The Last Days of Pompeii

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  Chapter II

  THE NOONDAY EXCURSION ON THE CAMPANIAN SEAS.

  'BUT tell me, Glaucus,' said Ione, as they glided down the ripplingSarnus in their boat of pleasure, 'how camest thou with Apaecides to myrescue from that bad man?'

  'Ask Nydia yonder,' answered the Athenian, pointing to the blind girl,who sat at a little distance from them, leaning pensively over her lyre;'she must have thy thanks, not we. It seems that she came to my house,and, finding me from home, sought thy brother in his temple; heaccompanied her to Arbaces; on their way they encountered me, with acompany of friends, whom thy kind letter had given me a spirit cheerfulenough to join. Nydia's quick ear detected my voice--a few wordssufficed to make me the companion of Apaecides; I told not my associateswhy I left them--could I trust thy name to their light tongues andgossiping opinion?--Nydia led us to the garden gate, by which weafterwards bore thee--we entered, and were about to plunge into themysteries of that evil house, when we heard thy cry in anotherdirection. Thou knowest the rest.'

  Ione blushed deeply. She then raised her eyes to those of Glaucus, andhe felt all the thanks she could not utter. 'Come hither, my Nydia,'said she, tenderly, to the Thessalian.

  'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst be my sister and friend? Hastthou not already been more?--my guardian, my preserver!'

  'It is nothing,' answered Nydia coldly, and without stirring.

  'Ah! I forgot,' continued Ione, 'I should come to thee'; and she movedalong the benches till she reached the place where Nydia sat, andflinging her arms caressingly round her, covered her cheeks with kisses.

  Nydia was that morning paler than her wont, and her countenance greweven more wan and colorless as she submitted to the embrace of thebeautiful Neapolitan. 'But how camest thou, Nydia,' whispered Ione, 'tosurmise so faithfully the danger I was exposed to? Didst thou knowaught of the Egyptian?'

  'Yes, I knew of his vices.'

  'And how?'

  'Noble Ione, I have been a slave to the vicious--those whom I servedwere his minions.'

  'And thou hast entered his house since thou knewest so well that privateentrance?'

  'I have played on my lyre to Arbaces,' answered the Thessalian, withembarrassment.

  'And thou hast escaped the contagion from which thou hast saved Ione?'returned the Neapolitan, in a voice too low for the ear of Glaucus.

  'Noble Ione, I have neither beauty nor station; I am a child, and aslave, and blind. The despicable are ever safe.'

  It was with a pained, and proud, and indignant tone that Nydia made thishumble reply; and Ione felt that she only wounded Nydia by pursuing thesubject. She remained silent, and the bark now floated into the sea.

  'Confess that I was right, Ione,' said Glaucus, 'in prevailing on theenot to waste this beautiful noon in thy chamber--confess that I wasright.'

  'Thou wert right, Glaucus,' said Nydia, abruptly.

  'The dear child speaks for thee,' returned the Athenian. 'But permit meto move opposite to thee, or our light boat will be over-balanced.'

  So saying, he took his seat exactly opposite to Ione, and leaningforward, he fancied that it was her breath, and not the winds of summer,that flung fragrance over the sea.

  'Thou wert to tell me,' said Glaucus, 'why for so many days thy door wasclosed to me?'

  'Oh, think of it no more!' answered Ione, quickly; 'I gave my ear towhat I now know was the malice of slander.'

  'And my slanderer was the Egyptian?'

  Ione's silence assented to the question.

  'His motives are sufficiently obvious.'

  'Talk not of him,' said Ione, covering her face with her hands, as if toshut out his very thought.

  'Perhaps he may be already by the banks of the slow Styx,' resumedGlaucus; 'yet in that case we should probably have heard of his death.Thy brother, methinks, hath felt the dark influence of his gloomy soul.When we arrived last night at thy house he left me abruptly. Will heever vouchsafe to be my friend?'

  'He is consumed with some secret care,' answered Ione, tearfully.'Would that we could lure him from himself! Let us join in that tenderoffice.'

  'He shall be my brother,' returned the Greek.

  'How calmly,' said Ione, rousing herself from the gloom into which herthoughts of Apaecides had plunged her--'how calmly the clouds seem torepose in heaven; and yet you tell me, for I knew it not myself, thatthe earth shook beneath us last night.'

  'It did, and more violently, they say, than it has done since the greatconvulsion sixteen years ago: the land we live in yet nurses mysteriousterror; and the reign of Pluto, which spreads beneath our burningfields, seems rent with unseen commotion. Didst thou not feel the earthquake, Nydia, where thou wert seated last night? and was it not thefear that it occasioned thee that made thee weep?'

  'I felt the soil creep and heave beneath me, like some monstrousserpent,' answered Nydia; 'but as I saw nothing, I did not fear: Iimagined the convulsion to be a spell of the Egyptian's. They say hehas power over the elements.'

  'Thou art a Thessalian, my Nydia,' replied Glaucus, 'and hast a nationalright to believe in magic.

  'Magic!--who doubts it?' answered Nydia, simply: 'dost thou?'

  'Until last night (when a necromantic prodigy did indeed appal me),methinks I was not credulous in any other magic save that of love!' saidGlaucus, in a tremulous voice, and fixing his eyes on Ione.

  'Ah!' said Nydia, with a sort of shiver, and she awoke mechanically afew pleasing notes from her lyre; the sound suited well the tranquilityof the waters, and the sunny stillness of the noon.

  'Play to us, dear Nydia, said Glaucus--'play and give us one of thineold Thessalian songs: whether it be of magic or not, as thou wilt--letit, at least, be of love!'

  'Of love!' repeated Nydia, raising her large, wandering eyes, that everthrilled those who saw them with a mingled fear and pity; you couldnever familiarize yourself to their aspect: so strange did it seem thatthose dark wild orbs were ignorant of the day, and either so fixed wastheir deep mysterious gaze, or so restless and perturbed their glance,that you felt, when you encountered them, that same vague, and chilling,and half-preternatural impression, which comes over you in the presenceof the insane--of those who, having a life outwardly like your own, havea life within life--dissimilar--unsearchable--unguessed!

  'Will you that I should sing of love?' said she, fixing those eyes uponGlaucus.

  'Yes,' replied he, looking down.

  She moved a little way from the arm of Ione, still cast round her, as ifthat soft embrace embarrassed; and placing her light and gracefulinstrument on her knee, after a short prelude, she sang the followingstrain:

  NYDIA'S LOVE-SONG

  I

  The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose, And the Rose loved one; For who recks the wind where it blows? Or loves not the sun?

  II

  None knew whence the humble Wind stole, Poor sport of the skies-- None dreamt that the Wind had a soul, In its mournful sighs!

  III

  Oh, happy Beam! how canst thou prove That bright love of thine? In thy light is the proof of thy love. Thou hast but--to shine!

  IV

  How its love can the Wind reveal? Unwelcome its sigh; Mute--mute to its Rose let it steal-- Its proof is--to die!

  'Thou singest but sadly, sweet girl,' said Glaucus; 'thy youth onlyfeels as yet the dark shadow of Love; far other inspiration doth hewake, when he himself bursts and brightens upon us.

  'I sing as I was taught,' replied Nydia, sighing.

  'Thy master was love-crossed, then--try thy hand at a gayer air. Nay,girl, give the instrument to me.' As Nydia obeyed, her hand touched his,and, with that slight touch, her breast heaved--her cheek flushed. Ioneand Glaucus, occupied with each other, perceived not those signs ofstrange and premature emo
tions, which preyed upon a heart that,nourished by imagination, dispensed with hope.

  And now, broad, blue, bright, before them, spread that halcyon sea, fairas at this moment, seventeen centuries from that date, I behold itrippling on the same divinest shores. Clime that yet enervates with asoft and Circean spell--that moulds us insensibly, mysteriously, intoharmony with thyself, banishing the thought of austerer labor, thevoices of wild ambition, the contests and the roar of life; filling uswith gentle and subduing dreams, making necessary to our nature thatwhich is its least earthly portion, so that the very air inspires uswith the yearning and thirst of love. Whoever visits thee seems to leaveearth and its harsh cares behind--to enter by the Ivory gate into theLand of Dreams. The young and laughing Hours of the PRESENT--the Hours,those children of Saturn, which he hungers ever to devour, seem snatchedfrom his grasp. The past--the future--are forgotten; we enjoy but thebreathing time. Flower of the world's garden--Fountain of Delight--Italyof Italy--beautiful, benign Campania!--vain were, indeed, the Titans, ifon this spot they yet struggled for another heaven! Here, if God meantthis working-day life for a perpetual holiday, who would not sigh todwell for ever--asking nothing, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, whilethy skies shine over him--while thy seas sparkle at his feet--whilethine air brought him sweet messages from the violet and the orange--andwhile the heart, resigned to--beating with--but one emotion, could findthe lips and the eyes, which flatter it (vanity of vanities!) that lovecan defy custom, and be eternal?

  It was then in this clime--on those seas, that the Athenian gazed upon aface that might have suited the nymph, the spirit of the place: feedinghis eyes on the changeful roses of that softest cheek, happy beyond thehappiness of common life, loving, and knowing himself beloved.

  In the tale of human passion, in past ages, there is something ofinterest even in the remoteness of the time. We love to feel within usthe bond which unites the most distant era--men, nations, customsperish; THE AFFECTIONS ARE IMMORTAL!--they are the sympathies whichunite the ceaseless generations. The past lives again, when we lookupon its emotions--it lives in our own! That which was, ever is! Themagician's gift, that revives the dead--that animates the dust offorgotten graves, is not in the author's skill--it is in the heart ofthe reader!

  Still vainly seeking the eyes of Ione, as, half downcast, half averted,they shunned his own, the Athenian, in a low and soft voice, thusexpressed the feelings inspired by happier thoughts than those which hadcolored the song of Nydia.

  THE SONG OF GLAUCUS

  I As the bark floateth on o'er the summer-lit sea, Floats my heart o'er the deeps of its passion for thee; All lost in the space, without terror it glides, For bright with thy soul is the face of the tides. Now heaving, now hush'd, is that passionate ocean, As it catches thy smile or thy sighs; And the twin-stars that shine on the wanderer's devotion Its guide and its god--are thine eyes!

  II

  The bark may go down, should the cloud sweep above, For its being is bound to the light of thy love. As thy faith and thy smile are its life and its joy, So thy frown or thy change are the storms that destroy. Ah! sweeter to sink while the sky is serene, If time hath a change for thy heart! If to live be to weep over what thou hast been, Let me die while I know what thou art!

  As the last words of the song trembled over the sea, Ione raised herlooks--they met those of her lover. Happy Nydia!--happy in thyaffliction, that thou couldst not see that fascinated and charmed gaze,that said so much--that made the eye the voice of the soul--thatpromised the impossibility of change!

  But, though the Thessalian could not detect that gaze, she divined itsmeaning by their silence--by their sighs. She pressed her hands lightlyacross her breast, as if to keep down its bitter and jealous thoughts;and then she hastened to speak--for that silence was intolerable to her.

  'After all, O Glaucus!' said she, 'there is nothing very mirthful inyour strain!'

  'Yet I meant it to be so, when I took up thy lyre, pretty one. Perhapshappiness will not permit us to be mirthful.'

  'How strange is it,' said Ione, changing a conversation which oppressedher while it charmed--'that for the last several days yonder cloud hashung motionless over Vesuvius! Yet not indeed motionless, for sometimesit changes its form; and now methinks it looks like some vast giant,with an arm outstretched over the city. Dost thou see the likeness--oris it only to my fancy?'

  'Fair Ione! I see it also. It is astonishingly distinct. The giantseems seated on the brow of the mountain, the different shades of thecloud appear to form a white robe that sweeps over its vast breast andlimbs; it seems to gaze with a steady face upon the city below, to pointwith one hand, as thou sayest, over its glittering streets, and to raisethe other (dost thou note it?) towards the higher heaven. It is like theghost of some huge Titan brooding over the beautiful world he lost;sorrowful for the past--yet with something of menace for the future.'

  'Could that mountain have any connection with the last night'searthquake? They say that, ages ago, almost in the earliest era oftradition, it gave forth fires as AEtna still. Perhaps the flames yetlurk and dart beneath.'

  'It is possible,' said Glaucus, musingly.

  'Thou sayest thou art slow to believe in magic,' said Nydia, suddenly.'I have heard that a potent witch dwells amongst the scorched caverns ofthe mountain, and yon cloud may be the dim shadow of the demon sheconfers with.'

  'Thou art full of the romance of thy native Thessaly,' said Glaucus;'and a strange mixture of sense and all conflicting superstitions.'

  'We are ever superstitious in the dark,' replied Nydia. 'Tell me,' sheadded, after a slight pause, 'tell me, O Glaucus! do all that arebeautiful resemble each other? They say you are beautiful, and Ionealso. Are your faces then the same? I fancy not, yet it ought to beso.'

  'Fancy no such grievous wrong to Ione,' answered Glaucus, laughing.'But we do not, alas! resemble each other, as the homely and thebeautiful sometimes do. Ione's hair is dark, mine light; Ione's eyesare--what color, Ione? I cannot see, turn them to me. Oh, are theyblack? no, they are too soft. Are they blue? no, they are too deep: theychange with every ray of the sun--I know not their color: but mine,sweet Nydia, are grey, and bright only when Ione shines on them! Ione'scheek is...'

  'I do not understand one word of thy description,' interrupted Nydia,peevishly. 'I comprehend only that you do not resemble each other, andI am glad of it.'

  'Why, Nydia?' said Ione.

  Nydia colored slightly. 'Because,' she replied, coldly, 'I have alwaysimagined you under different forms, and one likes to know one is right.'

  'And what hast thou imagined Glaucus to resemble?' asked Ione, softly.

  'Music!' replied Nydia, looking down.

  'Thou art right,' thought Ione.

  'And what likeness hast thou ascribed to Ione?'

  'I cannot tell yet,' answered the blind girl; 'I have not yet known herlong enough to find a shape and sign for my guesses.'

  'I will tell thee, then,' said Glaucus, passionately; 'she is like thesun that warms--like the wave that refreshes.'

  'The sun sometimes scorches, and the wave sometimes drowns,' answeredNydia.

  'Take then these roses,' said Glaucus; 'let their fragrance suggest tothee Ione.'

  'Alas, the roses will fade!' said the Neapolitan, archly.

  Thus conversing, they wore away the hours; the lovers, conscious only ofthe brightness and smiles of love; the blind girl feeling only itsdarkness--its tortures--the fierceness of jealousy and its woe!

  And now, as they drifted on, Glaucus once more resumed the lyre, andwoke its strings with a careless hand to a strain, so wildly and gladlybeautiful, that even Nydia was aroused from her reverie, and uttered acry of admiration.

  'Thou seest, my child,' cried Glaucus, 'that I can yet redeem thecharacter of love's music, and that I was wrong in saying happinesscould not be gay. Listen, Nydia! listen, dear Ione! and hear:

&nb
sp; THE BIRTH OF LOVE

  I

  Like a Star in the seas above, Like a Dream to the waves of sleep-- Up--up--THE INCARNATE LOVE-- She rose from the charmed deep! And over the Cyprian Isle The skies shed their silent smile; And the Forest's green heart was rife With the stir of the gushing life-- The life that had leap'd to birth, In the veins of the happy earth! Hail! oh, hail! The dimmest sea-cave below thee, The farthest sky-arch above, In their innermost stillness know thee: And heave with the Birth of Love! Gale! soft Gale! Thou comest on thy silver winglets, From thy home in the tender west, Now fanning her golden ringlets, Now hush'd on her heaving breast. And afar on the murmuring sand, The Seasons wait hand in hand To welcome thee, Birth Divine, To the earth which is henceforth thine.

  II

  Behold! how she kneels in the shell, Bright pearl in its floating cell! Behold! how the shell's rose-hues, The cheek and the breast of snow, And the delicate limbs suffuse, Like a blush, with a bashful glow. Sailing on, slowly sailing O'er the wild water; All hail! as the fond light is hailing Her daughter, All hail! We are thine, all thine evermore: Not a leaf on the laughing shore, Not a wave on the heaving sea, Nor a single sigh In the boundless sky, But is vow'd evermore to thee!

  III

  And thou, my beloved one--thou, As I gaze on thy soft eyes now, Methinks from their depths I view The Holy Birth born anew; Thy lids are the gentle cell Where the young Love blushing lies; See! she breaks from the mystic shell, She comes from thy tender eyes! Hail! all hail! She comes, as she came from the sea, To my soul as it looks on thee; She comes, she comes! She comes, as she came from the sea, To my soul as it looks on thee! Hail! all hail!