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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Arachne, by Georg Ebers, Volume 5.
+#73 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: Arachne, Volume 5.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5512]
+[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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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V5 ***
+
+
+
+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 5.
+
+
+While the market place in Tennis was filling, Archias's white house had
+become a heap of smouldering ruins.  Hundreds of men and women were
+standing around the scene of the conflagration, but no one saw the statue
+of Demeter, which had been removed from Hermon's studio just in time.
+The nomarch had had it locked up in the neighbouring temple of the
+goddess.
+
+It was rumoured that the divinity had saved her own statue by a miracle;
+Pamaut, the police officer, said that he had seen her himself as,
+surrounded by a brilliant light, she soared upward on the smoke that
+poured from the burning house.  The strategist and the nomarch used every
+means in their power to capture the robbers, but without the least
+success.
+
+As it had become known that Paseth, Gula's husband, had cast off his wife
+because she had gone to Hermon's studio, the magistrates believed that
+the attack had been made by the Biamites; yet Paseth was absent from the
+city during the assault, and the innocence of the others could also be
+proved.
+
+Since, for two entire years, piracy had entirely ceased in this
+neighbourhood, no one thought of corsairs, and the bodies of the
+incendiaries having been consumed by the flames with the white house,
+it could not be ascertained to what class the marauders belonged.
+
+The blinded sculptor could only testify that one of the robbers was a
+negro, or at any rate had had his face blackened, and that the size of
+another had appeared to him almost superhuman.  This circumstance gave
+rise to the fable that, during the terrible storm of the previous clay,
+Hades had opened and spirits of darkness had rushed into the studio of
+the Greek betrayer.
+
+The strategist, it is true, did not believe such tales, but the
+superstition of the Biamites, who, moreover, aided the Greeks reluctantly
+to punish a crime which threatened to involve their own countrymen, put
+obstacles in the way of his measures.
+
+Not until he heard of Ledscha's disappearance, and was informed by the
+priest of Nemesis of the handsome sum which had been found in the
+offering box of the temple shortly after the attack, did he arrive at a
+conjecture not very far from the real state of affairs; only it was still
+incomprehensible to him what body of men could have placed themselves at
+the disposal of a girl's vengeful plan.
+
+On the second day after the fire, the epistrategus of the whole Delta,
+who had accidentally come to the border fortress, arrived at Tennis on
+the galley of the commandant of Pelusium, and with him Proclus, the
+grammateus of the Dionysian artists, the Lady Thyone, Daphne, and her
+companion Chrysilla.
+
+The old hero Philippus was detained in the fortress by the preparations
+for war.
+
+Althea had returned to Alexandria, and Philotas, who disliked her, had
+gone there himself, as Chrysilla intimated to him that he could hope for
+no success in his suit to her ward so long as Daphne had to devote
+herself to the care of the blinded Hermon.
+
+The epistrategus proceeded with great caution, but his efforts also
+remained futile.  He ordered a report to be made of all the vessels which
+had entered the harbours and bays of the northeastern Delta, but those
+commanded by Satabus and his sons gave no cause for investigation; they
+had come into the Tanite arm of the Nile as lumber ships from Pontus, and
+had discharged beams and planks for the account of a well-known
+commercial house in Sinope.
+
+Yet the official ordered the Owl's Nest to be searched.  In doing this he
+made himself guilty of an act of violence, as the island's right of
+asylum still existed, and this incensed the irritable and refractory
+Biamites the more violently, the deeper was the reverent awe with which
+the nation regarded Tabus, who, according to their belief, was over a
+hundred years old.  The Biamites honoured her not only as an enchantress
+and a leech, but as the ancestress of a race of mighty men.  By molesting
+this aged woman, and interfering with an ancient privilege, the
+epistrategus lost the aid of the hostile fishermen, sailors, and weavers.
+Any information from their ranks to him was regarded as treachery; and,
+besides, his stay in Tennis could be but brief, as the King, on account
+of the impending war, had summoned him back to the capital.
+
+On the third day after his arrival he left Tennis and sailed from Tanis
+for Alexandria.  He had had little time to attend to Thyone and her
+guests.
+
+Proclus, too, could not devote himself to them until after the departure
+of the epistrategus, since he had gone immediately to Tanis, where, as
+head of the Dionysian artists of all Egypt, he had been occupied in
+attending to the affairs of the newly established theatre.
+
+On his return to Tennis he had instantly requested to be conducted to the
+Temple of Demeter, to inspect the blinded Hermon's rescued work.
+
+He had entered the cella of the sanctuary with the expectation of finding
+a peculiar, probably a powerful work, but one repugnant to his taste, and
+left it fairly overpowered by the beauty of this noble work of art.
+
+What he had formerly seen of Hermon's productions had prejudiced him
+against the artist, whose talent was great, but who, instead of
+dedicating it to the service of the beautiful and the sublime, chose
+subjects which, to Proclus, did not seem worthy of artistic treatment,
+or, when they were, sedulously deprived them of that by which, in his
+eyes, they gained genuine value.  In Hermon's Olympian Banquet he--who
+also held the office of a high priest of Apollo in Alexandria--had even
+seen an insult to the dignity of the deity.  In the Street Boy Eating
+Figs, the connoisseur's eye had recognised a peculiar masterpiece, but he
+had been repelled by this also; for, instead of a handsome boy, it
+represented a starving, emaciated vagabond.
+
+True to life as this figure might be, it seemed to him reprehensible, for
+it had already induced others to choose similar vulgar subjects.
+
+When recently at Althea's performance he had met Hermon and saw how
+quickly his beautiful travelling companion allowed herself to be induced
+to bestow the wreath on the handsome, black-bearded fellow, it vexed him,
+and he had therefore treated him with distant coldness, and allowed him
+to perceive the disapproval which the direction taken by his art had
+awakened in his mind.
+
+In the presence of Hermon's Demeter, the opinion of the experienced man
+and intelligent connoisseur had suddenly changed.
+
+The creator of this work was not only one of the foremost artists of his
+day, nay, he had also been permitted to fathom the nature of the deity
+and to bestow upon it a perfect form.
+
+This Demeter was the most successful personification of the divine
+goodness which rewards the sowing of seed with the harvest.  When Hermon
+created it, Daphne's image had hovered before his mind, even if he had
+not been permitted to use her as a model, and of all the maidens whom he
+knew there was scarcely one better suited to serve as the type for the
+Demeter.
+
+So what he had seen in Pelusium, and learned from women, was true.  The
+heart and mind of the artist who had created this work were not filled
+with the image of Althea--who during the journey had bestowed many a mark
+of favour upon the aging man, and with whom he was obliged to work hand
+in hand for Queen Arsinoe's plans--but the daughter of Archias, and this
+circumstance also aided in producing his change of view.
+
+Hermon's blindness, it was to be hoped, would be cured.
+
+Duty, and perhaps also interest, commanded him to show him frankly how
+highly he estimated his art and his last work.
+
+After the arrival of Thyone and Daphne, Hermon had consented to accompany
+them on board the Proserpina, their spacious galley.  True, he had
+yielded reluctantly to this arrangement of his parents' old friend, and
+neither she nor Daphne had hitherto succeeded in soothing the fierce
+resentment against fate which filled his soul after the loss of his sight
+and his dearest friend.  As yet every attempt to induce him to bear his
+terrible misfortune with even a certain degree of composure had failed.
+
+The Tennis leech, trained by the Egyptian priests at Sais in the art of
+healing, who was attached as a pastophorus to the Temple of Isis, in the
+city of weavers, had covered the artist's scorched face with bandages,
+and earnestly adjured him never in his absence to raise them, and to keep
+every ray of light from his blinded eyes.  But the agitation which had
+mastered Hermon's whole being was so great that, in spite of the woman's
+protestations, he lifted the covering again and again to see whether he
+could not perceive once more at least a glimmer of the sunlight whose
+warming power he felt.  The thought of living in darkness until the end
+of his life seemed unendurable, especially as now all the horrors which,
+hitherto, had only visited him in times of trial during the night
+assailed him with never-ceasing cruelty.
+
+The image of the spider often forced itself upon him, and he fancied that
+the busy insect was spreading its quickly made web over his blinded eyes,
+which he was not to touch, yet over which he passed his hand to free them
+from the repulsive veil.
+
+The myth related that because Athene's blow had struck the ambitious
+weaver Arachne, she had resolved, before the goddess transformed her into
+a spider, to put an end to her disgrace.
+
+How infinitely harder was the one dealt to him!  How much better reason
+he had to use the privilege in which man possesses an advantage over the
+immortals, of putting himself to death with his own hand when he deems
+the fitting time has come!  What should he, the artist, to whom his eyes
+brought whatever made life valuable, do longer in this hideous black
+night, brightened by no sunbeam?
+
+He was often overwhelmed, too, by the remembrance of the terrible end
+of the friend in whom he saw the only person who might have given him
+consolation in this distress, and the painful thought of his poverty.
+
+He was supported solely by what his art brought and his wealthy uncle
+allowed him.  The Demeter which Archias had ordered had been partially
+paid for in advance, and he had intended to use the gold--a considerable
+sum--to pay debts in Alexandria.  But it was consumed with the rest of
+his property--tools, clothing, mementoes of his dead parents, and a few
+books which contained his favourite poems and the writings of his master,
+Straton.
+
+These precious rolls had aided him to maintain the proud conviction of
+owing everything which he attained or possessed solely to himself.  It
+had again become perfectly clear to him that the destiny of earth-born
+mortals was not directed by the gods whom men had invented after their
+own likeness, in order to find causes for the effects which they
+perceived, but by deaf and blind chance.  Else how could even worse
+misfortune, according to the opinion of most people, have befallen the
+pure, guiltless Myrtilus, who so deeply revered the Olympians and
+understood how to honour them so magnificently by his art, than himself,
+the despiser of the gods?
+
+But was the death for which he longed a misfortune?
+
+Was the Nemesis who had so swiftly and fully granted the fervent prayer
+of an ill-used girl also only an image conjured up by the power of human
+imagination?
+
+It was scarcely possible!
+
+Yet if there was one goddess, did not that admit the probability of the
+existence of all the others?
+
+He shuddered at the idea; for if the immortals thought, felt, acted, how
+terribly his already cruel fate would still develop!  He had denied and
+insulted almost all the Olympians, and not even stirred a finger to the
+praise and honour of a single one.
+
+What marvel if they should choose him for the target of their resentment
+and revenge?
+
+He had just believed that the heaviest misfortune which can befall a man
+and an artist had already stricken him.  Now he felt that this, too, had
+been an error; for, like a physical pain, he realized the collapse of the
+proud delusion of being independent of every power except himself, freely
+and arbitrarily controlling his own destiny, owing no gratitude except to
+his own might, and being compelled to yield to nothing save the
+enigmatical, pitiless power of eternal laws or their co-operation, so
+incomprehensible to the human intellect, called "chance," which took no
+heed of merit or unworthiness.
+
+Must he, who had learned to silence and to starve every covetous desire,
+in order to require no gifts from his own uncle and his wealthy kinsman
+and friend, and be able to continue to hold his head high, as the most
+independent of the independent, now, in addition to all his other woe, be
+forced to believe in powers that exercised an influence over his every
+act?  Must he recognise praying to them and thanking them as the demand
+of justice, of duty, and wisdom?  Was this possible either?
+
+And, believing himself alone, since he could not see Thyone and Daphne,
+who were close by him, he struck his scorched brow with his clinched
+fist, because he felt like a free man who suddenly realizes that a rope
+which he can not break is bound around his hands and feet, and a giant
+pulls and loosens it at his pleasure.
+
+Yet no!  Better die than become for gods and men a puppet that obeys
+every jerk of visible and invisible hands.
+
+Starting up in violent excitement, he tore the bandage from his face and
+eyes, declaring, as Thyone seriously reprimanded him, that he would go
+away, no matter where, and earn his daily bread at the handmill, like the
+blind Ethiopian slave whom he had seen in the cabinetmaker's house at
+Tennis.
+
+Then Daphne spoke to him tenderly, but her soothing voice caused him
+keener pain than his old friend's stern one.
+
+To sit still longer seemed unendurable, and, with the intention of
+regaining his lost composure by pacing to and fro, he began to walk;
+but at the first free step he struck against the little table in front of
+Thyone's couch, and as it upset and the vessels containing water fell
+with it, clinking and breaking, he stopped and, as if utterly crushed,
+groped his way back, with both arms outstretched, to the armchair he had
+quitted.
+
+If he could only have seen Daphne press her handkerchief first to her
+eyes, from which tears were streaming, and then to her lips, that he
+might not hear her sobs, if he could have perceived how Thyone's wrinkled
+old face contracted as if she were swallowing a colocynth apple, while at
+the same time she patted his strong shoulder briskly, exclaiming with
+forced cheerfulness: "Go on, my boy!  The steed rears when the hornet
+stings!  Try again, if it only soothes you!  We will take everything out
+of your way.  You need not mind the water-jars.  The potter will make new
+ones!"
+
+Then Hermon threw back his burning head, rested it against the back of
+the chair, and did not stir until the bandage was renewed.
+
+How comfortable it felt!
+
+He knew, too, that he owed it to Daphne; the matron's fingers could not
+be so slender and delicate, and he would have been more than glad to
+raise them to his lips and thank her; but he denied himself the pleasure.
+
+If she really did love him, the bond between them must now be severed;
+for, even if her goodness of heart extended far enough to induce her to
+unite her blooming young existence to his crippled one, how could he have
+accepted the sacrifice without humiliating himself?  Whether such a
+marriage would have made her happy or miserable he did not ask, but he
+was all the more keenly aware that if, in this condition, he became her
+husband, he would be the recipient of alms, and he would far rather, he
+mentally repeated, share the fate of the negro at the handmill.
+
+The expression of his features revealed the current of his thoughts to
+Daphne, and, much as she wished to speak to him, she forced herself to
+remain silent, that the tones of her voice might not betray how deeply
+she was suffering with him; but he himself now longed for a kind word
+from her lips, and he had just asked if she was still there when Thyone
+announced a visit from the grammateus Proclus.
+
+He had recently felt that this man was unfriendly to him, and again his
+anger burst forth.  To be exposed in the midst of his misery to the scorn
+of a despiser of his art was too much for his exhausted patience.
+
+But here he was interrupted by Proclus himself, who had entered the
+darkened cabin where the blind man remained very soon after Thyone.
+
+Hermon's last words had betrayed to the experienced courtier how well
+he remembered his unkind remarks, so he deferred the expression of his
+approval, and began by delivering the farewell message of the
+epistrategus, who had been summoned away so quickly.
+
+He stated that his investigations had discovered nothing of importance,
+except, perhaps, the confirmation of the sorrowful apprehension that the
+admirable Myrtilus had been killed by the marauders.  A carved stone had
+been found under the ashes, and Chello, the Tennis goldsmith, said he had
+had in his own workshop the gem set in the hapless artist's shoulder
+clasp, and supplied it with a new pin.
+
+While speaking, he took Hermon's hand and gave him the stone, but the
+artist instantly used his finger tips to feel it.
+
+Perhaps it really did belong to the clasp Myrtilus wore, for, although
+still unpractised in groping, he recognised that a human head was carved
+in relief upon the stone, and Mrytilus's had been adorned with the
+likeness of the Epicurean.
+
+The damaged little work of art, in the opinion of Proclus and Daphne,
+appeared to represent this philosopher, and at the thought that his
+friend had fallen a victim to the flames Hermon bowed his head and
+exerted all his strength of will in order not to betray by violent sobs
+how deeply this idea pierced his heart.
+
+Thyone, shrugging her shoulders mournfully, pointed to the suffering
+artist.  Proclus nodded significantly, and, moving nearer to Hermon,
+informed him that he had sought out his Demeter and found the statue
+uninjured.  He was well aware that it would be presumptuous to offer
+consolation in so heavy an affliction, and after the loss of his dearest
+friend, yet perhaps Hermon would be glad to hear his assurance that he,
+whose judgment was certainly not unpractised, numbered his work among the
+most perfect which the sculptor's art had created in recent years.
+
+"I myself best know the value of this Demeter," the sculptor broke in
+harshly.  "Your praise is the bit of honey which is put into the mouth of
+the hurt child."
+
+"No, my friend," Proclus protested with grave decision.  "I should
+express no less warmly the ardent admiration with which this noble figure
+of the goddess fills me if you were well and still possessed your sight.
+You were right just now when you alluded to my aversion, or, let us say,
+lack of appreciation of the individuality of your art; but this noble
+work changes everything, and nothing affords me more pleasure than that I
+am to be the first to assure you how magnificently you have succeeded in
+this statue."
+
+"The  first!"  Hermon  again  interrupted harshly.  "But the second and
+third will be lacking in Alexandria.  What a pleasure it is to pour the
+gifts of sympathy upon one to whom we wish ill!  But, however successful
+my Demeter may be, you would have awarded the prize twice over to the one
+by Myrtilus."
+
+"Wrong, my young friend!" the statesman protested with honest zeal.
+"All honour to the great dead, whose end was so lamentable; but in this
+contest--let me swear it by the goddess herself!--you would have remained
+victor; for, at the utmost, nothing can rank with the incomparable save
+a work of equal merit, and--I know life and art--two artists rarely or
+never succeed in producing anything so perfect as this masterpiece at the
+same time and in the same place."
+
+"Enough!" gasped Hermon, hoarse with excitement; but Proclus, with
+increasing animation, continued: "Brief as is our acquaintance, you have
+probably perceived that I do not belong to the class of flatterers, and
+in Alexandria it has hardly remained unknown to you that the younger
+artists number me, to whom the office of judge so often falls, among the
+sterner critics.  Only because I desire their best good do I frankly
+point out their errors.  The multitude provides the praise.  It will soon
+flow upon you also in torrents, I can see its approach, and as this
+blindness, if the august Aesculapius and healing Isis aid, will pass away
+like a dreary winter night, it would seem to me criminal to deceive you
+about your own ability and success.  I already behold you creating other
+works to the delight of gods and men; but this Demeter extorts boundless,
+enthusiastic appreciation; both as a whole, and in detail, it is
+faultless and worthy of the most ardent praise.  Oh, how long it is,
+my dear, unfortunate friend, since I could congratulate any other
+Alexandrian with such joyful confidence upon the most magnificent
+success!  Every word--you may believe it!--which comes to you in
+commendation of this last work from lips unused to eulogy is sincerely
+meant, and as I utter it to you I shall repeat it in the presence of the
+King, Archias, and the other judges."
+
+Daphne, with hurried breath, deeply flushed cheeks, and sparkling eyes,
+had fairly hung upon the lips of the clever connoisseur.  She knew
+Proclus, and his dreaded, absolutely inconsiderate acuteness, and was
+aware that this praise expressed his deepest conviction.  Had he been
+dissatisfied with the statue of Demeter, or even merely superficially
+touched by its beauty, he might have shrunk from wounding the unfortunate
+artist by censure, and remained silent; but only something grand,
+consummate, could lead him to such warmth of recognition.
+
+She now felt it a misfortune that she and Thyone had hitherto been
+prevented, by anxiety for their patient, from admiring his work.  Had it
+still been light, she would have gone to the temple of Demeter at once;
+but the sun had just set, and Proclus was obliged to beg her to have
+patience.
+
+As the cases were standing finished at the cabinetmaker's, the statue had
+been packed immediately, under his own direction, and carried on board
+his ship, which would convey it with him to the capital the next day.
+
+While this arrangement called forth loud expressions of regret from
+Daphne and the vivacious matron, Hermon assented to it, for it would at
+least secure the ladies, until their arrival in Alexandria, from a
+painful disappointment.
+
+"Rather," Proclus protested with firm dissent, "it will rob you for some
+time of a great pleasure, and you, noble daughter of Archias, probably of
+the deepest emotion of gratitude with which the favour of the immortals
+has hitherto rendered you happy; yet the master who created this genuine
+goddess owes the best part of it to your own face."
+
+"He told me himself that he thought of me while at work," Daphne
+admitted, and a flood of the warmest love reached Hermon's ears in her
+agitated tones, while, greatly perplexed, he wondered with increasing
+anxiety whether the stern critic Proclus had really been serious in the
+extravagant eulogium, so alien to his reputation in the city.
+
+Myrtilus, too, had admired the head of his Demeter, and--this he himself
+might admit--he had succeeded in it, and yet ought not the figure, with
+its too pronounced inclination forward, which, it is true, corresponded
+with Daphne's usual bearing, and the somewhat angular bend of the arms,
+have induced this keen-sighted connoisseur to moderate the exalted strain
+of his praise?  Or was the whole really so admirable that it would have
+seemed petty to find fault with the less successful details?  At any
+rate, Proclus's eulogy ought to give him twofold pleasure, because his
+art had formerly repelled him, and Hermon tried to let it produce this
+effect upon him.  But it would not do; he was continually overpowered by
+the feeling that under the enthusiastic homage of the intriguing Queen
+Arsinoe's favourite lurked a sting which he should some day feel.  Or
+could Proclus have been persuaded by Thyone and Daphne to help them
+reconcile the hapless blind man to his hard fate?
+
+Hermon's every movement betrayed the great anxiety which filled his mind,
+and it by no means escaped Proclus's attention, but he attributed it to
+the blinded sculptor's anguish in being prevented, after so great a
+success, from pursuing his art further.
+
+Sincerely touched, he laid his slender hand on the sufferer's muscular
+arm, saying: "A more severe trial than yours, my young friend, can
+scarcely be imposed upon the artist who has just attained the highest
+goal, but three things warrant you to hope for recovery--your vigorous
+youth, the skill of our Alexandrian leeches, and the favour of the
+immortal gods.  You shrug your shoulders?  Yet I insist that you have won
+this favour by your Demeter.  True, you owe it less to yourself than to
+yonder maiden.  What pleasure it affords one whom, like myself, taste and
+office bind to the arts, to perceive such a revolution in an artist's
+course of creation, and trace it to its source!  I indulged myself in it
+and, if you will listen, I should like to show you the result."
+
+"Speak," replied Hermon dully, bowing his head as if submitting to the
+inevitable, while Proclus began:
+
+"Hitherto your art imitated, not without success, what your eyes showed
+you, and if this was filled with the warm breath of life, your work
+succeeded.  All respect to your Boy Eating Figs, in whose presence you
+would feel the pleasure he himself enjoyed while consuming the sweet
+fruit.  Here, among the works of Egyptian antiquity, there is imminent
+danger of falling under the tyranny of the canon of proportions which can
+be expressed in figures, or merely even the demands of the style hallowed
+by thousands of years, but in a subject like the 'Fig-eater' such a
+reproach is not to be feared.  He speaks his own intelligible language,
+and whoever reproduces it without turning to the right or left has won,
+for he has created a work whose value every true friend of art, no matter
+to what school he belongs, prizes highly.
+
+"To me personally such works of living reality are cordially welcome.
+Yet art neither can nor will be satisfied with snatches of what is
+close at hand; but you are late-born, sons of a time when the two great
+tendencies of art have nearly reached the limits of what is attainable
+to them.  You were everywhere confronted with completed work, and you
+are right when you refuse to sink to mere imitators of earlier works,
+and therefore return to Nature, with which we Hellenes, and perhaps the
+Egyptians also, began.  The latter forgot her; the former--we Greeks--
+continued to cling to her closely."
+
+"Some few," Hermon eagerly interrupted the other, "still think it worth
+the trouble to take from her what she alone can bestow.  They save
+themselves the toilsome search for the model which others so successfully
+used before them, and bronze and marble still keep wonderfully well.
+Bring out the old masterpieces.  Take the head from this one, the arm
+from that, etc.  The pupil impresses the proportions on his mind.  Only
+so far as the longing for the beautiful permits do even the better ones
+remain faithful to Nature, not a finger's breadth more."
+
+"Quite right," the other went on calmly.  "But your objection only
+brings one nearer the goal.  How many who care only for applause content
+themselves to-day, unfortunately, with Nature at second hand!  Without
+returning to her eternally fresh, inexhaustible spring, they draw from
+the conveniently accessible wells which the great ancients dug for them."
+
+"I know these many," Hermon wrathfully exclaimed.  "They are the brothers
+of the Homeric poets, who take verses from the Iliad and Odyssey to piece
+out from them their own pitiful poems."
+
+"Excellent, my son!" exclaimed Thyone, laughing, and Daphne remarked that
+the poet Cleon had surprised her father with such a poem a few weeks
+before.  It was a marvellous bit of botchwork, and yet there was a
+certain meaning in the production, compiled solely from Homeric verses.
+
+"Diomed's Hecuba," observed Proclus, "and the Aphrodite by Hippias, which
+were executed in marble, originated in the same way, and deserve no
+better fate, although they please the great multitude.  But, praised be
+my lord, Apollo, our age can also boast of other artists.  Filled with
+the spirit of the god, they are able to model truthfully and faithfully
+even the forms of the immortals invisible to the physical eye.  They
+stand before the spectator as if borrowed from Nature, for their creators
+have filled them with their own healthy vigour.  Our poor Myrtilus
+belonged to this class and, after your Demeter, the world will include
+you in it also."
+
+"And yet," answered Hermon in a tone of dissent, "I remained faithful to
+myself, and put nothing, nothing at all of my own personality, into the
+forms borrowed from Nature."
+
+"What need of that was there?" asked Proclus with a subtle smile.  "Your
+model spared you the task.  And this at last brings me to the goal I
+desired to reach.  As the great Athenians created types for eternity, so
+also does Nature at times in a happy hour, for her own pleasure, and such
+a model you found in our Daphne.-No contradiction, my dear young lady!
+The outlines of the figure--By the dog!  Hermon might possibly have
+found forms no less beautiful in the Aphrosion, but how charming and
+lifelike is the somewhat unusual yet graceful pose of yours!  And then
+the heart, the soul!  In your companionship our artist had nothing to do
+except lovingly to share your feelings in order to have at his disposal
+everything which renders so dear to us all the giver of bread, the
+preserver of peace, the protector of marriage, the creator and supporter
+of the law of moderation in Nature, as well as in human existence.  Where
+would all these traits be found more perfectly united in a single human
+being than in your person, Daphne, your quiet, kindly rule?"
+
+"Oh, stop!" the girl entreated.  "I am only too well aware--"
+
+"That you also are not free from human frailties," Proclus continued,
+undismayed.  "We will take them, great or small as they may be, into the
+bargain.  The secret ones do not concern the sculptor, who does not or
+will not see them.  What he perceives in you, what you enable him to
+recognise through every feature of your sweet, tranquillizing face, is
+enough for the genuine artist to imagine the goddess; for the distinction
+between the mortal and the immortal is only the degree of perfection, and
+the human intellect and artist soul can find nothing more perfect in the
+whole domain of Demeter's jurisdiction than is presented to them in your
+nature.  Our friend yonder seized it, and his magnificent work of art
+proves how nearly it approaches the purest and loftiest conception we
+form of the goddess whom he had to represent.  It is not that he deified
+you, Daphne; he merely bestowed on the divinity forms which he recognised
+in you."
+
+Just at that moment, obeying an uncontrollable impulse, Hermon pulled the
+bandage from his eyes to see once more the woman to whom this warm homage
+was paid.
+
+Was the experienced connoisseur of art and the artist soul in the right?
+
+He had told himself the same thing when he selected Daphne for a model,
+and her head reproduced what Proclus praised as the common possession of
+Daphne and Demeter.  Truthful Myrtilus had also seen it.  Perhaps his
+work had really been so marvellously successful because, while he was
+engaged upon it, his friend had constantly stood before his mind in all
+the charm of her inexhaustible goodness.
+
+Animated by the ardent desire to gaze once more at the beloved face, to
+which he now owed also this unexpectedly great success, he turned toward
+the spot whence her voice had reached him; but a wall of violet mist,
+dotted with black specks, was all that his blinded eyes showed him, and
+with a low groan he drew the linen cloth over the burns.
+
+This time Proclus also perceived what was passing in the poor artist's
+mind, and when he took leave of him it was with the resolve to do his
+utmost to brighten with the stars of recognition and renown the dark
+night of suffering which enshrouded this highly gifted sculptor, whose
+unexpectedly great modesty had prepossessed him still more in his favour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+After the grammateus had retired, Daphne insisted upon leaving Tennis the
+next day.
+
+The desire to see Hermon's masterpiece drew her back to Alexandria even
+more strongly than the knowledge of being missed by her father.
+
+Only the separation from Thyone rendered the departure difficult, for the
+motherless girl had found in her something for which she had long
+yearned, and most sorely missed in her companion Chrysilla, who from
+expediency approved of everything she did or said.
+
+The matron, too, had become warmly attached to Daphne, and would gladly
+have done all that lay in her power to lighten Hermon's sad fate, yet she
+persisted in her determination to return speedily to her old husband in
+Pelusium.
+
+But she did not fully realize how difficult this departure would be for
+her until the blind man, after a long silence, asked whether it was
+night, if the stars were in the sky, and if she really intended to leave
+him.
+
+Then burning sympathy filled her compassionate soul, and she could no
+longer restrain her tears.  Daphne, too, covered her face, and imposed
+the strongest restraint upon herself that she might not sob aloud.
+
+So it seemed a boon to both when Hermon expressed the desire to spend
+part of the night on deck.
+
+This desire contained a summons to action, and to be able to bestir
+themselves in useful service appeared like a favour to Thyone and Daphne.
+
+Without calling upon a slave, a female servant, or even Chrysilla for the
+smallest office, the two prepared a couch on deck for the blind man, and,
+leaning on the girl's stronger arm, he went up into the open air.
+
+There he stretched both arms heavenward, inhaled deep breaths of the cool
+night breeze, and thirstily emptied the goblet of wine which Daphne mixed
+and gave him with her own hand.
+
+Then, with a sigh of relief, he said: "Everything has not grown black
+yet.  A delightful feeling of pleasure takes possession even of the blind
+man when the open air refreshes him and the wine warms his blood in the
+sunshine of your kindness."
+
+"And much better things are still in prospect," Daphne assured him.
+"Just think what rapture it will be when you are permitted to see the
+light again after so long a period of darkness!"
+
+"When--" repeated Hermon, his head drooping as he spoke.
+
+"It must, it must be so!" rang with confident assurance from Thyone's
+lips.
+
+"And then," added Daphne, gazing sometimes upward to the firmament strewn
+with shining stars, sometimes across the broad, rippling expanse of the
+water, in which the reflection of the heavenly bodies shimmered in
+glittering, silvery radiance, "yes, Hermon, who would not be glad to
+exchange with you then?  You may shake your head, but I would take your
+place quickly and with joyous courage.  There is a proof of the existence
+of the gods, which so exactly suits the hour when you will again see,
+enjoy, admire what this dreary darkness now hides from you.  It was a
+philosopher who used it; I no longer know which one.  How often I have
+thought of it since this cruel misfortune befell you!  And now--"
+
+"Go on," Hermon interrupted with a smile of superiority.  "You are
+thinking of Aristotle's man who grew up in a dark cave.  The conditions
+which must precede the devout astonishment of the liberated youth when he
+first emerged into the light and the verdant world would certainly exist
+in me."
+
+"Oh, not in that way," pleaded the wounded girl; and Thyone exclaimed:
+"What is the story of the man you mention?  We don't talk about Aristotle
+and such subjects in Pelusium."
+
+"Perhaps they are only too much discussed in Alexandria," said the blind
+artist.  "The Stagirite, as you have just heard, seeks to prove the
+existence of the gods by the man of whom I spoke."
+
+"No, he does prove it," protested Daphne.  "Just listen, Mother Thyone.
+A little boy grows up from earliest childhood into a youth in a dark
+cave.  Then suddenly its doors are opened to him.  For the first time he
+sees the sun, moon, and stars, flowers and trees, perhaps even a
+beautiful human face.  But at the moment when all these things rush upon
+him like so many incomprehensible marvels, must he not ask himself who
+created all this magnificence?  And the answer which comes to him--"
+
+"There is only one," cried the matron; "the omnipotent gods.  Do you
+shrug your shoulders at that, son of the pious Erigone?  Why, of course!
+The child who still feels the blows probably rebels against his earthly
+father.  But if I see aright, the resentment will not last when you, like
+the man, go out of the cave and your darkness also passes away.  Then the
+power from which you turned defiantly will force itself upon you, and you
+will raise your hands in grateful prayer to the rescuing divinity.  As to
+us women, we need not be drawn out of a cave to recognise it.  A mother
+who reared three stalwart sons--I will say nothing of the daughters--can
+not live without them.  Why are they so necessary to her?  Because we
+love our children twice as much as ourselves, and the danger which
+threatens them alarms the poor mother's heart thrice as much as her own.
+Then it needs the helping powers.  Even though they often refuse their
+aid, we may still be grateful for the expectation of relief.  I have
+poured forth many prayers for the three, I assure you, and after doing so
+with my whole soul, then, my son, no matter how wildly the storm had
+raged within my breast, calmness returned, and Hope again took her place
+at the helm.  In the school of the denier of the gods, you forgot the
+immortals above and depended on yourself alone.  Now you need a guide,
+or even two or three of them, in order to find the way.  If your mother
+were still alive, you would run back to her to hide your face in her lap.
+But she is dead, and if I were as proud as you, before clasping the
+sustaining hand of another mortal I would first try whether one would not
+be voluntarily extended from among the Olympians.  If I were you, I would
+begin with Demeter, whom you honoured by so marvellous a work."
+
+Hermon waved his hand as if brushing away a troublesome fly, exclaiming
+impatiently: "The gods, always the gods!  I know by my own mother,
+Thyone, what you women are, though I was only seven years old when I
+was bereft of her by the same powers that you call good and wise, and who
+have also robbed me of my eyesight, my friend, and all else that was
+dear.  I thank you for your kind intention, and you, too, Daphne, for
+recalling the beautiful allegory.  How often we have argued over its
+meaning!  If we continued the discussion, perhaps it might pleasantly
+shorten the next few hours, which I dread as I do my whole future
+existence, but I should be obliged in the outset to yield the victory to
+you.  The great Herophilus is right when he transfers the seat of thought
+from the heart to the head.  What a wild tumult is raging here behind my
+brow, and how one voice drowns another!  The medley baffles description.
+I could more easily count with my blind eyes the cells in a honeycomb
+than refute with my bewildered brain even one shrewd objection.  It seems
+to me that we need our eyes to understand things.  We certainly do to
+taste.  Whatever I eat and drink--langustae and melons, light Mareotic
+wine and the dark liquor of Byblus my tongue can scarcely distinguish it.
+The leech assures me that this will pass away, but until the chaos within
+merges into endurable order there is nothing better for me than solitude
+and rest, rest, rest."
+
+"We will not deny them to you," replied Thyone, glancing significantly at
+Daphne.  "Proclus's enthusiastic judgment was sincerely meant.  Begin by
+rejoicing over it in the inmost depths of your heart, and vividly
+imagining what a wealth of exquisite joys will be yours through your last
+masterpiece."
+
+"Willingly, if I can," replied the blind man, gratefully extending his
+hand.  "If I could only escape the doubt whether the most cruel tyrant
+could devise anything baser than to rob the artist, the very person to
+whom it is everything, of his sight."
+
+"Yes, it is terrible," Daphne assented.  "Yet it seems to me that a
+richer compensation for the lost gift is at the disposal of you artists
+than of us other mortals, for you understand how to look with the eyes of
+the soul.  With them you retain what you have seen, and illumine it with
+a special radiance.  Homer was blind, and for that very reason, I think,
+the world and life became clear and transfigured for him though a veil
+concealed both from his physical vision."
+
+"The poet!"  Hermon  exclaimed.  "He draws from his own soul what sight,
+and sight alone, brings to us sculptors.  And, besides, his spirit
+remained free from the horrible darkness that assailed mine.  Joy itself,
+Daphne, has lost its illuminating power within.  What, girl, what is to
+become of the heart in which even hope was destroyed?"
+
+"Defend it manfully and keep up your courage," she answered softly; but
+he pressed her hand firmly, and, in order not to betray how self-
+compassion was melting his own soul, burst forth impetuously: "Say
+rather: Crush the wish whose fulfilment is self-humiliation!  I will go
+back to Alexandria.  Even the blind and crippled can find ways to earn
+their bread there.  Now grant me rest, and leave me alone!"
+
+Thyone drew the girl away with her into the ship's cabin.
+
+A short time after, the steward Gras went to Hermon to entreat him to
+yield to Thyone's entreaties and leave the deck.
+
+The leech had directed the sufferer to protect himself from draughts and
+dampness, and the cool night mists were rising more and more densely from
+the water.
+
+Hermon doubtless felt them, but the thought of returning to the close
+cabin was unendurable.  He fancied that his torturing thoughts would
+stifle him in the gloom where even fresh air was denied him.
+
+He allowed the careful Bithynian to throw a coverlet over him and draw
+the hood of his cloak over his head, but his entreaties and warnings were
+futile.
+
+The steward's watchful nursing reminded Hermon of his own solicitude for
+his friend and of his faithful slave Bias, both of whom he had lost.
+Then he remembered the eulogy of the grammateus, and it brought up the
+question whether Myrtilus would have agreed with him.  Like Proclus, his
+keen-sighted and honest friend had called Daphne the best model for the
+kindly goddess.  He, too, had given to his statue the features of the
+daughter of Archias, and admitted that he had been less successful.  But
+the figure!  Perhaps he, Hermon, in his perpetual dissatisfaction with
+himself had condemned his own work too severely, but that it lacked the
+proper harmony had escaped neither Myrtilus nor himself.  Now he recalled
+the whole creation to his remembrance, and its weaknesses forced
+themselves upon him so strongly and objectionably that the extravagant
+praise of the stern critic awakened fresh doubts in his mind.
+
+Yet a man like the grammateus, who on the morrow or the day following it
+would be obliged to repeat his opinion before the King and the judges,
+certainly would not have allowed himself to be carried away by mere
+compassion to so great a falsification of his judgment.
+
+Or was he himself sharing the experience of many a fellow-artist?  How
+often the creator deceived himself concerning the value of his own work!
+He had expected the greatest success from his Polyphemus hurling the rock
+at Odysseus escaping in the boat, and a gigantic smith had posed for a
+model.  Yet the judges had condemned it in the severest manner as a work
+far exceeding the bounds of moderation, and arousing positive dislike.
+The clay figure had not been executed in stone or metal, and crumbled
+away.  The opposite would probably now happen with the Demeter.  Her
+bending attitude had seemed to him daring, nay, hazardous; but the acute
+critic Proclus had perceived that it was in accord with one of Daphne's
+habits, and therefore numbered it among the excellences of the statue.
+
+If the judges who awarded the prize agreed with the verdict of the
+grammateus, he must accustom himself to value his own work higher,
+perhaps even above that of Myrtilus.
+
+But was this possible?
+
+He saw his friend's Demeter as though it was standing before him, and
+again he recognised in it the noblest masterpiece its maker had ever
+created.  What praise this marvellous work would have deserved if his own
+really merited such high encomiums!
+
+Suddenly an idea came to him, which at first he rejected as
+inconceivable; but it would not allow itself to be thrust aside, and its
+consideration made his breath fail.
+
+What if his own Demeter had been destroyed and Myrtilus's statue saved?
+If the latter was falsely believed to be his work, then Proclus's
+judgment was explained--then--then---
+
+Seized by a torturing anguish, he groaned aloud, and the steward Gras
+inquired what he wanted.
+
+Hermon hastily grasped the Bithynian's arm, and asked what he knew about
+the rescue of his statue.
+
+The answer was by no means satisfying.  Gras had only heard that, after
+being found uninjured in his studio, it had been dragged with great
+exertion into the open air.  The goldsmith Chello had directed the work.
+
+Hermon remembered all this himself, yet, with an imperious curtness in
+marked contrast to his usual pleasant manner to this worthy servant, he
+hoarsely commanded him to bring Chello to him early the next morning, and
+then again relapsed into his solitary meditations.
+
+If the terrible conjecture which had just entered his mind should be
+confirmed, no course remained save to extinguish the only new light which
+now illumined the darkness of his night, or to become a cheat.
+
+Yet his resolution was instantly formed.  If the goldsmith corroborated
+his fear, he would publicly attribute the rescued work to the man who
+created it.  And he persisted in this intention, indignantly silencing
+the secret voice which strove to shake it.  It temptingly urged that
+Myrtilus, so rich in successes, needed no new garland.  His lost sight
+would permit him, Hermon, from reaping fresh laurels, and his friend
+would so gladly bestow this one upon him.  But he angrily closed his ears
+to these enticements, and felt it a humiliation that they dared to
+approach him.
+
+With proud self-reliance he threw back his head, saying to himself that,
+though Myrtilus should permit him ten times over to deck him self with
+his feathers, he would reject them.  He would remain himself, and was
+conscious of possessing powers which perhaps surpassed his friend's.
+He was as well qualified to create a genuine work of art as the best
+sculptor, only hitherto the Muse had denied him success in awakening
+pleasure, and blindness would put an end to creating anything of his own.
+
+The more vividly he recalled to memory his own work and his friend's,
+the more probable appeared his disquieting supposition.
+
+He also saw Myrtilus's figure before him, and in imagination heard his
+friend again promise that, with the Arachne, he would wrest the prize
+even from him.
+
+During the terrible events of the last hours he had thought but seldom
+and briefly of the weaver, whom it had seemed a rare piece of good
+fortune to be permitted to represent.  Now the remembrance of her took
+possession of his soul with fresh power.
+
+The image of Arachne illumined by the lamplight, which Althea had showed
+him, appeared like worthless jugglery, and he soon drove it back into the
+darkness which surrounded him.  Ledscha's figure, however, rose before
+him all the more radiantly.  The desire to possess her had flown to the
+four winds; but he thought he had never before beheld anything more
+peculiar, more powerful, or better worth modelling than the Biamite
+girl as he saw her in the Temple of Nemesis, with uplifted hand, invoking
+the vengeance of the goddess upon him, and there--he discovered it now--
+Daphne was not at all mistaken.  Images never presented themselves as
+distinctly to those who could see as to the blind man in his darkness.
+If he was ever permitted to receive his sight, what a statue of the
+avenging goddess he could create from this greatest event in the history
+of his vision!
+
+After this work--of that he was sure--he would no longer need the
+borrowed fame which, moreover, he rejected with honest indignation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+It must be late, for Hermon felt the cool breeze, which in this region
+rose between midnight and sunrise, on his burned face and, shivering,
+drew his mantle closer round him.
+
+Yet it seemed impossible to return to the cabin; the memory of Ledscha
+imploring vengeance, and the stern image of the avenging goddess in the
+cella of the little Temple of Nemesis, completely mastered him.  In the
+close cabin these terrible visions, united with the fear of having reaped
+undeserved praise, would have crouched upon his breast like harpies and
+stifled or driven him mad.  After what had happened, to number the swift
+granting of the insulted Biamite's prayer among the freaks of chance was
+probably a more arbitrary and foolish proceeding than, with so many
+others, to recognise the incomprehensible power of Nemesis.  Ledscha had
+loosed it against him and his health, perhaps even his life, and he
+imagined that she was standing before him with the bridle and wheel,
+threatening him afresh.
+
+Shivering, as if chilled to the bone, overwhelmed by intense horror,
+he turned his blinded eyes upward to the blackness above and raised his
+hand, for the first time since he had joined the pupils of Straton in the
+Museum, to pray.  He besought Nemesis to be content, and not add to
+blindness new tortures to augment the terrible ones which rent his soul,
+and he did so with all the ardour of his passionate nature.
+
+The steward Gras had received orders to wake the Lady Thyone if anything
+unusual happened to the blind man, and when he heard the unfortunate
+artist groan so pitifully that it would have moved a stone, and saw him
+raise his hand despairingly to his head, he thought it was time to utter
+words of consolation, and a short time after the anxious matron followed
+him.
+
+Her low exclamation startled Hermon.  To be disturbed in the first
+prayer after so long a time, in the midst of the cries of distress of a
+despairing soul, is scarcely endurable, and the blind man imposed little
+restraint upon himself when his old friend asked what had occurred, and
+urged him not to expose himself longer to the damp night air.
+
+At first he resolutely resisted, declaring that he should lose his senses
+alone in the close cabin.
+
+Then, in her cordial, simple way, she offered to bear him company in the
+cabin.  She could not sleep longer, at any rate; she must leave him early
+in the morning, and they still had many things to confide to each other.
+
+Touched by so much kindness, he yielded and, leaning on the Bithynian's
+arm, followed her, not into his little cabin, but into the captain's
+spacious sitting room.
+
+Only a single lamp dimly lighted the wainscoting, composed of ebony,
+ivory, and tortoise shell, the gay rug carpet, and the giraffe and
+panther skins hung on the walls and doors and flung on the couches and
+the floor.
+
+Thyone needed no brilliant illumination for this conversation, and the
+blinded man was ordered to avoid it.
+
+The matron was glad to be permitted to communicate to Hermon so speedily
+all that filled her own heart.
+
+While he remained on deck, she had gone to Daphne's cabin.
+
+She had already retired, and when Thyone went to the side of the couch
+she found the girl, with her cheeks wet with tears, still weeping, and
+easily succeeded in leading the motherless maiden to make a frank
+confession.
+
+Both cousins had been dear to her from childhood; but while Myrtilus,
+though often impeded by his pitiable sufferings, had reached by a smooth
+pathway the highest recognition, Hermon's impetuous toiling and striving
+had constantly compelled her to watch his course with anxious solicitude
+and, often unobserved, extend a helping hand.
+
+Sympathy, disapproval, and fear, which, however, was always blended with
+admiration of his transcendent powers, had merged into love.  Though he
+had disdained to return it, it had nevertheless been perfectly evident
+that he needed her, and valued her and her opinion.  Often as their views
+differed, the obstinate boy and youth had never allowed any one except
+herself a strong influence over his acts and conduct.  But, far as he
+seemed to wander from the paths which she believed the right ones, she
+had always held fast to the conviction that he was a man of noble nature,
+and an artist who, if he only once fixed his eyes upon the true goal,
+would far surpass by his mighty power the other Alexandrian sculptors,
+whatever names they bore, and perhaps even Myrtilus.
+
+To the great vexation of her father who, after her mother's death, in an
+hour when his heart was softened, had promised that he would never impose
+any constraint upon her in the choice of a husband, she had hitherto
+rejected every suitor.  She had showed even the distinguished Philotas in
+Pelusium, without the least reserve, that he was seeking her in vain; for
+just at that time she thought she had perceived that Hermon returned her
+love, and after his abrupt departure it had become perfectly evident that
+the happiness of her life depended upon him.
+
+The terrible misfortune which had now befallen him had only bound her
+more firmly to the man she loved.  She felt that she belonged to him
+indissolubly, and the leech's positive assurance that his blindness was
+incurable had only increased the magic of the thought of being and
+affording tenfold more to the man bereft of sight than when, possessing
+his vision, the world, life, and art belonged to him.  To be able to
+lavish everything upon the most beloved of mortals, and do whatever her
+warm, ever-helpful heart prompted, seemed to her a special favour of the
+gods in whom she believed.
+
+That it was Demeter, to the ranks of whose priestesses she belonged, who
+was so closely associated with his blinding, also seemed to her no mere
+work of chance.  The goddess on whom Hermon had bestowed the features of
+her own face had deprived him of sight to confer upon her the happiness
+of brightening and beautifying the darkness of his life.
+
+If she saw aright, and it was only the fear of obtaining, with herself,
+her wealth, that still kept him from her, the path which would finally
+unite them must be found at last.  She hoped to conquer also her father's
+reluctance to give his only child in marriage to a blind man, especially
+as Hermon's last work promised to give him the right to rank with the
+best artists of his age.
+
+The matron had listened to this confession with an agitated heart.
+She had transported herself in imagination into the soul of the girl's
+mother, and brought before her mind what objections the dead woman would
+have made to her daughter's union with a man deprived of sight; but
+Daphne had firmly insisted upon her wish, and supported it by many a
+sensible and surprising answer.  She was beyond childhood, and her three-
+and-twenty years enabled her to realize the consequences which so unusual
+a marriage threatened to entail.
+
+As for Thyone herself, she was always disposed to look on the bright
+side, and the thought that this vigorous young man, this artist crowned
+with the highest success, must remain in darkness to the end of his life,
+was utterly incompatible with her belief in the goodness of the gods.
+But if Hermon was cured, a rare wealth of the greatest happiness awaited
+him in the union with Daphne.
+
+The mood in which she found the blind man had wounded and troubled her.
+Now she renewed the bandage, saying: "How gladly I would continue to use
+my old hands for you, but this will be the last time in a long while that
+I am permitted to do this for the son of my Erigone; I must leave you
+to-morrow."
+
+Hermon clasped her hand closely, exclaiming with affectionate warmth:
+"You must not go, Thyone!  Stay here, even if it is only a few days
+longer."
+
+What pleasure these words gave her, and how gladly she would have
+fulfilled his wish!  But it could not be, and he did not venture to
+detain her by fresh entreaties after she had described how her aged
+husband was suffering from her absence.
+
+"I often ask myself what he still finds in me," she said.  "True, so long
+a period of wedded life is a firm tie.  If I am gone and he does not find
+me when he returns home from inspections, he wanders about as if lost,
+and does not even relish his food, though the same cook has prepared it
+for years.  And he, who forgets nothing and knows by name a large number
+of the many thousand men he commands, would very probably, when I am
+away, join the troops with only sandals on his feet.  To miss my ugly old
+face really can not be so difficult!  When he wooed me, of course I
+looked very different.  And so--he confessed it himself--so he always
+sees me, and most plainly when I am absent from his sight.  But that,
+Hermon, will be your good fortune also.  All you now know as young and
+beautiful will continue so to you as long as this sorrowful blindness
+lasts, and on that very account you must not remain alone, my boy--that
+is, if your heart has already decided in favour of any one--and that is
+the case, unless these old eyes deceive me."
+
+"Daphne," he answered dejectedly, "why should I deny that she is dear to
+me?  And yet, how dare the blind man take upon himself the sin of binding
+her young life--"
+
+"Stop! stop!" Thyone interrupted with eager warmth.  "She loves you, and
+to be everything to you is the greatest happiness she can imagine."
+
+"Until repentance awakes, and it is too late," he answered gravely.
+"But even were her love strong enough to share her husband's misfortune
+patiently--nay, perhaps with joyous courage--it would still be
+contemptible baseness were I to profit by that love and seek her hand."
+
+"Hermon!" the matron now exclaimed reproachfully; but he repeated with
+strong emphasis: "Yes, it would be baseness so great that even her most
+ardent love could not save me from the reproach of having committed it.
+I will not speak of her father, to whom I am so greatly indebted.  It may
+be that it might satisfy Daphne, full of kindness as she is, to devote
+herself, body and soul, to the service of her helpless companion.  But I?
+Far from thinking constantly, like her, solely of others and their
+welfare, I should only too often, selfish as I now am, be mindful of
+myself.  But when I realize who I am, I see before me a blind man who is
+poorer than a beggar, because the scorching flames melted even the gold
+which was to help him pay his debts."
+
+"Folly!" cried the matron.  "For what did Archias gather his boundless
+treasures?  And when his daughter is once yours--"
+
+"Then," Hermon went on bitterly, "the blinded artist's poverty will be
+over.  That is your opinion, and the majority of people will share it.
+But I have my peculiarities, and the thought of being rescued from hunger
+and thirst by the woman I love, and who ought to see in me the man from
+whom she receives the best gifts--to be dependent on her as the recipient
+of her alms--seems to me worse than if I were once more to lose my sight.
+I could not endure it at all!  Every mouthful would choke me.  Just
+because she is so dear to me, I can not seek her hand; for, in return for
+her great self-sacrificing love, I could give her nothing save the keen
+discontent which seizes the proud soul that is forced constantly to
+accept benefits, as surely as the ringing sound follows the blow upon
+the brass.  My whole future life would become a chain of humiliations,
+and do you know whither this unfortunate marriage would lead?  My teacher
+Straton once said that a man learns to hate no one more easily than the
+person from whom he receives benefits which it is out of his power to
+repay.  That is wise, and before I will see my great love for Daphne
+transformed to hate, I will again try the starving which, while I was a
+sculptor at Rhodes, I learned tolerably well."
+
+"But would not a great love," asked Thyone, "suffice to repay tenfold the
+perishable gifts that can be bought with gold and silver?"
+
+"No, and again no!" Hermon answered in an agitated tone.  "Something else
+would blend with the love I brought to the marriage, something that must
+destroy all the compensation it might offer; for I see myself becoming a
+resentful misanthrope if I am compelled to relinquish the pleasure of
+creating and, condemned to dull inaction, can do nothing except allow
+myself to be tended, drink, eat, and sleep.  The gloomy mood of her
+unfortunate husband would sadden Daphne's existence even more than my
+own; for, Thyone, though I should strive with all my strength to bear
+patiently, with her dear aid, the burden imposed upon me, and move on
+through the darkness with joyous courage, like many another blind man,
+I could not succeed."
+
+"You are a man," the matron exclaimed indignantly, "and what thousands
+have done before you--"
+
+"There,"  he loudly protested,  "I  should surely fail; for, you dear
+woman, who mean so kindly by me, my fate is worse than theirs.  Do you
+know what just forced from my lips the exclamation of pain which alarmed
+you?  I, the only child of the devout Erigone, for whose sake you are so
+well disposed toward me, am doomed to misfortune as surely as the victim
+dragged to the altar is certain of death.  Of all the goddesses, there is
+only one in whose power I believe, and to whom I just raised my hands in
+prayer.  It is the terrible one to whom I was delivered by hate and the
+deceived love which is now dragging me by the hair, and will rob and
+torture me till I despair of life.  I mean the gray daughter of Night,
+whom no one escapes, dread Nemesis."
+
+Thyone sank down into the chair by the blind artist's side, asking
+softly, "And what gave you into her avenging hands, hapless boy?"
+
+"My own abominable folly," he answered mournfully and, with the feeling
+that it would  relieve his heart to pour out to this true friend what he
+would usually have confided only to his Myrtilus, he hurriedly related
+how he had recognised in Ledscha the best model for his Arachne, how he
+had sought her love, and then,  detained by Althea, left her in the lurch
+and most deeply offended and insulted her.  Lastly, he gave a brief but
+vivid description of his meeting with the vengeful barbarian girl in the
+Temple of Nemesis, how Ledscha had invoked upon him the wrath of the
+terrible goddess, and how the most horrible punishment had fallen upon
+him directly after the harsh accusation of the Biamite.
+
+The matron had listened to this confession in breathless suspense.  Now
+she fixed her eyes on the floor, shook her gray head gently, and said
+anxiously: "Is that it?  It certainly puts things in a different light.
+As the son of your never-to-be-forgotten mother, you are indeed dear to
+my heart; but Daphne is not less dear to me, and though in your marriage
+I just saw happiness for you both, that is now past.  What is poverty,
+what is blindness!  Eros would reconcile far more difficult problems, but
+his arrows are shattered on the armour of Nemesis.  Where there is a pair
+of lovers, and she raises her scourge against one of them, the other will
+also be struck.  Until you feel that you are freed from this persecutor,
+it would be criminal to bind a loving woman to you and your destiny.  It
+is not easy to find the right path for you both, for even Nemesis and her
+power do not make the slightest change in the fact that you need faithful
+care and watching in your blindness.  Daylight brings wisdom, and we will
+talk further to-morrow."
+
+She rose as she spoke; but Hermon detained her, while from his lips
+escaped the anxious question, "So you will take Daphne away from me, and
+leave me alone in my blindness?"
+
+"You in  your blindness?" cried Thyone, and the mere reproachful tone of
+the question banished the fear.  "I would as quickly deprive my own son
+of my support as I would you just at this time, my poor boy; but whether
+my conscience will permit me to let Daphne remain near you only grant me,
+I repeat it, until sunrise to-morrow for reflection.  My old heart will
+then find the right way."
+
+"Yet whatever you may decide concerning us," pleaded the blind man, "tell
+Daphne that, on the eve of losing her, I first felt in its full power how
+warmly I love her.  Even without Nemesis, the joy of making her mine
+would have been denied me.  Fate will never permit me to possess her; yet
+never again to hear her gentle voice, never more to feel her dear
+presence, would be blinding me a second time."
+
+"It need not be imposed upon you long," said the matron soothingly.
+
+Then she went close to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said: "The
+power of the goddess who punishes the misdeeds of the reckless is called
+irresistible and uncontrollable; but one thing softens even her, and
+checks her usually resistless wheel: it is a mother's prayer.  I heard
+this from my own mother, and experienced it myself, especially in my
+oldest son Eumedes, who from the wildest madcap became an ornament of his
+class, and to whom the King--you doubtless know it--intrusted the command
+of the fleet which is to open the Ethiopian land of elephants to the
+Egyptian power.  You, Hermon, are an orphan, but for you, too, the souls
+of your parents live on.  Only I do not know whether you still honour and
+pray to them."
+
+"I did until a few years ago,"  replied Hermon.
+
+"But later you neglected this sacred duty," added Thyone.  "Yet how was
+that possible?  In our barren Pelusium I could not help thinking hundreds
+of times of the grove which Archias planted in your necropolis for the
+dead members of his family, and how often, while we were in Alexandria,
+it attracted me to think in its shade of your never-to-be-forgotten
+mother.  There I felt her soul near me; for there was her home, and in
+imagination I saw her walking and resting under the trees.  And you--her
+beloved child--you remained aloof from this hallowed spot!  Even at the
+festival of the dead you omitted prayers and sacrifices?"
+
+The blind artist assented to this question by a silent bend of the head;
+but the matron indignantly exclaimed: "And did not you know, unhappy man,
+that you were thus casting away the shield which protects mortals from
+the avenging gods?  And your glorious mother, who would have given her
+life for you?  Yet you loved her, I suppose?"
+
+"Thyone!" Hermon cried, deeply wounded, holding out his right hand as if
+in defence.  "Well, well!"  said the matron.  "I know that you revere her
+memory.  But that alone is not sufficient.  On memorial festivals, and
+especially on the birthdays, a mother's soul needs a prayer and a gift
+from the son, a wreath, a fillet, fragrant ointment, a piece of honey,
+a cup of wine or milk--all these things even the poor man spares from his
+penury--yet a warm prayer, in pure remembrance and love, would suffice to
+rob the wrath of Nemesis, which the enraged barbarian girl let loose upon
+you, of its power.  Only your mother, Hermon, the soul of the noble woman
+who bore you, can restore to you what you have lost.  Appeal for aid to
+her, son of Erigone, and she will yet make everything right."
+
+Bending quickly over the artist as she spoke, she kissed his brow and
+moved steadily away, though he called her name with yearning entreaty.
+
+A short time after, the steward Gras led Hermon to his cabin, and while
+undressing him reported that a messenger from Pelusium had announced that
+the commandant Philippus was coming to Tennis the next morning, before
+the market place filled, to take his wife with him to Alexandria, where
+he was going by the King's command.
+
+Hermon only half listened, and then ordered the Bithynian to leave him.
+
+After he had reclined on the couch a short time, he softly called the
+names of the steward, Thyone, and Daphne.  As he received no answer, and
+thus learned that he was alone, he rose, drew himself up to his full
+height, gazed heavenward with his bandaged eyes, stretched both hands
+toward the ceiling of the low cabin, and obeyed his friend's bidding.
+
+Thoroughly convinced that he was doing right, and ashamed of having so
+long neglected what the duty of a son commanded, he implored his mother's
+soul for forgiveness.
+
+While doing so he again found that the figure which he recalled to his
+memory appeared before him with marvellous distinctness.  Never had she
+been so near him since, when a boy of seven, she clasped him for the last
+time to her heart.  She tenderly held out her arms to him, and he rushed
+into her embrace, shouting exultantly while she hugged and kissed him.
+Every pet name which he had once been so glad to hear, and during recent
+years had forgotten, again fell from her lips.  As had often happened in
+days long past, he again saw his mother crown him for a festival.
+Pleased with the little new garment which she herself had woven for him
+and embroidered with a tiny tree with red apples, beneath which stood a
+bright-plumaged duckling, she led him by the hand in the necropolis to
+the empty tomb dedicated to his father.
+
+It was a building the height of a man, constructed of red Cyprian
+marble, on which, cast in bronze, shield, sword, and lance, as well as
+a beautiful helmet, lay beside a sleeping lion.  It was dedicated to the
+memory of the brave hipparch whom he had been permitted to call his
+father, and who had been burned beside the battlefield on which he had
+found a hero's death.
+
+Hermon now again beheld himself, with his mother, garlanding, anointing,
+and twining with fresh fillets the mausoleum erected by his uncle Archias
+to his brave brother.  The species of every flower, the colour of the
+fillets-nay, even the designs embroidered on his little holiday robe--
+again returned to his mind, and, while these pleasant memories hovered
+around him, he appealed to his mother in prayer.
+
+She stood before him, young and beautiful, listening without reproach or
+censure as he besought her forgiveness and confided to her his sins, and
+how severely he was punished by Nemesis.
+
+During this confession he felt as though he was kneeling before the
+beloved dead, hiding his face in her lap, while she bent over him and
+stroked his thick, black hair.  True, he did not hear her speak; but when
+he looked up again he could see, by the expression of her faithful blue
+eyes, that his manly appearance surprised her, and that she rejoiced in
+his return to her arms.
+
+She listened compassionately to his laments, and when he paused pressed
+his head to her bosom and gazed into his face with such joyous confidence
+that his heart swelled, and he told himself that she could not look at
+him thus unless she saw happiness in store for him.
+
+Lastly, he began also to confide that he loved no woman on earth more
+ardently than the very Daphne whom, when only a pretty little child, she
+had carried in her arms, yet that he could not seek the wealthy heiress
+because manly pride forbade this to the blind beggar.
+
+Here the anguish of renunciation seized him with great violence, and when
+he wished to appeal again to his mother his exhausted imagination refused
+its service, and the vision would not appear.
+
+Then he groped his way back to the bed, and, as he let his head sink upon
+the pillows, he fancied that he would soon be again enwrapped in the
+sweet slumber of childhood, which had long shunned his couch.
+
+It was years since he had felt so full of peace and hope, and he told
+himself, with grateful joy, that every childlike emotion had not yet died
+within him, that the stern conflicts and struggles of the last years had
+not yet steeled every gentle emotion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The sun of the following day had long passed its meridian when Hermon at
+last woke.  The steward Gras, who had grown gray in the service of
+Archias, was standing beside the couch.
+
+There was nothing in the round, beardless face of this well-fed yet
+active man that could have attracted the artist, yet the quiet tones of
+his deep voice recalled to memory the clear, steadfast gaze of his gray
+eyes, from which so often, in former days, inviolable fidelity, sound
+sense, caution, and prudence had looked forth at him.
+
+What the blind man heard from Gras surprised him--nay, at first seemed
+impossible.  To sleep until the afternoon was something unprecedented for
+his wakeful temperament; but what was he to say to the tidings that the
+commandant of Pelusium had arrived in his state galley early in the
+morning and taken his wife, Daphne, and Chrysilla away with him to
+Alexandria?
+
+Yet it sounded credible enough when the Bithynian further informed him
+that the ladies had left messages of remembrance for him, and said that
+Archias's ship, upon which he was, would be at his disposal for any
+length of time he might desire.  Gras was commissioned to attend him.
+The Lady Thyone especially desired him to heed her counsel.
+
+While the steward was communicating this startling news as calmly as if
+everything was a matter of course, the events of the preceding night came
+back to Hermon's memory with perfect distinctness, and again the fear
+assailed him that the rescued Demeter was the work of Myrtilus, and not
+his own.
+
+So the first question he addressed to Gras concerned the Tennis
+goldsmith, and it was a keen disappointment to Hermon when he learned
+that the earliest time he could expect to see him would be the following
+day.  The skilful artisan had been engaged for weeks upon the gold
+ornaments on the new doors of the holy of holies in the Temple of Amon at
+Tanis.  Urgent business had called him home from the neighbouring city
+just before the night of the attack; but yesterday evening he had
+returned to Tanis, where his wife said he would have only two days'
+work to do.
+
+This answer, however, by no means appeased Hermon's impatience.
+He commanded that a special messenger should be sent to summon the
+goldsmith, and the Bithynian received the order with a slight shake
+of his round head.
+
+What new trouble had befallen the usually alert young artist that he
+received this unexpected change in his situation as apathetically as a
+horse which is led from one stall to another, and, instead of questioning
+him, thought only of hastening his interview with the goldsmith?  If his
+mistress, who had left him full of anxiety from the fear that her
+departure would deeply agitate the blind man, should learn how
+indifferently he had received it!  He, Gras, certainly would not betray
+it.  Eternal gods--these artists!  He knew them.  Their work was dearer
+to their hearts than their own lives, love, or friendship.
+
+During breakfast, of which the steward was obliged to remind him, Hermon
+pondered over his fate; but how could he attain any degree of clearness
+of vision until he secured accurate information concerning the statue of
+Demeter?  Like a dark cloud, which sweeps over the starry sky and
+prevents the astronomer from seeing the planets which he desires to
+observe, the fear that Proclus's praise had been bestowed upon the work
+of Myrtilus stood between him and every goal of his thought.
+
+Only the fact that he still remained blind, and not even the faintest
+glimmer of light pierced the surrounding darkness, while the sun
+continued its course with glowing radiance, and that, blinded and
+beggared, he must despise himself if he sought to win Daphne, was
+certain.  No reflection could alter it.
+
+Again the peace of mind which he thought he had regained during slumber
+was destroyed.  Fear of the artisan's statement even rendered it
+impossible to pray to his mother with the affectionate devotion he had
+felt the day before.
+
+The goldsmith had directed the rescue of the Demeter, yet he would
+scarcely have been able to distinguish it from the statue by Myrtilus;
+for though, like his friend, he had often employed his skilful hands in
+the arrangement of the gold plates at the commencement of the work, the
+Egyptian had been summoned to Tennis before the statues had attained
+recognisable form.  He had not entered the studios for several months,
+unless Bias had granted him admittance without informing his master.
+This was quite possible, for the slave's keen eyes certainly had not
+failed to notice how little he and Myrtilus valued the opinion of the
+honest, skilful, but extremely practical and unimaginative man, who could
+not create independently even the smallest detail.
+
+So it was impossible to determine at present whether Chello had seen the
+finished statues or not, yet Hermon desired the former with actual
+fervour, that he might have positive certainty.
+
+While reflecting over these matters, the image of the lean Egyptian
+goldsmith, with his narrow, brown, smooth-shaven face and skull,
+prominent cheek bones, receding brow, projecting ears and, with all
+its keenness, lustreless glance, rose before him as if he could see
+his bodily presence.  Not a single word unconnected with his trade, the
+weather, or an accident, had ever reached the friends' ears from Chello's
+thick lips, and this circumstance seemed to warrant Hermon in the
+expectation of learning from him the pure, unadulterated truth.
+
+Rarely had a messenger of love been awaited with such feverish suspense
+as the slave whom Gras had despatched to Tanis to induce the goldsmith to
+return home.  He might come soon after nightfall, and Hermon used the
+interval to ask the Bithynian the questions which he had long expected.
+
+The replies afforded little additional information.  He learned only that
+Philippus had been summoned to Alexandria by the King, and that the Lady
+Thyone and her husband had talked with the leech and assented to his
+opinion that it would be better for Hermon to wait here until the burns
+on his face were healed before returning to Alexandria.
+
+For Daphne's sake this decision had undoubtedly been welcome to the
+matron, and it pleased him also; for he still felt so ill physically,
+and so agitated mentally, that he shrank from meeting his numerous
+acquaintances in the capital.
+
+The goldsmith! the goldsmith!  It depended upon his decision whether he
+would return to Alexandria at all.
+
+Soon after Hermon had learned from Gras that the stars had risen, he was
+informed that he must wait patiently for his interview with the Egyptian,
+as he had been summoned to the capital that very day by a messenger from
+Proclus.
+
+Then the steward had fresh cause to marvel at his charge, for this news
+aroused the most vehement excitement.
+
+In fact, it afforded the prospect of a series--perhaps a long one--of the
+most torturing days and nights.  And the dreaded hours actually came--
+nay, the anguish of uncertainty had be come almost unendurable, when, on
+the seventh day, the Egyptian at last returned from Alexandria.  They had
+seemed like weeks to Hermon, had made his face thinner, and mingled the
+first silver hairs in his black beard.
+
+The calls of the cheerful notary and the daily visits of the leech, an
+elderly man, who had depressed rather than cheered him by informing him
+of many cases like his own which all proved incurable, had been his sole
+diversion.  True, the heads of the Greek residents of Tennis had also
+sometimes sought him: the higher government officials, the lessees of the
+oil monopoly and the royal bank, as well as Gorgias, who, next to Archias
+the Alexandrian, owned the largest weaving establishments, but the tales
+of daily incidents with which they entertained Hermon wearied him.  He
+listened with interest only to the story of Ledscha's disappearance, yet
+he perceived, from the very slight impression it made upon him, how
+little he had really cared for the Biamite girl.
+
+His inquiries about Gula called down upon him many well-meant jests.
+She was with her parents; while Taus, Ledscha's young sister, was staying
+at the brick-kiln, where the former had reduced the unruly slaves to
+submission.
+
+Care had been taken to provide for his personal safety, for the attack
+might perhaps yet prove to have been connected with the jealousy of the
+Biamite husbands.
+
+The commandant of Pelusium had therefore placed a small garrison of
+heavily armed soldiers and archers in Tennis, for whom tents had been
+pitched on the site of the burned white house.
+
+Words of command and signals for changing the guards often reached Hermon
+when he was on the deck of his ship, and visitors praised the wise
+caution and prompt action of Alexander the Great's old comrade.
+
+The notary, a vivacious man of fifty, who had lived a long time in
+Alexandria and, asserting that he grew dull and withered in little
+Tennis, went to the capital as frequently as possible, had often called
+upon the sculptor at first, and been disposed to discuss art and the
+other subjects dear to Hermon's heart, but on the third day he again set
+off for his beloved Alexandria.  When saying farewell, he had been
+unusually merry, and asked Hermon to send him away with good wishes and
+offer sacrifices for the success of his business, since he hoped to bring
+a valuable gift on his return from the journey.
+
+The blind artist was glad to have other visits for a short time, but he
+preferred to be alone and devote his thoughts to his own affairs.
+
+He now knew that his love was genuine.  Daphne seemed the very
+incarnation of desirable, artless, heart-refreshing womanliness, but his
+memory could not dwell with her long; anxiety concerning Chello's report
+only too quickly interrupted it, as soon as he yielded to its charm.
+
+He did not think at all of the future.  What was he to appoint for a time
+which the words of a third person might render unendurable?
+
+When Gras at last ushered in the goldsmith, his heart throbbed so
+violently that it was difficult for him to find the words needed for the
+questions he desired to ask.
+
+The Egyptian had really been summoned to Alexandria by Proclus, not on
+account of the Demeter, but the clasp said to belong to Myrtilus, found
+amid the ruins of the fallen house, and he had been able to identify it
+with absolute positiveness as the sculptor's property.
+
+He had been referred from one office to another, until finally the Tennis
+notary and Proclus opened the right doors to him.
+
+Now the importance of his testimony appeared, since the will of the
+wealthy young sculptor could not be opened until his death was proved,
+and the clasp which had been found aided in doing so.
+
+Hermon's question whether he had heard any particulars about this will
+was answered by the cold-hearted, dull-brained man in the negative.
+
+He had done enough, he said, by expressing his opinion.  He had gone to
+Alexandria unwillingly, and would certainly have stayed in Tennis if he
+could have foreseen what a number of tiresome examinations he would be
+obliged to undergo.  He had been burning with impatience to quit the
+place, on account of the important work left behind in Tanis, and he did
+not even know whether he would be reimbursed for his travelling expenses.
+
+During this preliminary conversation Hermon gained the composure he
+needed.
+
+He began by ascertaining whether Chello remembered the interior
+arrangement of the burned white house, and it soon appeared that he
+recollected it accurately.
+
+Then the blind man requested him to tell how the rescue of the statue had
+been managed, and the account of the extremely prosaic artisan described
+so clearly and practically how, on entering the burning building, he
+found Myrtilus's studio already inaccessible, but the statue of Demeter
+in Hermon's still uninjured, that the trustworthiness of his story could
+not be doubted.
+
+One circumstance only appeared strange, yet it was easily explained.
+Instead of standing on the pedestal, the Demeter was beside it, and even
+the slow-witted goldsmith inferred from this fact that the robbers had
+intended to steal it and placed it on the floor for that purpose, but
+were prevented from accomplishing their design by the interference of
+Hermon and the people from Tennis.
+
+After the Egyptian, in reply to the artist's inquiry concerning what
+other works of art and implements he had seen in the studio, had answered
+that nothing else could be distinguished on account of the smoke, he
+congratulated the sculptor on his last work.  People were already making
+a great stir about the new Demeter.  It had been discussed not only in
+the workshop of his brother, who, like himself, followed their father's
+calling, but also in the offices, at the harbour, in the barbers' rooms
+and the cookshops, and he, too, must admit that, for a Greek goddess,
+that always lacked genuine, earnest dignity, it really was a pretty bit
+of work.
+
+Lastly, the Egyptian asked to whom he should apply for payment for the
+remainder of his labour.
+
+The strip of gold, from which Hermon had ordered the diadem to be made,
+had attracted his attention on the head of his Demeter, and compensation
+for the work upon this ornament was still due.
+
+Hermon, deeply agitated, asked, with glowing cheeks, whether Chello
+really positively remembered having prepared for him the gold diadem
+which he had seen in Alexandria, and the Egyptian eagerly assured him
+that he had done so.  Hitherto he had found the sculptors honest men,
+and Hermon would not withhold the payment for his well-earned toil.
+
+The artist strenuously denied such an intention; but when, in his desire
+to have the most absolute assurance, he again asked questions about the
+diadem, the Egyptian thought that the blind sculptor doubted the justice
+of his demand, and wrathfully insisted upon his claim, until Gras managed
+to whisper, undetected by Hermon, that he would have the money ready for
+him.
+
+This satisfied the angry man.  He honestly believed that he had prepared
+the gold for the ornament on the head of the Demeter in Alexandria; yet
+the statue chiselled by Myrtilus had also been adorned with a diadem, and
+Chello had wrought the strip of gold it required.  Only it had escaped
+his memory, because he had been paid for the work immediately after its
+delivery.
+
+Glad to obey his mistress's orders to settle at once any debts which the
+artist might have in Tennis, the steward followed the goldsmith while
+Hermon, seizing the huge goblet which had just been filled with wine and
+water for him drained it at one long draught.  Then, with sigh of relief,
+he restored it to its place, raised his hand and his blinded eyes
+heavenward, and offered a brief, fervent thanksgiving to his mother's
+soul and the great Demeter, whom, he might now believe it himself, he had
+honoured with a masterpiece which had extorted warm admiration even from
+a connoisseur unfriendly his art.
+
+When Gras returned, he said, with a grin of satisfaction, that the
+goldsmith was like all the rest of his countrymen.  The artists did not
+owe him another drachm; the never-to-be-forgotten Myrtilus had paid for
+the work ordered by Hermon also.
+
+Then, for the first time since he had been led on board the ship, a gay
+laugh rang fro the blind man's lips, rising in deep, pure, joyous tones
+from his relieved breast.
+
+The faithful gray eyes of honest Gras glittered with tears at the musical
+tones, and how ardently he wished for his beloved mistress when the
+sculptor, not content with this, exclaimed as gleefully as in happier
+days: "Hitherto I have had no real pleasure from my successful work, old
+Gras, but it is awaking now!  If my Myrtilus were still alive, and these
+miserable eyes yet possessed the power of rejoicing in the light and in
+beautiful human forms, by the dog!  I would have the mixing vessels
+filled, wreath after wreath brought, boon companions summoned, and with
+flute-playing, songs, and fiery words, offer the Muses, Demeter, and
+Dionysus their due meed of homage!"
+
+Gras declared that this wish might easily be fulfilled.  There was no
+lack of wine or drinking cups on the vessel, the flute-players whom he
+had heard in the Odeum at Tanis did not understand their business amiss,
+flowers and wreaths could be obtained, and all who spoke Greek in Tennis
+would accept his invitation.
+
+But the Bithynian soon regretted this proposal, for it fell like a hoar-
+frost upon the blind man's happy mood.  He curtly declined.  He would not
+play host where he was himself a guest, and pride forbade him to use the
+property of others as though it were his own.
+
+He could not regain his suddenly awakened pleasure in existence before
+Gras warned him it was time to go to rest.  Not until he was alone
+in the quiet cabin did the sense of joy in his first great success
+overpower him afresh.
+
+He might well feel proud delight in the work which he had created, for
+he had accomplished it without being unfaithful to the aims he had set
+before him.
+
+It had been taken from his own studio, and the skilful old artisan had
+recognised his preliminary work upon the diadem which he, Hermon, had
+afterward adorned with ornaments himself.  But, alas! this first must at
+the same time be his last great success, and he was condemned to live on
+in darkness.
+
+Although abundant recognition awaited him in Alexandria, his quickly
+gained renown would soon be forgotten, and he would remain a beggared
+blind man.  But it was now allowable for him to think secretly of
+possessing Daphne; perhaps she would wait for him and reject other
+suitors until he learned in the capital whether he might not hope to
+recover his lost sight.  He was at least secure against external want;
+the generous Archias would hardly withhold from him the prize he had
+intended for the successful statue, although the second had been
+destroyed.  The great merchant would do everything for his fame-crowned
+nephew, and he, Hermon, was conscious that had his uncle been in his
+situation he would have divided his last obol with him.  Refusal of his
+assistance would have been an insult to his paternal friend and guardian.
+
+Lastly, he might hope that Archias would take him to the most skilful
+leeches in Alexandria and, if they succeeded in restoring his lost power
+of vision, then--then  Yet it seemed so presumptuous to lull himself in
+this hope that he forbade himself the pleasure of indulging it.
+
+Amid these consoling reflections, Hermon fell asleep, and awoke fresher
+and more cheerful than he had been for some time.
+
+He had to spend two whole weeks more in Tennis, for the burns healed
+slowly, and an anxious fear kept him away from Alexandria.
+
+There the woman he loved would again meet him and, though he could assure
+Thyone that Nemesis had turned her wheel away from him, he would have
+been permitted to treat Daphne only with cool reserve, while every fibre
+of his being urged him to confess his love and clasp her in his arms.
+
+Gras had already written twice to his master, telling him with what
+gratifying patience Hermon was beginning to submit to his great
+misfortune, when the notary Melampus returned from Alexandria with news
+which produced the most delightful transformation in the blind artist's
+outer life.
+
+More swiftly than his great corpulence usually permitted the jovial man
+to move, he ascended to the deck, calling: "Great, greater, the greatest
+of news I bring, as the heaviest but by no means the most dilatory of
+messengers of good fortune from the city of cities.  Prick up your ears,
+my friend, and summon all your strength, for there are instances of the
+fatal effect of especially lavish gifts from the blind and yet often sure
+aim of the goddess of Fortune.  The Demeter, in whom you proved so
+marvellously that the art of a mortal is sufficient to create immortals,
+is beginning to show her gratitude.  She is helping to twine wreaths for
+you in Alexandria."
+
+Here the vivacious man suddenly hesitated and, while wiping his plump
+cheeks, perspiring brow, and smooth, fat double chin with his kerchief,
+added in a tone of sincere regret: "That's the way with me!  In one thing
+which really moves me, I always forget the other.  The fault sticks to me
+like my ears and nose.  When my mother gave me two errands, I attended to
+the first in the best possible way, but overlooked the second entirely,
+and was paid for it with my father's staff, yet even the blue wales made
+no change in the fault.  But for that I should still be in the city of
+cities; but it robbed me of my best clients, and so I was transferred to
+this dullest of holes.  Even here it clings to me.  My detestable
+exultation just now proves it.  Yet I know how dear to you was the dead
+man who manifests his love even from the grave.  But you will forgive me
+the false note into which my weakness led me; it sprang from regard for
+you, my young friend.  To serve your cause, I forgot everything else.
+Like my mother's first errand, it was performed in the best possible way.
+You will learn directly.  By the lightnings of Father Zeus and the owl of
+Athene, the news I bring is certainly great and beautiful; but he who
+yearned to make you happy was snatched from you and, though his noble
+legacy must inspire pleasure and gratitude, it will nevertheless fill
+your poor eyes with sorrowful tears."
+
+Melampus turned, as he spoke, to the misshapen Egyptian slave who
+performed the duties of a clerk, and took several rolls from the
+drumshaped case that hung around his neck; but his prediction concerning
+Hermon was speedily fulfilled, for the notary handed him the will of his
+friend Myrtilus.
+
+It made him the heir of his entire fortune and, however happy the
+unexpected royal gift rendered the blind man, however cheering might be
+the prospects it opened to him for the future and the desire of his
+heart, sobs nevertheless interrupted the affectionate words which
+commenced the document Melampus read aloud to him.
+
+Doubtless the tears which Hermon dedicated to the most beloved of human
+beings made his blinded eyes smart, but he could not restrain them,
+and even long after the notary had left him, and the steward had
+congratulated him on his good fortune, the deep emotion of his tender
+heart again and again called forth a fresh flood of tears consecrated
+to the memory of his friend.
+
+The notary had already informed the grammateus of the disposition which
+Myrtilus had made of his property in Hermon's favour a few days before,
+but, by the advice of the experienced Proclus, the contents of the will
+had been withheld from the sculptor; the unfortunate man ought to be
+spared any disappointment, and proof that Myrtilus was really among the
+victims of the accident must first be obtained.
+
+The clasp found in the ruins of the white house appeared to furnish this,
+and the notary had put all other business aside and gone to Alexandria to
+settle the matter.
+
+The goldsmith Chello, who had fastened a new pin to the clasp, and could
+swear that it had belonged to Myrtilus, had been summoned to the capital
+as a witness, and, with the aid of the influential grammateus of the
+Dionysian games and priest of Apollo, the zeal of Melampus had
+accomplished in a short time the settlement of this difficult affair,
+which otherwise might perhaps have consumed several months.
+
+The violent death of Myrtilus had been admitted as proved by the
+magistrate, who had been prepossessed in Hermon's favour by his
+masterpiece.  Besides, no doubts could be raised concerning the validity
+of a will attested by sixteen witnesses.  The execution of this last
+testament had been intrusted to Archias, as Myrtilus's nearest relative,
+and several other distinguished Alexandrians.
+
+The amount of the fortune bequeathed had surprised even these wealthy
+men, for under the prudent management of Archias the property inherited
+by the modest young sculptor had trebled in value.
+
+The poor blind artist had suddenly become a man who might be termed
+"rich," even in the great capital.
+
+Again the steward shook his head; this vast, unexpected inheritance did
+not seem to make half so deep an impression upon the eccentric blind man
+as the news received a short time ago that his trivial debt to the
+goldsmith Chello was already settled.  But Hermon must have dearly loved
+the friend to whom he owed this great change of fortune, and grief for
+him had cast joy in his immense new wealth completely into the shade.
+
+This conjecture was confirmed on the following morning, for the blind man
+had himself led to the Greek necropolis to offer sacrifices to the gods
+of the nether world and to think of his friend.
+
+When, soon after noon, the lessee of the royal bank appeared on the ship
+to offer him as many drachmae or talents as he might need for present
+use, he asked for a considerable sum to purchase a larger death-offering
+for his murdered friend.  The next morning he went with the architect of
+the province to the scene of the conflagration, and had him mark the spot
+of ground on which he desired to erect to his Myrtilus a monument to be
+made in Alexandria.
+
+At sunset, leaning on the steward's arm, he went to the Temple of
+Nemesis, where he prayed and commissioned the priest to offer a costly
+sacrifice to the goddess in his name.
+
+On the return home, Hermon suddenly stood still and mentioned to Gras the
+sum which he intended to bestow upon the blind in Tennis.  He knew now
+what it means to live bereft of light, and, he added in a low tone, to be
+also poor and unable to earn his daily bread.
+
+On the ship he asked the Bithynian whether his burned face had become
+presentable again, and no longer made a repulsive impression.
+
+This Gras could truthfully assure him.  Then the artist's features
+brightened, and the Bithynian heard genuine cheerfulness ring in the
+tones of his voice as he exclaimed: "Then, old Gras, we will set out for
+Alexandria as soon as the ship is ready to sail.  Back to life, to the
+society of men of my own stamp, to reap the praise earned by my own
+creations, and to the only divine maiden among mortals--to Daphne!"
+
+"The day after to-morrow!" exclaimed the steward in joyous excitement;
+and soon after the carrier dove was flying toward the house of Archias,
+bearing the letter which stated the hour when his fame-crowned blind
+nephew would enter the great harbour of Alexandria.
+
+The evening of the next day but one the Proserpina was bearing Hermon
+away from the city of weavers toward home.
+
+As the evening breeze fanned his brow, his thoughts dwelt sadly on his
+Myrtilus.  Hitherto it had always seemed as if he was bound, and must
+commit some atrocious deed to use the seething power condemned to
+inaction.  But as the galley left the Tanitic branch of the Nile behind,
+and the blind man inhaled the cool air upon the calm sea, his heart
+swelled, and for the first time he became fully aware that, though the
+light of the sun would probably never shine for him again, and therefore
+the joy of creating, the rapture of once more testing his fettered
+strength, would probably be forever denied him, other stars might perhaps
+illumine his path, and he was going, in a position of brilliant
+independence, toward his native city, fame, and--eternal gods!--love.
+
+Daphne had conquered, and he gave only a passing thought to Ledscha and
+the hapless weaver Arachne.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Chance, which took no heed of merit or unworthiness
+Deceived himself concerning the value of his own work
+Gods whom men had invented after their own likeness
+Hate the person from whom he receives benefits
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V5 ***
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