The Last Days of Pompeii

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  Chapter II

  A CLASSIC HOST, COOK, AND KITCHEN. APAECIDES SEEKS IONE. THEIRCONVERSATION.

  IT was then the day for Diomed's banquet to the most select of hisfriends. The graceful Glaucus, the beautiful Ione, the official Pansa,the high-born Clodius, the immortal Fulvius, the exquisite Lepidus, theepicurean Sallust, were not the only honourers of his festival. Heexpected, also, an invalid senator from Rome (a man of considerablerepute and favor at court), and a great warrior from Herculaneum, whohad fought with Titus against the Jews, and having enriched himselfprodigiously in the wars, was always told by his friends that hiscountry was eternally indebted to his disinterested exertions! Theparty, however, extended to a yet greater number: for although,critically speaking, it was, at one time, thought inelegant among theRomans to entertain less than three or more than nine at their banquets,yet this rule was easily disregarded by the ostentatious. And we aretold, indeed, in history, that one of the most splendid of theseentertainers usually feasted a select party of three hundred. Diomed,however, more modest, contented himself with doubling the number of theMuses. His party consisted of eighteen, no unfashionable number in thepresent day.

  It was the morning of Diomed's banquet; and Diomed himself, though hegreatly affected the gentleman and the scholar, retained enough of hismercantile experience to know that a master's eye makes a ready servant.Accordingly, with his tunic ungirdled on his portly stomach, his easyslippers on his feet, a small wand in his hand, wherewith he nowdirected the gaze, and now corrected the back, of some duller menial, hewent from chamber to chamber of his costly villa.

  He did not disdain even a visit to that sacred apartment in which thepriests of the festival prepare their offerings. On entering thekitchen, his ears were agreeably stunned by the noise of dishes andpans, of oaths and commands. Small as this indispensable chamber seemsto have been in all the houses of Pompeii, it was, nevertheless, usuallyfitted up with all that amazing variety of stoves and shapes, stew-pansand saucepans, cutters and moulds, without which a cook of spirit, nomatter whether he be an ancient or a modern, declares it utterlyimpossible that he can give you anything to eat. And as fuel was then,as now, dear and scarce in those regions, great seems to have been thedexterity exercised in preparing as many things as possible with aslittle fire. An admirable contrivance of this nature may be still seenin the Neapolitan Museum, viz., a portable kitchen, about the size of afolio volume, containing stoves for four dishes, and an apparatus forheating water or other beverages.

  Across the small kitchen flitted many forms which the quick eye of themaster did not recognize.

  'Oh! oh!' grumbled he to himself, 'that cursed Congrio hath invited awhole legion of cooks to assist him. They won't serve for nothing, andthis is another item in the total of my day's expenses. By Bacchus!thrice lucky shall I be if the slaves do not help themselves to some ofthe drinking vessels: ready, alas, are their hands, capacious are theirtunics. Me miserum!'

  The cooks, however, worked on, seemingly heedless of the apparition ofDiomed.

  'Ho, Euclio, your egg-pan! What, is this the largest? it only holdsthirty-three eggs: in the houses I usually serve, the smallest egg-panholds fifty, if need be!'

  'The unconscionable rogue!' thought Diomed; 'he talks of eggs as if theywere a sesterce a hundred!'

  'By Mercury!' cried a pert little culinary disciple, scarce in hisnovitiate; 'whoever saw such antique sweetmeat shapes as these?--It isimpossible to do credit to one's art with such rude materials. Why,Sallust's commonest sweetmeat shape represents the whole siege of Troy;Hector and Paris, and Helen... with little Astyanax and the WoodenHorse into the bargain!'

  'Silence, fool!' said Congrio, the cook of the house, who seemed toleave the chief part of the battle to his allies. 'My master, Diomed,is not one of those expensive good-for-noughts, who must have the lastfashion, cost what it will!'

  'Thou liest, base slave!' cried Diomed, in a great passion--and thoucostest me already enough to have ruined Lucullus himself! Come out ofthy den, I want to talk to thee.'

  The slave, with a sly wink at his confederates, obeyed the command.

  'Man of three letters,' said Diomed, with his face of solemn anger, 'howdidst thou dare to invite all those rascals into my house?--I see thiefwritten in every line of their faces.'

  'Yet, I assure you, master, that they are men of most respectablecharacter--the best cooks of the place; it is a great favor to get them.But for my sake...'

  'Thy sake, unhappy Congrio!' interrupted Diomed; and by what purloinedmoneys of mine, by what reserved filchings from marketing, by whatgoodly meats converted into grease, and sold in the suburbs, by whatfalse charges for bronzes marred, and earthenware broken--hast thou beenenabled to make them serve thee for thy sake?'

  'Nay, master, do not impeach my honesty! May the gods desert me if...'

  'Swear not!' again interrupted the choleric Diomed, 'for then the godswill smite thee for a perjurer, and I shall lose my cook on the eve ofdinner. But, enough of this at present: keep a sharp eye on thyill-favored assistants, and tell me no tales to-morrow of vases broken,and cups miraculously vanished, or thy whole back shall be one pain.And hark thee! thou knowest thou hast made me pay for those Phrygianattagens enough, by Hercules, to have feasted a sober man for a yeartogether--see that they be not one iota over-roasted. The last time, OCongrio, that I gave a banquet to my friends, when thy vanity did soboldly undertake the becoming appearance of a Melian crane--thou knowestit came up like a stone from AEtna--as if all the fires of Phlegethonhad been scorching out its juices. Be modest this time, Congrio--waryand modest. Modesty is the nurse of great actions; and in all otherthings, as in this, if thou wilt not spare thy master's purse, at leastconsult thy master's glory.'

  'There shall not be such a coena seen at Pompeii since the days ofHercules.'

  'Softly, softly--thy cursed boasting again! But I say, Congrio, yonhomunculus--yon pigmy assailant of my cranes--yon pert-tongued neophyteof the kitchen, was there aught but insolence on his tongue when hemaligned the comeliness of my sweetmeat shapes? I would not be out ofthe fashion, Congrio.'

  'It is but the custom of us cooks,' replied Congrio, gravely, toundervalue our tools, in order to increase the effect of our art. Thesweetmeat shape is a fair shape, and a lovely; but I would recommend mymaster, at the first occasion, to purchase some new ones of a...'

  'That will suffice,' exclaimed Diomed, who seemed resolved never toallow his slave to finish his sentences. 'Now, resume thycharge--shine----eclipse thyself. Let men envy Diomed his cook--let theslaves of Pompeii style thee Congrio the great! Go! yet stay--thou hastnot spent all the moneys I gave thee for the marketing?' '"All!" alas!the nightingales' tongues and the Roman tomacula, and the oysters fromBritain, and sundry other things, too numerous now to recite, are yetleft unpaid for. But what matter? every one trusts the Archimagirus ofDiomed the wealthy!'

  'Oh, unconscionable prodigal!--what waste!--what profusion!--I amruined! But go, hasten--inspect!--taste!--perform!--surpass thyself!Let the Roman senator not despise the poor Pompeian. Away, slave--andremember, the Phrygian attagens.'

  The chief disappeared within his natural domain, and Diomed rolled backhis portly presence to the more courtly chambers. All was to hisliking--the flowers were fresh, the fountains played briskly, the mosaicpavements were as smooth as mirrors.

  'Where is my daughter Julia?' he asked.

  'At the bath.'

  'Ah! that reminds me!--time wanes!--and I must bathe also.'

  Our story returns to Apaecides. On awaking that day from the broken andfeverish sleep which had followed his adoption of a faith so strikinglyand sternly at variance with that in which his youth had been nurtured,the young priest could scarcely imagine that he was not yet in a dream;he had crossed the fatal river--the past was henceforth to have nosympathy with the future; the two worlds were distinct andseparate--that which had been, from that which was to be. To what a boldand adventurous enterprise he had pledged his
life!--to unveil themysteries in which he had participated--to desecrate the altars he hadserved--to denounce the goddess whose ministering robe he wore! Slowlyhe became sensible of the hatred and the horror he should provokeamongst the pious, even if successful; if frustrated in his daringattempt, what penalties might he not incur for an offence hithertounheard of--for which no specific law, derived from experience, wasprepared; and which, for that very reason, precedents, dragged from thesharpest armoury of obsolete and inapplicable legislation, wouldprobably be distorted to meet! His friends--the sister of hisyouth--could he expect justice, though he might receive compassion, fromthem? This brave and heroic act would by their heathen eyes be regarded,perhaps, as a heinous apostasy--at the best as a pitiable madness.

  He dared, he renounced, everything in this world, in the hope ofsecuring that eternity in the next, which had so suddenly been revealedto him. While these thoughts on the one hand invaded his breast, on theother hand his pride, his courage, and his virtue, mingled withreminiscences of revenge for deceit, of indignant disgust at fraud,conspired to raise and to support him.

  The conflict was sharp and keen; but his new feelings triumphed over hisold: and a mighty argument in favor of wrestling with the sanctities ofold opinions and hereditary forms might be found in the conquest overboth, achieved by that humble priest. Had the early Christians beenmore controlled by 'the solemn plausibilities of custom'--less ofdemocrats in the pure and lofty acceptation of that pervertedword--Christianity would have perished in its cradle!

  As each priest in succession slept several nights together in thechambers of the temple, the term imposed on Apaecides was not yetcompleted; and when he had risen from his couch, attired himself, asusual, in his robes, and left his narrow chamber, he found himselfbefore the altars of the temple.

  In the exhaustion of his late emotions he had slept far into themorning, and the vertical sun already poured its fervid beams over thesacred place.

  'Salve, Apaecides!' said a voice, whose natural asperity was smoothed bylong artifice into an almost displeasing softness of tone. 'Thou artlate abroad; has the goddess revealed herself to thee in visions?'

  'Could she reveal her true self to the people, Calenus, how incenselesswould be these altars!'

  'That,' replied Calenus, 'may possibly be true; but the deity is wiseenough to hold commune with none but priests.'

  'A time may come when she will be unveiled without her ownacquiescence.'

  'It is not likely: she has triumphed for countless ages. And that whichhas so long stood the test of time rarely succumbs to the lust ofnovelty. But hark ye, young brother! these sayings are indiscreet.'

  'It is not for thee to silence them,' replied Apaecides, haughtily.

  'So hot!--yet I will not quarrel with thee. Why, my Apaecides, has notthe Egyptian convinced thee of the necessity of our dwelling together inunity? Has he not convinced thee of the wisdom of deluding the peopleand enjoying ourselves? If not, oh, brother! he is not that greatmagician he is esteemed.'

  'Thou, then, hast shared his lessons?' said Apaecides, with a hollowsmile.

  'Ay! but I stood less in need of them than thou. Nature had alreadygifted me with the love of pleasure, and the desire of gain and power.Long is the way that leads the voluptuary to the severities of life; butit is only one step from pleasant sin to sheltering hypocrisy. Bewarethe vengeance of the goddess, if the shortness of that step bedisclosed!'

  'Beware, thou, the hour when the tomb shall be rent and the rottennessexposed,' returned Apaecides, solemnly. 'Vale!'

  With these words he left the flamen to his meditations. When he got afew paces from the temple, he turned to look back. Calenus had alreadydisappeared in the entry room of the priests, for it now approached thehour of that repast which, called prandium by the ancients, answers inpoint of date to the breakfast of the moderns. The white and gracefulfane gleamed brightly in the sun. Upon the altars before it rose theincense and bloomed the garlands. The priest gazed long and wistfullyupon the scene--it was the last time that it was ever beheld by him!

  He then turned and pursued his way slowly towards the house of Ione; forbefore possibly the last tie that united them was cut in twain--beforethe uncertain peril of the next day was incurred, he was anxious to seehis last surviving relative, his fondest as his earliest friend.

  He arrived at her house, and found her in the garden with Nydia.

  'This is kind, Apaecides,' said Ione, joyfully; 'and how eagerly have Iwished to see thee!--what thanks do I not owe thee? How churlish hastthou been to answer none of my letters--to abstain from coming hither toreceive the expressions of my gratitude! Oh! thou hast assisted topreserve thy sister from dishonour! What, what can she say to thankthee, now thou art come at last?'

  'My sweet Ione, thou owest me no gratitude, for thy cause was mine. Letus avoid that subject, let us recur not to that impious man--how hatefulto both of us! I may have a speedy opportunity to teach the world thenature of his pretended wisdom and hypocritical severity. But let ussit down, my sister; I am wearied with the heat of the sun; let us sitin yonder shade, and, for a little while longer, be to each other whatwe have been.'

  Beneath a wide plane-tree, with the cistus and the arbutus clusteringround them, the living fountain before, the greensward beneath theirfeet; the gay cicada, once so dear to Athens, rising merrily ever andanon amidst the grass; the butterfly, beautiful emblem of the soul,dedicated to Psyche, and which has continued to furnish illustrations tothe Christian bard, rich in the glowing colors caught from Sicilianskies, hovering about the sunny flowers, itself like a winged flower--inthis spot, and this scene, the brother and the sister sat together forthe last time on earth. You may tread now on the same place; but thegarden is no more, the columns are shattered, the fountain has ceased toplay. Let the traveler search amongst the ruins of Pompeii for thehouse of Ione. Its remains are yet visible; but I will not betray themto the gaze of commonplace tourists. He who is more sensitive than theherd will discover them easily: when he has done so, let him keep thesecret.

  They sat down, and Nydia, glad to be alone, retired to the farther endof the garden.

  'Ione, my sister,' said the young convert, 'place your hand upon mybrow; let me feel your cool touch. Speak to me, too, for your gentlevoice is like a breeze that hath freshness as well as music. Speak tome, but forbear to bless me! Utter not one word of those forms ofspeech which our childhood was taught to consider sacred!'

  'Alas! and what then shall I say? Our language of affection is so wovenwith that of worship, that the words grow chilled and trite if I banishfrom them allusion to our gods.'

  'Our gods!' murmured Apaecides, with a shudder: 'thou slightest myrequest already.'

  'Shall I speak then to thee only of Isis?'

  'The Evil Spirit! No, rather be dumb for ever, unless at least thoucanst--but away, away this talk! Not now will we dispute and cavil; notnow will we judge harshly of each other. Thou, regarding me as anapostate! and I all sorrow and shame for thee as an idolater. No, mysister, let us avoid such topics and such thoughts. In thy sweetpresence a calm falls over my spirit. For a little while I forget. AsI thus lay my temples on thy bosom, as I thus feel thy gentle armembrace me, I think that we are children once more, and that the heavensmiles equally upon both. For oh! if hereafter I escape, no matter whatperil; and it be permitted me to address thee on one sacred and awfulsubject; should I find thine ear closed and thy heart hardened, whathope for myself could countervail the despair for thee? In thee, mysister, I behold a likeness made beautiful, made noble, of myself.Shall the mirror live for ever, and the form itself be broken as thepotter's clay? Ah, no--no--thou wilt listen to me yet! Dost thouremember how we went into the fields by Baiae, hand in hand together, topluck the flowers of spring? Even so, hand in hand, shall we enter theEternal Garden, and crown ourselves with imperishable asphodel!'

  Wondering and bewildered by words she could not comprehend, but excitedeven to tears by the plaintiveness o
f their tone, Ione listened to theseoutpourings of a full and oppressed heart. In truth, Apaecides himselfwas softened much beyond his ordinary mood, which to outward seeming wasusually either sullen or impetuous. For the noblest desires are of ajealous nature--they engross, they absorb the soul, and often leave thesplenetic humors stagnant and unheeded at the surface. Unheeding thepetty things around us, we are deemed morose; impatient at earthlyinterruption to the diviner dreams, we are thought irritable andchurlish. For as there is no chimera vainer than the hope that onehuman heart shall find sympathy in another, so none ever interpret uswith justice; and none, no, not our nearest and our dearest ties,forbear with us in mercy! When we are dead and repentance comes toolate, both friend and foe may wonder to think how little there was in usto forgive!

  'I will talk to thee then of our early years,' said Ione. 'Shall yonblind girl sing to thee of the days of childhood? Her voice is sweetand musical, and she hath a song on that theme which contains none ofthose allusions it pains thee to hear.'

  'Dost thou remember the words, my sister?' asked Apaecides.

  'Methinks yes; for the tune, which is simple, fixed them on my memory.'

  'Sing to me then thyself. My ear is not in unison with unfamiliarvoices; and thine, Ione, full of household associations, has ever beento me more sweet than all the hireling melodies of Lycia or of Crete.Sing to me!'

  Ione beckoned to a slave that stood in the portico, and sending for herlute, sang, when it arrived, to a tender and simple air, the followingverses:--

  REGRETS FOR CHILDHOOD

  I

  It is not that our earlier Heaven Escapes its April showers, Or that to childhood's heart is given No snake amidst the flowers. Ah! twined with grief Each brightest leaf, That's wreath'd us by the Hours! Young though we be, the Past may sting, The present feed its sorrow; But hope shines bright on every thing That waits us with the morrow. Like sun-lit glades, The dimmest shades Some rosy beam can borrow.

  II

  It is not that our later years Of cares are woven wholly, But smiles less swiftly chase the tears, And wounds are healed more slowly. And Memory's vow To lost ones now, Makes joys too bright, unholy. And ever fled the Iris bow That smiled when clouds were o'er us. If storms should burst, uncheered we go, A drearier waste before us-- And with the toys Of childish joys, We've broke the staff that bore us!

  Wisely and delicately had Ione chosen that song, sad though its burthenseemed; for when we are deeply mournful, discordant above all others isthe voice of mirth: the fittest spell is that borrowed from melancholyitself, for dark thoughts can be softened down when they cannot bebrightened; and so they lose the precise and rigid outline of theirtruth, and their colors melt into the ideal. As the leech applies inremedy to the internal sore some outward irritation, which, by a gentlerwound, draws away the venom of that which is more deadly, thus, in therankling festers of the mind, our art is to divert to a milder sadnesson the surface the pain that gnaweth at the core. And so withApaecides, yielding to the influence of the silver voice that remindedhim of the past, and told but of half the sorrow born to the present, heforgot his more immediate and fiery sources of anxious thought. Hespent hours in making Ione alternately sing to, and converse with him;and when he rose to leave her, it was with a calmed and lulled mind.

  'Ione,' said he, as he pressed her hand, 'should you hear my nameblackened and maligned, will you credit the aspersion?'

  'Never, my brother, never!'

  'Dost thou not imagine, according to thy belief, that the evil-doer ispunished hereafter, and the good rewarded?'

  'Can you doubt it?'

  'Dost thou think, then, that he who is truly good should sacrifice everyselfish interest in his zeal for virtue?'

  'He who doth so is the equal of the gods.'

  'And thou believest that, according to the purity and courage with whichhe thus acts, shall be his portion of bliss beyond the grave?'

  'So we are taught to hope.'

  'Kiss me, my sister. One question more. Thou art to be wedded toGlaucus: perchance that marriage may separate us more hopelessly--butnot of this speak I now--thou art to be married to Glaucus--dost thoulove him? Nay, my sister, answer me by words.'

  'Yes!' murmured Ione, blushing.

  'Dost thou feel that, for his sake, thou couldst renounce pride, bravedishonour, and incur death? I have heard that when women really love,it is to that excess.'

  'My brother, all this could I do for Glaucus, and feel that it were nota sacrifice. There is no sacrifice to those who love, in what is bornefor the one we love.'

  'Enough! shall woman feel thus for man, and man feel less devotion tohis God?'

  He spoke no more. His whole countenance seemed instinct and inspiredwith a divine life: his chest swelled proudly; his eyes glowed: on hisforehead was writ the majesty of a man who can dare to be noble! Heturned to meet the eyes of Ione--earnest, wistful, fearful--he kissedher fondly, strained her warmly to his breast, and in a moment more hehad left the house.

  Long did Ione remain in the same place, mute and thoughtful. Themaidens again and again came to warn her of the deepening noon, and herengagement to Diomed's banquet. At length she woke from her reverie,and prepared, not with the pride of beauty, but listless and melancholy,for the festival: one thought alone reconciled her to the promisedvisit--she should meet Glaucus--she could confide to him her alarm anduneasiness for her brother.