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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Emperor, by Georg Ebers, Volume 9.
+#53 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: The Emperor, Part 2, Volume 9.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5491]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 28, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPEROR, BY GEORG EBERS, V9 ***
+
+
+
+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 9.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The entertainment which Verus was giving on the eve of his birthday
+seemed to be far from drawing to an end, even at the beginning of the
+third hour of the morning.  Besides the illustrious and learned Romans
+who had accompanied the Emperor to Alexandria, the most famous and
+distinguished Alexandrians had also been invited by the praetor.  The
+splendid banquet had long been ended, but jar after jar of mixed wine was
+still being filled and emptied.  Verus himself had been unanimously
+chosen as the king and leader of the feast.  Crowned with a rich garland,
+he reclined on a couch strewn with rose-leaves, an invention of his own,
+and formed of four cushions piled one on another.  A curtain of
+transparent gauze screened him from flies and gnats, and a tightly-woven
+mat of lilies and other flowers covered his feet and exhaled sweet odors
+for him and for the pretty singer who sat by his side.
+
+Pretty boys dressed as little cupids watched every sign of the 'sham
+Eros.'
+
+How indolently he lay on the deep, soft cushions!  And yet his eyes were
+every where, and though he had not failed to give due consideration to
+the preparations for his feast, he devoted all the powers of his mind to
+the present management of it.  As at the entertainments which Hadrian was
+accustomed to give in Rome, first of all short selections from new essays
+or poems were recited by their authors, then a gay comedy was performed;
+then Glycera, the most famous singer in the city, had sung a dithyramb to
+her harp, in a voice as sweet as a bell, and Alexander, a skilled
+performer on the trigonon, had executed a piece.  Finally a troop of
+female dancers had rushed into the room and swayed and balanced
+themselves to the music of the double-flute and tambourine.
+
+Each fresh amusement had been more loudly applauded than the last.  With
+every jar of wine a new torrent of merriment went up through the opening
+in the roof, by which the scent of the flowers and of the perfume burnt
+on beautiful little altars found an exit into the open air.  The wine
+offered in libations to the gods already lay in broad pools upon the hard
+pavement of the hall, the music and singing were drowned in shouts  the
+feast had become an orgy.
+
+Verus was inciting the more quiet or slothful of his guests to a freer
+enjoyment and encouraging the noisiest in their extravagant recklessness
+to still more unbridled license.  At the same time he bowed to each one
+who drank to his health, entertained the singer who sat by his side,
+flung a sparkling jest into one and another silent group, and proved to
+the learned men who reclined on their couches near to his that whenever
+it was possible he took an interest in their discussions.  Alexandria,
+the focus of all the learning of the East and the West, had seen other
+festivals than this riotous banquet.  Indeed, even here a vein of grave
+and wise discourse flavored the meal of the circle that belonged to the
+Museum; but the senseless revelry of Rome had found its way into the
+houses of the rich, and even the noblest achievements of the human mind
+had been made, unawares, subservient to mere enjoyment.  A man was a
+philosopher only that he might be prompt to discuss and always ready to
+take his share in the talk; and at a banquet a well-told anecdote was
+more heartily welcome than some profound idea that gave rise to a
+reflection or provoked a subtle discussion.
+
+What a noise, what a clatter was storming in the hall by the second hour
+after midnight!  How the lungs of the feasters were choked with
+overpowering perfumes!  What repulsive exhibitions met the eye!  How
+shamelessly was all decency trodden under foot!  The poisonous breath of
+unchecked license had blasted the noble moderation of the vapor of wine
+which floated round this chaos of riotous topers slowly rose the pale
+image of Satiety watching for victims on the morrow.
+
+The circle of couches on which lay Florus, Favorinus and their
+Alexandrian friends stood like an island in the midst of the surging sea
+of the orgy.  Even here the cup had been bravely passed round, and Florus
+was beginning to speak somewhat indistinctly, but conversation had
+hitherto had the upper hand.
+
+Two days before, the Emperor had visited the Museum and had carried on
+learned discussions with the most prominent of the sages and professors
+there, in the presence of their assembled disciples.  At last a formal
+disputation had arisen, and the dialectic keenness and precision with
+which Hadrian, in the purest Attic Greek, had succeeded in driving his
+opponents into a corner had excited the greatest admiration.  The
+Sovereign had quitted the famous institution with a promise to reopen the
+contest at an early date.  The philosophers, Pancrates and Dionysius and
+Apollonius, who took no wine at all, were giving a detailed account of
+the different phases of this remarkable disputation and praising the
+admirable memory and the ready tongue of the great monarch.
+
+"And you did not even see him at his best," exclaimed Favorinus, the
+Gaul, the sophist and rhetorician.  "He has received an unfavorable
+oracle and the stars seem to confirm the prophecy.  This puts him out
+of tune.  Between ourselves let me tell you I know a few who are his
+superiors in dialectic, but in his happiest moments he is irresistible-
+irresistible.  Since we made up our quarrel he is like a brother to me.
+I will defend him against all comers, for, as I say, Hadrian is my
+brother."
+
+The Gaul had poured out this speech in a defiant tone and with flashing
+eyes.  He grew pale in his cups, touchy, boastful and very talkative.
+
+"No doubt you are right," replied Apollonius, "but it seemed to us that
+he was bitter in discussion.  His eyes are gloomy rather than gay."
+
+"He is my brother," repeated Favorinus, "and as for his eyes, I have seen
+them flash--by Hercules! like the radiant sun, or merry twinkling stars!
+And his mouth!  I know him well!  He is my brother, and I will wager that
+while he condescended--it is too comical--condescended to dispute with
+you--with you, there was a sly smile at each corner of his mouth--so--
+look now--like this he smiled."
+
+"I repeat, he seemed to us gloomy rather than gay," retorted Apollonius,
+with annoyance; and Pancrates added:
+
+"If he does really know how to jest he certainly did not prove it to us."
+
+"Not out of ill-will," laughed the Gaul, "you do not know him, but I--I
+am his friend and may follow wherever--he goes.  Now only wait and I will
+tell you a few stories about him.  If I chose I could describe his whole
+soul to you as if it lay there on the surface of the wine in my cup.
+Once in Rome he went to inspect the newly-decorated baths of Agrippa, and
+in the undressing-room he saw an old man, a veteran who had fought with
+him somewhere or other.  My memory is greatly admired, but his is in no
+respect inferior.  Scaurus was the old man's name--yes--yes, Scaurus.
+He did not observe Caesar at first, for after his bath his wounds were
+burning and he was rubbing his back against the rough stone of a pillar.
+Hadrian however called to him:  'Why are you scratching yourself, my
+friend?' and Scaurus, not at once recognizing Caesar's voice, answered
+without turning round:  'Because I have no slave to do it for me.'  You
+should have heard Caesar laugh!  Liberal as he is sometimes--I say
+sometimes--he gave Scaurus a handsome sum of money and two sturdy slaves.
+The story soon got abroad, and when Caesar, who--as you believe--cannot
+jest, a short time after again visited the bath, two old soldiers at once
+placed themselves in his way, scrubbed their backs against the wall like
+Scaurus, and called out to him 'Great Caesar, we have no slaves.'--'Then
+scratch each other,' cried he, and left the soldiers to rub themselves."
+
+"Capital!" laughed Dionysius.
+"Now one more true story," interrupted the loquacious Gaul.  "Once upon
+a time a man with white hair begged of him.  The wretch was a low fellow,
+a parasite who wandered round from one man's table to another, feeding
+himself out of other folks' wallets and dishes.  Caesar knew his man and
+warned him off.  Then the creature had his hair dyed that he might not be
+recognized, and tried his luck a second time with the Emperor.  But
+Hadrian has good eyes; he pointed to the door, saying, with the gravest
+face: 'I have just lately refused to give your father anything.'  And a
+hundred such jokes pass from mouth to mouth in Rome, and if you like I
+can give you a dozen of the best."
+
+"Tell us, go on, out with your stories.  They are all old friends!"
+stammered Florus.  "But while Favorinus chatters we can drink."
+
+The Gaul cast a contemptuous glance at the Roman, and answered promptly:
+
+"My stories are too good for a drunken man."
+
+Florus paused to think of an answer, but before he could find one, the
+praetor's body-slave rushed into the hall crying out: "The palace at
+Lochias is on fire."
+
+Verus kicked the mat of lilies off his feet on to the floor, tore down
+the net that screened him in, and shouted to the breathless runner.
+
+"My chariot-quick, my chariot!  To our next merry meeting another evening
+my friends, with many thanks for the honor you have done me.  I must be
+off to Lochias."
+
+Verus flew out of the hall, without throwing on his cloak and hot as he
+was, into the cold night, and at the same time most of his guests had
+started up to hurry into the open air, to see the fire and to hear the
+latest news; but only very few went to the scene of the conflagration to
+help the citizens to extinguish it, and many heavily intoxicated drinkers
+remained lying on the couches.
+
+As Favorinus and the Alexandrians raised themselves on their pillows
+Florus cried:
+
+"No god shall make me stir from this place, not if the whole house is
+burnt down and Alexandria and Rome, and for aught I care every nest and
+nook on the face of the earth.  It may all burn together.  The Roman
+Empire can never be greater or more splendid than under Caesar!  It may
+burn down like a heap of straw, it is all the same to me--I shall lie
+here and drink."
+
+The turmoil and confusion on the scene of the interrupted feast seemed
+inextricable, while Verus hurried off to Sabina to inform her of what had
+occurred.  But Balbilla had been the first to discover the fire and quite
+at the beginning, for after sitting industriously at her studies, and
+before going to bed, she had looked out toward the sea. She had instantly
+run out, cried "Fire!" and was now seeking for a chamberlain to awake
+Sabina.
+
+The whole of Lochias flared and shone in a purple and golden glow. It
+formed the nucleus of a wide spreading radiance of tender red of which
+the extent and intensity alternately grew and diminished.  Verus met
+the poetess at the door that led from the garden into the Empress'
+apartments.  He omitted on this occasion to offer his customary greeting,
+but hastily asked her:
+
+"Has Sabina been told?"
+
+"I think not yet."
+
+"Then have her called.  Greet her from me--I must go to Lochias"
+
+"We will follow you."
+
+"No, stay here; you will be in the way there."
+
+"I do not take much room and I shall go.  What a magnificent spectacle."
+
+"Eternal gods! the flames are breaking out too below the palace, by the
+King's harbor.  Where can the chariots be?"
+
+"Take me with you."
+
+"No you must wake the Empress."
+
+"And Lucilla?"
+
+"You women must stay where you are."
+
+"For my part I certainly will not.  Caesar will be in no danger?"
+
+"Hardly--the old stones cannot burn."
+
+"Only look! how splendid! the sky is one crimson tent.  I entreat you,
+Verus, let me go with you."
+
+"No, no, pretty one.  Men are wanted down there."
+
+"How unkind you are."
+
+"At last! here are the chariots!  You women stay here; do you understand
+me?"
+
+"I will not take any orders; I shall go to Lochias."
+
+"To see Antinous in the flames!  such a sight is not to be seen every
+day, to be sure!"  cried Verus, ironically, as he sprang into his
+chariot, and took the reins into his own hand.
+
+Balbilla stamped with rage.
+
+She went to Sabina's rooms fully resolved to go to the scene of the fire.
+The Empress would not let herself be seen by any one, not even by
+Balbilla, till she was completely dressed.  A waiting-woman told Balbilla
+that Sabina would get up certainly, but that for the sake of her health
+she could not venture out in the night-air.
+
+The poetess then sought Lucilla and begged her to accompany her to
+Lochias; she was perfectly willing and ready, but when she heard that her
+husband had wished that the women should remain at the Caesareum she
+declared that she owed him obedience and tried to keep back her friend.
+But the perverse curly-haired girl was fully determined, precisely
+because Verus had forbidden her--and forbidden her with mocking words, to
+carry out her purpose.  After a short altercation with Lucilla she left
+her, sought her companion Claudia, told her what she intended doing,
+dismissed that lady's remonstrance with a very positive command, gave
+orders herself to the house-steward to have horses put to a chariot and
+reached the imperilled palace an hour and a half after Verus.
+
+An endless, many-headed crowd of people besieged the narrow end of
+Lochias on the landward side and the harbor wharves below, where some
+stores and shipyards were in flames.  Boats innumerable were crowded
+round the little peninsula.  An attempt was being made, with much
+shouting, and by the combined exertions of an immense number of men, to
+get the larger ships afloat which lay at anchor close to the quay of the
+King's harbor and to place them in security.  Every thing far and wide
+was lighted up as brightly as by day, but with a ruddier and more
+restless light.  The north-east breeze fanned the fire, aggravating the
+labors of the men who were endeavoring to extinguish it and snatching
+flakes of flame off every burning mass.  Each blazing storehouse was a
+gigantic torch throwing a broad glare into the darkness of the night.
+The white marble of the tallest beacon tower in the world, on the island
+of Pharos, reflected a rosy hue, but its far gleaming light shone pale
+and colorless.  The dark hulls of the larger ships and the flotilla of
+boats in the background were afloat in a fiery sea, and the still water
+under the shore mirrored the illumination in which the whole of Lochias
+was wrapped.
+
+Balbilla could not tire of admiring this varying scene, in which the most
+gorgeous hues vied with each other and the intensest light contrasted
+with the deepest shadows.  And she had ample time to dwell on the
+marvellous picture before her eyes, for her chariot could only proceed
+slowly, and at a point where the street led up from the King's harbor to
+the palace, lictors stood in her way and declared positively that any
+farther advance was out of the question.  The horses, much scared by the
+glare of the fire and the crowd that pressed round them, could hardly be
+controlled, first rearing and then kicking at the front board of the
+chariot.  The charioteer declared he could no longer be answerable.  The
+people who had hurried to the rescue now began to abuse the women, who
+ought to have staid at home at the loom rather than come stopping the way
+for useful citizens.
+
+"There is time enough to go out driving by daylight!"  cried one man; and
+another: "If a spark falls in those curls another conflagration will
+break out."
+
+The position of the ladies was becoming every instant more unendurable
+and Balbilla desired the charioteer to turn round; but in the swarming
+mass of men that filled the street this was easier said than done.  One
+of the horses broke the strap which fastened the yoke that rested on his
+withers to the pole, started aside and forced back the crowd which now
+began to scold and scream loudly.  Balbilla wanted to spring out of the
+chariot, but Claudia clung tightly to her and conjured her not to leave
+her in the lurch in the midst of the danger.  The spoilt patrician's
+daughter was not timid, but on this occasion she would have given much
+not to have followed Verus.  At first she thought, "A delightful
+adventure! still, it will not be perfect till it is over."  But presently
+her bold experiment lost every trace of charm, and repentance that she
+had ever undertaken it filled her mind.  She was far nearer weeping than
+laughing already, when a man's deep voice said behind her, in tones of
+commanding decision:
+
+"Make way there for the pumps; push aside whatever stops the way."
+
+These terrible words reduced Claudia to sinking on to her knees, but
+Balbilla's quelled courage found fresh wings as she heard them, for she
+had recognized the voice of Pontius.  Now he was close behind the
+chariot, high on a horse.  He then was the man on horseback whom she had
+seen dashing from the sea-shore up to the higher storehouses that were
+burning, down to the lake, and hither and thither.
+
+She turned full upon him and called him by his name.  He recognized her,
+tried to pull up his horse as it was dashing forward, and smilingly shook
+his head at her, as much as to say: "She is a giddy creature and deserves
+a good scolding; but who could be angry with her?"  And then he gave his
+orders to his subordinates just as if she had been a mere chattel, a bale
+of goods or something of the kind, and not an heiress of distinction.
+
+"Take out the horses," he cried to the municipal guards; "we can use them
+for carrying water."--"Help the ladies out of the chariot."--"Take them
+between you Nonnus and Lucanus."--"Now, stow the chariot in there among
+the bushes."--"Make way there in front, make way for our pumps."  And
+each of these orders was obeyed as promptly as if it was the word of
+command given by a general to his well-drilled soldiers.
+
+After the pumps had been fairly started Pontius rode close up to Balbilla
+and said:
+
+"Caesar is safe and sound.  You no doubt wished to see the progress of
+the fire from a spot near it, and in fact the colors down there are
+magnificent.  I have not time to escort you back to the Caesareum; but
+follow me.  You will be safe in the harbor-guard's stone house, and from
+the roof you can command a view of Lochias and the whole peninsula.  You
+will have a rare feast for the eye, noble Balbilla; but I beg you not to
+forget at the same time how many days of honest labor, what rich
+possessions, how many treasures earned by bitter hardship are being
+destroyed at this moment.  What may delight you will cost bitter tears to
+many others, and so let us both hope that this splendid spectacle may now
+have reached its climax, and soon may come to an end."
+
+"I hope so--I hope it with all my heart!"  cried the girl.
+
+"I was sure you would.  As soon as possible I will come to look after
+you.  You Nonnus and Lucanus, conduct these noble ladies to the harbor-
+guard's house.
+
+"Tell him they are intimate friends of the Empress.  Only keep the pumps
+going!  Till we meet again Balbilla!" and with these words the architect
+gave his horse the bridle and made his way through the crowd.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Balbilla was standing on the roof of the
+little stone guard-house.  Claudia was utterly exhausted and incapable of
+speech.  She sat in the dark little parlor below on a rough-hewn wooden
+bench.  But the young Roman now gazed at the fire with different eyes
+than before.  Pontius had made her feel a foe to the flames which only a
+short time before had filled her with delight as they soared up to the
+sky, wild and fierce.  They still flared up violently, as though they had
+to climb above the roof; but soon they seemed to be quelled and
+exhausted, to find it more and more difficult to rise above the black
+smoke which welled up from the burning mass.  Balbilla had looked out for
+the architect and had soon discovered him, for the man on horseback
+towered above the crowd.  He halted now by one and now by another burning
+storehouse.  Once she lost sight of him for a whole hour, for he had gone
+to Lochias.  Then again he reappeared, and wherever he stayed for a
+while, the raging element abated its fury.
+
+Without her having perceived it, the wind had changed and the air had
+become still and much warmer.  This circumstance favored the efforts of
+the citizens trying to extinguish the fire, but Balbilla ascribed it to
+the foresight of her clever friend when the flames subsided in souse
+places and in others were altogether extinguished.  Once she saw that he
+had a building completely torn down which divided a burning granary from
+some other storehouses that had been spared, and she understood the
+object of this order; it cut off the progress of the flames.  Another
+time she saw him high on the top of a rise in the ground.  Close before
+him in a sheet of flame was a magazine in which were kept tow and casks
+of resin and pitch.  He turned his face full towards it and gave his
+orders, now on this side, now on that.  His figure and that of his horse,
+which reared uneasily beneath him, were flooded in a crimson glow--a
+splendid picture!  She trembled for him, she gazed in admiration at this
+calm, resolute, energetic man, and when a blazing beam fell close in
+front of him and after his frightened horse had danced round and round
+with him, he forced it to submit to his guidance, the praetor's
+insinuation recurred to her mind, that she clung to her determination
+to go to Lochias because she hoped to enjoy the spectacle of Antinous in
+the flames.  Here, before her, was a nobler display, and yet her lively
+imagination which often, sometimes indeed against her will, gave shape to
+her formless thoughts--called up the image of the beautiful youth
+surrounded by the glowing glory which still painted the horizon.
+
+Hour after hour slipped by; the efforts of the thousands who endeavored
+to extinguish the blaze were crowned by increasing success; one burning
+mass after another was quenched, if not extinguished, and instead of
+flames smoke, mingled with sparks, rose from Lochias blacker and blacker-
+and still Pontius came not to look after her.  She could not see any
+stars for the sky was overcast with clouds, but the beginning of a new
+day could not be far distant.  She was shivering with cold, and her
+friend's long absence began to annoy her.  When, presently, it began to
+rain in large drops, she went down the ladder that led from the roof and
+sat down by the fire in the little room where her companion had gone fast
+asleep.
+
+She had been sitting quite half an hour and gazing dreamily into the
+warming glow, when she heard the sound of hoofs and Pontius appeared.
+His face was begrimed, and his voice hoarse with shouting commands for
+hours.  As soon as she saw him Balbilla forgot her vexation, greeted him
+warmly, and told him how she had watched his every movement; but the
+eager girl, so readily fired to enthusiasm, could only with the greatest
+difficulty bring out a few words to express the admiration that his mode
+of proceeding had so deeply excited in her mind.
+
+She heard him say that his mouth was quite parched and his throat was
+longing for a draught of some drink, and she--who usually had every pin
+she needed handed to her by a slave, and on whom fate had bestowed no
+living creature whom she could find a pleasure in serving--she, with her
+own hand dipped a cup of water out of the large clay jar that stood in a
+corner of the room and offered it to him with a request that he would
+drink it.  He eagerly swallowed the refreshing fluid, and when the little
+cup was empty Balbilla took it from his hand, refilled it, and gave it
+him again.
+
+Claudia, who woke up when the architect came in, looked on at her foster-
+child's unheard-of proceedings with astonishment, shaking her head.  When
+Pontius had drained the third cupful that Balbilla fetched for him he
+exclaimed, drawing a deep breath:
+
+"That was a drink--I never tasted a better in the whole course of my
+life."
+
+"Muddy water out of a nasty earthen pitcher!"  answered the girl.
+
+"And it tasted better than wine from Byblos out of a golden goblet."
+
+"You had honestly earned the refreshment, and thirst gives flavor to the
+humblest liquor."
+
+"You forget the hand that gave it me," replied the architect warmly.
+
+Balbilla colored and looked at the floor in confusion, but presently
+raised her face and said, as gayly and carelessly as ever:
+
+"So that you have been deliciously refreshed; and now that is done you
+will go home and the poor thirsty soul will once more become the great
+architect.  But before that happens, pray inform us what god it was that
+brought you hither from Pelusium in the very nick of time when the fire
+broke out, and how matters look now in the palace at Lochias?"
+
+"My time is short," replied Pontius, and he then rapidly told her that,
+after he had finished his work at Pelusium, he had returned to Alexandria
+with the imperial post.  As he got out of the chariot at the post-house
+he observed the reflection of fire over the sea and was immediately after
+told by a slave that it was the palace that was burning.  There were
+horses in plenty at the post-house; he had chosen a strong one and had
+got to the spot before the crowd had collected.  How the fire had
+originated, so far remained undiscovered.  "Caesar," he said, "was in the
+act of observing the heavens when a flame broke out in a store-shed close
+to the tower.  Antinous was the first to detect it, cried 'Fire,' and
+warned his master.  I found Hadrian in the greatest agitation; he charged
+me to superintend the work of rescuing all that could be saved.  At
+Lochias.  Verus helped me greatly and indeed with so much boldness and
+judgment that I owe very much to him.  Caesar himself kept his favorite
+within the palace, for the poor fellow burned both his hands."
+
+"Oh!" cried Balbilla with eager regret.  "How did that happen?"
+
+"When Hadrian and Antinous first came down from the tower they brought
+with them as many of the instruments and manuscripts as they could carry.
+When they were at the bottom Caesar observed that a tablet with important
+calculations had been left lying up above and expressed his regret.
+Meanwhile the fire had already caught the slightly-built turret and it
+seemed impossible to get into it again.  But the dreamy Bithynian can
+wake out of his slumbers it would seem, and while Caesar was anxiously
+watching the burning bundles of flax which the wind kept blowing across
+to the harbor the rash boy rushed into the burning building, flung the
+tablet down from the top of the tower and then hurried down the stairs.
+His bold action would indeed have cost the poor fellow his life if the
+slave Mastor; who meanwhile had hurried to the spot, had not dragged him
+down the stone stair of the old tower on which the new one stood and
+carried him into the open air.  He was half suffocated at the top of them
+and had dropped down senseless."
+
+"But he is alive, the splendid boy, the image of the gods! and he is out
+of danger?"  cried Balbilla, with much anxiety.
+
+"He is quite well; only his hands, as I said, are somewhat burnt, and his
+hair is singed, but that will grow again."
+
+"His soft, lovely curls!"  cried Balbilla.  "Let us go home, Claudia.
+The gardener shall cut a magnificent bunch of roses, and we will send it
+to Antinous to please him."
+
+"Flowers to a man who does not care about them?"  asked Pontius, gravely.
+
+"With what else can women reward men's virtues or do honor to their
+beauty?"  asked Balbilla.
+
+"Our own conscience is the reward of our honest actions, or the laurel
+wreath from the hand of some famous man."
+
+"And beauty?"
+
+"That of women claims and wins admiration, love too perhaps and flowers-
+that of men may rejoice the eye, but to do it Honor is a task granted to
+no mortal woman."
+
+"To whom, then, if I may ask the question?"
+
+"To Art, which makes it immortal."
+
+"But the roses may bring some comfort and pleasure to the suffering
+youth."
+
+"Then send them-but to the sick boy, and not to the handsome man,"
+retorted Pontius.
+
+Balbilla was silent, and she and her companion followed the architect to
+the harbor.  There he parted from them, putting them into a boat which
+took them back to the Caesareum through one of the arch-gates under the
+Heptastadium.
+
+As they were rowed along the younger Roman lady said to the elder:
+
+"Pontius has quite spoilt my fun about the roses.  The sick boy is the
+handsome Antinous all the same, and if anybody could think--well, I shall
+do just as I please; still it will be best not to cut the nosegay."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+The town was out of danger; the fire was extinct.  Pontius had taken no
+rest till noonday.  Three horses had he tired out and replaced by fresh
+ones, but his sinewy frame and healthy courage had till now defied every
+strain.  As soon as he could consider his task at an end he went off to
+his own house, and he needed rest; but in the hall of his residence he
+already found a number of persons waiting, and who were likely to stand
+between him and the enjoyment of it.
+
+A man who lives in the midst of important undertakings cannot, with
+impunity, leave his work to take care of itself for several days.  All
+the claims upon him become pent up, and when he returns home they deluge
+him like water when the sluice-gates are suddenly opened behind which it
+has been dammed up.
+
+At least twenty persons, who had heard of the architect's return, were
+waiting for him in his outer hall, and crowded upon him as soon as he
+appeared.  Among them he saw several who had come on important business,
+but he felt that he had reached the farthest limit of his strength, and
+he was determined to secure a little rest at any cost.  The grave man's
+natural consideration, usually so conspicuous, could not hold out against
+the demands made on his endurance, and he angrily and peevishly pointed
+to his begrimed face as he made his way through the people waiting for
+him.
+
+"To-morrow, to-morrow," he cried; "nay, if necessary, to-day, after
+sunset.  But now I need rest.  Rest!  Rest!  Why, you yourselves can see
+the state I am in."
+
+All--even the master-masons and purveyors who had come on urgent affairs,
+drew back; only one elderly man, his sister Paulina's house-steward,
+caught hold of his chiton, stained as it was with smoke and scorched in
+many places, and said quickly and in a low tone:
+
+"My mistress greets you; she has things to speak of to you which will
+bear no delay; I am not to leave you till you have promised to go to see
+her to-day.  Our chariot waits for you at the garden-door."
+
+"Send it home," said Pontius, not even civilly; "Paulina must wait a few
+hours."
+
+"But my orders are to take you with me at once."
+
+"But in this state--so--I cannot go with you," cried the architect with
+vehemence.  "Have you no sort of consideration?  And yet--who can tell--
+well, tell her I will be with her in two hours."
+
+When Pontius had fairly escaped the throng he took a bath; then he had
+some food brought to him, but even while he ate and drank, he was not
+unoccupied, for he read the letters which awaited him, and examined some
+drawings which his assistants had prepared during his absence.
+
+"Give yourself an hour's respite," said the old housekeeper, who had been
+his nurse and who loved him as her own son.
+
+"I must go to my sister," he answered with a shrug.  "We know her of
+old," said the old woman.  "For nothing, and less than nothing, she has
+sent for you be fore now; and you absolutely need rest.  There--are your
+cushions right--so?  And let me ask you, has the humblest stone-carrier
+so hard a life as you have?  Even at meals you never have an hour of
+peace and comfort.  Your poor head is never quiet; the nights are turned
+into day; something to do, always something to do.  If one only knew who
+it is all for?"
+
+"Aye--who for, indeed?"  sighed Pontius, pushing his arm under his head,
+between it and the pillow.  "But, you see, little mother, work must
+follow rest as surely as day follows night or summer follows winter.  The
+man who has something he loves in the House--a wife and merry children,
+it may be, for aught I care--who sweeten his hours of rest and make them
+the best of all the day, he, I say is wise when he tries to prolong them;
+but his case is not mine--"
+
+"But why is it not yours, my son Pontius?"
+
+"Let me finish my speech.  I, as you know full well, do not care for
+gossip in the bath nor for reclining long over a banquet.  In the pauses
+of my work I am alone, with myself and with you, my very worthy Leukippe.
+So the hours of rest are not for me the fairest scenes, but empty waits
+between the acts of the drama of life; and no reasonable man can find
+fault with me for trying to abridge them by useful occupation."
+
+"And what is the upshot of this sensible talk?  Simply this: you must get
+married."
+
+Pontius sighed, but Leukippe added eagerly:
+
+"You have not far to look!  The most respectable fathers and mothers are
+running after you and would bring their prettiest daughters into your
+door."
+
+"A daughter whom I do not know, and who might perhaps spoil the pauses
+between the acts, which at present I can at any rate turn to some
+account."
+
+"They say," the old woman went on, "that marriage is a cast of the dice.
+One throws a high number, another a low one; one wins a wife who is a
+match for the busy bee, another gets a tiresome gnat.  No doubt there is
+some truth in it; but I have grown grey with my eyes open and I have
+often seen it happen, that how the marriage turned out depended on the
+husband.  A man like you makes a bee out of a gnat--a bee that brings
+honey to the hive.  Of course a man must choose carefully."
+
+"How, pray?"
+
+"First see the parents and then the child.  A girl who has grown up
+surrounded by good habits, in the house of a sensible father and a
+virtuous mother--"
+
+"And where in this city am I to find such a miracle?  Nay, nay, Leukippe,
+for the present all shall be left to my old woman.  We both do our duty,
+we are satisfied with each other and--"
+
+"And time is flying," said the housekeeper, interrupting her master in
+his speech.  "You are nearly thirty-five years of age, and the girls--"
+
+"Let them be!  let them be!  They will find other men!  Now send Cyrus
+with my shoes and cloak, and have my litter got ready, for Paulina has
+been kept waiting long enough."
+
+The way from the architect's house to his sister's was long, and on his
+way he found ample time for reflection on various matters besides
+Leukippe's advice to marry.  Still, it was a woman's face and form that
+possessed him heart and soul; at first, however, he did not feel inclined
+to feast his fancy on Balbilla's image, lovely as it appeared to him; on
+the contrary, with self-inflicted severity he sought everything in her
+which could be thought to be opposed to the highest standard of feminine
+perfections.  Nor did he find it difficult to detect many defects and
+deficiencies in the Roman damsel; still he was forced to admit that they
+were quite inseparable from her character, and that she would no longer
+be what she was, if she were wholly free from them.  Each of her little
+weaknesses presently began to appear as an additional charm to the stern
+man who had himself been brought up in the doctrine of the Stoics.
+
+He had learnt by experience that sorrow must cast its shadow over the
+existence of every human being; but still, the man to whom it should be
+vouchsafed to walk through life hand-in-hand with this radiant child of
+fortune could, as it seemed to him, have nothing to look forward to but
+pure sunshine.  During his journey to Pelusium and his stay there he had
+often thought of her, and each time that her image had appeared to his
+inward eye he had felt as though daylight had shone in his soul.  To have
+met her he regarded as the greatest joy of his life, but he dared not
+aspire to claim her as his own.
+
+He did not undervalue himself and knew that he might well be proud of the
+position he had won by his own industry and talents; and still she was
+the grandchild of the man who had had the right to sell his grandfather
+for mere coin, and was so high-born, rich and distinguished that he would
+have thought it hardly more audacious to ask the Emperor what he would
+take for the purple than to woo her.  But to shelter her, to warn her, to
+allow his soul to be refreshed by the sight of her and by her talk--this
+he felt was permissible, this happiness no one could deprive him of.  And
+this she would grant him--she esteemed him and would give him the right
+to protect her, this he felt, with thankfulness and joy.  He would, then
+and there, have gone through the exertions of the last few hours all over
+again if he could have been certain that he should once more be refreshed
+with the draught of water from her hand.  Only to think of her and of her
+sweetness seemed greater happiness than the possession of any other
+woman.
+
+As he got out of his litter at the door of his sister's town-house he
+shook his head, smiling at himself; for he confessed to himself that the
+whole of the long distance he had hardly thought of anything but
+Balbilla.
+
+Paulina's house had but few windows opening upon the street and these
+belonged to the strangers' rooms, and yet his arrival had been observed.
+A window at the side of the house, all grown round with creepers, framed
+in a sweet girlish head which looked down from it inquisitively on the
+bustle in the street.  Pontius did not notice it, but Arsinoe--for it was
+her pretty face that looked out--at once recognized the architect whom
+she had seen at Lochias and of whom Pollux had spoken as his friend and
+patron.
+
+She had now, for a week, been living with the rich widow; she wanted for
+nothing, and yet her soul longed with all its might to be out in the
+city, and to inquire for Pollux and his parents, of whom she had heard
+nothing since the day of her father's death.  Her lover was no doubt
+seeking her with anxiety and sorrow; but how was he to find her?
+
+Three days after her arrival she had discovered the little window from
+which she had a view of the street.  There was plenty to be seen, for it
+led to the Hippodrome and was never empty of foot-passengers and chariots
+that were proceeding thither or to Necropolis.  No doubt it was a
+pleasure to her to watch the fine horses and garlanded youths and men who
+passed by Paulina's house; but it was not merely to amuse herself that
+she went to the bowery little opening; no, she hoped, on the contrary,
+that she might once see her Pollux, his father, his mother, his bother
+Teuker or some one else they knew pass by her new home.  Then she might
+perhaps succeed in calling them, in asking what had become of her
+friends, and
+in begging them to let her lover know where to seek her.
+
+Her adoptive mother had twice found her at the window and had forbidden
+her, not unkindly but very positively, to look out into the street.
+Arsinoe had followed her unresistingly into the interior of the house,
+but as soon as she knew that Paulina was out or engaged, she slipped back
+to the window again and looked out for him, who must at every hour of the
+day be thinking of her.  And she was not happy amid her new and wealthy
+surroundings.  At first she had found it very pleasant to stretch her
+limbs on Paulina's soft cushions, not to stir a finger to help herself,
+to eat the best of food and to have neither to attend to the children nor
+to labor in the horrible papyrus-factory; but by the third day she pined
+for liberty--and still more for the children, for Selene and Pollux.
+Once she went out driving with Paulina in a covered carriage for the
+first time in her life.  As the horses started she had enjoyed the rapid
+movement and had leaned out at one side to see the houses and men flying
+past her; but Paulina had regarded this as not correct--as she did so
+many other things that she herself thought right and permissible--had
+desired her to draw in her head, and had told her that a well-conducted
+girl must sit with her eyes in her lap when out driving.
+
+Paulina was kind, never was irritable, had her dressed and waited upon
+like her own daughter, kissed her in the morning and when she bid her
+good-night; and yet Arsinoe had never once thought of Paulina's demand
+that she should love her.  The proud woman, who was so cool in all the
+friendly relations of life, and who, as she felt was always watching her,
+was to her only a stranger who had her in her power.  The fairest
+sentiments of her soul she must always keep locked up from her.
+
+Once, when Paulina, with tears in her eyes had spoken to her of her lost
+daughter, Arsinoe had been softened and following the impulse of her
+heart, had confided to her that she loved Pollux the sculptor and hoped
+to be his wife.
+
+"You love a maker of images!"  Paulina had exclaimed, with as much horror
+as if she had seen a toad; then she had paced uneasily up and down and
+had added with her usual calm decision:
+
+"No, no, my child!  you will forget all this as soon as possible; I know
+of a nobler Bridegroom for you; when once you have learned to know Him
+you will never long for any other.  Have you seen one single image in
+this house?"
+
+"No," replied Arsinoe, "but so far as regards Pollux--"
+
+"Listen to me" said the widow, "have I not told you of our loving Father
+in Heaven?  Have I not told you that the gods of the heathen are unreal
+beings which the vain imaginings of fools have endowed with all the
+weaknesses and crimes of humanity?  Can you not understand how silly it
+is to pray to stones?  What power can reside in these frail figures of
+brass or marble?
+
+"Idols we call them.  He who carves them, serves them and offers sacrifice
+to them; aye and a great sacrifice, for he devotes his best powers, to
+their service.  Do you understand me?"
+
+"No--Art is certainly a lofty thing, and Pollux is a good man, full of
+the divinity as he works."
+
+"Wait a while, only wait--you will soon learn to understand," Paulina had
+answered, drawing Arsinoe towards her, and had added, at first speaking
+gently but then more sternly: "Now go to bed and pray to your gracious
+Father in Heaven that he may enlighten your heart.  You must forget the
+carved image-maker, and I forbid you ever to speak in my presence again
+of such a man."
+
+Arsinoe had grown up a heathen, she clung with affection to the gods of
+her fathers and hoped for happier days after the first bitterness of the
+loss of her father and the separation from her brothers and sisters was
+past.  She was little disposed to sacrifice her young love and all her
+earthly happiness for spiritual advantages of which she scarcely
+comprehended the value.  Her father had always spoken of the Christians
+with hatred and contempt.  She now saw that they could be kind and
+helpful, and the doctrine that there was a loving God in Heaven who cared
+for all men as his children appealed to her soul; but that we ought to
+forgive our enemies, to remember our sins, and to repent of them, and to
+regard all the pleasure and amusement which the gay city of Alexandria
+could offer as base and worthless--this was absurd and foolish.
+
+And what great sins had she committed?  Could a loving God require of her
+that she should mar all her best days because as a child she had pilfered
+a cake or broken a pitcher; or, as she grew older had sometimes been
+obstinate or disobedient?  Surely not.  And then was an artist, a kind
+faithful soul like her tall Pollux, to be odious in the eyes of God the
+Father of all, because he was able to make such wonderful things as that
+head of her mother, for instance?  If this really was so she would
+rather, a thousand times rather, lift her hands in prayer to the smiling
+Aphrodite, roguish Eros, beautiful Apollo, and all the nine Muses who
+protected her Pollux, than to Him.
+
+An obscure aversion rose up in her soul against the stern woman who could
+not understand her, and of whose teaching and admonitions she scarcely
+took in half; and she rejected many a word of the widow's which might
+otherwise easily have found room in her heart, only because it was spoken
+by the cold-mannered woman who at every hour seemed to try to lay some
+fresh restraint upon her.
+
+Paulina had never yet taken her with her to of the Christian assemblies
+in her suburban villa; wished first to prepare her and to open her soul
+to salvation.  In this task no teacher of the congregation should assist
+her.  She, and she alone, should win to the Redeemer the soul of this
+fair creature that had walked so resolutely in the ways of the heathen;
+this was required of her as the condition of the covenant that she felt
+she had made with Him, it was with the price of this labor that she hoped
+to purchase her own child's eternal happiness.  Day after day she had
+Arsinoe into her own room, that was decked with flowers and with
+Christian symbols, and devoted several hours to her instruction.  But her
+disciple proved less impressionable and less attentive every day; while
+Paulina was speaking Arsinoe was thinking of Pollux, of the children, of
+the festival prepared for the Emperor or of the beautiful dress she was
+to have worn as Roxana.  She wondered what young girl would fill her
+place, and how she could ever hope to see her lover again.  And it was
+the same during Paulina's prayers as during her instruction, prayers that
+often lasted more than hour, and which she had to attend, on her knees on
+Wednesday and Friday, and with hands uplifted on all the other days of
+the week.
+
+When her adoptive mother had discovered how often she looked out into the
+street she thought she had found out the reason of her pupil's distracted
+attention and only waited the return of her brother, the architect, in
+order to have the window blocked up.
+
+As Pontius entered the lofty hall of his sister's house, Arsinoe came to
+meet him.  Her cheeks were flushed, she had hurried to fly down as fast
+as possible from her window to the ground floor, in order to speak to the
+architect before he went into the inner rooms or had talked with his
+sister, and she looked lovelier than ever.  Pontius gazed at her with
+delight.  He knew that he had seen this sweet face before, but he could
+not at once remember where; for a face we have met with only incidentally
+is not easily recognized when we find it again where we do not expect it.
+
+Arsinoe did not give him time to speak to her, for she went straight up
+to him, greeted him, and asked timidly:
+
+"You do not remember who I am?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the architect, "and yet--for the moment--"
+
+"I am the daughter of Keraunus, the palace-steward at Lochias, but you
+know of course"
+
+"To be sure, to be sure!  Arsinoe is your name; I was asking to-day after
+your father and heard to my great regret--"
+
+"He is dead."
+
+"Poor child!  How everything has changed in the old palace since I went
+away.  The gate-house is swept away, there is a new steward and there-
+but, tell me how came you here?"
+
+"My father left us nothing and Christians took its in.  There were eight
+of us."
+
+"And my sister shelters you all?"
+
+"No, no; one has been taken into one house and others into others.  We
+shall never be together again."  And as she spoke the tears ran down
+Arsinoe's cheeks; but she promptly recovered herself, and before Pontius
+could express his sympathy she went on:
+
+"I want to ask of you a favor; let me speak before any one disturbs us."
+
+"Speak, my child."
+
+"You know Pollux--the sculptor Pollux?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+And you were always kindly disposed toward him?"
+
+"He is a good man and an excellent artist."
+
+"Aye that he is, and besides all that--may I tell you something and will
+you stand by me?"
+
+"Gladly, so far as lies in my power."
+
+Arsinoe looked down at the ground in charming and blushing confusion and
+said in a low tone:
+
+"We love each other--I am to be his wife."
+
+"Accept my best wishes."
+
+"Ah, if only we had got as far as that!  But since my father's death we
+have not seen each other.  I do not know where he and his parents are,
+and how are they ever to find me here?"
+
+"Write to him."
+
+"I cannot write well, and even if I could my messenger--"
+
+"Has my sister had any search made for him?"
+
+"No--oh, no.  I may not even let his name pass my lips.  She wants to
+give me to some one else; she says that making statues is hateful to the
+God of the Christians."
+
+"Does she?  And you want me to seek your lover?"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear lord! and if you find him tell him I shall be alone
+to-morrow early, and again towards evening, every day indeed, for then
+your sister goes to serve her God in her country house."
+
+"So you want to make me a lover's go-between.  You could not find a more
+inexperienced one."
+
+"Ah! noble Pontius, if you have a heart--"
+
+"Let me speak to the end, child!  I will seek your lover, and if I find
+him he shall know where you are, but I cannot and will not invite him to
+an assignation here behind my sister's back.  He shall come openly to
+Paulina and prefer his suit.  If she refuses her consent I will try to
+take the matter in hand with Paulina.  Are you satisfied with this?"
+
+"I must need be.  And tell me, you will let me know when you have found
+out where he and his parents have gone?"
+
+"That I promise you.  And now tell the one thing.  Are you happy in this
+house?"
+
+Arsinoe looked down in some embarrassment, then she hastily shook her
+head in vehement negation and hurried away.  Pontius looked after her
+with compassion and sympathy.
+
+"Poor, pretty little creature!"  he murmured to himself, and went on to
+his sister's room.
+
+The house-steward had announced his visit, and Paulina met him on the
+threshold.  In his sister's sitting-room the architect found Eumenes,
+the bishop, a dignified old man with clear, kind eyes.
+
+"Your name is in everybody's mouth to-day," said Paulina, after the usual
+greetings.  They say you did wonders last night."
+
+"I got home very tired," said Pontius, "but as you so pressingly desired
+to speak to me, I shortened my hours of rest."
+
+"How sorry I am!"  exclaimed the widow.
+
+The bishop perceived that the brother and sister had business to discuss
+together, and asked whether he were not interrupting it.
+
+"On the contrary," cried Paulina.  "The subject under discussion is my
+newly-adopted daughter who, unhappily, has her head full of silly and
+useless things.  She tells me she has seen you at Lochias, Pontius."
+
+"Yes, I know the pretty child."
+
+"Yes, she is lovely to look upon," said the widow.  "But her heart and
+mind have been left wholly untrained, and in her the doctrine falls upon
+stony ground, for she avails herself of every unoccupied moment to stare
+at the horsemen and chariots that pass on the way to the Hippodrome.  By
+this inquisitive gaping she fills her head with a thousand useless and
+distracting fancies; I am not always at home, and so it will be best to
+have the pernicious window walled up."
+
+"And did you send for me only to have that done?" cried Pontius, much
+annoyed.  "Your house-slaves, I should think, might have been equal to
+that without my assistance."
+
+"Perhaps, but then the wall would have to be freshly whitewashed--I know
+how obliging you always are."  Thank you very much.  To-morrow I will
+send you two regular workmen."
+
+"Nay, to-day, at once if possible."
+
+"Are you in such pressing haste to spoil the poor child's amusement?  And
+besides I cannot but think that it is not to stare at the horsemen and
+chariots that she looks out, but to see her worthy lover."
+
+"So much the worse.  I was telling you, Eumenes, that a sculptor wants to
+marry her."
+
+"She is a heathen," replied the bishop.
+
+"But on the road to salvation," answered Paulina. "But we will speak of
+that presently.  There is still something else to discuss, Pontius.  The
+hall of my country villa must be enlarged."
+
+"Then send me the plans."
+
+"They are in the book-room of my late husband."  The architect left his
+sister to go into the library, which he knew well.
+
+As soon as the bishop was left alone with Paulina, he shook his head and
+said:
+
+"If I judge rightly, my dear sister, you are going the wrong way to work
+in leading this child intrusted to your care.  Not all are called, and
+rebellious hearts must be led along the path of salvation with a gentle
+hand, not dragged and driven.  Why do you cut off this girl, who still
+stands with both feet in the world, from all that can give her pleasure?
+Allow the young creature to enjoy every permitted pleasure which can add
+to the joys of life in youth.  Do not hurt Arsinoe needlessly, do not let
+her feel the hand that guides her.  First teach her to love you from her
+heart, and when she knows nothing dearer than you, a request from you
+will be worth more than bolts or walled-up windows."
+
+"At first I wished nothing more than that she should love me,"
+interrupted Paulina.
+
+"But have you proved her?  Do you see in her the spark which may be
+fanned to a flame?  Have you detected in her the germ which may possibly
+grow to a strong desire for salvation and to devotion to the Redeemer?"
+
+"That germ exists in every heart-these are your own words."
+
+"But in many of the heathen it is deeply buried in sand and stories; and
+do you feel yourself equal to clearing them away without injury to the
+seed or to the soil in which it lies?"
+
+"I do, and I will win Arsinoe to Jesus Christ," said Paulina firmly.
+
+Pontius interrupted the conversation; he remained with his sister some
+time longer discussing with her and with Eumenes the new building to be
+done at her country house; then he and the bishop left at the same time
+and Pontius proceeded to the scene of the fire by the harbor and in the
+old palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Pontius did not find the Emperor at Lochias, for Hadrian had moved at
+mid-day to the Caesareum.  The strong smell of burning in every room in
+the palace had sickened him and he had begun to regard the restored
+building as a doomed scene of disaster.  The architect was waited for
+with much anxiety, for the rooms originally furnished for the Emperor in
+the Caesareum had been despoiled and disarranged to decorate the rooms at
+Lochias, and Pontius was wanted to superintend their immediate
+rehabilitation.  A chariot was waiting for him and there was no lack of
+slaves, so he began this fresh task at once and devoted himself to it
+till late at night.  It was in vain this time that his anteroom was
+filled with people waiting for his return.
+
+Hadrian had retired to some rooms which formed part of his wife's
+apartments.  He was in a grave mood, and when the prefect Titianus was
+announced he kept him waiting till, with his own hand, he had laid a
+fresh dressing on his favorite's burns.
+
+"Go now, my lord," begged the Bithynian, when the Emperor had finished
+his task with all the skill of a surgeon: "Titianus has been walking up
+and down in there for the last quarter of an hour."
+
+"And so he may," said the monarch.  "And if the whole world is shrieking
+for me it must wait till these faithful hands have had their due.  Yes,
+my boy!  we will wander on through life together, inseparable comrades.
+Others indeed do the same, and each one who goes through life side by
+side with a companion sharing all he enjoys or suffers, comes to think at
+last that he knows him as he knows himself; still the inmost core of his
+friend's nature remains concealed from him.  Then, some day Fate lets a
+storm come raging down upon their; the last veil is torn, under the
+wanderer's eyes, from the very heart of his companion, and at last he
+really sees him as he is, like a kernel stripped of its shell, a bare and
+naked body.  Last night such a blast swept over us and let me see the
+heart of my Antinous, as plainly as this hand I hold before my eyes.
+Yes, yes, yes!  for the man who will risk his young and happy existence
+for a thing his friend holds precious would sacrifice ten lives if he had
+them, for his friend's person.  Never, my friend, shall that night be
+forgotten.  It gives you the right to do much that might pain me, and has
+graven your name on my heart, the foremost among those to whom I am
+indebted for any benefit.--They are but few."
+
+Hadrian held out his hand to Antinous as he spoke.  The boy, who had kept
+his eyes fixed on the ground in much confusion, raised it to his lips and
+pressed it against them in violent agitation.  Then he raised his large
+eyes to the Emperor's and said:
+
+"You must not speak to me so kindly, for I do not deserve such goodness.
+What is my life after all?  I would let it go, as a child leaves go of a
+beetle it has caught, to spare you one single anxious day."
+
+"I know it," answered Hadrian firmly, and he went to the prefect in the
+adjoining room.
+
+Titianus had come in obedience to Hadrian's orders; the matter to be
+settled was what indemnification was to be paid to the city and to the
+individual owners of the storehouses that had been destroyed, for Hadrian
+had caused a decree to be proclaimed that no one should suffer any loss
+through a misfortune sent by the gods and which had originated in his
+residence.  The prefect had already instituted the necessary inquiries
+and the private secretaries, Phlegon, Heliodorus and Celer, were now
+charged with the duty of addressing documents to the injured parties in
+which they were invited, in the name of Caesar, to declare the truth as
+to the amount of the loss they had suffered.  Titianus also brought the
+information that the Greeks and Jews had determined to express their
+thankfulness for Caesar's preservation by great thank-offerings.
+
+And the Christians," asked Hadrian.
+
+"They abominate the sacrifice of animals, but they will unite in a common
+act of thanksgiving."
+
+"Their gratitude will not cost them much,"  said Hadrian.
+
+"Their bishop, Eumenes, brought me a sum of money for which a hundred
+oxen might be bought, to distribute among the poor.  He said the God of
+the Christians is a spirit and requires none but spiritual sacrifices;
+that the best offering a man can bring him is a prayer prompted by the
+spirit and proceeding from a loving heart."
+
+"That sounds very well for us," said Hadrian.  "But it will not do for
+the people.  Philosophical doctrines do not tend to piety; the populace
+need visible gods and tangible sacrifices.  Are the Christians here good
+citizens and devoted to the welfare of the state?"
+
+"We need no courts of justice for them."
+
+"Then take their money and distribute it among the needy; but I must
+forbid their meeting for a general thanksgiving; they may raise their
+hands to their great spirit in my behalf, in private.  Their doctrine
+must not be brought into publicity; it is not devoid of a delusive charm
+and it is indispensable to the safety of the state that the mob should
+remain faithful to the old gods and sacrifices."
+
+"As you command, Caesar."
+
+"You know the account given of the Christians by Pliny and Trajan?"
+
+"And Trajan's answer."
+
+"Well then let us leave them to follow their own devices in private after
+their own fashion; only they must not commit any breach of the laws of
+the state nor force themselves into publicity.  As soon as they show any
+disposition to refuse to the old gods the respect that is due to them, or
+to raise a finger against them, severity must be exercised and every
+excess must be punished by death."
+
+During this conversation Verus had entered the room; he was following the
+Emperor everywhere to-day for he hoped to hear him say a word as to his
+observation of the heavens, and yet he did not dare to ask him what he
+had discovered from them.
+
+When he saw that Hadrian was occupied he made a chamberlain conduct him
+to Antinous.  The favorite turned pale as he saw the praetor, still he
+retained enough presence of mind to wish him all happiness on his
+birthday.  It did not escape Verus that his presence had startled the
+lad; he therefore plied him at first with indifferent questions,
+introduced pleasing anecdotes into his conversation and then, when
+he had gained his purpose, he added carelessly:
+
+"I must thank you in the name of the state and of every friend of
+Caesar's.  You carried out your undertaking well to the end, though by
+somewhat overpowering means."
+
+"I entreat you say no more," interrupted Antinous eagerly, and looking
+anxiously at the door of the next room.
+
+"Oh!  I would have sacrificed all Alexandria to preserve Caesar's mind
+from gloom and care.  Besides we have both paid dearly for our good
+intentions and for those wretched sheds."
+
+"Pray talk of something else."
+
+"You sit there with your hands bound up and your hair singed, and I feel
+very unwell."
+
+"Hadrian said you had helped valiantly in the rescue."
+
+"I was sorry for the poor rats whose gathered store of provisions the
+flames were so rapidly devouring, and all hot as I was from my supper, I
+flung myself in among the men who were extinguishing the fire.  My first
+reward was a bath of cold, icy-cold sea-water, which was poured over my
+head out of a full skin.  All doctrines of ethics are in disgrace with
+me, and I have long considered all the dramatic poets, in whose pieces
+virtue is rewarded and crime punished, as a pack of fools; for my
+pleasantest hours are all due to my worst deeds; and sheer annoyance and
+misery, to my best.  No hyena can laugh more hoarsely that I now speak;
+some portion of me inside here, seems to have been turned into a hedgehog
+whose spines prick and hurt me, and all this because I allowed myself to
+be led away into doing things which the moralists laud as virtuous."
+
+"You cough, and you do not look well.  He down awhile."
+
+"On my birthday?  No, my young friend.  And now let me just ask you
+before I go:  Can you tell me what Hadrian read in the stars?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not even if I put my Perseus at your orders for every thing you may
+require of him?  The man knows Alexandria and is as dumb as a fish."
+
+"Not even then, for what I do not know I cannot tell.  We are both of us
+ill, and I tell you once more you will be wise to take care of yourself."
+Verus left the room, and Antinous watched him go with much relief.
+
+The praetor's visit had filled him with disquietude, and had added to the
+dislike he felt for him.  He knew that he had been used to base ends by
+Verus, for Hadrian had told him so much as that he had gone up to the
+observatory not to question the stars for himself but to cast the
+praetor's horoscope, and that he had informed Verus of his intention.
+
+There was no excuse, no forgiveness possible for the deed he had done; to
+please that dissolute coxcomb, that mocking hypocrite, he had become a
+traitor to his master and an incendiary, and must endure to be
+overwhelmed with praises and thanks by the greatest and most keen-sighted
+of men.  He hated, he abhorred himself, and asked himself why the fire
+which had blazed around him had been satisfied only to inflict slight
+injuries on his hands and hair.  When Hadrian returned to him he asked
+his permission to go to bed.  The Emperor gladly granted it, ordered
+Mastor to watch by his side, and then agreed to his wife's request that
+he would visit her.
+
+Sabina had not been to the scene of the fire, but she had sent a
+messenger every hour to inquire as to the progress of the conflagration
+and the well-being of her husband.  When he had first arrived at the
+Caesareum she had met and welcomed him and then had retired to her own
+apartments.
+
+It wanted only two hours of midnight when Hadrian entered her room; he
+found her reclining on a couch without the jewels she usually wore in the
+daytime but dressed as for a banquet.
+
+"You wished to speak with me?"  said the Emperor.  "Yes, and this day--
+so full of remarkable events as it has been--has also a remarkable close
+since I have not wished in vain."
+
+"You so rarely give me the opportunity of gratifying a wish."
+
+"And do you complain of that?"
+
+"I might--for instead of wishing you are wont to demand."
+
+"Let us cease this strife of idle words."
+
+"Willingly.  With what object did you send for me?"
+
+"Verus is to-day keeping his birthday."
+
+"And you would like to know what the stars promise him?"
+
+"Rather how the signs in the heavens have disposed you towards him."
+
+"I had but little time to consider what I saw.  But at any rate the stars
+promise him a brilliant future."
+
+A gleam of joy shone in Sabina's eyes, but she forced herself to keep
+calm and asked, indifferently:
+
+"You admit that, and yet you can come to no decision?"
+
+"Then you want to hear the decisive word spoken at once, to-day?"
+
+"You know that without my answering you."
+
+"Well, then, his star outshines mine and compels me to be on my guard
+against him."
+
+"How mean!  You are afraid of the praetor?"
+
+"No, but of his fortune which is bound up with you?"
+
+"When he is our son his greatness will be ours."
+
+"By no means, since if I make him what you wish him to be, he will
+certainly try to make our greatness his.  Destiny--"
+
+"You said it favored him; but unfortunately I must dispute the
+statement."
+
+"You?  Do you try too, to read the stars?"
+
+"No, I leave that to men.  Have you heard of Ammonius, the astrologer?"
+
+"Yes.  A very learned man who observes from the tower of the Serapeum,
+and who, like many of his fellows in this city has made use of his art
+to accumulate a large fortune."
+
+"No less a man than the astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus referred me to
+him."
+
+"The best of recommendation."
+
+"Well, then, I commissioned Ammonius to cast the horoscope for Verus
+during the past night and he brought it to me with an explanatory key.
+Here it is."
+
+The Emperor hastily seized the tablet which Sabina held out to him, and
+as he attentively examined the forecasts, arranged in order according to
+the hours, he said:
+
+"Quite right.  That of course did not escape me!  Well done, exactly the
+same as my own observations--but here--stay--here comes the third hour,
+at the beginning of which I was interrupted.  Eternal gods! what have we
+here?"
+
+The Emperor held the wax tablet prepared by Aminonius at arm's length
+from his eyes and never parted his lips again till he had come to the end
+of the last hour of the night.  Then he dropped the hand that held the
+horoscope, saying with a shudder:
+
+"A hideous destiny.  Horace was right in saying the highest towers fall
+with the greatest crash."
+
+"The tower of which you speak," said Sabina, "is that darling of fortune
+of whom you are afraid.  Vouchsafe then to Verus a brief space of
+happiness before the horrible end you foresee for him."
+
+While she spoke Hadrian sat with his eyes thoughtfully fixed on the
+ground, and then, standing in front of his wife, he replied:
+
+"If no sinister catastrophe falls upon this man, the stars and the fate
+of men have no more to do with one another than the sea with the heart of
+the desert, than the throb of men's pulses with the pebbles in the brook.
+If Ammonius has erred ten times over still more than ten signs remain on
+this tablet, hostile and fatal to the praetor.  I grieve for Verus--but
+the state suffers with the sovereign's misfortunes.--This man can never
+be my successor."
+
+"No?" asked Sabina rising from her couch.  "No?  Not when you have seen
+that your own star outlives his?  Not though a glance at this tablet
+shows you that when he is nothing but ashes the world will still continue
+long to obey your nod?"
+
+"Compose yourself and give me time.--Yes, I still say not even so."
+
+"Not even so," repeated Sabina sullenly.  Then, collecting herself, she
+asked in a tone of vehement entreaty:
+
+"Not even so--not even if I lift my hands to you in supplication and cry
+in your face that you and Fate have grudged me the blessing, the
+happiness, the crown and aim of a woman's life, and I must and I will
+attain it; I must and I will once, if only for a short time, hear myself
+called by some dear lips by the name which gives the veriest beggar-woman
+with her infant in her arms preeminence above the Empress who has never
+stood by a child's cradle.  I must and I will, before I die, be a mother,
+be called mother and be able to say, 'my child, my son--our son.'"  And as
+she spoke she sobbed aloud and covered her face with her hands.
+
+The Emperor drew back a step from his wife.  A miracle had been wrought
+before his eyes.  Sabina--in whose eyes no tear had ever been seen--
+Sabina was weeping, Sabina had a heart like other women.  Greatly
+astonished and deeply moved he saw her turn from him, utterly shaken by
+the agitation of her feelings, and sink on her knees by the side of the
+couch she had quitted to hide her face in the cushions.  He stood
+motionless by her side, but presently going nearer to her:
+
+"Stand up, Sabina," he said.  "Your desire is a just one.  You shall have
+the son for whom your soul longs."
+
+The Empress rose and a grateful look in her eyes, swimming in tears, met
+his glance.  Sabina could smile too, she could look sweet!  It had taken
+a lifetime, it had needed such a moment as this to reveal it to Hadrian.
+
+He silently drew a seat towards her and sat down by her side; for some
+time he sat with her hand clasped in his, in silence.  Then he let it go
+and said kindly:
+
+"And will Verus fulfil all you expect of a son?"  She nodded assent.
+
+"What makes you so confident of that?"  asked the Emperor.  "He is a
+Roman and not lacking in brilliant and estimable gifts.  A man who shows
+such mettle alike in the field and in the council-chamber and yet can
+play the part of Eros with such success will also know how to wear the
+purple without disgracing it.  But he has his mother's light blood, and
+his heart flutters hither and thither."
+
+"Let him be as he is.  We understand each other and he is the only man on
+whose disposition I can build, on whose fidelity I can count as securely
+as if he were my favorite son."
+
+"And on what facts is this confidence based?"
+
+"You will understand me, for you are not blind to the signs which Fate
+vouchsafes to us.  Have you time to listen to a short story?"
+
+"The night is yet young."
+
+"Then I will tell you.  Forgive me if I begin with things that seem dead
+and gone; but they are not, for they live and work in me to this hour.  I
+know that you yourself did not choose me for your wife.  Plotina chose me
+for you--she loved you, whether your regard for her was for the beautiful
+woman or for the wife of Caesar to whom everything belonged that you had
+to look for--how should I know?"
+
+"It was Plotina, the woman, that I honored and loved--"
+
+"In choosing me she chose you a wife who was tall and so fitted to wear
+the purple, but who was never beautiful.  She knew me well and she knew
+that I was less apt than any other woman to win hearts; in my parents'
+house no child ever enjoyed so slender a share of the gifts of love, and
+none can know better than you that my husband did not spoil me with
+tenderness."
+
+"I could repent of it at this moment."
+
+"It would be too late now.  But I will not be bitter--no, indeed I will
+not.  And yet if you are to understand me I must own that so long as I
+was young I longed bitterly for the love which no one offered me."
+
+"And you yourself have never loved?"
+
+"No--but it pained me that I could not.  In Plotina's apartments I often
+saw the children of her relations, and many a time I tried to attract
+them to me, but while they would play confidently with other women they
+seemed to shun me.  Soon I even grew cross to them--only our Verus, the
+little son of Celonius Commodus, would give me frank answers when I spoke
+to him, and would bring me his broken toys that I might mend their
+injuries.  And so I got to love the child."
+
+"He was a wonderfully sweet, attractive boy."
+
+"He was indeed.  One day we women were all sitting together in Caesar's
+garden.  Verus came running out with a particularly fine apple that
+Trajan himself had given him.  The rosy-cheeked fruit was admired by
+every one.  Then Plotina, in fun took the apple out of the boy's hand and
+asked him if he would not give his apple to her.  He looked at her with
+wide-open puzzled eyes, shook his curly head, ran up to me and gave me--
+yes, me, and no one else--the fruit, throwing his arms round my neck and
+saying, 'Sabina you shall have it.'"
+
+"The judgment of Paris."
+
+"Nay, do not jest now.  This action of an unselfish child gave me courage
+to endure the troubles of life.  I knew now that there was one creature
+that loved me, and that one repaid all that I felt for him, all that I
+was never weary of doing for him with affectionate liking.  He is the
+only being, of whom I know, that will weep when I die.  Give him the
+right to call me his mother and make him our son."
+
+"He is our son," said Hadrian, with dignified gravity, and held out his
+hand to Sabina.  She tried to lift it to her lips but he drew it away and
+went on:
+
+"Inform him that we accept him as our son.  His wife is the daughter of
+Nigrinus--who had to go, as I desired to stay and stand firm.  You do not
+love Lucilla, but we must both admire her for I do not know another woman
+in Rome whose virtue a man might vouch for.  Besides, I owe her a father,
+and am glad to have such a daughter; thus we shall be blessed with
+children.  Whether I shall appoint Verus my successor and proclaim to the
+world who shall be its future ruler I cannot now decide; for that I need
+a calmer hour.  Till to-morrow, Sabina.  This day began with a
+misfortune; may the deed with which we have combined to end it prosper
+and bring us happiness."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+There are often fine warm days in February, but those who fancy the
+spring has come find themselves deceived.  The bitter, hard Sabina could
+at times let soft and tender emotions get the mastery over her, but as
+soon as the longing of her languishing soul for maternal happiness was
+gratified, she closed her heart again and extinguished the fire that had
+warmed it.  Every one who approached her, even her husband, felt himself
+chilled and repelled again by her manner.
+
+Verus was ill.  The first symptoms of a liver complaint which his
+physicians had warned him might ensue, if he, an European, persisted in
+his dissipated life at Alexandria as if it were Rome, now began to
+occasion him many uneasy hours, and this, the first physical pain that
+fate had ever inflicted on him, he bore with the utmost impatience.
+Even the great news which Sabina brought him, realizing his boldest
+aspirations, had no power to reconcile him to the new sensation of being
+ill.  He learnt, at the same time, that Hadrian's alarm at the
+transcendent brightness of his star had nearly cost him his adoption,
+and as he firmly believed that he had brought on his sufferings by his
+efforts to extinguish the fire that Antinous had kindled, he bitterly
+rued his treacherous interference with the Emperor's calculations.  Men
+are always ready to cast any burden, and especially that of a fault they
+have committed, on to the shoulders of another; and so the suffering
+praetor cursed Antinous and the learning of Simeon Ben Jochai, because,
+if it had not been for them the mischievous folly which had spoilt his
+pleasure in life would never have been committed.
+
+Hadrian had requested the Alexandrians to postpone the theatrical
+displays and processions that they had prepared for him, as his
+observations as to the course of destiny during the coming year were not
+yet complete.  Every evening he ascended the lofty observatory of the
+Serapeum and gazed from thence at the stars.  His labors ended on the
+tenth of January; on the eleventh the festivities began.  They lasted
+through many days, and by the desire of the praetor the pretty daughter
+of Apollodorus the Jew was chosen to represent Roxana.  Everything that
+the Alexandrians had prepared to do honor to their sovereign was
+magnificent and costly.  So many ships had never before been engaged in
+any Naumachia as were destroyed here in the sham sea-fight, no greater
+number of wild beasts had ever been seen together on any occasion even in
+the Roman Circus; and how bloody were the fights of the gladiators, in
+which black and white combatants afforded a varied excitement for both
+heart and senses.  In the processions, the different elements which were
+supplied by the great central metropolis of Egyptian, Greek and Oriental
+culture afforded such a variety of food for the eye that, in spite of
+their interminable length, the effect was less fatiguing than the Romans
+had feared.  The performances of the tragedies and comedies were equally
+rich in startling effects; conflagrations and floods were introduced and
+gave the Alexandrian actors the opportunity of displaying their talents
+with such brilliant success that Hadrian and his companions were forced
+to acknowledge that even in Rome and Athens they had never witnessed any
+representations equally perfect.
+
+A piece by the Jewish author Ezekiel who, under the Ptolemies, wrote
+dramas in the Greek language of which the subject was taken from the
+history of his own people, particularly claimed the Emperor's attention.
+
+Titianus during all this festive season was unluckily suffering from an
+attack of old-standing breathlessness, and he also had his hands full;
+at the same time he did his best in helping Pontius in seeking out the
+sculptor Pollux.  Both men did their utmost, but though they soon were
+able to find Euphorion and dame Doris, every trace of their son had
+vanished.  Papias, the former employer of the man who had disappeared,
+was no longer in the city, having been sent by Hadrian to Italy to
+execute centaurs and other figures to decorate his villa at Tibur.  His
+wife who remained at home, declared that she knew nothing of Pollux but
+that he had abruptly quitted her husband's service.  The unfortunate
+man's fellow-workmen could give no news of him whatever, for not one of
+them had been present when he was seized; Papias had had foresight enough
+to have the man he dreaded placed in security without the presence of any
+witnesses.  Neither the prefect nor the architect thought of seeking the
+worthy fellow in prison, and even if they had done so they would hardly
+have found him, for Pollux was not kept in durance in Alexandria itself.
+The prisons of the city had overflowed after the night of the holiday and
+he had been transferred to Canopus and there detained and brought up for
+trial.
+
+Pollux had unhesitatingly owned to having taken the silver quiver and to
+having been very angry at his master's accusation.  Thus he produced from
+the first an unfavorable impression on the judge, who esteemed Papias as
+a wealthy man, universally respected.  The accused had hardly been
+allowed to speak at all and judgment was immediately pronounced against
+him, on the strength of his master's accusation and his own admissions.
+It would have been sheer waste of time to listen to the romances with
+which this audacious rascal--who forgot all the respect he owed to his
+teacher and benefactor--wanted to cram the judges.  Two years of
+reflection, the protectors of the law deemed, might suffice to teach this
+dangerous fellow to respect the property of others and to keep him from
+outbreaks against those to whom he owed gratitude and reverence.
+
+Pollux, safe in the prison at Canopus, cursed his destiny and indulged in
+vain hopes of the assistance of his friends.  These were at last weary of
+the vain search and only asked about him occasionally.  He at first was
+so insubordinate under restraint that he was put under close ward from
+which he was not released until, instead of raging with fury he dreamed
+away his days in sullen brooding.  The gaoler knew men well, and he
+thought he could safely predict that at the end of his two years'
+imprisonment this young thief would quit his cell a harmless imbecile.
+
+Titianus, Pontius, Balbilla and even Antinous had all attempted to speak
+of him to the Emperor, but each was sharply repulsed and taught that
+Hadrian was little inclined to pardon a wound to his artist's vanity.
+But the sovereign also proved that he had a good memory for benefits he
+had received, for once, when a dish was set before him consisting of
+cabbage and small sausages he smiled, and taking out his purse filled
+with gold pieces, he ordered a chamberlain to take it in his name to
+Doris, the wife of the evicted gate-keeper.  The old couple now resided
+in a little house of their own in the neighborhood of their widowed
+daughter Diotima.  Hunger and external misery came not nigh them, still
+they had experienced a great change.  Poor Doris' eyes were now red and
+bloodshot, for they were accustomed to many tears, which were seldom far
+off and overflowed whenever a word, an object, a thought reminded her of
+Pollux, her darling, her pride and her hope; and there were few half-
+hours in the day when she did not think of him.
+
+Soon after the steward's death she had sought out Selene, but dame Hannah
+could not and would not conduct her to see the sick girl, for she learnt
+from Mary that she was the mother of her patient's faithless lover; and
+on a second visit Selene was so shy, so timid and so strange in her
+demeanor, that the old woman was forced to conclude that her visit was an
+unpleasant intrusion.
+
+And from Arsinoe, whose residence she discovered from the deaconess, she
+met with even a worse reception.  She had herself announced as the mother
+of Pollux the sculptor and was abruptly refused admission, with the
+information that Arsinoe was not to be spoken with by her and that her
+visits were, once for all, prohibited.  After the architect Pontius had
+been to seek her out and had encouraged her to make another attempt to
+see and speak to Arsinoe, who clung faithfully to Pollux, Paulina herself
+had received her and sent her away with such repellent words that she
+went home to her husband deeply insulted and distressed to tears.  Nor
+had she resisted Euphorion's decision when he prohibited her ever again
+crossing the Christian's threshold.
+
+The Emperor's donation had been most welcome and timely to the poor old
+couple, for Euphorion had completely lost the softness of his voice as
+well as his memory through the agitations and troubles of the last few
+months; he had been dismissed from the chorus of the theatre and could
+only find employment and very small pay of a few drachmae, in the
+mysteries of certain petty sectarians or in singing at weddings or in
+hymns of lamentation.  At the same time the old folks had to maintain
+their daughter whom Pollux could no longer provide for, and the birds,
+the Graces and the cat all must eat.  That it would be possible to get
+rid of them was an idea which never occurred to either Euphorion or
+Doris.
+
+By day the old folks had ceased to laugh; but at night they still had
+many cheerful hours, for then Hope would beguile them with bright
+pictures of the future, and tell them all sorts of possible and
+impossible romances which filled their souls with fresh courage.  How
+often they would see Pollux returning from the distant city whither he
+had probably fled-from Rome, or even from Athens--crowned with laurels
+and rich in treasure.  The Emperor, who still so kindly remembered them,
+could not always be angry with him; perhaps he might some day send a
+messenger to seek Pollux and to make up to him by large commissions for
+all he had made him suffer.  That her darling was alive she was sure; in
+that she could not be mistaken, often as Euphorion tried to persuade her
+that he must be dead.  The singer could tell many tales of luckless men
+who had been murdered and never seen or heard of again; but she was not
+to be convinced, she persisted in hope, and lived wholly in the purpose
+of sending her younger son, Teuker, on his travels to seek his lost
+brother as soon as his apprenticeship was over, which would be in a few
+months.
+
+Antinous, whose burnt hands had soon got well under the Emperor's care,
+and who had never felt a liking and friendship for any other young man
+but Pollux, lamented the artist's disappearance and wished much to seek
+out dame Doris; but he found it harder than ever to leave his master, and
+was so eager always to be at hand that Hadrian often laughingly
+reproached him with making his slaves' duties too light.
+
+When at last he really was master of an hour to himself he postponed his
+intention of seeing his friend's parents; for with him there was always a
+wide world between the purpose and the deed which he never could
+overleap, if not urged by some strong impulse; and his most pressing
+instincts prompted him, when the Emperor was disputing in the Museum or
+receiving instructions from the chiefs of the different religious
+communities as to the doctrines they severally professed, to visit the
+suburban villa where, when February had already begun, Selene was still
+living.  He had often succeeded in stealing into Paulina's garden, but he
+could not at first realize his hope of being observed by Selene of
+obtaining speech with her.  Whenever he went near Hannah's little house,
+Mary, the deformed girl, would come in his way, tell him how her friend
+was, and beg or desire him to go away.  She was always with the sick
+girl, for now her mother was nursed by her sister, and dame Hannah had
+obtained permission for her to work at home in gumming the papyrus-strips
+together.
+
+The widow herself was obliged to be at her post in the factory, for her
+duties as overseer made her presence indispensable in the work-room.
+
+Thus it came to pass that it was always by Mary and never by Hannah that
+Antinous was received and dismissed.  A certain understanding had arisen
+between the beautiful youth and the deformed girl.  When Antinous
+appeared and she called out to him: "What, again already!"  he would
+grasp her hand and implore her only once to grant his wish; but she was
+always firm, only she never sent him away sternly but with smiles and
+friendly admonitions.  When he brought rare and lovely flowers in his
+pallium and entreated her to give them to Selene in the name of her
+friend at Lochias, she would take them and promise to place them in her
+room; but she always said it would do neither him nor her any good at all
+that Selene should know from whom they came.  After such repulses he well
+knew how to flatter and coax her with appealing words, but he had never
+dared to defy her or to gain his end by force.  When the flowers were
+placed in the room Mary looked at them much oftener than Selene did, and
+when Antinous had been long absent the deformed girl longed to see him
+again, and would pace restlessly up and down between the garden gate and
+her friend's little house.  She, like him, dreamed of an angel, and the
+angel of whom she dreamed was exactly like himself.  In all her prayers
+she included the name of the handsome heathen and a soft tenderness in
+which a gentle pity was often infused, a grief for his unredeemed soul,
+was inseparable from all her thoughts of him.
+
+Hannah was informed by her of each of the young man's visits, and as
+often as Mary mentioned Antinous the deaconess seemed anxious and desired
+her to threaten to call the gate-keeper to him.  The widow knew full well
+who her patient's indefatigable admirer was, for she had once heard him
+speaking to Mastor, and she had asked the slave, who availed himself of
+every spare moment to attend the services of the Christians, who the lad
+was.  All Alexandria, nay all the Empire, knew the name of the most
+beautiful youth of his time, the spoilt favorite of Caesar.  Even Hannah
+had heard of him and knew that poets sang his praises and heathen women
+were eager to obtain a glance from his eyes.  She knew how devoid of all
+morality were the lives of the nobles at Rome, and Antinous appeared to
+her as a splendid falcon that wheels above a dove to swoop down upon it
+at a favorable moment and to tear it in its beak and talons.  Hannah also
+knew that Selene was acquainted with Antinous, that it was he who had
+formerly rescued her from the big dog and afterward saved her from the
+water; but that Selene, who was now recovering, did not know who her
+preserver had been on this second occasion was clear from all that she
+said.
+
+Towards the end of February Antinous had come on three days in
+succession, and Hannah now took the step of begging the bishop, Eumenes,
+to give the gate keeper strict injunctions to look out for the young man
+and to forbid his entering the garden, even with force if it should prove
+necessary.
+
+But "love laughs at locksmiths" and finds its way through locked doors,
+and Antinous succeeded all the same in finding his way into Paulina's
+garden.  On one of these occasions he was so happy to surprise Selene,
+as, supported on a stick and accompanied by a fair-haired boy and dame
+Hannah herself, she hobbled up and down.
+
+Antinous had learnt to regard everything crippled or defective with
+aversion, as a monstrous failure of nature's plastic harmony, but to pity
+it tenderly; but now he felt quite differently.  Mary with her humpback
+had at first horrified him; now he was always glad to see her though she
+always crossed his wishes; and poor lame Selene, who had been mocked at
+by the street boys as she limped along, seemed to him more adorable than
+ever.  How lovely were her face and form, how peculiar her way of
+walking--she did not limp--no, she swayed along the garden.  Thus, as he
+said to himself afterwards, the Nereids are borne along on the undulating
+waves.  Love is easily satisfied, nor is this strange, for it raises all
+that comes within its embrace to a loftier level of existence.  In the
+light of love weakness is a virtue and want an additional charm.
+
+But the Bithynian's visits were not the widow's only cares; though she
+bore the others, it is true, not anxiously but with pleasure.  Her
+household had increased by two living souls, and her income was very
+small.  That her patient might not want, she had to work with her own
+hands while she superintended the girls in the factory, and to carry home
+with her in the evening papyrus-leaves, not only for Mary, but for
+herself too, and to glue them together during the long hours of the
+night.  As soon as Selene's condition improved, she too helped willingly
+and diligently, but for many weeks the convalescent had to give up every
+kind of employment.
+
+Mary often looked at Hannah in silent trouble, for she looked very pale.
+After she had, on one occasion fallen in a fainting fit, the deformed
+girl had gathered courage and had represented to her that though she
+ought indeed to put out at interest the talent intrusted to her by the
+Lord, she ought not to spend it recklessly.  She was giving herself no
+rest, working day and night; visiting the poor and sick in her hours of
+recreation just as she used, and if she did not give herself more rest
+would soon need nursing instead of nursing others.
+
+"At any rate," urged Mary, "give yourself a little indispensable sleep at
+night."
+
+"We must live," replied Hannah, "and I dare not borrow, for I may never
+be able to repay."
+
+"Then beg Paulina to remit your house-rent; she will do so gladly."
+
+"No," said Hannah, decidedly.  "The rent of this little house goes to
+benefit my poor people, and you know how badly they want it.  What we
+give we lend to the Lord, and he taxes no man above his ability."
+
+Selene was now well, but the physician had said that no human skill could
+ever cure her of her lameness.  She had become Hannah's daughter, and
+blind Helios the son of the house.
+
+Arsinoe was only allowed to see her sister rarely and always accompanied
+by her protectress, and she and Selene never were able to have any
+unchecked and open conversation.  The steward's eldest daughter was now
+contented and cheerful, while the younger was not only saddened by the
+disappearance of her lover, but also, from being unhappy in her new home,
+she had become fractious and easily moved to shed tears.  All was well
+with the younger orphans; they were often taken to see Selene, and spoke
+with affection of their new parents.
+
+As she got well her help diminished the strain on her two friends, and in
+the beginning of March a call came to the widow which, if she followed
+it, must give their simple existence a new aspect.
+
+In Upper Egypt certain Christian fraternities had been established, and
+one of these had addressed a prayer to the great mother-community at
+Alexandria, that it would send to them a presbyter, a deacon and a
+deaconess capable of organizing and guiding the believers and catechumens
+in the province of Hermopolis where they were already numbered by
+thousands.  The life of the community and the care of the poor, and sick
+in the outlying districts required organization by experienced hands, and
+Hannah had been asked whether she could make up her mind to leave the
+metropolis and carry on the work of benevolence at Besa in an extended
+sphere.
+
+She would there have a pleasant house, a palm-garden, and gifts from the
+congregation which would secure not merely her own maintenance, but that
+of her adopted children.
+
+Hannah was bound to Alexandria by many ties; in the first place she clung
+to the poor and sick, many of whom had grown very dear to her, and how
+many girls who had gone astray had she rescued from evil in the factory
+alone!  She begged for a short time for reflection, and this was granted
+to her.  By the fifteenth of March she was to decide, but by the fifth
+she had already made up her mind, for while Hannah was in the papyrus-
+factory Antinous had succeeded in getting into Paulina's garden shortly
+before sunset and in stealing close up to Hannah's house.  Mary again
+observed him as he approached and signed to him to go, in her usual
+pleasant way; but the Bithynian was more excited than usual; he seized
+her hand and clasped her with urgent warmth as he implored her to be
+merciful.  She endeavored at once to free herself, but he would not let
+her go, but cried in coaxing tones:
+
+"I must see her and speak to her to-day, dear, good Mary, only this
+once!"  And before she could prevent it he had kissed her forehead and
+had flown into the house to Selene.  The little hunchback did not know
+what had happened to her; confused and almost paralyzed by conflicting
+feelings she stood shame-faced, gazing at the ground.  She felt that
+something quite extraordinary had happened to her, but this wonderful
+something radiated a dazzling splendor, and since this had risen for her,
+for poor Mary, a feeling of pride quite new to her mingled with the shame
+and indignation that filled her soul.  She needed a few minutes to
+collect herself and to recover a sense of her duty, and those few minutes
+were made good use of by Antinous.
+
+He flew with long steps into the room in which, on that never-to-be-
+forgotten night, he had laid Selene on the couch, and even at the
+threshold he called her by her name.  She started and laid aside the book
+out of which she was reading to her blind brother.  He called a second
+time, beseechingly.  Selene recognized him and asked calmly:
+
+"Do you want me, or dame Hannah?"
+
+"You, you!"  he cried passionately.  "Oh Selene, I pulled you out of the
+water, and since that night I have never ceased to think of you and I
+must die for love of you.  Have your thoughts never, never met mine on
+the way to you?  Are you still and always as cold, as passive as you were
+then when you belonged half to life and half to death?  For months have I
+prowled round this house as the shade of a dead man haunts the spot where
+he had left all that was dear to him on earth, and I have never been able
+to tell you what I feel for you?"  As he spoke the lad fell on the ground
+before her and tried to clasp her knees; but she said reproachfully:
+
+"What does all this mean?  Stand up and compose yourself."
+
+"Oh! let me, let me--" he besought her.  "Do not be so cold and so hard;
+have pity on me and do not reject me!"
+
+"Stand up," repeated the girl.  "I will certainly not reproach you--I owe
+you thanks on the contrary."
+
+"Not thanks, but love--a little love is all I ask."
+
+"I try to love all men," replied the girl, "and so I love you because you
+have shown me very much kindness."
+
+"Selene, Selene!"  he exclaimed in joyful triumph.  He threw himself
+again at her feet and passionately seized her right hand; but hardly had
+he taken it in his own when Mary, scarlet with agitation, rushed into the
+room.  In a husky voice, full of hatred and fury, she commanded him to
+leave the house at once, and when he attempted again to besiege her ear
+with entreaties she cried out:
+
+"If you do not obey I will call the men in to help us, who are out there
+attending to the flowers.  I ask you, will you obey or will you not?"
+
+"Why are you so cruel, Mary?"  asked the blind boy.  "This man is good
+and kind and tells Selene he loves her."
+
+Antinous pointed to the child with an imploring gesture but Mary was
+already by the window and was raising her hand to her mouth to make her
+call heard.
+
+"Don't, don't," cried Antinous.  "I am going at once."
+
+And he went slowly and silently towards the door, still gazing at Selene
+with passionate ardor; then he quitted the room groaning with shame and
+disappointment, though still with a look of radiant pride as though he
+had achieved some great deed.  In the garden he was met by Hannah, who
+immediately hastened with accelerated steps to her own house where she
+found Mary sobbing violently and dissolved in tears.
+
+The widow was soon informed of all that had occurred in her absence, and
+an hour later she had announced to the bishop that she would accept the
+call to Besa and was ready to start for Upper Egypt.
+
+"With your foster-children?"  asked Eumenes.
+
+"Yes.  It was indeed Selene's most earnest wish to be baptized by you,
+but as a year of probation is required--"
+
+"I will perform the rite to-morrow morning."
+
+"To-morrow, Father?"
+
+"Yes, Sister, in all confidence.  She buried the old man in the waves of
+the sea, and before we were her teachers she had gone through the school
+and discipline of life.  While she was yet a heathen she had taken up her
+cross and proved herself as faithful as though she were a child of the
+Lord.  All that was lacking to her--Faith, Love and Hope--she has found
+under your roof.  I thank thee for this soul thou hast found Sister, in
+the name of the Lord."
+
+"Not I, not I," said  the widow.  "Her heart was frozen, but it is not I
+but the innocent faith of the blind child that has melted it."
+
+"She owes her salvation to him and to you," replied the bishop, "and they
+both shall be baptized together.  We will give the lovely boy the name of
+the fairest of the disciples, and call him John.  Selene for the future,
+if she herself likes it, shall be known as Martha."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+If one only knew who it is all for
+Love laughs at locksmiths
+Wide world between the purpose and the deed
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPEROR, BY GEORG EBERS, V9 ***
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