew that this would happen, I warned you.  Our evil star rose when we
+set forth on our wanderings.
+
+"Now we must abide patiently what the Lord hath determined.  He will be
+our Avenger."
+
+"Vengeance is His!"  echoed the old man, and he covered his head with his
+white mantle.
+
+"In the sleeping-room--follow me! we can hide under the beds!"  shrieked
+Apollodorus; he kicked away the slave who was embracing the Rabbi's feet,
+and seized the old man by the shoulder to drag him away with him.  But it
+was too late, for the door of the antechamber had burst open and they
+could hear the clatter of weapons.  "Lost, lost, all is lost!"  cried
+Apollodorus.
+
+"Adonai! help us Adonai!"  murmured the old man and he clung more closely
+to his nephew, who overtopped him by a head and who held him clasped in
+his right arm as if to protect him.
+
+The danger which threatened Apollodorus and his guests was indeed
+imminent, and it had been provoked solely by the indignation of the
+excited mob at seeing the wealthy Israelite's house unadorned for the
+feast.
+
+A thousand times had it occurred that a single word had proved sufficient
+to inflame the hot blood of the Alexandrians to prompt them to break the
+laws and seize the sword.  Bloody frays between the heathen inhabitants
+and the Jews, who were equally numerous in the city, were quite the order
+of the day, and one party was as often to blame as the other for
+disturbing the peace and having recourse to the sword.  Since the
+Israelites had risen in several provinces--particularly in Cyrenaica and
+Cyprus--and had fallen with cruel fury on their fellow-inhabitants who
+were their oppressors, the suspicion and aversion of the Alexandrians of
+other beliefs had grown more intense than in former times.  Besides this,
+the prosperous circumstances of many Jews, and the enormous riches of a
+few, had filled the less wealthy heathen with envy and roused the wish to
+snatch the possessions of those who, it cannot be denied, had not
+unfrequently treated their gods with open contumely.
+
+It happened that just within a few days the disputes regarding the
+festival that was to be held in honor of the Imperial visit had added
+bitterness to the old grudge, and thus it came to pass that Apollodorus'
+unlighted house in the Canopic way had excited the populace to attack
+this palatial residence.  And here again one single speech had sufficed
+to excite their fury.
+
+In the first instance Melampus, the tanner, a drunken swaggerer, who had
+failed in business, had marched up the street at the head of a tipsy
+crew, and pointing with his thyrsus to the dark, undecorated house, had
+shouted:
+
+"Look at that dismal barrack!  All that the Jew used to spend on
+decorating the street, he is saving up now in his money chest!"
+The words were like a spark among tinder and others followed.
+
+"The niggard is robbing our father Dionysus," cried a second citizen,
+and a third, flourishing his torch on high, croaked out:
+
+"Let us get at the drachmae he grudges the god; we can find a use for
+them."  Graukus, the sausage maker, snatched from his neighbor's hand the
+bunch of tow soaked in pitch, and bellowed out, "I advise that we should
+burn the house over their heads!"
+
+"Stay, stay," cried a cobbler who worked for Apollodorus' slaves, as he
+placed himself in the butcher's way.  "Perhaps they are mourning for some
+one in there.  The Jew has always decorated his house on former
+occasions."
+
+"Not they," replied a flute-player in a loud hoarse voice.  "We met
+the old miser's son on the Bruchiom with some riotous comrades and
+misconducted hussies, with his purple mantle fluttering far behind him."
+
+"Let us see which is reddest, the Tyrian stuff or the blaze we shall
+make if we set the old wretch's house on fire," shouted a hungry-looking
+tailor, looking round to see the effects of his wit.
+
+"Ay! let us try!"  rose from one man, and then, from a number of others:
+
+"Let us get into the house!"
+
+"The mean churl shall remember this day!"
+
+"Fetch him out!"
+
+"Drag him into the street!"
+
+Such shouts as these rose here and there from the crowd, which grew
+denser every instant as it was increased by fresh tributaries attracted
+by the riot.
+
+"Drag him out!"  again shrieked an Egyptian slavedriver, and a woman
+shrieked an echo of his words.  She snatched the deer-skin from her
+shoulders, flourished it round and round in the air above her tangled
+black hair, and bellowed furiously:
+
+"Tear him in pieces!"
+
+"In pieces, with your teeth!"  roared a drunken Maenad who, like most of
+the mob that had collected, knew nothing whatever of the popular grudge
+against Apollodorus and his house.
+
+But words had already begun to be followed by deeds.  Feet, fists, and
+cudgels stamped, drubbed, and thumped against the firmly-bolted brazen
+door of the darkened house, and a ship's boy of fourteen sprang on the
+shoulders of a tall black slave and tried to climb the roof of the
+colonnade, and to fling the torch which the sausage-maker handed up to
+him into the open forecourt of the imperilled house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The clatter of arms which Apollodorus and his guests had heard proceeded
+not from the Jew's besiegers, but from some Roman soldiers who brought
+safety to the besieged.
+
+It was Verus, who as he was returning from the supper he had given his
+veterans, with an officer of the Twelfth Legion and his British slaves,
+had crossed the Canopic way and had been impeded in his progress by the
+increasing crowd which stood before Apollodorus' house.  The praetor had
+met the Jew at the prefect's house, and knew him for one of the richest
+and shrewdest men in Alexandria.  This attack on his property roused his
+ire; still he would certainly not have remained an idle spectator even if
+the house in danger, instead of belonging to a man of mark, had been that
+of one of the poorest and meanest, even among the Christians.  Any
+lawless act, any breach of constituted order was odious and intolerable
+to the Roman; he would not have been the man he was if he had looked on
+passively at an attack by the mob, in times of peace, on the life and
+property of a quiet and estimable citizen.  This licentious man of
+pleasure, devoted to every enervating enjoyment, in battle, or whenever
+the need arose, was as prudent as he was brave.
+
+He now first ascertained what purpose the excited crowd had in view, and
+at once considered the ways and means of frustrating their project.  They
+had already begun to batter the Jew's door, and already several lads were
+standing on the roof of the arcades with burning torches in their hands.
+
+Whatever he did must be done on the instant, and happily Verus had the
+gift of thinking and acting promptly.  In a few decisive words he begged
+his companion, Lucius Albinus, to hurry back to his old soldiers and
+bring them to the rescue; then he desired his slaves to force a way for
+him with their powerful arms up to the door of the house.  This feat was
+accomplished in no time, but how great was his astonishment when he found
+the Emperor standing there.
+
+Hadrian stood in the midst of the crowd, and at the instant when Verus
+appeared on the scene had wrenched the torch out of the hand of the
+infuriated tailor.  At the same time, in a thundering voice, he commanded
+the Alexandrians--who were not accustomed to the imperial tone--to desist
+from their mad project.  Whistling, grunting, and words of scorn
+overpowered the mandate of the sovereign, and when Verus and his slaves
+had reached the spot where he stood, a few drunken Egyptians had gone up
+to him and were about to lay hands on the unwelcome counsellor.  The
+praetor stood in their way.  He first whispered to Hadrian that Jupiter
+ought to be ruling the world, and might well leave it to smaller folks to
+rescue a houseful of Jews; and that in a few seconds the soldiers would
+arrive.  Then he shouted to him in a loud voice:
+
+"Away from this Sophist!  Your place is in the Museum, or in the temple
+of Serapis with your books, and not among the misguided and ignorant.
+Am I right Macedonian citizens, or am I wrong?"  A murmur of assent was
+heard which became a roar of laughter when Verus, after Hadrian had got
+away, went on:
+
+"He has a beard like Caesar, and so he behaves as if he wore the purple!
+You did well to let him escape, his wife and children are waiting for him
+over their porridge."
+
+Verus had often been implicated in wild adventure among the populace and
+knew how to deal with them; if he now could only detain them till the
+advent of the soldiers he might consider the game as won.  Hadrian could
+be a hero when it suited him; but here where no laurels were to be won,
+he left to Verus the task of quieting the crowd.
+
+As soon as he was fairly gone Verus desired his slaves to lift him on
+their shoulders; his handsome good-natured face looked down upon the
+crowd from high above them.  He was immediately recognized, and many
+voices called out:
+
+"The crazy Roman! the praetor! the sham Eros!"
+
+"I am he, Macedonian citizens, yes, I am he," answered Verus in a clear
+voice.  "And I will tell you a story."
+
+"Listen, Listen."
+
+"No let us get into the Jew's house."
+
+"Presently--listen a minute to what the sham Eros says."
+
+"I will knock your teeth down your throat boy, if you don't hold your
+tongue."
+
+All the crowd were shouting in wild confusion.
+
+Curiosity, on the one hand, to hear the noble gentleman's speech, and
+the somewhat superficial fury of the mob contended together for a few
+minutes; at last curiosity seemed to be gaining the day, the tumult
+subsided, and the praetor began:
+
+"Once upon a time there was a child who had given to him ten little sheep
+made of cotton, little foolish toys such as the old women sell in the
+market place."
+
+"Get into the Jew's house, we don't want to hear children's stories--"
+
+"Be quiet there!"
+
+"Hush now listen; from the sheep he will go on to the wolves."
+
+"Not wolves--it will be a she-wolf!"  some one shouted in the throng.
+
+"Do not mention the horrid things!" laughed Verus but listen to me.--
+Well, the child set his little sheep up in a row each one close to the
+next.  He was a weaver's son.  Are there any weavers here?  You?  and
+you--ah, and you out there.  If I were not my father's son I should like
+to be the son of an Alexandrian weaver.  You need not laugh!--Well, about
+the sheep.  All the little things were beautifully white but one which
+had nasty black spots, and the little boy could not bear that one.  He
+went to the hearth, pulled out a burning stick and wanted to burn the
+little ugly sheep so as only to have pretty white ones.  The lambkin
+caught fire and just as the flame had begun to burn the wooden skeleton
+of the toy a draught from the window blew the flame towards the other
+little sheep and in a minute they were all burned to ashes.  Then
+thought  the little boy,  'If only I had let the  ugly sheep alone!  What
+can I play with now?' and he began to cry.  But this was not all, for
+while the little rascal was drying his eyes, the flame spread and burnt
+up the loom, the wool, the flax, the woven pieces, the whole house--the
+town in which he was born, and even, I believe, the boy himself!--Now
+worthy friends and Macedonian citizens, reflect a moment.  Any man among
+you who is possessed of any property may read the moral of my fable."
+
+"Put out the torches!"  cried the wife of a charcoal dealer.
+
+"He is right; for by reason of the Jew, we are putting the whole town in
+danger!"  cried the cobbler.
+
+"The mad fools have already thrown in some brands!"
+
+"If you fellows up there fling any more  I  will break your ankles for
+you," shouted a flax-dealer.
+
+"Don't try any burning," the tailor commanded, "force open the door and
+have out the Jew."  These words raised a storm of applause and the mob
+pressed forward to the Jew's abode.  No one listened to Verus any more,
+and he slipped down from his slave's shoulders, placed himself in front
+of the door and called out:
+
+"In the name of Caesar and the law I command you to leave this house
+unharmed."
+
+The Roman's warning was evidently quite in earnest, and the false Eros
+looked as if at this moment it would be ill-advised to try jesting with
+him.  But in the universal uproar only a few had heard his words, and the
+hot-blooded tailor was so rash as to lay his hand on the praetor's girdle
+in order to drag him away from the door with the help of his comrades.
+But he paid dearly for his temerity for the praetor's fist fell so
+heavily on his forehead that he dropped as if struck by lightning.  One
+of the Britons knocked down the sausage-maker and a hideous hand to hand
+fight would have been the upshot if help had not come to the hardly-beset
+Romans from two quarters at once.  The veterans supported by a number of
+lictors were the first to appear, and soon after them came Benjamin, the
+Jew's eldest son, who was passing down the great thoroughfare with his
+boon-companions and saw the danger that was threatening his father's
+house.
+
+The soldiers parted the throng as the wind chases the clouds, and the
+young Israelite pressed forward with his heavy thyrsus fought and pushed
+his way so valiantly and resolutely through the panic-stricken mob, that
+he reached the door of his father's house but a few moments later than
+the soldiers.  The lictors battered at the door and as no one opened it,
+they forced it with the help of the soldiers in order to set a guard in
+the beleaguered house, and protect it against the raging mob.
+
+Verus and the officer entered the Jew's dwelling with the armed men, and
+behind them came Benjamin and his friends--young Greeks with whom he was
+in the habit of consorting daily, in the bath or the gymnasium.
+Apollodorus and his guests expressed their gratitude to Verus, and when
+the old Jewish house-keeper, who had seen and heard from a hiding-place
+under the roof all that had taken place outside her master's house, came
+into the men's hall and gave a full report of the uproar from beginning
+to end, the praetor was overwhelmed with thanks; and the old woman
+embroidered her narrative with the most glowing colors.  While this was
+going on Apollodorus' pretty daughter, Ismene, came in, and after falling
+on her father's neck and weeping with agitation the house keeper took her
+hand and led her to Verus, saying:
+
+"This noble lord--may the blessing of the Most High be on him--staked his
+life to save us.  This beautiful robe he let be rent for our sakes, and
+every daughter of Israel should fervently kiss this torn chiton, which in
+the eyes of God is more precious than the richest robe--as I do."
+
+And the old woman pressed the praetor's dress to her lips, and tried to
+make Ismene do the same; but the praetor would not permit this.
+
+"How can I allow my garment," he exclaimed, laughing, "to enjoy a favor
+of which I should deem myself worthy--to be touched by such lips."
+
+"Kiss him, kiss him!"  cried the old woman, and the praetor took the head
+of the blushing girl in his hands, and pressing his lips to her forehead
+with a by no means paternal air, he said gaily:
+
+"Now I am richly rewarded for all I have been so happy as to do for you,
+Apollodorus."
+
+"And we," exclaimed Gamaliel.  "We--myself and my brother's first-born
+son-leave it in the hands of God Most High to reward you for what you
+have done for us."
+
+"Who are you?"  asked Verus, who was filled with admiration for the
+prophet-like aspect of the venerable old man and the pale intellectual
+head of his nephew.
+
+Apollodorus took upon himself to explain to him how far the Rabbi
+transcended all his fellow Hebrews in knowledge of the law and the
+interpretation of the Kabbala, the oral and mystical traditions of
+their people, and how that Simeon Ben Jochai was superior to all the
+astrologers of his time.  He spoke of the young man's much admired work
+on the subject called Sohar, nor did he omit to mention that Gamaliel's
+nephew was able to foretell the positions of the stars even on future
+nights.
+
+Verus listened to Apollodorus with increasing attention, and fixed a keen
+gaze on the young man, who interrupted his host's eager encomium with
+many modest deprecations.  The praetor had recollected the near approach
+of his birthday, and also that the position of stars in the night
+preceding it, would certainly be observed by Hadrian.  What the Emperor
+might learn from them would seal his fate for life.  Was that momentous
+night destined to bring him nearer to the highest goal of his ambition or
+to debar him from it?
+
+When Apollodorus ceased speaking, Verus offered Simeon Ben Jochai his
+hand, saying:
+
+"I am rejoiced to have met a man of your learning and distinction.  What
+would I not give to possess your knowledge for a few hours!"
+
+"My knowledge is yours," replied the astrologer.  "Command my services,
+my labors, my time--ask me as many questions as you will.  We are so
+deeply indebted to you--"
+
+"You have no reason to regard me as your creditor," interrupted the
+praetor, "you do not even owe me thanks.  I only made your acquaintance
+after I had rescued you, and I opposed the mob, not for the sake of any
+particular man, but for that of law and order."
+
+"You were benevolent enough to protect us," cried Ben Jochai, "so do not
+be so stern as to disdain our gratitude."
+
+"It does me honor, my learned friend; by all the gods it does me honor,"
+replied Verus.  "And in fact it is possible, it might very will be--Will
+you do me the favor to come with me to that bust of Hipparchus?  By the
+aid of that science which owes so much to him you may be able to render
+me an important service."
+
+When the two men were standing apart from the others, in front of the
+white marble portrait of the great astronomer, Verus asked:
+
+"Do you know by what method Caesar is wont to presage the fates of men
+from the stars?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From Aquila, my father's disciple."
+
+"Can you calculate what he will learn from the stars in the night
+preceding the thirtieth of December, as to the destinies of a man who
+was born in that night, and whose horoscope I possess?"
+
+"I can only answer a conditional yes to that question."
+
+"What should prevent your answering positively?"
+
+"Unforeseen appearances in the heavens."
+
+Are such signs common?"
+
+"No, they are rare, on the contrary."
+
+"But perhaps my fortune is not a common one-and I beg of you to calculate
+on Hadrian's method what the heavens will predict on that night for the
+man whose horoscope my slave shall deliver to you early to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"I will do so with pleasure."
+
+"When can you have finished this work?"
+
+"In four days at latest, perhaps even sooner."
+
+"Capital!  But one thing more.  Do you regard me as a man, I mean, as a
+true man?"
+
+"If you were not, would you have given me such reason to be grateful to
+you?"
+
+"Well then, conceal nothing from me, not even the worst horrors, things
+that might poison another man's life, and crush his spirit.  Whatever you
+read in the celestial record, small or great, good or evil.  I require
+you to tell me all."
+
+"I will conceal nothing, absolutely nothing."
+
+The praetor offered Ben Jochai his right hand, and warmly pressed the
+Jew's slender, well-shaped fingers.  Before he went away he settled with
+him how he should inform him when he had finished his labors.
+
+The Alexandrian with his guests and children accompanied the praetor to
+the door.  Only Ben Jamin was absent; he was sitting with his companions
+in his father's dining-room, and rewarding them for the assistance they
+had given him with right good wine.  Gamaliel heard them shouting and
+singing, and pointing to the room he shrugged his shoulders, saying, as
+he turned to his host:
+
+"They are returning thanks to the God of our fathers in the Alexandrian
+fashion."
+
+And peace was broken no more in the Jew's house but by the firm tramp of
+lictors and soldiers who kept watch over it, under arms.
+
+In a side street the praetor met the tailor he had knocked down, the
+sausage-maker, and other ringleaders of the attack on the Israelite's
+house.  They were being led away prisoners before the night magistrates.
+Verus would have set them at liberty with all his heart, but he knew that
+the Emperor would enquire next morning what had been done to the rioters,
+and so he forbore.  At any other time he would certainly have sent them
+home unpunished, but just now he was dominated by a wish that was more
+dominant than his good nature or his facile impulses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+When he reached the Caesareum the high-chamberlain was waiting to conduct
+him to Sabina who desired to speak with him notwithstanding the lateness
+of the hour, and when Verus entered the presence of his patroness, he
+found her in the greatest excitement.  She was not reclining as usual on
+her pillows but was pacing her room with strides of very unfeminine
+length.
+
+"It is well that you have come!"  she exclaimed to the praetor.
+"Lentulus insists that he has seen Mastor the slave, and Balbilla
+declares--but it is impossible!"
+
+"You think that Caesar is here?"  asked Verus.
+
+"Did they tell you so too?"
+
+"No.  I do not linger to talk when you require my presence and there is
+something important to be told just now then--but you must not be
+alarmed."
+
+"No useless speeches!"
+
+"Just now I met, in his own person--"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Hadrian."
+
+"You are not mistaken, you are sure you saw him?"
+
+"With these eyes."
+
+"Abominable, unworthy, disgraceful!"  cried Sabina, so loudly and
+violently that she was startled at the shrill tones of her own voice.
+Her tall thin figure quivered with excitement, and to any one else she
+would have appeared in the highest degree graceless, unwomanly, and
+repulsive: but Verus had been accustomed from his childhood to see her
+with kinder eyes than other men, and it grieved him.
+
+There are women who remind us of fading flowers, extinguished lights or
+vanishing shades, and they are not the least attractive of their sex: but
+the large-boned, stiff and meagre Sabina had none of the yielding and
+tender grace of these gentle creatures.  Her feeble health, which was
+very evident, became her particularly ill when, as at this moment, the
+harsh acrimony of her embittered soul came to light with hideous
+plainness.
+
+She was deeply indignant at the affront her husband had put upon her.
+Not content with having a separate house established for her he kept
+aloof in Alexandria without informing her of his arrival.  Her hands
+trembled with rage, and stammering rather than speaking she desired the
+praetor to order a composing draught for her.  When Verus returned she
+was lying on her cushions, with her face turned to the wall, and said
+lamentably:
+
+"I am freezing; spread that coverlet over me.  I am a miserable, ill-used
+creature."
+
+"You are sensitive and take things too hardly," the praetor ventured to
+remonstrate.
+
+She started up angrily, cut off his speech, and put him through as keen
+a cross-examination as if he were an accused person and she his judge.
+Ere long she had learnt that Verus also had encountered Mastor, that her
+husband was residing at Lochias, that he had taken part in the festival
+in disguise, and had exposed himself to grave danger outside the house of
+Apollodorus.  She also made him tell her how the Israelite had been
+rescued, and whom her friend had met in his house, and she blamed Verus
+with bitter words for the heedless and foolhardy recklessness with which
+he had risked his life for a miserable Jew, forgetting the high destinies
+that lay before him.  The praetor had not interrupted her, but now bowing
+over her, he kissed her hand and said:
+
+"Your kind heart foresees for me things that I dare not hope for.
+Something is glimmering on the horizon of my fortune.  Is it the dying
+glow of my failing fortunes, is it the pale dawn of a coming and more
+glorious day?  Who can tell?  I await with patience whatever may be
+impending--an early day must decide."
+
+"That will bring certainty, and put an end to this suspense," murmured
+Sabina.
+
+"Now rest and try to sleep," said Verus with a tender fervency, that was
+peculiar to his tones.  "It is past midnight and the physician has often
+forbidden you to sit up late.  Farewell, dream sweetly, and always be the
+same to me as a man, that you were to me in my childhood and youth."
+
+Sabina withdrew the hand he had taken, saying:
+
+"But you must not leave me.  I want you.  I cannot exist without your
+presence."
+
+"Till to-morrow--always--forever I will stay with you whenever you need
+me."
+
+The Empress gave him her hand again, and sighed softly as he again bowed
+over it, and pressed it long to his lips.
+
+"You are my friend, Verus, truly my friend; yes, I am sure of it," she
+said at last, breaking the silence.
+
+"Oh Sabina, my Mother!"  he answered tenderly.  "You spoiled me with
+kindness even when I was a boy, and what can I do to thank you for all
+this?"
+
+"Be always the same to me that you are to-day.  Will you always--for all
+time be the same, whatever your fortunes may be?"
+
+"In joy and in adversity always the same; always your friend, always
+ready to give my life for you."
+
+"In spite of my husband, always, even when you think you no longer need
+my favor!"
+
+"Always, for without you I should be nothing--utterly miserable."
+
+The Empress heaved a deep sigh and sat bolt upright on her couch.  She
+had formed a great resolve, and she said slowly, emphasizing every word:
+
+"If nothing utterly unforeseen occurs in the heavens on your birth-night,
+you shall be our son, and so Hadrian's successor and heir.  I swear it."
+
+There was something solemn in her voice, and her small eyes were wide
+open.
+
+"Sabina, Mother, guardian spirit of my life!"  cried Verus, and he fell on
+his knees by her couch.  She looked in his handsome face with deep
+emotion, laid her hands on his temples, and pressed her lips on his dark
+curls.
+
+A moist brilliancy sparkled in those eyes, unapt to tears, and in a soft
+and appealing tone that no one had ever before heard in her voice she
+said:
+
+"Even at the summit of fortune, after your adoption, even in the purple
+all will be the same between us two.  Will it?  Tell me, will it?"
+
+"Always, always!"  cried Verus.  "And if our hopes are fulfilled--"
+
+"Then, then," interrupted Sabina and she shivered as she spoke.  "Then,
+still you will be to me the same that you are now; but to be sure, to be
+sure--the temples of the gods would be empty if mortals had nothing left
+to wish for."
+
+"Ah! no.  Then they would bring thank-offerings to the divinity," cried
+Verus, and he looked up at the Empress; but she turned away from his
+smiling glance and exclaimed in a tone of reproof and alarm:
+
+"No playing with words, no empty speeches or rash jesting! in the name of
+all the gods, not at this time!  For this hour, this night is among its
+fellows what a hallowed temple is among other buildings--what the fervent
+sun is among the other lights of heaven.  You know not how I feel, nay,
+I hardly know myself.  Not now, not now, one lightly-spoken word!"
+
+Verus gazed at Sabina with growing astonishment.  She had always been
+kinder to him than to any one else in the world and he felt bound to her
+by all the ties of gratitude and the sweet memories of childhood.  Even
+as a boy, out of all his playfellows he was the only one who, far from
+fearing her had clung to her.  But to-night! who had ever seen Sabina in
+such a mood?  Was this the harsh bitter woman whose heart seemed filled
+with gall, whose tongue cut like a dagger every one against whom she used
+it?  Was this Sabina who no doubt was kindly disposed towards him but who
+loved no one else, not even herself?  Did he see rightly, or was he under
+some delusion?  Tears, genuine, honest, unaffected tears filled her eyes
+as she went on:
+
+"Here I he, a poor sickly woman, sensitive in body and in soul as if I
+were covered with wounds.  Every movement, and even the gaze and the
+voice of most of my fellow-creatures is a pain to me.  I am old, much
+older than you think and so wretched, so wretched, none of you can
+imagine how wretched.  I was never happy as a child, never as a girl, and
+as a wife--merciful gods!--every kind word that Hadrian has ever
+vouchsafed me I have paid for with a thousand humiliations."
+
+"He always treats you with the utmost esteem," interrupted Verus.
+
+"Before you, before the world!  But what do I care for esteem!  I may
+demand the respect, the adoration of millions and it will be mine.  Love,
+love, a little unselfish love is what I ask--and if only I were sure, if
+only I dared to hope that you give me such love, I would thank you with
+all that I have, then this hour would be hallowed to me above all
+others."
+
+"How can you doubt me Mother?  My dearly beloved Mother!"
+
+"That is  comfort, that is happiness!"  answered Sabina.  "Your voice is
+never too loud for me, and I believe you, I dare trust you.  This hour
+makes you my son, makes me your mother."
+
+Tender emotion, the emotion that softens the heart, thrilled through
+Sabina's dried-up nature and sparkled in her eyes.  She felt like a young
+wife of whom a child is born, and the voice of her heart sings to her in
+soothing tones: "It lives, it is mine, I am the providence of a living
+soul, I am a mother."
+
+She gazed blissfully into Verus' eyes and exclaimed, "Give me your hand
+my son, help me up, for I will be here no longer.  What good spirits I
+feel in!  Yes, this is the joy that is allotted to other women before
+their hair is grey!  But child--dear and only child--you must love me
+really as a mother.  I am too old for tender trifling, and yet I could
+not bear it if you gave me nothing but a child's reverence.  No, no, you
+must be my friend whose heart warns him of my wishes, who can laugh with
+me to-day, and weep with me to-morrow--and who shows that he is happier
+when his eye meets mine.  You are now my son; and soon you shall have the
+name of son; that is happiness enough for one evening.  Not another word
+--this hour is like the finished masterpiece of some great painter; every
+touch that could be added might spoil it.  You may kiss my forehead, I
+will kiss yours; now I will go to rest, and to-morrow when I wake I shall
+say to myself that I possess something worth living for--a child, a son."
+
+When the Empress was alone she raised her hand in prayer but she could
+find no words of thanksgiving.  One hour of pure happiness she had indeed
+enjoyed, but how many days, months, years of joylessness and suffering
+lay behind her!  Gratitude knocked at the door of her heart but it was
+instantly met by bitter defiance; what was one hour of happiness in the
+balance against a ruined lifetime?
+
+Foolish woman! she had never sown the seeds of love, and now she blamed
+the gods for niggardliness and cruelty in denying her a harvest of love.
+And now, on what soil had the seed of maternal tenderness fallen?
+
+Verus it is true had left her content and full of hope--Sabina's altered
+demeanor, it is true, had touched his heart--he purposed to cling to her
+faithfully even after his formal adoption; but the light in his eye was
+not that of a proud and happy son, on the contrary it sparkled like that
+of a warrior who hopes to gain the victory.
+
+Notwithstanding the late hour, his wife had not yet gone to bed.  She had
+heard that he had been summoned to the Empress on his return home, and
+awaited him not without anxiety, for she was not accustomed to anything
+pleasant from Sabina.  Her husband's hasty step echoed loudly from the
+stone walls of the sleeping palace.  She heard it at some distance, and
+went to the door of her room to meet him.  Radiant, excited, and with
+flushed cheeks, he held out both his hands to her.  She looked so fair in
+her white night-wrapper of fine white material, and his heart was so full
+that he clasped her in his arms as fondly as when she was his bride; and
+she loved him even now no less than she had done then, and felt for the
+hundredth time with grateful joy that the faithless scapegrace had once
+more returned to her unchangeable and faithful heart, like a sailor who,
+after wandering through many lands seeks his native port.
+
+"Lucilla," he cried, disengaging her arms from round his neck.
+"Oh, Lucilla! what an evening this has been!  I always judged Sabina
+differently from you, and have felt with gratitude that she really cared
+for me.  Now all is clear between her and me!  She called me her son.
+I called her mother.  I owe it to her, and the purple--the purple is
+ours!  You are the wife of Verus Caesar; you are certain of it if no
+signs and omens come to frighten Hadrian."
+
+In a few eager words, which betrayed not merely the triumph of a lucky
+gambler, but also true emotion and gratitude, he related all that had
+passed in Sabina's room.  His frank and confident contentment silenced
+her doubts, her dread of the stupendous fate which, beckoning her, yet
+threatening her, drew visibly nearer and nearer.  In her mind's eye she
+saw the husband she loved, she saw her son, seated on the throne of the
+Caesars, and she herself crowned with the radiant diadem of the woman
+whom she hated with all the force of her soul.  Her husband's kindly
+feeling towards the Empress and the faithful allegiance which had tied
+him to her from his boyhood did not disquiet her; but a wife allows the
+husband of her choice every happiness, every gift excepting only the love
+of another woman, and will forgive her hatred and abuse rather than such
+love.
+
+Lucilla was greatly excited, and a thought, that for years had been
+locked in the inmost shrine of her heart, to-day proved too strong for
+her powers of reticence.  Hadrian was supposed to have murdered her
+father, but no one could positively assert it, though either he or
+another man had certainly slain the noble Nigrinus.  At this moment the
+old suspicion stirred her soul with revived force, and lifting her right
+hand, as if in attestation, she exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Fate, Fate! that my husband should be heir of the man who murdered
+my father!"
+
+"Lucilla," interrupted Verus, "it is unjust even to think of such
+horrors, and to speak of them is madness.  Do not utter it a second time,
+least of all to-day.  What may have occurred formerly must not spoil the
+present and the future which belong to us and to our children."
+
+"Nigrinus was the grandfather of those children," cried the Roman mother
+with flashing eyes.
+
+"That is to say that you harbor in your soul the wish to avenge your
+father's death on Caesar."
+
+"I am the daughter of the butchered man."
+
+"But you do not know the murderer, and the purple must outweigh the life
+of one man, for it is often bought with many thousand lives.  And then,
+Lucilla, as you know, I love happy faces, and Revenge has a sinister
+brow.  Let us be happy, oh wife of Caesar!  Tomorrow I shall have much to
+tell you, now I must go to a splendid banquet which the son of Plutarch
+is giving in my honor.  I cannot stay with you--truly I cannot, I have
+been expected long since.  And when we are in Rome never let me find you
+telling the children those old dismal stories--I will not have it."
+
+As Verus, preceded by his slaves bearing torches, made his way through
+the garden of the Caesareum he saw a light in the rooms of Balbilla, the
+poetess, and he called up merrily:
+
+"Good-night, fair Muse!"
+
+"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; be 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.
+
+Her son was in disgrace with Caesar, and she and her house were
+threatened by the most powerful woman in the world.  She pictured herself
+as already turned into the streets with Euphorion and her dogs, and asked
+herself what was to become of them all when they had lost their place and
+the roof that covered them.  Her husband's memory grew daily weaker, soon
+his voice even might fail; and how greatly had her own strength failed
+during the last few years, how small were the savings that were hidden in
+their chest.  The bright, genial old woman felt quite broken down.  What
+hurt her was, not merely the pressing need that threatened her, but the
+disgrace too which would fall upon her, the dislike she had incurred--
+she who had been liked by every one from her youth up--and the painful
+feeling of having been treated with scorn and contempt in the presence of
+others by the powerful lady whose favor she had hoped to win.
+
+At Sabina's advent all good spirits had fled from Lochias, so at least
+Doris felt, but she was not one of those who succumb helplessly to a
+hostile force.  For a few minutes she abandoned herself to her sorrows
+and sobbed like a child.  Now she dried her eyes, and her eased heart
+felt the beneficial relief of tears; by degrees she could compose herself
+and think calmly.
+
+"After all," said she to herself, "none but Caesar can command here, and
+it is said that he gets on but badly with his spiteful wife, and cares
+very little what she wishes.  Hadrian let Pollux feel his power, but he
+has always been friendly to me.  My dogs and birds amused him, and did he
+not even do me the honor to relish a dish out of my kitchen?  No, no, if
+only I can succeed in speaking with him alone all may yet be well," and
+thus thinking she rose from her seat.
+
+As she was about to quit  the anteroom the art dealer, Gabinius, of
+Nicaea, came in, to whom Keraunus had refused to sell the mosaic in the
+palace, and whose daughter had been deprived by Arsinoe of the part of
+Roxana.  Pontius had desired him to come to the palace and he had made
+his appearance at once, for, since the evening before, a rumor had been
+afloat that the Emperor was staying in Alexandria, and was inhabiting the
+palace at Loehias.  Whence it was derived, or on what facts it was
+supported no one could say; but there it was, passing from mouth to mouth
+in every circle and acquiring certainty every hour.  Of all that grows on
+earth nothing grows so quickly as Rumor, and yet it is a miserable
+foundling that never knows its own parents.
+
+The dealer pushed on into the palace with a glance of astonishment at the
+old woman, while Doris debated whether see should seek Hadrian then and
+there, or return to her little gate-House, and wait till he should at
+some time be going out of the palace and passing by her dwelling.  Before
+she could come to any decision Pontius appeared on the scene; he had
+always been very kind to her, and she therefore ventured to address him
+and tell him what had occurred between her son and the Emperor.  This was
+no novelty to the architect; he advised her to have patience till Hadrian
+should have cooled, and he promised her that later he would do every
+thing in his power for Pollux, whom be loved and esteemed.  On this very
+day he was obliged by Caesar's command to start on a journey and for a
+long absence; his destination was Pelusium, where he was to erect a
+monument to the great Pompey on the spot where he had been murdered.
+Hadrian, as he passed the old ruined monument on his way from Mount
+Kasius to Egypt, had determined to replace it by a new one, and had
+entrusted the work to Pontius whose labors at Lochias were now nearly
+ended.  All that might yet be lacking to the fitting of the restored
+palace Hadrian himself wished to select and procure.  and in this
+occupation so agreeable to his tastes, Gabinius, the curiosity-dealer,
+was to lend him a helping hand.
+
+While Doris was still speaking with Pontius, Hadrian and his wife came
+towards the anteroom.  Hardly had the architect recognized the tones of
+Sabina's voice, than he hastily said in a low voice:
+
+"Till by-and-bye this must do, dame.  Stand aside; Caesar and the Empress
+are coming."
+
+And he hastened away.  Doris slipped into the doorway of a side room,
+which was closed only by a heavy curtain, for at that moment she would as
+soon have met a raging wild beast as the haughty lady from whom she had
+nothing to expect but insult and unkindness.  Hadrian's interview with
+his wife had lasted barely a quarter of an hour, and it must have been
+anything rather than amiable, for his face was scarlet, while Sabina's
+lips were perfectly white, and her painted cheeks twitched with a
+restless movement.  Doris was too much excited and terrified to listen to
+the royal couple, still she overheard these words uttered by the Emperor
+in a tone of the utmost decision.
+
+"In small matters and where it is fitting I let you have your way; more
+important things I shall this time, as always, decide by my own judgment
+--my own exclusively."
+
+These words were fraught with the fate of the gatehouse and its
+inhabitants, for the removal of the "hideous hut" at the entrance of the
+palace was one of the "small matters" of which Hadrian spoke.  Sabina had
+required this concession, since it could not be pleasant to any one
+visiting Lochias to be received on the threshold by an old Megaera of
+evil omen, and to be fallen upon by infuriated dogs.  But Doris so little
+divined the import of Hadrian's words that she rejoiced at them, for they
+told her how little he was disposed to yield to his wife in important
+things, and how could she suspect that her fate and that of her house
+should not be included among important matters, nay the most important?
+
+Sabina had quitted the anteroom leaning on her chamberlain and Hadrian
+was standing there alone with his slave Mastor.  The old woman would not
+be likely to have another such favorable opportunity of supplicating the
+all-powerful man who stood before her, without the hindrance of
+witnesses, to exercise his magnaminity and clemency towards her son.  His
+back turned to her; if she could have seen the threatening scowl with
+which he stood gazing on the ground she would surely have remembered the
+architect's warning and have postponed her address till a future day.
+
+How often do we spoil our best chances by following an urgent instinct to
+arrive at certainty as early as possible, and by not being strong enough
+to postpone opening our business till a favorable moment offers.
+Uncertainty in the present often seems less endurable than adverse fate
+in the future.
+
+Doris stepped out of the side door.  Mastor, who knew his master well,
+and whose friendly impulse was to spare the old woman any humiliation,
+made eager signs to warn her to withdraw and not to disturb Hadrian at
+that moment; but she was so wholly possessed by her anxiety and wishes
+that she did not observe them.  As the Emperor turned to leave the room
+she gathered courage, stood in the doorway through which he must pass,
+and tried to fall on her knees before him.  This was a difficult effort
+to her old joints and Doris was forced to clutch at the door-post in
+order not to lose her balance.
+
+Hadrian at once recognized the suppliant, but to-day he found no kind
+word for her, and the glance he cast down at her was anything rather than
+gracious.  How had he ever been able to find amusement even in this
+woeful old body?  Alas!  poor Doris was quite a different creature in her
+little house, among her flowers, dogs and birds to what she seemed here
+in the spacious hall of a magnificent palace.  This wide and gorgeous
+frame but ill-suited so modest a figure.  Thousands of good people who in
+the midst of their everyday surroundings command our esteem and attract
+our regard give rise to very different feelings when they are taken out
+of the circle to which they belong.
+
+Doris had never worn so unpleasing an aspect to Hadrian as at this
+instant, in this decisive moment of her life.  She had followed the
+Empress straight from the kitchen-hearth just as she was after passing a
+sleepless night and full of her many anxieties, she had scarcely set her
+grey hair in order, and her kind bright eyes, usually the best feature of
+her face, were red with many tears.  The neat brisk little mother looked
+to-day anything rather than smart and bright; in the Emperor's eyes she
+was in no way distinguished from any other old woman, and he regarded all
+old women as of evil omen, if he met them as he went out of any place he
+was in.
+
+"Oh, Caesar, Great Caesar!"  cried Doris throwing up her hands which
+still bore many traces of her labors over the hearth.  "My son, my
+unfortunate Pollux!"
+
+"Out of my way!"  said Hadrian sternly.
+
+"He is an artist, a good artist, who already excels many a master, and if
+the gods--"
+
+"Out of the way, I told you.  I do not want to hear anything about the
+insolent fellow," said Hadrian angrily.
+
+"But Great Caesar, he is my son, and a mother, as you know--"
+
+"Mastor," interrupted the monarch, "carry away this old woman and make
+way for me."
+
+"Oh!  my lord, my lord!"  wailed the agonized woman while the slave
+pulled her up, not without difficulty.  "Oh! my lord, how can you find it
+in your heart to be so cruel?  And am I no longer old Doris whom you have
+even joked with, and whose food you have eaten?"
+
+These words recalled to the Emperor's fancy the moment of his arrival at
+Lochias; he felt that he was somewhat in the old woman's debt, and being
+wont to pay with royal liberality he broke in with:
+
+"You shall be paid for your excellent dish a sum with which you can
+purchase a new house, for the future your maintenance too shall be
+provided for, but in three hours you must have quitted Lochias."
+
+The Emperor spoke rapidly as though desirous of bringing a disagreeable
+business to a prompt termination, and he stalked past Doris who was now
+standing on her feet and leaning as if stunned against the doorpost.
+Indeed if Hadrian had not left her there and had he been in the mood to
+hear her farther, she was not now in a fit state to answer him another
+word.
+
+The Emperor received the honors due to Zeus and his fiat had ruined the
+happiness of a contented home as completely as the thunderbolt wielded by
+the Father of the gods could have done.
+
+But this time Doris had no tears.  The frightful shock that had fallen in
+her soul was perceptible also to her body; her knees shook, and being
+quite incapable just then of going home at once, she sunk upon a seat and
+stared hopelessly before her while she reflected what next, and what more
+would come upon her.
+
+Meanwhile the Emperor was standing in a room just behind the antechamber
+that had only been finished a few hours since.  He began to regret his
+hardness upon the old woman--for had she not, without knowing who he was,
+been most friendly to him and to his favorite.  "Where is Antinous?" he
+asked Mastor.
+
+"He went out to the gate-house."
+
+"What is he doing there?"
+
+"I believe he meant--there, perhaps he--"
+
+"The truth, fellow!"
+
+"He is with Pollux the sculptor."
+
+"Has he been there long?"
+
+"I do not exactly know."
+
+"How long, I ask you?"
+
+"He went after you had shut yourself in with Titianus."
+
+"Three hours--three whole hours has he been with that braggart, whom I
+ordered off the premises!"  Hadrian's eye sparkled wrathfully as he
+spoke.  His annoyance at the absence of his favorite, whose society he
+permitted no one to enjoy but himself, and least of all Pollux, smothered
+every kind feeling in his mind, and in a tone of anger bordering on fury
+he commanded Mastor to go and fetch Antinous, and then to have the gate-
+house utterly cleared out.
+
+"Take a dozen slaves to help you," he cried.  "For aught I care the
+people may carry all their rubbish into a new house, but I will never
+set eyes again on that howling old woman, nor her imbecile husband.  As
+for the sculptor I will make him feel that Caesar has a heavy foot and
+can unexpectedly crush a snake that creeps across his path."
+
+Mastor went sadly away and Hadrian returned to his work-room, and there
+called out to his secretary Phlegon:
+
+"Write that a new gate-keeper is to be found for this palace.  Euphorion,
+the old one, is to have his pay continued to him, and half a talent is to
+be paid to him at the prefect's office.  Good--Let the man have at once
+whatever is necessary; in an hour neither he nor his are to be found in
+Lochias.  Henceforth no one is to mention them to me again, nor to bring
+me any petition from them.  Their whole race may join the rest of the
+dead."
+
+Phlegon bowed and said:
+
+"Gabinius, the curiosity-dealer, waits outside."
+
+"He comes at an appropriate moment," cried the Emperor.  "After all these
+vexations it will do me good to hear about beautiful things."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Aye, truly!  Sabina's advent had chased all good spirits from the palace
+at Lochias.
+
+The Emperor's commands had come upon the peaceful little house as a
+whirlwind comes on a heap of leaves.  The inhabitants were not even
+allowed time fully to realize their misfortune, for instead of bewailing
+themselves all they could do was to act with circumspection.  The tables,
+seats, cushions, beds and lutes, the baskets, plants, and bird-cages, the
+kitchen utensils and the trunks with their clothes were all piled in
+confusion in the courtyard, and Doris was employing the slaves appointed
+by Mastor in the task of emptying the house, as briskly and carefully as
+though it was nothing more than a move from one house to another.  A ray
+of the sunny brightness of her nature once more sparkled in her eyes
+since she had been able to say to herself that all that happened to her
+and hers was one of the things inevitable, and that it was more to the
+purpose to think of the future than of the past.  The old woman was quite
+herself again over the work, and as she looked at Euphorion, who sat
+quite crushed on his couch with his eyes fixed on the ground, she cried
+out to him:
+
+"After bad times, come good ones! only let us keep from making ourselves
+miserable.  We have done nothing wrong, and so long as we do not think
+ourselves wretched, we are not so.  Only, hold up your head!
+
+"Up, old man, up!  Go at once to Diotima and tell her that we beg her to
+give us hospitality for a few days, and house-room for our chattels."
+
+"And if Caesar does not keep his word?"  asked Euphorion gloomily.
+"What sort of a life shall we live then?"
+
+"A bad one-a dog's life; and for that very reason it is wiser to enjoy
+now what we still possess.  A cup of wine, Pollux, for me and your
+father.  But there must be no water in it to-day."
+
+"I cannot drink," sighed Euphorion.
+
+"Then I will drink your share and my own too."  Nay-nay, mother,"
+remonstrated Pollux.
+
+"Well put some water in, lad, just a little water, only do not make such
+a pitiful face.  Is that the way a young fellow should look who has his
+art, and plenty of strength in his hands, and the sweetest of sweethearts
+in his heart?"
+
+"It is certainly not for myself, mother," retorted the sculptor, "that I
+am anxious.  But how am I ever to get into the palace again to see
+Arsinoe, and how am I to deal with that ferocious old Keraunus?"
+
+"Leave that question for time to answer," replied Doris.
+
+"Time may give a good answer, but it may also give a bad one."
+
+"And the best she only gives to those who wait for her in the antechamber
+of Patience."
+
+"A bad place for me, and for those like me," sighed Pollux.
+
+"You have only to sit still and go on knocking at the doors," replied
+Doris, "and before you can look round you Time will call out, 'come in.'
+Now show the men how they are to treat the statue of Apollo, and be my
+own happy, bright boy once more."
+
+Pollux did as she desired, thinking as he went: "She speaks wisely--she
+is not leaving Arsinoe behind.  If only I had been able to arrange with
+Antinous at least, where I should find him again; but at Caesar's orders
+the young fellow was like one stunned, and he tottered as he went, as if
+he were going to execution."
+
+Dame Doris had not been betrayed by her happy confidence, for Phlegon the
+secretary came to inform her of the Emperor's purpose to give her husband
+half a talent, and to continue to pay him in the future his little
+salary.
+
+"You see," cried the old woman, "the sun of better days is already
+rising.  Half a talent!  Why poverty has nothing to do with such rich
+folks as we are!  What do you think--would it not be right to pour out
+half a cup of wine to the gods, and allow ourselves the other half?"
+
+Doris was as gay as if she were going to a wedding, and her cheerfulness
+communicated itself to her son, who saw himself relieved of part of the
+anxiety that weighed upon him with regard to his parents and sister.  His
+drooping courage, and spirit for life, only needed a few drops of kindly
+dew to revive it, and he once more began to think of his art.  Before
+anything else he would try to complete his successfully-sketched bust of
+Antinous.
+
+While he was gone back into the house to preserve his work from injury
+and was giving the slaves, whom he had desired to follow him,
+instructions as to how it should be carried so as not to damage it, his
+master Papias came into the palace-court.  He had come to put the last
+touches to the works he had begun, and proposed to make a fresh attempt
+to win the favor of the man whom he now knew to be the Emperor.  Papias
+was somewhat uneasy for he was alarmed at the thought that Pollux might
+now betray how small a share his master had in his last works--which had
+brought him higher praise than all he had done previously.  It might even
+have been wise on his part to pocket his pride and to induce his former
+scholar, by lavish promises, to return to his workshop; but the evening
+before he had been betrayed into speaking before the Emperor with so much
+indignation at the young artist's evil disposition, of his delight at
+being rid of him, that, on Hadrian's account, he must give up that idea.
+Nothing was now to be done, but to procure the removal of Pollux from
+Alexandria, or to render him in some way incapable of damaging him, and
+this he might perhaps be able to do by the instrumentality of the
+wrathful Emperor.
+
+It even came into his mind to hire some Egyptian rascal to have him
+assassinated; but he was a citizen of peaceful habits, to whom a breach
+of the law was an abomination and he cast the thought from him as too
+horrible and base.  He was not over-nice in his choice of means, he knew
+men, was very capable of finding his way up the backstairs, and did not
+hesitate when need arose to calumniate others boldly, and thus he had
+before now won the day in many a battle against his fellow-artists of
+distinction.  His hope of succeeding in the tripping of a scholar of no
+great repute, and of rendering him harmless so long as the Emperor should
+remain in Alexandria, was certainly not an over-bold one.  He hated the
+gate-keeper's son far less than he feared him, and he did not conceal
+from himself that if his attack on Pollux should fail and the young
+fellow should succeed in proving independently of what he was capable he
+could do nothing to prevent his loudly proclaiming all that he had done
+in these last years for his master.
+
+His attention was caught by the slaves in Euphorion's little house,
+who were carrying the household chattels of the evicted family into the
+street.  He had soon learnt what was going forward, and highly pleased at
+the ill-will manifested by Hadrian towards the parents of his foe, he
+stood looking on, and after brief reflection desired a negro to call
+Pollux to speak to him.
+
+The master and scholar exchanged greetings with a show of haughty
+coolness and Papias said:
+
+"You forgot to bring back the things which yesterday, without asking my
+leave, you took out of my wardrobe.  I must have them back to-day."
+
+"I did not take them for myself, but for the grand lord in there, and his
+companion.  If any thing is missing apply to him.  It grieves me that I
+should have taken your silver quiver among them, for the Roman's
+companion has lost it.  As soon as I have done here, I will take home all
+of your things that I can recover, and bring away my own.  A good many
+things belonging to me are still lying in your workshop."
+
+"Good," replied Papias.  "I will expect you an hour before sunset, and
+then we will settle every thing," and without any farewell he turned his
+back on his pupil and went into the palace.
+
+Pollux had told him that some of the properties, which he had taken
+without asking permission, had been lost-among them an object of
+considerable value--and this perhaps would give him a hold over him by
+which to prevent his injuring him.  He remained in the palace scarcely
+half an hour and then, while Pollux was still engaged in escorting his
+mother and their household goods to his sister's house, he went to visit
+the night magistrate, who presided over the safety of Alexandria.
+Papias was on intimate terms with this important official, for he had
+constructed for him a sarcophagus for his deceased wife, an altar with
+panels in relief for his men's apartment, and other works, at moderate
+prices, and he could count on his readiness to serve him.  When he
+quitted him he carried in his hand an order of arrest against his
+assistant Pollux, who had attacked his property and abstracted a quiver
+of massive silver.  The magistrate had also promised him to send two of
+his guards who would carry the offender off to prison.
+
+Papias went home with a much lighter heart.  His pupil, after he had
+accomplished the easy transfer of his parents, had returned to the
+palace, and there, to his delight, came across Mastor, who soon fetched
+him the garments and masks that he had lent the day before to Hadrian and
+Antinous.  The Sarmatian at the same time told him, with tears in his
+eyes, a sad, very sad story, which stirred the young sculptor's soul
+deeply, and which would have prompted him to penetrate into the palace at
+once, and at any risk, if he had not seen the necessity of being with
+Papias at the appointed hour, which was drawing near, to answer for the
+valuable property that was missing.  Thinking of nothing, wishing nothing
+so much as to be back as promptly as possible at Lochias, where he was
+much needed, and where his heart longed to be, he took the bundle out of
+the slave's hand and hurried away.  Papias had sent all his assistants
+and even his slaves off the premises; he received the breathless Pollux
+quite alone, and took from him, with icy calmness, the things which had
+been borrowed from his property-room, asking for them one by one.
+
+"I have already told you," cried Pollux, "that it is not I, but the
+illustrious Roman--you know as well as I do, who he is--who is answerable
+for the silver quiver and the torn chiton."  And he began to tell him how
+Antinous had commanded him, in the name of his master, to find masks and
+disguises for them both.  But Papias cut off his speech at the very
+beginning, and vehemently demanded the restoration of his quiver and bow,
+of which Pollux could not work out the value in two years.  The young man
+whose heart and thoughts were at Lochias and who, at any cost, did not
+want to be detained longer than was necessary, begged his master, with
+all possible politeness, to let him go now, and to settle the matter with
+him to-morrow after he had discussed it with the Roman, from whom he
+might certainly demand any compensation he chose.  But when Papias
+interrupted him again and again, and obstinately insisted on the
+immediate restoration of his property, the artist whose blood was easily
+heated, grew angry and replied to the attacks and questions of the older
+man with vehement response.
+
+One angry word led to another, and at last Papias hinted of persons who
+took possession of other person's silver goods, and when Pollux retorted
+that he knew of some who could put forward the works of others as their
+own, the master struck his fist upon the table, and going towards the
+door he cried out, as soon as he was at a safe distance from the furious
+lad's powerful fists:
+
+"Thief!  I will show you how fellows like you are dealt with in
+Alexandria."
+
+Pollux turned white with rage, and rushed upon Papias, who fled, and
+before Pollux could reach him he had taken refuge behind the two guards
+sent by the magistrate, and who were waiting in the antechamber.
+
+"Seize the thief!"  he cried.  "Hold the villain who stole my silver
+quiver and now raises his hand against his master.  Bind him, fetter him,
+carry him off to prison."
+
+Pollux did not know what had come upon him; he stood like a bear that has
+been surrounded by hunters; doubtful but at bay.  Should he fling himself
+upon his pursuers and fell them to the earth?  should he passively await
+impending fate?
+
+He knew every stone in his master's house; the anteroom in which he
+stood, and indeed the whole building was on the ground floor.  In the
+minute while the guards were approaching and his master was giving the
+order to the lictor, his eye fell on a window which looked out upon the
+street, and possessed only by the single thought of defending his liberty
+and returning quickly to Arsinoe he leaped out of the opening which
+promised safety and into the street below.
+
+"Thief--stop thief!"  he heard as he flew on with long strides; and like
+the pelting of rain driven by all the four winds came from all sides the
+senseless, odious, horrible cry: "Stop thief!--stop thief!"  it seemed to
+deprive him of his senses.
+
+But the passionate cry of his heart: "To Lochias, to Arsinoe!  keep free,
+save your liberty if only to be of use at Lochias!"  drowned the shouts
+of his pursuers and urged him through the streets that led to the old
+palace,
+
+On he went faster and farther, each step a leap; the briny breeze from
+the sea already fanned his glowing cheeks and the narrow empty street
+yonder he well knew led to the quay by the King's harbor, where he could
+hide from his pursuers among the tall piles of wood.  He was just turning
+the corner into the alley when an Egyptian ox-driver threw his goad
+between his legs; he stumbled, fell to the ground, and instantly felt
+that a dog which had rushed upon him was tearing the chiton he wore,
+while he was seized by a number of men.  An hour later and he found
+himself in prison, bitten, beaten, and bound among a crew of malefactors
+and real thieves.
+
+Night had fallen.  His parents were waiting for him and he came not; and
+in Lochias which he had not been able to reach there were misery and
+trouble enough, and the only person in the world who could carry comfort
+to Arsinoe in her despair was absent and nowhere to be found.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Dried merry-thought bone of a fowl
+More to the purpose to think of the future than of the past
+So long as we do not think ourselves wretched, we are not so
+Temples would be empty if mortals had nothing left to wish for
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPEROR, BY GEORG EBERS, V7 ***
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