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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Arachne, by Georg Ebers, Volume 2.
+#70 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: Arachne, Volume 2.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5509]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 17, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V2 ***
+
+
+
+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.]
+
+
+
+
+
+ARACHNE
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+
+In the extreme northern portion of the little city of Tennis a large,
+perfectly plain whitewashed building stood on an open, grass-grown
+square.
+
+The side facing the north rested upon a solid substructure of hard blocks
+of hewn stone washed by the waves.
+
+This protecting wall extended along both sides of the long, plain
+edifice, and prevented the water from overflowing the open space which
+belonged to it.
+
+Archias, the owner of the largest weaving establishment in Tennis, the
+father of the Alexandrian aristocrat who had arrived the evening before,
+was the owner of the house, as well as of the broad plain on which he had
+had it built, with the indestructible sea wall, to serve as a storehouse
+to receive the supplies of linen, flax, and wool which were manufactured
+in his factories.
+
+It was favourably situated for this purpose, for the raw materials could
+be moved from the ships which brought them to Tennis directly into the
+building.  But as the factories were at a considerable distance, the
+transportation required much time and expense, and therefore Archias had
+had a canal dug connecting the workshops with the water, and at its end
+erected a new storehouse, which rendered a second transportation of the
+ships' cargoes unnecessary.
+
+The white mansion had not yet been devoted to any other purpose when the
+owner determined to offer the spacious empty rooms of the ware house to
+his nephews, the sculptors Hermon and Myrtilus, for the production of two
+works with whose completion he associated expectations of good fortune
+both for the young artists, who were his nephews and wards, and himself.
+
+The very extensive building which now contained the studios and spacious
+living apartments for the sculptors and their slaves would also have
+afforded ample room for his daughter and her attendants, but Daphne had
+learned from the reports of the artists that rats, mice, and other
+disagreeable vermin shared the former storehouse with them, so she had
+preferred to have tents pitched in the large open space which belonged
+it.
+
+True, the broad field was exposed to the burning sun, and its soil was
+covered only with sand and pitiably scorched turf, but three palm trees,
+a few sunt acacias, two carob trees, a small clump of fig trees, and the
+superb, wide-branched sycamore on the extreme outer edge had won for it
+the proud name of a "garden."
+
+Now a great change in its favour had taken place, for Daphne's beautiful
+tent, with walls and top of blue and white striped sail-cloth, and the
+small adjoining tents of the same colours, gave it a brighter aspect.
+
+The very roomy main tent contained the splendidly furnished sitting and
+dining rooms.  The beds occupied by Daphne and her companion, Chrysilla,
+had been placed in an adjoining one, which was nearly as large, and the
+cook, with his assistants, was quartered in a third.
+
+The head keeper, the master of the hounds, and most of the slaves
+remained in the transports which had followed the state galley.  Some had
+slept under the open sky beside the dog kennel hastily erected for
+Daphne's pack of hounds.
+
+So, on the morning after the wholly unexpected arrival of the owner's
+daughter, the "garden" in front of the white house, but yesterday
+a desolate field, resembled an encampment, whose busy life was varied
+and noisy enough.
+
+Slaves and freedmen had been astir before sunrise, for Daphne was up
+betimes in order to begin the hunt in the early hour when the birds left
+their secret nooks on the islands.
+
+Her cousins, the young sculptors, to please her, had gone out, too, but
+the sport did not last long; for when the market place of Tennis, just
+between the morning and noontide hours, was most crowded, the little
+boats which the hunters had used again touched the shore.
+
+With them and Daphne's servants seafaring men also left the boats--
+Biamite fishermen and boatmen, who knew the breeding places and nests of
+the feathered prey--and before them, barking loudly and shaking their
+dripping bodies, the young huntress's brown and white spotted dogs ran
+toward the tents.
+
+Dark-skinned slaves carried the game, which had been tied in bunches
+while in the boats, to the white house, where they laid three rows of
+large water fowl, upon the steps leading to the entrance.
+
+Daphne's arrows were supposed to have killed all these, but the master of
+the hunt had taken care to place among his mistress's booty some of the
+largest pelicans and vultures which had been shot by the others.
+
+Before retiring to her tent, she inspected the result of the shooting
+expedition and was satisfied.
+
+She had been told of the numbers of birds in this archipelago, but the
+quantity of game which had been killed far exceeded her greatest
+expectations, and her pleasant blue eyes sparkled with joy as she began
+to examine the birds which had been slaughtered in so short a time.
+
+Yet, ere she had finished the task, a slight shadow flitted over her
+well-formed and attractive though not beautiful features.
+
+The odour emanating from so many dead fowls, on which the sun, already
+high in the heavens, was shining, became disagreeable to her, and a
+strong sense of discomfort, whose cause, however, she did not seek, made
+her turn from them.
+
+The movement with which she did so was full of quiet, stately grace, and
+the admiring glance with which Hermon, a tall, black-bearded young man,
+watched it, showed that he knew how to value the exquisite symmetry of
+her figure.
+
+The somewhat full outlines of her form and the self-possession of her
+bearing would have led every one to think her a young matron rather than
+a girl; but the two artists who accompanied her on the shooting party had
+been intimate with her from childhood, and knew how much modesty and
+genuine kindness of heart were united with the resolute nature of this
+maiden, who numbered two and twenty years.
+
+Fair-haired Myrtilus seemed to pay little heed to the game which Gras,
+Archias's Bithynian house steward, was counting, but black-bearded Hermon
+had given it more attention, and when Daphne drew back he nodded
+approvingly, and pointing to the heap of motionless inhabitants of the
+air, exclaimed with sincere regret: "Fie upon us human wretches!  Would
+the most bloodthirsty hyena destroy such a number of living creatures in
+a few hours?  Other beasts of prey do not kill even one wretched sparrow
+more than they need to appease their hunger.  But we and you, tender-
+hearted priestess of a gracious goddess--leading us friends of the Muse--
+we pursue a different course!  What a mound of corpses!  And what will
+become of it?  Perhaps a few geese and ducks will go into the kitchen;
+but the rest--the red flamingoes and the brave pelicans who feed their
+young with their own blood?  They are only fit to throw away, for the
+Biamites eat no game that is shot, and your black slaves, too, would
+refuse to taste it.  So we destroy hundreds of lives for pastime.  Base
+word!  As if we had so many superfluous hours at our disposal ere we
+descend into Hades.  A philosopher among brutes would be entitled to cry
+out, 'Shame upon you, raging monster!'"
+
+"Shame on you, you perpetual grumbler," interrupted Daphne in an offended
+tone.  "Who would ever have thought it cruel to test the steady hand and
+the keen eye upon senseless animals in the joyous chase?  But what shall
+we call the fault-finder, who spoils his friend's innocent enjoyment of a
+happy morning by his sharp reproaches?"
+
+Hermon shrugged his shoulders, and, in a voice which expressed far more
+compassion than resentment, answered: "If this pile of dead birds pleases
+you, go on with the slaughter.  You can sometimes save the arrows and
+catch the swarming game with your hands.  If your lifeless victims yonder
+were human beings, after all, they would have cause to thank you; for
+what is existence?"
+
+"To these creatures, everything," said Myrtilus, the Alexandrian's other
+cousin, beckoning to Daphne, who had summoned him to her aid by a
+beseeching glance, to draw nearer.  "Gladly as I would always and
+everywhere uphold your cause, I can not do so this time.  Only look here!
+Your arrow merely broke the wing of yonder sea eagle, and he is just
+recovering from the shock.  What a magnificent fellow!  How wrathfully
+and vengefully his eyes sparkle!  How fiercely he stretches his brave
+head toward us in helpless fury, and--step back!--how vigorously, spite
+of the pain of his poor, wounded, drooping pinion, he flaps the other,
+and raises his yellow claws to punish his foes!  His plumage glistens and
+shines exquisitely where it lies smooth, and how savagely he puffs out
+the feathers on his neck!  A wonderful spectacle!  The embodiment of
+powerful life!  And the others by his side.  We transformed the poor
+creatures into a motionless, miserable mass, and just now they were
+cleaving the air with their strong wings, proclaiming by proud, glad
+cries to their families among the reeds their approach with an abundant
+store of prey.  Every one was a feast to the eyes before our arrows
+struck it, and now?  When Hermon, with his pitying heart, condemns this
+kind of hunting, he is right.  It deprives free, harmless creatures of
+their best possession--life--and us thereby of a pleasant sight.  In
+general, a bird's existence seems to me also of little value, but beauty,
+to me as to you, transcends everything else.  What would existence be
+without it? and wherever it appears, to injure it is infamous."
+
+Here a slight cough interrupted the young artist, and the moist glitter
+of his blue eyes also betrayed that he was suffering from an attack of
+severe pain in his lungs; but Daphne nodded assent to him, and to Hermon
+also, and commanded the steward Gras to take the birds out of her sight.
+
+"But," said the Bithynian, "our mistress will doubtless allow us at least
+to take the hard lower part of the pelicans' beaks, and the wing feathers
+of the flamingoes and birds of prey, to show our master on our return as
+trophies."
+
+"Trophies?" repeated  the  girl  scornfully.  "Hermon, you are better
+than I and the rest of us, and I see that you are right.  Where game
+flies toward us in such quantities, hunting becomes almost murder.  And
+successes won by so slight an exertion offer little charm.  The second
+expedition before sunset, Gras, shall be given up.  The master of the
+hounds, with his men and the dogs, will return home on the transports
+this very day.  I am disgusted with sport here.  Birds of prey, and those
+only when brought down from the air, would probably be the right game in
+this place."
+
+"Those are the very ones to which I would grant life," said Hermon,
+smiling, "because they enjoy it most."
+
+"Then we will at least save the sea eagle," cried Daphne, and ordered the
+steward, who was already having the dead fowl carried off, to care for
+the wounded bird of prey; but when the latter struck furiously with his
+beak at the Biamite who attempted to remove it, Hermon again turned to
+the girl, saying: "I thank you in the eagle's name for your good will,
+you best of women; but I fear even the most careful nursing will not help
+this wounded creature, for the higher one seeks to soar, the more surely
+he goes to destruction if his power of flight is broken.  Mine, too, was
+seriously injured."
+
+"Here?" asked  Daphne  anxiously.  "At this time, which is of such great
+importance to you and your art?"
+
+Then she interrupted herself to ask Myrtilus's opinion, but as he had
+gone away coughing, she continued, in a softer tone: "How anxious you
+can make one, Hermon!  Has anything really happened which clouds your
+pleasure in creating, and your hope of success?"
+
+"Let us wait," he answered, hastily throwing back his head, with its
+thick, waving raven locks.  "If, in leaping over the ditch, I should fall
+into the marsh, I must endure it, if thereby I can only reach the shore
+where my roses bloom!"
+
+"Then you fear that you have failed in the Demeter?" asked Daphne.
+
+"Failed?" repeated the other.  "That seems too strong.  Only the work is
+not proving as good as I originally expected.  For the head we both used
+a model--you will see--whose fitness could not be surpassed.  But the
+body!  Myrtilus knows how earnestly I laboured, and, without looking to
+the right or the left, devoted all my powers to the task of creation.
+True, the models did not remain.  But even had a magic spell doubled my
+ability, the toil would still have been futile.  The error is there; yet
+I am repairing it.  To be sure, many things must aid me in doing so, for
+which I now hope; who knows whether it will not again be in vain?  You
+are acquainted with my past life.  It has never yet granted me any great,
+complete success, and if I was occasionally permitted to pluck a flower,
+my hands were pricked by thorns and nettles!"
+
+He pursed up his lips as if to hiss the unfriendly fate, and Daphne felt
+that he, whose career she had watched from childhood with the interest of
+affection, and to whom, though she did not confess it even to herself,
+she had clung for years with far more than sisterly love, needed a kind
+word.
+
+Her heart ached, and it was difficult for her to assume the cheerful tone
+which she desired to use; but she succeeded, and her voice sounded gay
+and careless enough as she exclaimed to the by no means happy artist and
+Myrtilus, who was just returning: "Give up your foolish opposition, you
+obstinate men, and let me see what you have accomplished during this long
+time.  You promised my father that you would show your work to no one
+before him, but believe my words, if he were here he would give you back
+the pledge and lead me himself to the last production of your study.
+Compassion would compel you disobliging fellows to yield, if you could
+only imagine how curiosity tortures us women.  We can conquer it where
+more indifferent matters are concerned.  But here!--it need not make you
+vainer than you already are, but except my father, you are dearest in all
+the world to me.  And then, only listen!  In my character as priestess of
+Demeter I hereby release you from your vow, and thus from any evil
+consequences of your, moreover, very trivial guilt; for a father and
+daughter who live together, as I do with your uncle, are just the same as
+one person.  So come!  Wearied as I am by the miserable hunting excursion
+which caused me such vexation, in the presence of your works--rely upon
+it--I shall instantly be gay again, and all my life will thank you for
+your noble indulgence."
+
+While speaking, she walked toward the white house, beckoning to the young
+men with a winning, encouraging smile.
+
+It seemed to produce the effect intended, for the artists looked at
+each other irresolutely, and Hermon was already asking himself whether
+Daphne's arguments had convinced Myrtilus also, when the latter, in great
+excitement, called after her: "How gladly we would do it, but we must not
+fulfil your wish, for it was no light promise--no, your father exacted an
+oath.  He alone can absolve us from the obligation of showing him, before
+any one else, what we finish here.  It is not to be submitted to the
+judges until after he has seen it."
+
+"Listen to me!" Daphne interrupted with urgent warmth, and began to
+assail the artists with fresh entreaties.
+
+For the second time black-bearded Hermon seemed inclined to give up his
+resistance, but Myrtilus cried in zealous refusal: "For Hermon's sake,
+I insist upon my denial.  The judges must not talk about the work until
+both tasks are completed, for then each of us will be as good as certain
+of a prize.  I myself believe that the one for Demeter will fall to me."
+
+"But Hermon will succeed better with the Arachne?" asked Daphne eagerly.
+
+Myrtilus warmly assented, but Hermon exclaimed: "If I could only rely
+upon the good will of the judges!"
+
+"Why not?" the girl interrupted.  "My father is just, the king is an
+incorruptible connoisseur, and certainly yesterday evening you, too,
+believed the others to be honest men; as for your fellow-candidate
+Myrtilus, he will no more grudge a prize to you than to himself."
+
+"Why should he?"  asked Hermon, as if he, too, was perfectly sure of his
+friend.  "We have shared many a bit of bread together.  When we
+determined upon this competition each knew the other's ability.  Your
+father commissioned us to create peaceful Demeter, the patroness of
+agriculture, peace, marriage, and Arachne, the mortal who was the most
+skilful of spinners; for he is both a grain dealer and owner of spinning
+factories.  The best Demeter is to be placed in the Alexandrian temple of
+the goddess, to whose priestesses you belong; the less successful one in
+your own house in the city, but whose Demeter is destined for the
+sanctuary, I repeat, is now virtually decided.  Myrtilus will add this
+prize to the others, and grant me with all his heart the one for the
+Arachne.  The subject, at any rate, is better adapted to my art than to
+his, and so I should be tolerably certain of my cause.  Yet my anxiety
+about the verdict of the judges remains, for surely you know how much the
+majority are opposed to my tendency.  I, and the few Alexandrians who,
+following me, sacrifice beauty to truth, swim against the stream which
+bears you, Myrtilus, and those who are on your side, smoothly along.  I
+know that you do it from thorough conviction, but with other acknowledged
+great artists and our judges, you, too, demand beauty--always beauty.  Am
+I right, or wrong?  Is not any one who refuses to follow in the footsteps
+left by the ancients of Athens as certain of condemnation as the
+convicted thief or murderer?  But I will not follow the lead of the
+Athenians, inimitably great though they are in their own way, because I
+would fain be more than the ancients of Ilissus: a disciple and an
+Alexandrian."
+
+"The never-ending dispute," Myrtilus answered his fellow-artist, with a
+cordiality in which, nevertheless, there was a slight accent of pity.
+
+"Surely you know it, Daphne.  To me the ideal and its embodiment within
+the limits of the natural, according to the models of Phidias,
+Polycletus, and Myron is the highest goal, but he and his co-workers seek
+objects nearer at hand."
+
+"Or rather we found them," cried Hermon, interrupting his companion with
+angry positiveness.  "The city of Alexandria, which is growing with
+unprecedented vigour, is their home.  There, the place to which every
+race on earth sends a representative, the pulse of the whole world is
+throbbing.  There, whoever does not run with the rest is run over; there,
+but one thing is important--actual life.  Science has undertaken to
+fathom it, and the results which it gains with measures and numbers is of
+a different value and more lasting than that which the idle sport of the
+intellects of the older philosophers obtained.  But art, her nobler
+sister, must pursue the same paths.  To copy life as it is, to reproduce
+the real as it presents itself, not as it might or must be, is the task
+which I set myself.  If you would have me carve gods, whom man can not
+represent to himself except in his own form, allow me also to represent
+them as reality shows me mortals.  I will form them after the models of
+the greatest, highest, and best, and also, when the subject permits, in
+powerful action in accordance with my own power, but always as real men
+from head to foot.  We must also cling to the old symbols which those who
+order demand, because they serve as signs of recognition, and my Demeter,
+too, received the bundle of wheat."
+
+As the excited artist uttered this challenge a defiant glance rested upon
+his comrade and Daphne.  But Myrtilus, with a soothing gesture of the
+hand, answered: "What is the cause of this heat?  I at least watch your
+work with interest, and do not dispute your art so long as it does not
+cross the boundaries of the beautiful, which to me are those of art."
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted; the steward Gras brought a letter
+which a courier from Pelusium had just delivered.
+
+Thyone, the wife of Philippus, the commander of the strong border
+fortress of Pelusium, near Tennis, had written it.  She and her husband
+had been intimate friends of Hermon's father, who had served under the
+old general as hipparch, and through him had become well acquainted with
+his wealthy brother Archias and his relatives.
+
+The Alexandrian merchant had informed Philippus--whom, like all the
+world, he held in the highest honour as one of the former companions of
+Alexander the Great--of his daughter's journey, and his wife now
+announced her visit to Daphne.  She expected to reach Tennis that evening
+with her husband and several friends, and mentioned especially her
+anticipation of meeting Hermon, the son of her beloved Erigone and her
+husband's brave companion in arms.
+
+Daphne and Myrtilus received the announcement with pleasure; but
+Hermon, who only the day before had spoken of the old couple with great
+affection, seemed disturbed by the arrival of the unexpected guests.  To
+avoid them entirely appeared impossible even to him, but he declared in
+an embarrassed tone, and without giving any reason, that he should
+scarcely be able to devote the entire evening to Daphne and the
+Pelusinians.
+
+Then he turned quickly toward the house, to which a signal from his slave
+Bias summoned him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+As soon as Hermon had disappeared behind the door Daphne begged Myrtilus
+to accompany her into the tent.
+
+After taking their seats there, the anxious exclamation escaped her lips:
+"How excited he became again!  The stay in Tennis does not seem to agree
+with you--you are coughing, and father expected so much benefit to your
+ailment from the pure moist air, and to Hermon still more from the lonely
+life here in your society.  But I have rarely seen him more strongly
+enlisted in behalf of the tendency opposed to beauty."
+
+"Then your father must be satisfied with the good effect which our
+residence here has exerted upon me," replied Myrtilus.  "I know that he
+was thinking of my illness when he proposed to us to complete his
+commissions here.  Hermon--the good fellow!--could never have been
+induced to leave his Alexandria, had not the hope of thereby doing me a
+kindness induced him to follow me.  I will add it to the many for which
+I am already indebted to his friendship.  As for art, he will go his own
+way, and any opposition would be futile.  A goddess--he perceives it
+himself--was certainly the most unfortunate subject possible for his--"
+
+"Is his Demeter a complete failure?" asked Daphne anxiously.
+
+"Certainly  not,"  replied  Myrtilus  eagerly.
+
+"The head is even one of his very best.  Only the figure awakens grave
+doubts.  In the effort to be faithful to reality, the fear of making
+concessions to beauty, he lapsed into ungraceful angularity and a
+sturdiness which, in my opinion, would be unpleasing even in a mortal
+woman.  The excess of unbridled power again makes it self visible in the
+wonderfully gifted man.  Many things reached him too late, and others too
+soon."
+
+Daphne eagerly asked what he meant by these words, and Myrtilus replied:
+"Surely you know how he became a sculptor.  Your father had intended him
+to be his successor in business, but Hermon felt the vocation to become
+an artist--probably first in my studio--awake with intense force.  While
+I early placed myself under the instruction of the great Bryaxis, he was
+being trained for a merchant's life.  When he was to guide the reed in
+the countinghouse, he sketched; when he was sent to the harbour to direct
+the loading of the ships, he became absorbed in gazing at the statues
+placed there.  In the warehouse he secretly modelled, instead of
+attending to the bales of goods.  You are certainly aware what a sad
+breach occurred then, and how long Hermon was restrained before he
+succeeded in turning his back upon trade."
+
+"My father meant so kindly toward him," Daphne protested.  "He was
+appointed guardian to you both.  You are rich, and therefore he aided in
+every possible way your taste for art; but Hermon did not inherit from
+his parents a single drachm, and so my father saw the most serious
+struggles awaiting him if he devoted himself to sculpture.  And, besides,
+he had destined his nephew to become his successor, the head of one of
+the largest commercial houses in the city."
+
+"And in doing so," Myrtilus responded, "he believed he had made the best
+provision for his happiness.  But there is something peculiar in art.
+I know from your father himself how kind his intentions were when he
+withdrew his assistance from Hermon, and when he had escaped to the
+island of Rhodes, left him to make his own way during the first period of
+apprenticeship through which he passed there.  Necessity, he thought,
+would bring him back to where he had a life free from anxiety awaiting
+him.  But the result was different.  Far be it from me to blame the
+admirable Archias, yet had he permitted his ward to follow his true
+vocation earlier, it would have been better for him."
+
+"Then you think that he began to study too late?" asked Daphne eagerly.
+
+"Not too late," was the reply, "but with his passionate struggle to
+advance, an earlier commencement would have been more favourable.  While
+the companions of his own age were already doing independent work, he was
+still a student, and so it happened that he began for himself too soon."
+
+"Yet," Daphne answered, "can you deny that, directly after Hermon
+produced his first work which made his talent undeniable, my father again
+treated him like his own son?"
+
+"On the contrary," replied Myrtilus, "I remember only too well how
+Archias at that time, probably not entirely without your intercession,
+fairly showered gold upon his nephew, but unfortunately this abundance
+was by no means to his advantage."
+
+"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Daphne.  "Were not you, at that very time,
+in full possession of the great wealth inherited from your father and
+mother, and yet did you not work far beyond your strength?  Bryaxis--I
+heard him--was full of your praises, and yet entreated my father to use
+all his influence, as guardian, to warn you against overwork."
+
+"My kind master!"  cried Myrtilus, deeply moved.  "He was as anxious
+about me as a father."
+
+"Because he perceived that you were destined for great achievements."
+
+"And because it did not escape his penetration how much I needed care.
+My lungs, Daphne, my lungs--surely you know how the malicious disease
+became fatal to my clear mother, and to my brother and sister also.  All
+three sank prematurely into the grave, and for years the shades of my
+parents have been beckoning to me too.  When the cough shakes my chest,
+I see Charon raise his oar and invite me also to enter his sable boat."
+
+"But you just assured me that you were doing well," observed the girl.
+"The cough alone makes me a little anxious.  If you could only see for
+yourself what a beautiful colour the pure air has given your cheeks!"
+
+"This flush," replied Myrtilus gravely, "is the sunset of life's closing
+day, not the dawn of approaching convalescence.  But let us drop the
+subject.  I allude to these sorrowful things only to prevent your praises
+of me at Hermon's expense.  True, even while a student I possessed wealth
+far beyond my needs, but the early deaths of my brother and sister had
+taught me even then to be economical of the brief span of life allotted
+to me.  Hermon, on the contrary, was overflowing with manly vigour, and
+the strongest among the Ephebi in the wrestling school.  After three
+nights' revel he would not even feel weary, and how difficult the women
+made it for the handsome, black-bearded fellow to commence his work
+early!  Did you ever ask yourself why young steeds are not broken in
+flowery meadows, but upon sand?  Nothing which attracts their attention
+and awakens their desires must surround them; but your father's gold
+led Hermon, ere the season of apprenticeship was over, into the most
+luxuriant clover fields.  Honour and respect the handsome, hot-blooded
+youth that, nevertheless, he allowed himself to be diverted from work
+only a short time and soon resumed it with ardent zeal, at first in
+superabundance, and then amid fresh need and privation."
+
+"O Myrtilus," the girl interrupted, "how terribly I suffered in those
+days!  For the first time the gods made me experience that there are
+black clouds, as well as bright sunshine, in the human soul.  For weeks
+an impassable gulf separated me from my father, with whom I had always
+had one heart and soul.  But I never saw him as he was then.  The first
+prize had been awarded to you for your Aphrodite, radiant in marvellous
+beauty, and your brow had also been already crowned for your statue of
+Alexander, when Hermon stepped forward with his works.  They were at the
+same time the first which were to show what he believed to be the true
+mission of art--a hideous hawker, hide in hand, praising his wares with
+open mouth, and the struggling Maenads.  Surely you know the horrible
+women who throw one another on the ground, tearing and rending with
+bestial fury.  The spectacle of these fruits of the industry of one dear
+to me grieved me also, and I could not understand how you and the others
+saw anything to admire in them.  And my father!  At the sight of these
+things the colour faded from his cheeks and lips, and, as if by virtue
+of his guardianship he had a right to direct Hermon in the paths of art
+also, he forbade his ward to waste any more time in such horrible
+scarecrows, and awaken loathing and wrath instead of gratification,
+exultation, and joy.  You know the consequences, but you do not know how
+my heart ached when Hermon, frantic with wounded pride and indignation,
+turned his back upon my father and severed every tie that united him to
+us.  In spite of his deep vexation and the unbridled violence with which
+the nephew had allowed himself to address his uncle, my father did not
+dream of withholding his assistance from him.  But Hermon no longer came
+to our house, and when I sent for him to bring him to reason, he
+positively declared that he would not accept another obolus from my
+father--he would rather starve than permit any one to dictate to him in
+the choice of his subjects.  Liberty was worth more than his uncle's
+gold.  Yet my father sent him his annual allowance."
+
+"But he refused it," added Myrtilus.  "I remember that day well, how I
+tried to persuade him, and, when he persisted in his intention, besought
+him to accept from my abundance what he needed.  But this, too, he
+resolutely refused, though at that time I was already so deeply in his
+debt that I could not repay him at all with paltry money."
+
+"You are thinking of the devotion with which he nursed you when you were
+so ill?"  asked Daphne.
+
+"Certainly; yet not of that alone," was the reply.  "You do not know how
+he stood by me in the worst days.  Who was it that after my first great
+successes, when base envy clouded many an hour of my life, rejoiced with
+me as though he himself had won the laurel?  It was he, the ambitious
+artist, though recognition held even farther aloof from his creations
+than success.  And when, just at that time, the insidious disease
+attacked me more cruelly than ever, he devoted himself to me like a
+loving brother.  While formerly, in the overflowing joy of existence,
+he had revelled all day and caroused all night, how often he paused in
+the rush of gaiety to exchange the festal hall for a place beside my
+couch, frequently remaining there until Eos dyed the east, that he might
+hold my fevered hand and support my shaken frame!  Frequently too, when
+already garlanded for some gay banquet, he took the flowers from his head
+and devoted the night to his friend, that he might not leave him to the
+attendance of the slaves.  It is owing to him, and the care and skill of
+the great leech Erasistratus, that I am still standing before you alive
+and can praise what my Hermon was and proved himself to me in those days.
+Yet I must also accuse him of a wrong; to this hour I bear him a grudge
+for having, in those sorrowful hours, refused to share my property with
+me fraternally.  What manly pride would have cheerfully permitted him to
+accept was opposed by the defiant desire to show me, your father, you,
+the whole world, that he would depend upon himself, and needed assistance
+neither from human beings nor even the gods.  In the same way, while
+working, he obstinately rejected my counsel and my help, though the Muse
+grants me some things which he unfortunately lacks.  Great as his talent
+is, firmly as I believe that he will yet succeed some day in creating
+something grand, nay, perhaps something mighty, the unbelieving disciple
+of Straton lacks the power of comprehending the august dignity, the
+superhuman majesty of the divine nature, and he does not succeed in
+representing the bewitching charm of woman, because he hates it as the
+bull hates a red rag.  Only once hitherto has he been successful, and
+that was with your bust."
+
+Daphne's cheeks suddenly flamed with a burning flush, and feeling it she
+raised her feather fan to her eyes, and with forced indifference
+murmured: "We were good friends from our earliest childhood.  And,
+besides, how small is the charm with which the artist who chooses me for
+a model has to deal!"
+
+"It is rather an unusually fascinating one," Myrtilus asserted
+resolutely.  "I have no idea of flattering you, and you are certainly
+aware that I do not number you among the beauties of Alexandria.  But
+instead of the delicate, symmetrical features which artists need, the
+gods bestowed upon you a face which wins all hearts, even those of women,
+because it is a mirror of genuine, helpful, womanly kindness, a sincere
+disposition, and a healthy, receptive mind.  To reproduce such a face,
+not exactly beautiful, and yet bewitching, is the hardest possible task,
+and Hermon, I repeat it, has succeeded.  You are the only one of your
+noble sex who inspires the motherless man with respect, and for whom he
+feels more than a fleeting fancy.  What does he not owe you?  After the
+bridge which united him to his uncle and paternal friend had been so
+suddenly broken, it was you who rebuilt it.  Now, I think, it is stronger
+than ever.  I could not imagine anything that would induce him to give
+you up; and all honour to your father, who, instead of bearing the
+insubordinate fellow a grudge, only drew him more warmly to his heart,
+and gave us two commissions which will permit each to do his best.  If I
+see clearly, the daughter of Archias is closely connected with this
+admirable deed."
+
+"Of course," replied Daphne, "my father discussed his intention with me,
+but the thought was entirely his own.  True, Hermon's Street-Boy eating
+Figs was not exactly according to his taste, but it pleased him better
+than his former works, and I agree with Euphranor, it is remarkably true
+to nature.  My father perceived this too.  Besides, he is a merchant who
+sets a high value upon what he has earned, and Hermon's refusal of his
+gold startled him.  Then the good man also saw how nobly, in spite of his
+wild life, his obstinacy, and the work so unpleasing to him, his nephew
+always showed the noble impulses inherited from his brave father, and
+thus Hermon gained the day."
+
+"But what would have become of him last year, after the mortifying
+rejection of his model of The Happy Return Home for the harbour of
+Eunostus," asked Myrtilus, "if you and your encouragement had not
+cheered him?"
+
+"That verdict, too, was abominable!" exclaimed Daphne indignantly.  "The
+mother opening her arms to the returning son was unlovely, it is true,
+and did not please me either; but the youth with the travelling hat and
+staff is magnificent in his vigour and natural action."
+
+"That opinion, as you know, is mine also," replied Myrtilus.  "In the
+mother the expression was intended to take the place of beauty.  For the
+returning son, as well as for the fig-eater, he found a suitable model.
+True, the best was at his disposal for his Demeter."
+
+Here he hesitated; but Daphne so urgently asked to know what he, who had
+already denied her admission to the studios, was now again withholding
+from her, that, smiling indulgently, he added: "Then I must probably
+consent to tell in advance the secret with which you were to be
+surprised.  Before him, as well as before me, hovered--since you wish to
+know it--in Alexandria, when we first began to model the head of the
+goddess, a certain charming face which is as dear to one as to the
+other."
+
+Daphne, joyously excited, held out her hand to the artist, exclaiming:
+"Oh, how kind that is!  Yet how was it possible, since I posed neither to
+him nor to you?"
+
+"Hermon had finished your bust only a short time before, and you
+permitted me to use your head for my statue of the goddess of Peace,
+which went down with the ship on the voyage to Ostia.  This was at the
+disposal of us both in three or four reproductions, and, besides, it
+hovered before our mental vision clearly enough.  When the time to show
+you our work arrives, you will be surprised to discover how differently
+two persons see and copy the same object."
+
+"Now that I know so much, and have a certain share in your works, I
+insist upon seeing them!" cried Daphne with far greater impetuosity than
+usual.  "Tell Hermon so, and remind him that I shall at any rate expect
+him to meet the Pelusinian guests at the banquet.  Threaten him seriously
+with my grave displeasure if he persists in leaving it speedily."
+
+"I will not fail to do my part," replied Myrtilus; "but as to your wish
+to see the two Demeters--"
+
+"That will come to pass," interrupted Daphne, "as soon as we three are
+together again like a clover leaf."  She returned the sculptor's farewell
+greeting as she spoke, but before he reached the entrance to the tent she
+again detained him with the exclamation: "Only this one thing more: Does
+Hermon deceive himself when he hopes so confidently for success with the
+weaver, Arachne?"
+
+"Hardly--if the model whom he desires does not fail him."
+
+"Is she beautiful, and did he find her here in Tennis?" asked Daphne,
+trying to assume an indifferent manner; but Myrtilus was not deceived,
+and answered gaily: "That's the way people question children to find out
+things.  Farewell until the banquet, fair curiosity!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The slave Bias had not gone to the hunting party with his master.  He had
+never been fit for such expeditions, since the Egyptian guard who took
+him to the slave market for sale crippled the arch-traitor's son's left
+leg by a blow, but he was all the more useful in the house, and even the
+keenest eye could scarcely now perceive the injury which lessened his
+commercial value.
+
+He had prepared everything his master would need to shoot the birds very
+early in the morning, and after helping the men push the boats into the
+water, he, too, remained out of doors.
+
+The old Nubian doorkeeper's little badger dog ran to meet him, as usual,
+barking loudly, and startled a flock of sparrows, which flew up directly
+in front of Bias and fluttered to and fro in confusion.
+
+The slave regarded this as an infallible omen, and when Stephanion,
+Daphne's maid, who had grown gray in the household of Archias, and though
+a freed woman still worked in the old way, came out of the tent, he
+called to her the gay Greek greeting, "Rejoice!" pointed to the sparrows,
+and eagerly continued: "How one flies above another! how they flutter and
+chirp and twitter!  It will be a busy day."
+
+Stephanion thought this interpretation of the ordinary action of the
+birds very consistent with Bias's wisdom, which was highly esteemed in
+the household of Archias, and it also just suited her inclination to chat
+with him for a while, especially as she had brought a great deal of news
+from Alexandria.
+
+By way of introduction she mentioned the marriages and deaths in their
+circle of acquaintances, bond and free, and then confided to the slave
+what had induced her mistress to remain so long absent from her father,
+whom she usually left alone for only a few hours at the utmost.
+
+Archias himself had sent her here, after young Philotas, who was now
+apparently wooing her with better success than other suitors, had spoken
+of the enormous booty which one of his friends had brought from a
+shooting expedition at Tennis, and Daphne had expressed a wish to empty
+her quiver there too.
+
+True, Philotas himself had been eager to guide the hunting party, but
+Daphne declined his escort because--so the maid asserted--she cared far
+more about meeting her cousins, the sculptors, than for the chase.  Her
+mistress had frankly told her so, but her father was delighted to hear
+her express a wish, because for several months she had been so quiet and
+listless that she, Stephanion, had become anxious about her.  Meanwhile,
+Daphne had tried honestly to conceal her feelings from the old man,
+but such games of hide and seek were useless against the master's keen
+penetration.  He spared no pains in the preparations for the journey,
+and the girl now seemed already transformed.  This was caused solely by
+meeting her cousins again; but if any one should ask her whether Daphne
+preferred Myrtilus or Hermon, she could not give a positive answer.
+
+"Cautious inquiry saves recantation," replied Bias importantly.  "Yet you
+may believe my experience, it is Myrtilus.  Fame inspires love, and what
+the world will not grant my master, in spite of his great talent, it
+conceded to the other long ago.  And, besides, we are not starving; but
+Myrtilus is as rich as King Croesus of Sardis.  Not that Daphne, who is
+stifling in gold herself, would care about that, but whoever knows life
+knows--where doves are, doves will fly."
+
+Stephanion, however, was of a different opinion, not only because Daphne
+talked far more about the black-bearded cousin than the fair one, but
+because she knew the girl, and was seldom mistaken in such matters.  She
+would not deny that Daphne was also fond of Myrtilus.  Yet probably
+neither of the artists, but Philotas, would lead home the bride, for he
+was related to the royal family--a fine, handsome man; and, besides, her
+father preferred him to the other suitors who hovered around her as flies
+buzzed about honey.  Of course, matters would be more favourable to
+Philotas in any other household.  Who else in Alexandria would consult
+the daughter long, when he was choosing her future husband?  But Archias
+was a white raven among fathers, and would never force his only child to
+do anything.
+
+Marrying and loving, however, were two different affairs.  If Eros had
+the final decision, her choice might perhaps fall on one of the artists.
+
+Here she was interrupted by the slave's indignant exclamation: "What
+contradictions!  'Woman's hair is long, but her wit is short,' says the
+proverb.  'Waiting is the merchant's wisdom,' I have heard your master
+say more than once, and to obey the words of shrewd people is the best
+plan for those who are not so wise.  Meanwhile, I am of the opinion that
+curiosity alone brought Daphne--who, after all, is only a woman--to this
+place.  She wants to see the statues of Demeter which her father ordered
+from us."
+
+"And the Arachne?" asked the maid.  This was an opportune question to the
+slave--how often he had heard the artists utter the word "Arachne!"--and
+his pride of education had suffered from the consciousness that he knew
+nothing about her except the name, which in Greek meant "the spider."
+
+Some special story must surely be associated with this Arachne, for which
+his master desired to use his young countrywoman, Ledscha, as a model,
+and whose statues Archias intended to place in his house in Alexandria
+and in the great weaving establishment at Tennis beside the statue of
+Demeter.
+
+Stephanion, a Greek woman who grew up in a Macedonian household, must
+know something about her.
+
+So he cautiously turned the conversation to the spinner Arachne, and when
+Stephanion entered into it, admitted that he, too, was curious to learn
+in what way the sculptors would represent her.
+
+"Yes," replied the maid, "my mistress has more than once racked her
+brains over that, and Archias too.  Perhaps they will carve her as a girl
+at work in the house of her father Idmon, the purple dyer of Colophon."
+
+"Never," replied Bias in a tone of dissent.  "Just imagine how the loom
+would look wrought in gold and ivory!"
+
+"I thought so too," said Stephanion, in apology for the foolish idea."
+Daphne thinks that the two will model her in different ways: Myrtilus,
+as mistress in the weaving room, showing with proud delight a piece just
+completed to the nymphs from the Pactolus and other rivers, who sought
+her at Colophon to admire her work; but Hermon, after she aroused the
+wrath of Athene because she dared to weave into the hangings the love
+adventures of the gods with mortal women."
+
+"Father Zeus as a swan toying with Leda," replied Bias as confidently as
+if Arachne's works were before his eyes, "and in the form of a bull
+bearing away Europa, the chaste Artemis bending over the sleeping
+Endymion."
+
+"How that pleases you men!" interrupted the maid, striking him lightly on
+the arm with the duster which she had brought from the tent.  "But ought
+the virgin Athene to be blamed because she punished the weaver who, with
+all her skill, was only a mortal woman, for thus exposing her divine
+kindred?"
+
+"Certainly not," replied Bias, and Stephanion went on eagerly: "And when
+the great Athene, who invented weaving and protects weavers, condescended
+to compete with Arachne, and was excelled by her, surely her gall must
+have overflowed.  Whoever is just will scarcely blame her for striking
+the audacious conqueror on the brow with the weaver's shuttle."
+
+"It is that very thing," replied Bias modestly, "which to a short-sighted
+fool like myself--may the great goddess not bear me a grudge for it!--
+never seemed just in her.  Even the mortal who succumbs in a fair fight
+ought not to be enraged against the victor.  At least, so I was taught.
+But what, I ask myself, when I think of the stones which were flung at
+Hermon's struggling Maenads, could be less suited for imitation than two
+women, one of whom strikes the other?"
+
+"The woman who in her desperation at that blow desires to hang herself,
+must produce a still more horrible impression," replied Stephanion.
+"Probably she will be represented as Athene releases her from the noose
+rather than when, as a punishment for her insolence, she transforms
+Arachne into a spider."
+
+"That she might be permitted, in the form of an insect, to make artistic
+webs until the end of her life," the slave, now sufficiently well
+informed, added importantly.  "Since that transformation, as you know,
+the spider has been called by the Greeks Arachne.  Perhaps--I always
+thought so--Hermon will represent her twisting the rope with which she is
+to kill herself.  You have seen many of our works, and know that we love
+the terrible."
+
+"Oh, let me go into your studio!" the maid now entreated no less urgently
+than her mistress had done a short time before, but her wish, too,
+remained ungratified.
+
+"The  sculptors,"  Bias  truthfully  asserted, "always kept their
+workrooms carefully locked."  They were as inaccessible as the strongest
+fortress, and it was wise, less on account of curious spectators, from
+whom there was nothing to fear, than of the thievish propensities of the
+people.  The statues, by Archias's orders, were to be executed in
+chryselephantine work, and the gold and ivory which this required might
+only too easily awaken the vice of cupidity in the honest and frugal
+Biamites.  So nothing could be done about it, not to mention the fact
+that he was forbidden, on pain of being sold to work in a stone quarry,
+to open the studio to any one without his master's consent.
+
+So the maid, too, was obliged to submit, and the sacrifice was rendered
+easier for her because, just at that moment, a young female slave called
+her back to the tent where Chrysilla, Daphne's companion, a matron who
+belonged to a distinguished Greek family, needed her services.
+
+Bias, rejoicing that he had at last learned, without exposing his own
+ignorance, the story of the much-discussed Arachne, returned to the
+house, where he remained until Daphne came back from shooting with her
+companions.  While the latter were talking about the birds they had
+killed, Bias went out of doors; but he was forced to give up his desire
+to listen to a conversation which was exactly suited to arrest his
+attention, for after the first few sentences he perceived behind the
+thorny acacias in the "garden" his countrywoman Ledscha.
+
+So she was keeping her promise.  He recognised her plainly, in spite of
+the veil which covered the back of her head and the lower portion of her
+face.  Her black eyes were visible, and what a sinister light shone in
+them as she fixed them sometimes on Daphne, sometimes on Hermon, who
+stood talking together by the steps!
+
+The evening before Bias had caught a glimpse of this passionate
+creature's agitated soul.  If anything happened here that incensed or
+wounded her she would be capable of committing some unprecedented act
+before the very master's honoured guest.
+
+To prevent this was a duty to the master whom he loved, and against whom
+he had only warned Ledscha because he was reluctant to see a free maiden
+of his own race placed on a level with the venal Alexandrian models, but
+still more because any serious love affair between Hermon and the Biamite
+might bring disastrous consequences upon both, and therefore also on
+himself.  He knew that the free men of his little nation would not suffer
+an insult offered by a Greek to a virgin daughter of their lineage to
+pass unavenged.
+
+True, in his bondage he had by no means remained free from all the bad
+qualities of slaves, but he was faithfully devoted to his master, who had
+imposed upon him a great debt of gratitude; for though, during the trying
+period of variance with his rich and generous uncle, Hermon had often
+been offered so large a sum for him that it would have relieved the
+artist from want, he could not be induced to yield his "wise and faithful
+Bias" to another.  The slave had sworn to himself that he would never
+forget this, and he kept his oath.
+
+Freedmen and slaves were moving to and fro in the large open square
+before him, amid the barking of the dogs and the shouts of the male and
+female venders of fruit, vegetables, and fish, who hoped to dispose of
+their wares in the kitchen tent of the wealthy strangers.
+
+The single veiled woman attracted no attention here, but Bias kept his
+gaze fixed steadily upon her, and as she curved her little slender hand
+above her brow to shade her watchful eyes from the dazzling sunlight, and
+set her beautifully arched foot on a stone near one of the trees in order
+to gain a better view, he thought of the story of the weaver which he had
+just heard.
+
+Though the stillness of the hot noontide was interrupted by many sounds,
+it exerted a bewitching influence over him.
+
+Ledscha seemed like the embodiment of some great danger, and when she
+lowered one arm and raised the other to protect herself again from the
+radiance of the noonday sun, he started; for through the brain of the
+usually fearless man darted the thought that now the nimble spiderlegs
+were moving to draw him toward her, entwine him, and suck his heart's
+blood.
+
+The illusion lasted only a few brief moments, but when it vanished and
+the girl had regained the figure of an unusually slender, veiled Biamite
+woman, he shook his head with a sigh of relief, for never had such a
+vision appeared to him in broad noonday and while awake, and it must have
+been sent to warn him and his master against this uncanny maiden.
+
+It positively announced some approaching misfortune which proceeded from
+this beautiful creature.
+
+The Biamite now advanced hesitatingly toward Hermon and Daphne, who were
+still a considerable distance from her.  But Bias had also quitted his
+post of observation, and after she had taken a few steps forward, barred
+her way.
+
+With a curt "Come," he took her hand, whispering, "Hermon is joyously
+expecting your visit."
+
+Ledscha's veil concealed her mouth, but the expression of her eyes made
+him think that it curled scornfully.
+
+Yet she silently followed him.
+
+At first he led her by the hand, but on the way he saw at the edge of her
+upper veil the thick, dark eyebrows which met each other, and her fingers
+seemed to him so strangely cold and tapering that a shudder ran through
+his frame and he released them.
+
+Ledscha scarcely seemed to notice it, and, with bowed head, walked beside
+him through the side entrance to the door of Hermon's studio.
+
+It was a disappointment to her to find it locked, but Bias did not heed
+her angry complaint, and led her into the artist's sitting room,
+requesting her to wait for his master there.
+
+Then he hurried to the steps, and by a significant sign informed the
+sculptor that something important required his attention.
+
+Hermon understood him, and Bias soon had an opportunity to tell the
+artist who it was that desired to speak to him and where he had taken
+Ledscha.  He also made him aware that he feared some evil from her, and
+that, in an alarming vision, she had appeared to him as a hideous spider.
+
+Hermon laughed softly.  "As a spider?  The omen is appropriate.  We will
+make her a woman spider--an Arachne that is worth looking at.  But this
+strange beauty is one of the most obstinate of her sex, and if I let her
+carry out her bold visit in broad daylight she will get the better of me
+completely.  The blood must first be washed from my hands here.  The
+wounded sea eagle tore the skin with its claw, and I concealed the
+scratch from Daphne.  A strip of linen to bandage it!  Meanwhile, let the
+impatient intruder learn that her sign is not enough to open every door."
+
+Then he entered his sitting room, greeted Ledscha curtly, invited her to
+go into the studio, unlocked it, and left her there alone while he went
+to his chamber with the slave and had the slight wound bandaged
+comfortably.
+
+While Bias was helping his master he repeated with sincere anxiety his
+warning against the dangerous beauty whose eyebrows, which had grown
+together, proved that she was possessed by the demons of the nether
+world.
+
+"Yet they increase the austere beauty of her face," assented the artist.
+"I should not want to omit them in modelling Arachne while the goddess is
+transforming her into a spider!  What a subject!  A bolder one was
+scarcely ever attempted and, like you, I already see before me the coming
+spider."
+
+Then, without the slightest haste, he exchanged the huntsman's chiton for
+the white chlamys, which was extremely becoming to his long, waving
+beard, and at last, exclaiming gaily, "If I stay any longer, she will
+transform herself into empty air instead of the spider," he went to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+While waiting in the studio Ledscha had used the time to satisfy her
+curiosity.
+
+What was there not to be seen!
+
+On pedestals and upon the boards of the floor, on boxes, racks, and along
+the wall, stood, lay, or hung the greatest variety of articles: plaster
+casts of human limbs and parts of the bodies of animals, male and female,
+of clay and wax, withered garlands, all sorts of sculptor's tools, a
+ladder, vases, cups and jars for wine and water, a frame over which linen
+and soft woollen materials were spread, a lute and a zither, several
+seats, an armchair, and in one corner a small table with three
+dilapidated book rolls, writing tablets, metal styluses, and reed pens.
+
+All these articles were arranged haphazard, and showed that Bias
+possessed more wisdom than care in the use of duster and broom.
+
+It would have been difficult to count the number of things brought
+together here, but the unusually long, wide room was by no means crowded.
+
+Ledscha cast a wondering glance sometimes at one object, sometimes at
+another, but without understanding its meaning or its use.
+
+The huge figure on the pedestal in the middle of the studio, upon which
+the full glare of light fell through the open windows, was certainly the
+statue of the goddess on which Hermon was working; but a large gray cloth
+concealed it from her gaze.
+
+How tall it was!
+
+When she looked at it more closely she felt small and oppressed by
+comparison.
+
+A passionate longing urged her to remove the cloth, but the boldness of
+the act restrained her.  After she had taken another survey of the
+spacious apartment, which she was visiting for the first time by
+daylight, the torturing feeling of being neglected gained possession of
+her.
+
+She clinched her white teeth more firmly, and when there was a noise at
+the door that died away again without bringing the man she expected, she
+went up to the statue which she had already walked past quietly several
+times and, obeying an impatient impulse, freed it from its covering.
+
+The goddess, now illumined by the sunlight, shone before her in gleaming
+yellow gold and snowy ivory.
+
+She had never seen such a statue, and drew back dazzled.
+
+What a master was the man who had deceived her trusting heart!
+
+He had created a Demeter; the wheat in her hand showed it.
+
+How beautiful this work was--and how valuable!  It produced a powerful
+impression upon her mind, wholly unaccustomed to the estimate of such
+things.
+
+The goddess before her was the very one whose statue stood in the temple
+of Demeter, and to whom she also sacrificed, with the Greeks in Tennis,
+when danger threatened the harvest.  Involuntarily she removed the lower
+veil from her face and raised her hand in prayer.
+
+Meanwhile she gazed into the pallid face, carved from ivory, of the
+immortal dispenser of blessings, and suddenly the blood crimsoned her
+cheeks, the nostrils of her delicate, slightly arched nose rose and fell
+more swiftly, for the countenance of the goddess--she was not mistaken--
+was that of the Alexandrian whom she had just watched so intently, and
+for whose sake Hermon had left her in the lurch the evening before.
+
+Now, too, she remembered for what purpose the sculptor was said to have
+lured Gula, the sailor's wife, and her own young sister Taus, to his
+studio, and in increasing excitement she drew the cloth also from the
+bust beside the Demeter.
+
+Again the Alexandrian's face--the likeness was even more unmistakable
+than in the goddess.
+
+The Greek girl alone occupied his thoughts.  Hermon had disdained to
+model the Biamite's head.
+
+What could the others, or she herself, be to him, since he loved the rich
+foreigner in the tent outside, and her alone?  How firmly her image must
+have been impressed upon his soul, that he could reproduce the features
+of the absent one with such lifelike fidelity!
+
+Yet with what bold assurance he had protested that his heart belonged
+solely to her.  But she thought that she now perceived his purpose.  If
+the slave was right, it was done that she might permit him to model what
+he admired in her figure, only not the head and face, whose beauty,
+nevertheless, he praised so extravagantly.
+
+Had he attracted Gula and her sister with similar sweet flatteries?  Had
+the promise to bestow their charms upon a goddess been made to them also?
+
+The swift throbbing of her indignant heart made it impossible for her to
+think calmly, but its vehement pulsation reminded her of the object of
+her presence here.
+
+She had come to obtain a clear understanding between him and herself.
+
+She stood here as a judge.
+
+She must know whether she had been betrayed or deceived.
+
+He should confess what his intentions toward her were.  The next moments
+must decide the fate of her life, and she added, drawing a long breath,
+perhaps of his also.
+
+Suddenly Ledscha started.  She had not heard Hermon enter the studio, and
+was now startled by his greeting.
+
+It was not positively unkind, but certainly not a lover's.
+
+Perhaps the words might have been warmer, but for his annoyance at the
+insolent boldness with which she had removed the coverings from his
+works.  He restrained himself from openly blaming her, it is true, but he
+exclaimed, with a tinge of gay sarcasm: "You seem to feel very much at
+home here already, fairest of the fair.  Or was it the goddess herself
+who removed the curtain from her image in order to show herself to her
+successor upon this pedestal?"
+
+But the question was to remain unanswered, for under the spell of the
+resentment which filled her heart, and in the effort not to lose sight of
+the object that brought her here, Ledscha had only half understood its
+meaning, and pointing her slender forefinger at the face of his completed
+work, she demanded to know whom she recognised in this statue.
+
+"The goddess Demeter," he answered quietly; "but if it pleases you
+better, as you seem to be on the right track, also the daughter of
+Archias."
+
+Then, angered by the wrathful glance she cast at him, he added more
+sternly: "She is kind-hearted, free from disagreeable whims and the
+disposition to torture others who are kindly disposed toward her.
+So I adorned the goddess with her pleasant features."
+
+"Mine, you mean to say," Ledscha answered bitterly, "would be less
+suitable for this purpose.  Yet they, too, can wear a different
+expression from the present one.  You, I think, have learned this.
+Only I shall never acquire the art of dissimulation, not even in your
+society."
+
+"You seem to be angry on account of my absence yesterday evening?
+"Hermon asked in an altered tone, clasping her hand; but Ledscha snatched
+it from him, exclaiming: "The model of the Demeter, the daughter of the
+wealthy Archias, detained you, you were going to tell me, and you think
+that ought to satisfy the barbarian maiden."
+
+"Folly!"  he answered angrily.  "I owe a debt of gratitude to her father,
+who was my guardian, and custom commands you also to honour a guest.  But
+your obstinacy and jealousy are unbearable.  What great thing is it that
+I ask of your love?  A little patience.  Practise it.  Then your turn
+will come too."
+
+"Of course, the second and third will follow the first," she answered
+bitterly.  "After Gula, the sailor's wife, you lured my innocent young
+sister, Taus, to this apartment; or am I mistaken in the order, and was
+Gula the second?"
+
+"So that's it!" cried Hermon, who was surprised rather than alarmed by
+this betrayal of his secret.  "If you want confirmation of the fact, very
+well--both were here."
+
+"Because you deluded them with false vows of love."
+
+"By no means.  My heart has nothing what ever to do with these visits.
+Gula came to thank me because I rendered her a service--you know it--
+which to every mother seems greater than it is."
+
+"But you certainly did not underestimate it," Ledscha impetuously
+interrupted, "for you demanded her honour in return."
+
+"Guard your tongue!" the artist burst forth angrily.  "The woman visited
+me unasked, and I let her leave me as faithful or as unfaithful to her
+husband as she came.  If I used her as a model--"
+
+"Gula, whom the sculptor transforms into a goddess," Ledscha interrupted,
+with a sneering laugh.
+
+"Into a fish-seller, if you wish to know it," cried Hermon indignantly.
+"I saw in the market a young woman selling shad.  I took the subject, and
+found in Gula a suitable model.  Unfortunately, she ventured here far too
+seldom.  But I can finish it with the help of the sketch--it stands in
+yonder cupboard."
+
+"A fish-seller," Ledscha repeated contemptuously.  "And for what did my
+Taus, poor lovely child, seem desirable?"
+
+"Over opposite," Hermon answered quickly, as if he wished to get rid of
+a troublesome duty, pointing through the window out of doors, "the free
+maidens, during the hot days, took off their sandals and waded through
+the water.  There I saw your sister's feet.  They were the prettiest of
+all, and Gula brought the young girl to me.  I had commenced in
+Alexandria a figure of a girl holding her foot in her hand to take out a
+thorn, so I used your sister's for it."
+
+"And when my turn comes?"  Ledscha demanded.
+
+"Then," he replied, freshly captivated by the magic of her beauty, in a
+kinder, almost tender tone, "then I will make of you, in gold and ivory,
+you wonderfully lovely creature, the counterpart of this goddess."
+
+"And you will need a long time for it?"
+
+"The oftener you come the faster the work will advance."
+
+"And the more surely the Biamite women will point their fingers at me."
+
+"Yet you ventured here to-day, unasked, in the broad light of noon."
+
+"Because I wish to remind you myself that I shall expect you this
+evening.  Yesterday you did not appear; but to-day-I am right, am I not?
+--to-day you will come."
+
+"With the greatest delight, if it is possible," he answered eagerly.
+
+A warmer glance from her dark eyes rested upon him.  The blood seethed in
+his veins, and as he extended both hands to her and ardently uttered her
+name, she rushed forward, clinging to him with passionate devotion, as if
+seeking assistance, but when his lips touched hers she shrank back and
+loosed her soft arms from his neck.
+
+"What does this mean?" asked the sculptor in surprise, trying to draw her
+toward him again; but Ledscha would not permit it, pleading in a softer
+tone than before: "Not now; but--am I not right, dearest--I may expect
+you this evening?  Just this once let the daughter of Archias yield to
+me, who loves you better.  We shall have a full moon to-night, and you
+have heard what was predicted to me--to-night the highest bliss which the
+gods can bestow upon a mortal awaits me."
+
+And me also," cried Hermon, "if you will permit me to share it with you."
+
+"Then I will expect you on the Pelican Island--just when the full moon is
+over the lofty poplars there.  You will come?  Not to the Owl's Nest: to
+the Pelican Island.  And though your love is far less, far cooler than
+mine, yet you will not defraud me of the best happiness of my life?"
+
+"How could I?"  he asked, as if he felt wounded by such distrust.
+"What detains me must be something absolutely unavoidable."
+
+Ledscha's eyebrows contracted sharply, and in a choked voice she
+exclaimed: "Nothing must detain you--nothing, whatever it may be!
+Though death should threaten, you will be with me just at midnight."
+
+"I will, if it is possible," he protested, painfully touched by the
+vehemence of her urging.  "What can be more welcome to me also than to
+spend happy hours with you in the silence of a moonlight night?  Besides,
+my stay in Tennis will not be long."
+
+"You are going?"  she asked in a hollow tone.
+
+"In three or four days," he answered carelessly; "then Myrtilus and
+I will be expected in Alexandria.  But gently--gently--how pale you are,
+girl!  Yes, the parting!  But in six weeks at latest I shall be here
+again; then real life will first begin, and Eros will make the roses
+bloom for us."
+
+Ledscha nodded silently, and gazing into his face with a searching look
+asked, "And how long will this season of blossoming last?"
+
+"Several months, girl; three, if not six."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Who looks so far into the future?"
+
+She lowered her glance, and, as if yielding to the inevitable, answered:
+"What a fool I was!  Who knows what the morrow may bring?  Are we even
+sure whether, six months hence, we shall not hate, instead of loving,
+each other?"
+
+She passed her hand across her brow as she spoke, exclaiming: "You said
+just now that only the present belonged to man.  Then let us enjoy it as
+though every moment might be the last.  By the light of the full moon
+to-night, the happiness which has been predicted to me must begin.  After
+it, the orb between the horns of Astarte will become smaller; but when it
+fulls and wanes again, if you keep your promise and return, then, though
+they may curse and condemn me, I will come to your studio and grant what
+you ask.  But which of the goddesses do you intend to model from me as a
+companion statue to the Demeter?"
+
+"This time it can not be one of the immortelles," he answered
+hesitatingly, "but a famous woman, an artist who succeeded in
+a competition in vanquishing even the august Athene."
+
+"So it is no goddess?"  Ledscha asked in a disappointed tone.
+
+"No, child, but the most skilful woman who ever plied the weaver's
+shuttle."
+
+"And her name?"
+
+"Arachne."
+
+The young girl started, exclaiming contemptuously: "Arachne?  That is--
+that is what you Greeks call the most repulsive of creatures--the
+spider."
+
+"The most skilful of all creatures, that taught man the noble art of
+weaving," he eagerly retorted.
+
+Here he was interrupted; his friend Myrtilus put his fair head into the
+room, exclaiming: "Pardon me if I interrupt you--but we shall not see
+each other again for some time.  I have important business in the city,
+and may be detained a long while.  Yet before I go I must perform the
+commission Daphne gave me for you.  She sends word that she shall expect
+you without fail at the banquet for the Pelusinian guests.  Your absence,
+do you hear?--pardon the interruption, fairest Ledscha--your absence
+would seriously anger her."
+
+"Then I shall be prepared for considerable trouble in appeasing her,"
+replied Hermon, glancing significantly at the young girl.
+
+Myrtilus crossed the threshold, turned to the Biamite, and said in his
+quiet, cheerful manner: "Where beautiful gifts are to be brought to Eros,
+it beseems the friend to strew with flowers the path of the one who is
+offering the sacrifices; and you, if everything does not deceive me,
+would fain choose to-night to serve him with the utmost devotion.
+Therefore, I shall need forgiveness from you and the god, if I beseech
+you to defer the offering, were it only until to-morrow."
+
+Ledscha silently shrugged her shoulders and made no answer to the
+inquiring glance with which Hermon sought hers, but Myrtilus changed his
+tone and addressed a grave warning to his friend to consider well that it
+would be an insult to the manes of his dead parents if he should avoid
+the old couple from Pelusium, who had been their best friends and had
+taken the journey hither for his sake.
+
+Hermon looked after him in painful perplexity, but the Biamite also
+approached the threshold, and holding her head haughtily erect, said
+coldly: "The choice is difficult for you, as I see.  Then recall to your
+memory again what this night of the full moon means--you are well aware
+of it--to me.  If, nevertheless, you still decide in favour of the
+banquet with your friends, I can not help it; but I must now know:
+Shall this night belong to me, or to the daughter of Archias?"
+
+"Is it impossible to talk with you, unlucky girl, as one would with other
+sensible people?" Hermon burst forth wrathfully.  "Everything is carried
+to extremes; you condemn a brief necessary delay as breach of faith and
+base treachery.  This behaviour is unbearable."
+
+"Then you will not come?"  she asked apathetically, laying her hand upon
+the door; but Hermon cried out in a tone half beseeching, half imperious:
+"You must not go so!  If you insist upon it, surely I will come.  There
+is no room in your obstinate soul for kind indulgence.  No one, by the
+dog, ever accused me of being specially skilled in this smooth art; yet
+there may be duties and circumstances--"
+
+Here Ledscha gently opened the door; but, seized with a fear of losing
+this rare creature, whose singular beauty attracted him powerfully, even
+now, this peerless model for a work on which he placed the highest hopes,
+he strode swiftly to her side, and drawing her back from the threshold,
+exclaimed: "Difficult as it is for me on this special day, I will come,
+only you must not demand what is impossible.  The right course often lies
+midway.  Half the night must belong to the banquet with my old friends
+and Daphne; the second half--"
+
+"To the barbarian, you think--the spider," she gasped hoarsely.  "But my
+welfare as well as yours depends on the decision.  Stay here, or come to
+the island--you have your choice."
+
+Wrenching herself from his hold as she spoke, she slipped through the
+doorway and left the room.
+
+Hermon, with a muttered oath, stood still, shrugging his shoulders
+angrily.
+
+He could do nothing but yield to this obstinate creature's will.
+
+In the atrium Ledscha met the slave Bias, and returned his greeting only
+by a wave of the hand; but before opening the side door which was to lead
+her into the open air, she paused, and asked bluntly in the language of
+their people: "Was Arachne--I don't mean the spider, but the weaver whom
+the Greeks call by that name--a woman like the rest of us?  Yet it is
+said that she remained victor in a contest with the goddess Athene."
+
+"That is perfectly true," answered Bias, "but she had to atone cruelly
+for this triumph; the goddess struck her on the forehead with the
+weaver's shuttle, and when, in her shame and rage, she tried to hang
+herself, she was transformed into the spider."
+
+Ledscha stood still, and, while drawing the veil over her pallid face,
+asked with quivering lips, "And is there no other Arachne?"
+
+"Not among mortals," was the reply, "but even here in this house there
+are more than enough of the disagreeable, creeping creatures which bear
+the same name."
+
+Ledscha now went clown the steps which led to the lawn, and Bias saw that
+she stumbled on the last one and would have fallen had not her lithe body
+regained its balance in time.
+
+"A bad omen!" thought the slave.  "If I had the power to build a wall
+between my master and the spider yonder, it should be higher than the
+lighthouse of Sostratus.  To heed omens guides one safely through life.
+I know what I know, and will keep my eyes open, for my master too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Hermon had intended to add a few more touches to his Demeter, but he
+could not do it.  Ledscha, her demand, and the resentment with which she
+had left him, were not to be driven from his mind.
+
+There was no doubt that he must seek her if he was not to lose her,
+yet he reproached himself for having acted like a thoughtless fool when
+he proposed to divide the night between her and Daphne.
+
+There was something offensive in the proposal to so proud a creature.
+He ought to have promised positively to come, and then left the banquet
+somewhat earlier.  It would have been easy to apologize for his late
+arrival, and Ledscha would have had no cause to be angry with him.
+
+Now she had, and her resentment awakened in him--though he certainly did
+not lack manly courage--an uncomfortable feeling closely allied to
+anxiety.
+
+Angered by his own conduct, he asked himself whether he loved the
+barbarian, and could find no satisfactory answer.
+
+At their first meeting he had felt that she was far superior to the other
+Biamite maidens, not only in beauty but in everything else.  The very
+acerbity of her nature had seemed charming.  To win this wonderful,
+pliant creature, slender as a cypress, whose independence merged into
+fierce obstinacy, had appeared to him worth any sacrifice; and having
+perceived in her an admirable model for his Arachne, he had also
+determined to brave the dangers which might easily arise for the Greek
+from a love affair with a Biamite girl, whose family was free and
+distinguished.
+
+It had been easier for him to win her heart than he expected; yet at none
+of the meetings which she granted him had he rejoiced in the secret bond
+between them.
+
+Hitherto her austere reserve had been invincible, and during the greater
+part of their interviews he had been compelled to exert all his influence
+to soothe, appease her, and atone for imprudent acts which he had
+committed.
+
+True, she, too, had often allowed herself to display passionate
+tenderness, but always only to torture him with reproaches and demands
+inspired by her jealousy, suspicion, and wounded pride.
+
+Yet her beauty, and the strong power of resistance which she offered to
+his wooing, exerted so bewitching a thrall over him that he had been led
+into conceding far too much, and making vows which he could not and did
+not desire to fulfil.
+
+Love had usually been to him a richly flowing well-spring of gay delight,
+but this bond had plunged him from one vexation into another, one anxiety
+to another, and now that he had almost reached the goal of his wishes,
+he could not help fearing that he had transformed Ledscha's love to hate.
+
+Daphne was dear to him.  He esteemed her highly, and owed her a great
+debt of gratitude.  Yet in this hour he anathematized her unexpected
+journey to Tennis; for without it he would have obtained from Ledscha
+that very day what he desired, and could have returned to Alexandria with
+the certainty of finding her ready later to pose as the model for his
+Arachne.
+
+Never could he find anywhere a more fitting one.
+
+He had devoted himself with passionate love to his art, and even his
+enemies numbered him among its most promising disciples.  Yet hither to
+he had not succeeded in obtaining a great and undisputed success.  On the
+other hand, he had experienced what were termed failures in abundant
+measure.
+
+The art to which he had gained entrance by so severe a struggle, and on
+whose soil he had laboured diligently enough, proved, so far as outward
+recognition was concerned, cruel to the enthusiastic disciple.  Yet even
+now he would not have abandoned it at any price; the joy of creation
+compensated him richly for suffering and disappointment.  Confidence in
+his own powers and the final triumph of his conviction had deserted him
+only occasionally, and for a few brief hours.
+
+He was born for conflicts.  What ill-success, what antagonism and
+difficulties he had encountered!  Some day the laurel which had so long
+adorned the brow of Myrtilus must also grow green for him and the great
+talent whose possession he felt.  With the Arachne--he was sure of this
+--he would compel even his opponents to accord him the recognition for
+which hitherto he had striven in vain.
+
+While pacing restlessly up and down the spacious apartment, stopping from
+time to time before his work to fix his eyes angrily upon it, he thought
+of his friend's Demeter, whose head also had Daphne's features, who also
+bore in her hand a bundle of wheat, and even in attitude did not differ
+very widely from his own.  And yet--eternal gods!--how thoroughly
+dissimilar the two were!
+
+In the figure created by Myrtilus, supernatural dignity blended with the
+utmost womanly charm; in his, a pleasing head rested upon a body in whose
+formation he had used various models without striving to accomplish
+anything except to depart as far as possible from established custom,
+with which he was at variance.
+
+Yet had he not found himself, nevertheless, compelled to follow the old
+rules?  One arm was raised, the other hung down; the right foot was put
+forward, the left one back.
+
+Exactly the same as in Myrtilus's statue, and thousands of other figures
+of Demeter!
+
+If he could have used the hammer and chisel, the thing might have become
+more powerful; but how many things he had had to consider in employing
+the accursed gold and ivory upon which Archias obstinately insisted!
+
+This hammering, chipping, and filing told unfavourably upon his power and
+his aspiration toward grandeur.
+
+This time the battle seemed to be lost.
+
+It was fortunate that the conqueror was no other than Myrtilus.  Often as
+he had gone astray in his young life, many as were the errors he had
+committed, not even the faintest shadow of an envious feeling concerning
+his friend's more successful work had ever stained his soul.
+
+True, the fact that fate, in addition to such abundant gifts of mind and
+spirit, had also endowed the latter with great worldly possessions, while
+he, but for the generosity of his uncle Archias, must have starved, had
+often led Hermon to inveigh angrily against the injustice of the gods.
+Yet he did not grudge Myrtilus the wealth without which he could not
+imagine him, and which his invalid friend needed to continue successfully
+the struggle against the insidious disease inherited with the gold.  And
+his sufferings!  Hermon could not have endured keener pain had they been
+his own.  He must even rejoice over the poor dear fellow's victory; for
+if he, Hermon, succeeded with his Arachne as he hoped, it would make
+Myrtilus--he could swear to it--happier than his own triumph.
+
+After these reflections, which again reminded him of the second
+appointment and of Ledscha, the sculptor turned away from his work and
+went to the window to look across at Pelican Island, where she must not
+await him in vain.
+
+The boat which was to convey him over to it lay ready in the little
+flotilla, where a magnificently equipped galley had just been moored to
+the shore, undoubtedly the one that had brought the guests from Pelusium
+hither.  The best thing he could do was to greet them at once, share the
+banquet with them, and, before the dessert was served, seek the beautiful
+woman whom his absence threatened to make his foe.  And she was certainly
+justified in resenting it if, with cruel lack of consideration, he paid
+no heed to what had been prophesied for her on this night of the full
+moon.
+
+For the first time compassion mingled with his feelings for Ledscha.
+If to avoid the fleeting censure of aristocratic friends he left in the
+lurch the simple barbarian maiden who loved him with ardent passion,
+it was no evidence of resolute strength of soul, but of pitiful,
+reprehensible weakness.  No, no!  He must take the nocturnal voyage in
+order not to grieve Ledscha.
+
+Soon after the girl's abrupt departure he dressed himself in festal
+garments for the banquet.  It would flatter Ledscha also if he went to
+her in this attire and, with his figure drawn up to its full height, he
+walked toward the door to go to the Alexandrian's tent.
+
+But what did this mean?  Myrtilus was standing before his Demeter,
+scanning it intently with his keen artist eyes.  Hermon had not noticed
+his entrance, and did not disturb him now, but fixed his gaze upon his
+mobile features in intense expectation.
+
+There were few of his fellow-artists whose opinion he valued as highly as
+that of this darling of the Muse.
+
+At a slight shake of the head, which Hermon interpreted as disapproval,
+he clinched his teeth; but soon his lips relaxed and his breast heaved
+with a sigh of relief, for the sunny glance that Myrtilus bent upon the
+face of the goddess seemed to show Hermon that it aroused his approval,
+and, as if relieved from an oppressive nightmare, he approached his
+friend.
+
+The latter turned toward him, exclaiming: Daphne!  As in the case of
+yonder bust, you have succeeded most perfectly with this dear face--
+only--"
+
+"Only," Hermon repeated slowly; "I am familiar with that evil word.
+Doubts knock at the door with it.  Out with them honestly.  I gave up my
+last hope of the prize yesterday while looking at your Demeter.  Besides,
+careful scrutiny has just destroyed the last gleam of satisfaction with
+my own work.  But if you like the head, what seem to you the greatest
+defects in the figure?"
+
+"It has nothing to do with defects, which, with your rare ability, can
+scarcely exist," replied the other, the faint pink flush in his beardless
+cheeks deepening to a more vivid hue.  "It refers rather to the
+expression which you have given the divinity in yonder statue."  Here
+Myrtilus hesitated, and, turning so that he stood face to face with
+Hermon, asked frankly, "Did you ever seek the goddess and, when you found
+her, did you feel any supernatural power and beauty?"
+
+"What a question!" exclaimed Hermon in astonishment. "A pupil of Straton,
+and go in search of beings and powers whose existence he denies!  What my
+mother instilled into my heart I lost with my childhood, and you address
+your question only to the artist who holds his own ground, not to the
+boy.  The power that calls creation to life, and maintains it, has for me
+long had nothing in common with those beings like mortals whom the
+multitude designates by the name of divinities."
+
+"I think  differently,"  replied  Myrtilus.  "While I numbered myself
+among the Epicureans, whose doctrine still possesses the greatest charm
+for me, I nevertheless shared the master's opinion that it is insulting
+the gods to suppose that they will disturb their blissful repose for the
+sake of us insignificant mortals.  Now my mind and my experience rebel
+against holding to this view, yet I believe with Epicurus, and with you,
+that the eternal laws of Nature bow to neither divine nor human will."
+
+"And yet," said Hermon, "you expect me to trouble myself about those who
+are as powerless as myself!"
+
+"I only wished that you might do so," answered Myrtilus; "for they are
+not powerless to those who from the first assumed that they can do
+nothing in opposition to those changeless laws.  The state, too, rules
+according to them, and the wise king who refrains from interfering with
+them in the smallest trifle can therefore wield the sceptre with mighty
+power.  So, in my opinion, it is perfectly allowable to expect aid from
+the gods.  But we will let that pass.  A healthy man, full of exuberant
+vigour like yourself, rarely learns early what they can bestow in
+suffering and misfortune; yet where the great majority believe in them,
+he, too, will be unable to help forming some idea of them; nay, even you
+and I have experienced it.  By a thousand phenomena they force themselves
+into the world which surrounds us and our emotional life.  Epicurus, who
+denied their power, saw in them at least immortal beings who possess in
+stainless perfection everything which in mortals is disfigured by errors,
+weaknesses, and afflictions.  To him they are the intensified, reflected
+image of our own nature, and I think we can do nothing wiser than to
+cling to that, because it shows us to what heights of beauty and power,
+intellect, goodness, and purity we may attain.  To completely deny their
+existence would hardly be possible even for you, because their persons
+have found a place in your imagination.  Since this is the case, it can
+only benefit you to recognise in them magnificent models, by whose means
+we artists, if we imitate, perfect, and model them, will create works far
+more sublime and beautiful than anything visible to our senses which we
+meet here beneath the sun."
+
+"It is this very superiority in sublimity and beauty which I, and those
+who pursue the same path with me, oppose," replied Hermon.  "Nature is
+sufficient for us.  To take anything from her, mutilates; to add
+anything, disfigures her."
+
+"But not," replied Myrtilus firmly, "when it is done only in a special
+sense, and within the limits of Nature, to which the gods also belong.
+The final task of art, fiercely as you and your few followers contend
+against it, lies in the disentanglement, enhancing, and ennobling of
+Nature.  You, too, ought not to overlook it when you undertake to model
+a Demeter; for she is a goddess, no mortal like yourself.  The rest or
+I ought rather to say the alteration which converts the mortal woman into
+the immortal one, the goddess--I miss, and with special regret, because
+you do not even deem it worth consideration."
+
+"That I shall never do," retorted Hermon irritably, "so long as it is a
+changing chimera which presents itself differently to every mind."
+
+"Yet, should it really be a chimera, it is at any rate a sublime one,"
+Myrtilus protested, "and whoever among us artists wanders through Nature
+with open eyes and heart, and then examines his own soul, will find it
+worth while to attempt to give his ideal form."
+
+"Whatever  stirs  my  breast  during  such walks, unless it is some
+unusual human being, I leave to the poet," replied Hermon.  "I should be
+satisfied with the Demeter yonder, and you, too, probably, if--entirely
+apart from that--I had only succeeded fully and entirely in making her an
+individual--that is, a clearly outlined, distinct personality.  This, you
+have often told me, is just wherein I am usually most successful.  But here,
+I admit, I am baffled.  Demeter hovered before me as a kindly dispenser of
+good gifts, a faithful, loving wife.  Daphne's head expresses this; but
+in modelling the body I lost sight of the whole creation.  While, for
+instance, in my fig-eater, every toe, every scrap of the tattered
+garments, belongs to the street urchin whom I wished to represent,
+in the goddess everything came by chance as the model suggested it,
+and you know that I used several.  Had the Demeter from head to foot
+resembled Daphne, who has so much in common with our goddess, the statue
+would have been harmonious, complete, and you would perhaps have been
+the first to acknowledge it."
+
+"By no means," Myrtilus eagerly interrupted.  "What our statues of the
+gods are we two know best: a wooden block, covered with gold and sheets
+of ivory.  But to tens of thousands the statue of the divinity must be
+much more.  When they raise their hearts, eyes, hands to it in prayer,
+they must be possessed by the idea of the deity which animated us while
+creating it, and with which we, as it were, permeated it.  If it shows
+them only a woman endowed with praiseworthy qualities--"
+
+"Then," interrupted Hermon, "the worshipper should thank the sculptor;
+for is it not more profitable to him to be encouraged by the statue to
+emulate the human virtues whose successful embodiment it shows him than
+to strive for the aid of the botchwork of human hands, which possesses
+as much or as little power as the wood, gold, and ivory that compose it?
+If the worshipper does not appeal to the statue, but to the goddess,
+I fear it will be no less futile.  So I shall consider it no blemish if
+you see in my Demeter a mortal woman, and no goddess; nay, it reconciles
+me in some degree to her weaknesses, to which I by no means close my
+eyes.  I, too--I confess it--often feel a great desire to give the power
+of imagination greater play, and I know the divinities in whom I have
+lost faith as well as any one; for I, too, was once a child, and few have
+ever prayed to them more fervently, but with the increasing impulse
+toward liberty came the perception: There are no gods, and whoever bows
+to the power of the immortals makes himself a slave.  So what I banished
+from life I will also remove from art, and model nothing which might not
+meet me to-day or to-morrow."
+
+"Then, as an honest man, abstain altogether from making statues of the
+gods," interrupted his friend.
+
+"That was my intention long ago, as you are aware," the other answered.
+
+"You could not commit a worse robbery upon yourself," cried Myrtilus.
+"I know you; nay, perhaps I see farther into your soul than you yourself.
+By ingenious fetters you force the mighty winged intellect to content
+itself within the narrow world of reality.  But the time when you will
+yourself rend the bonds and find the divinity you have lost, will come,
+and then, with your mighty power once more free, you will outstrip most
+of us, and me also if I live to see it."
+
+Then he pressed his hand upon his rattling chest and walked slowly to the
+couch; but Hermon followed, helped him to lie down, and with affectionate
+solicitude arranged his pillows.
+
+"It is nothing," Myrtilus said soothingly, after a few minutes' silence.
+"My undermined strength has been heavily taxed to-day.  The Olympians
+know how calmly I await death.  It ends all things.  Nothing will be left
+of me except the ashes, to which you will reduce my body, and what you
+call 'possession.'  But even this can no longer belong to me after death,
+because I shall then be no more, and the idea of possession requires a
+possessor.  My estate, too, is now disposed of.  I have just been to the
+notary, and sixteen witnesses--neither more nor less--have signed my will
+according to the custom of this ceremonious country.  There, now, if you
+please, go before me, and let me stay here alone a little while.
+Remember me to Daphne and the Pelusinians.  I will join you in an hour."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Cautious inquiry saves recantation
+Nature is sufficient for us
+There are no gods, and whoever bows makes himself a slave
+Waiting is the merchant's wisdom
+Woman's hair is long, but her wit is short
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V2 ***
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