Sónnica la cortesana. English

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

  CHAPTER III

  DANCING GIRLS FROM GADES

  Sonnica awoke two hours after midday. The oblique rays of the sunfiltered through the gilded bars of her window over which crept thefoliage of grapevines. Its light heightened the color of the stuccoframes around scenes from the Olympian games painted on the wall, and ofthe columns of rose-colored marble which flanked the doorway.

  The beautiful Greek threw to the floor the covers of white Saetabislinen, and her first glance swept her figure, taking in the outlines ofher body with affectionate eyes, from her swelling bosom curving inharmonious lines, to the tips of her rosy feet.

  Her heavy hair perfumed and falling in silky curls, hung down over herbody, enveloping her as in a regal mantle, caressing her from throat toknees with a gentle kiss. The old-time courtesan, as she awoke, admiredher body with the adoration inspired in her by the eulogies of theartists of Athens.

  She was still young and beautiful; she could still thrill men withemotion when, at the end of a banquet, she displayed herself upon thetable nude as Phryne. Her hands eager for the thrilling touch of herbeauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating ina soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and the windingnetwork of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satinyskin, flowing down, down--in line with the strongly incurved waist; therotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and thelimbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in othertimes to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited herin Athens.

  Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; shehad lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, likea marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, stillbeautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased withherself, content with life.

  "Odacis! Odacis!"

  At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which shecombed her hair.

  Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up andsprang from the couch to enter the bath.

  Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment ofParis, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smileto her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and thereaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentleundulations.

  She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscinaswinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the greenpool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantasticapparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like asiren with pearly back and floating hair.

  "Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.

  "The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthushas given them lodgings near the kitchens."

  "And who else?"

  "A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at thetemple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I haveforgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from thebath."

  Sonnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terraceof the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunrise;but she thought with some confusion of the impression made in her mindby the Athenian's figure, which had reappeared several times in herdreams. Without knowing why she associated Actaeon's appearance with thatof Zeus when he came to earth in mortal form in search of human love.

  In her moments of tedium in Athens, when she used to submit withrepugnance to caresses for piles of gold, she experienced the vaguedesire of being loved by a god. She thought of Leda, of Psyche, even ofthe effeminate Ganymede beloved of the guests on Olympus, and she was indespair at the impossibility of finding a god who should transport hercaptive through a mysterious forest, or along some roadway leading tothe unknown. She longed to contemplate her image in the depths of eyesanimated by the splendor of the infinite; to kiss a mouth which servedas a portal to supreme wisdom; to feel herself imprisoned in armspossessed of the immense strength of omnipotence. She had experienced asuggestion of this joy in loving her poet, who was sometimes as majesticand sublime as a divine being; but the simplicity of youth prevented herappreciation of that joy, and now, in her maturity, she only met menlike those she had known in Athens, some rude and brutal, otherseffeminate and captious, lacking the severe and sovereign beauty sheadmired in statues.

  She left her bath breathing with happy, childlike thrills, while herhair scattered a light shower at every step.

  Odacis called, and three slaves entered; they were those who assisted attheir mistress' toilet, the _tractatrices_ in charge of the massage ofthe body.

  Sonnica allowed herself to be manipulated by the three women who rubbedher vigorously, stretching her limbs to keep them supple and agile. Thenshe seated herself in a marble chair, resting her pink elbows on thedolphins which formed the arms of the seat, and in this position, erectand motionless, she waited for the slaves to proceed with the toilet.

  One who was almost a child, wrapped in a mantle of broad stripes, knelton the floor holding a great engraved bronze mirror in which Sonnicagazed at herself down to her thighs. Another arranged the toiletarticles on the tables, and Odacis began to smooth her mistress'splendid hair with ivory combs. Meanwhile, the other slave approachedwith a bronze patera filled with a gray ointment. It was the bean-flourused by the Athenians of refinement to preserve the skin firm andelastic. She anointed Sonnica's cheeks with this, and then theprominent breasts, the abdomen, the thighs, and knees, leaving nearlythe whole body covered by a lustrous, unctuous coating. Where hair had atendency to grow, she applied dropax, a depilatory paste, composed ofvinegar and earth from Cyprus.

  Sonnica passively assisted these toilet preparations, which made hermomentarily ugly in order that she might reappear each day morebeautiful.

  Odacis continued combing her hair. She lifted the splendid tresses,burying both hands in the brilliant cascade; she gently wound it overher arms like an enormous golden serpent; then she shook it out,dividing it into small locks to dry it, and then she smoothed itlovingly with the ivory combs piled on the table near at hand, veritableprodigies of art, with the finest of teeth, their upper parts engravedwith scenes representing forests, arrogant nymphs in pursuit of stags,and malodorous satyrs giving chase to nude beauties. After drying thehair the coiffeur proceeded to dye it. With a small, long-necked amphorashe moistened it with a solution of saffron and gum arabic, and openinga little chest of gold dust she sprinkled it over the ample, silkyskein, which assumed the brilliancy of the sun's rays. Then twisting thelocks above her forehead around an iron heated over a small brazier, sheformed tight curls which covered the Greek woman's brow almost to hereyes; she gathered the mass of hair at the neck, tying it with a redribbon firmly interbraided, and she curled the crown of the coiffure,imitating the spiral flames of a torch.

  Sonnica arose. Two of the slaves approached with a heavy earthenamphora of milk, and dipping a sponge into it, they washed theirmistress' body as she stood near the piscina, to remove the bean-paste.The glossy whiteness of her skin reappeared more fresh and moist.

  Odacis, with silver tweezers in her hand, carefully inspected hermistress' body, with the attentive and frowning brow of the artistpreparing a great work. She had charge of the depilation; her skillfulhand won praise for its gentleness as it obstinately sought out thelightest down, implacably destroying it with her tweezers, in deferenceto the Greek custom of imitating the polished smoothness of the statues.

  Sonnica being again seated in her ivory chair, the touching up of theface began. On the table near at hand was a formidable array of bottles,alabaster vases, pots of bronze and of silver, little caskets of ivoryand gold, all engraved, brilliant, covered with delicate figures,ornamented with precious
stones, containing Egyptian and Hebraicessences, balsams from Arabia, perfumes and intoxicating cosmeticsbrought by caravans from the heart of Asia to Phoenician ports, andthence to Greece or Carthage, bought for Sonnica by the pilots of hervessels in their venturesome trading voyages.

  Odacis painted her face white, and then, moistening a small wooden stylewith attar of roses, she thrust it into a bronze pot decorated withgarlands of lotus and filled with a dark powder. It was the kohol, soldby Egyptian merchants at a fabulous price. The slave applied the pointof the style to the Greek's eyelids, dyeing them an intense black, andtracing a fine line about the corners, which made them appear larger andsofter.

  The toilet was almost complete. The slaves were opening the innumerablebottles and vases arranged in rows upon the marble table, and theatmosphere of the room was laden with costly perfumes--spikenard fromSicily, incense and myrrh from Judea, aloes from India, and cumin fromGreece. Odacis took a small glass amphora inlaid with gold, with aconical stopper, terminating in a fine point which served to depositantimony above the eyes to brighten them, and, after finishing thisoperation, she presented to her mistress the three ointments forimparting color to the skin in different shades--vermilion, carmine, andthe Egyptian red extracted from the body of the crocodile.

  The slave began delicately coloring her mistress' body with a finebrush. She produced a pink flush on her cheeks and dainty ears; shemarked rose petals on her bosom, and she colored her elbows and theharmoniously curving relievo of her dimpled sides. Then, with Egyptianred, she colored one by one the nails of her fingers and toes, whileanother slave put on her white sandals with papyrus soles and buckles ofgold. Perfumes were showered upon her, each on a different part of thebody, so that it might resemble a bouquet of flowers in which variousaromas were mingled. Odacis presented the jewel-casket, within whichprecious stones lay shimmering like restless and glistening fish. TheGreek woman's pointed fingers lifted with indifference the heap ofcollars, rings, and pendants, which, like all Grecian jewelry, were morevaluable on account of the workmanship of the artists than for therichness of the material. Scenes from the great poems were reproducedalmost microscopically in carnelian cameos, onyx, and agate, and theemeralds, topazes, and amethysts were decorated with profiles ofgoddesses and heroes.

  The slave clasped a necklace of stones of complicated design uponSonnica's uncovered breast; she loaded her fingers to the tips withrings, and the whiteness of her arms seemed more diaphanous girdled hereand there by wide bracelets of gold. To add more expression to thecountenance, Odacis decorated her mistress with small patches, and thenshe proceeded to bind around her body the fascia, or corset of theepoch, a broad woolen band to support the breast. Sonnica, gazing intothe burnished bronze, smiled at her statue-like reflection, as beautifulas Venus in repose.

  "Which costume, my mistress?" asked Odacis. "Do you wish the tunic withthe golden flowers brought from Crete, or the _kalasiris_ veils,transparent as air, which you ordered bought in Alexandria?"

  Sonnica could not decide. She would choose in the vestiary; and in themajesty of her unveiled beauty, her papyrus sandals rustling, she walkedfrom her dormitory followed by her slaves.

  Meanwhile Actaeon was waiting in the library. He had visited greatpalaces in his travels about the world, he had seen--two years beforethe earthquake which ruined it--the celebrated Colossus of Rhodes; hewas familiar with the Serapeum and the tomb of the great conqueror inAlexandria; he was accustomed to elegance and splendor; yet he could notconceal surprise at this Grecian house in a barbarian land, moreluxurious and artistic than those of opulent citizens of Athens.

  Guided by a slave, and leaving the garden with its whispering foliageand its cries of exotic birds, he had passed along the colonnade whichgave entrance to the villa. First the vestibule with its plinth ofmosaic, on which were painted ferocious black dogs with fiery eyes,their fierce and foaming mouths agape, their fangs erect.

  Above the door, fastened to a lamp, hung a branch of laurel in honor ofthe tutelary gods of the house. Next to the somewhat gloomy vestibule,beneath the open sky, like a lung of the house, was the atrium with itsfour rows of columns supporting the roof and forming an equal number ofcloisters, upon which opened the doors of the rooms, their three panelsdecorated with large-headed nails.

  In the centre of the atrium was the impluvium, a rectangular marble tankto catch and hold the waters from the roof. Great terra cotta urnscovered with flowers stood upon pedestals between the columns; fourmarble tables sustained by winged lions surrounded the impluvium, andnear it rose a statuette of Love which on festive days threw a spray ofwater.

  Actaeon admired the graceful strength of the columns wrought in bluemarble to match the socles of the galleries, which imparted to the lightof the atrium a diffused radiance, as if the dwelling were submerged inthe sea.

  Afterward the attendant turned him over to Odacis, the favorite slave,and she ushered him into the peristyle, an inner courtyard much largerthan the atrium, which astonished the Greek with its polychromedecoration. The columns were painted red at their bases, and the colorchanged above into blue and gold on the fluting and capitals, and wasdispersed over the trellis-work covering the porticos. In the unroofedpart of the peristyle was a deep piscina of transparent water in whichfish darted like flashes of golden lightning. Around it were marblebenches supported by Hermae; tables held by dolphins with knotted tails;clumps of roses, between the foliage of which peeped white or terracotta statuettes in voluptuous positions, and covering the walls of theperistyle, between the doors of the rooms, were great paintings byGrecian artists--Orpheus with his heavy lyre, nude and wearing hisPhrygian cap, surrounded by lions and panthers who listened to his songswith humbled heads, stifling their growls; Venus springing from thewaves; Adonis allowing himself to be cured of his wounds by the Motherof Love; and other scenes eulogizing the influence of art and beauty.

  Actaeon was conducted to the bath by two young slaves, and as he emergedfrom this he again met Odacis, who bade him enter the library beyond theperistyle.

  It was a great room paved with mosaic representing the triumph ofBacchus. The young god, beautiful as a woman, nude, and crowned withvines and roses, was riding on a panther, waving his thyrsus. Thepictures on the walls illustrated famous passages from the Iliad. Themore voluminous books were ranged on shelves, and the smaller onesformed bundles placed in narrow willow baskets lined with wool.

  Actaeon admired the richness of the library, where he counted more than ahundred volumes. They represented a veritable fortune. The navigatorsreceived from Sonnica commissions to bring her whatever notable worksthey found on their voyages, and the booksellers in Athens remitted toher famous books of entertainment which enjoyed vogue in their city.They were all of papyrus, consisting of strips rolled upon cylinders ofwood or bone, each end wrought into an artistically carved _umbilicus_.The sheets, written only on one side, were impregnated on the other withcedar oil to protect them from moths, and the title of the book, thename of the author, and the index, gleamed in letters of minium and goldon the purple outer wrapping. The copying of these books represented thelife work of many men, productions to be acquired only at the cost ofgreat sums of money, and the Greek, with the respect characteristic ofhis race for art and wisdom, recognized that he was surrounded in thesilence of the library by the august shades of many great men, and withveneration he turned from the Homer in its old, time-worn papyrus, andthe works of Thales and Pythagoras, to the contemporary poets,Theocritus and Callimachus, whose volumes were unrolled, denoting recentreading.

  Actaeon's ear caught a faint rustling of sandals in the peristyle, andthe square of pale gold thrown on the floor by the light entering thedoorway from the courtyard was darkened by a form. It was Sonnicaarrayed in a gauzy white tunic. The light behind her marked the artisticlines of her body in the diaphanous cloud of her garment.

  "Welcome, Athenian!" she said, in a studied but harmonious voice. "Thosewho come from over _there_ are ever masters in my house. The banqu
etto-night shall be in your honor, for no one can be king of the feast anddirect conversation like a son of Athens."

  Actaeon, somewhat stirred by the presence of a beautiful woman envelopedby intoxicating perfumes, began to speak of her house, of hisastonishment at its magnificence in that barbarian land, and of theadmiration which its owner enjoyed in the city. Everyone he met hadspoken to him of Sonnica the rich!

  "Yes, they like me; yet sometimes they censure me; but let us speak ofyou, Actaeon; tell me who you are. Your life must be as interesting asthat of old Ulysses. Tell me first what new thing there is in Athens."

  For a long time the two Greeks maintained an incessant chattering. Shewas eager to know what courtesans triumphed in the Cerameicus and setthe fashions; merry, unconsciously harking back to the life of old,forgetful of her princely opulence in Saguntum, as if she were still inthe house in the Street of Tripods, and Actaeon one of the poor artistswho visited her of an afternoon to discuss affairs of the city, in theintimacy of comrades. She laughed at the latest witticisms of the idlersin the Agora, at the song in vogue the year before, when Actaeon leftAthens; and with frowning brow and the gravity of a goddess, shelistened to a detailed relation of the recent changes of fashion and ofthe style of coiffure used by the most celebrated hetaerae.

  The curiosity of the exiled Athenian being satisfied, she longed topenetrate the adventurous life of her guest, and Actaeon told his storysimply. Born in Athens, he had been taken to Carthage at twelve years ofage. His father, in the service of the African republic, fought withHamilcar in Sicily. In a village in the interior the selfsame slaveattended the son of the Greek mercenary and a lion-cub of Hamilcar, whowas at that time only four years of age. It was Hannibal. The Athenianrecalled the blows he had often dealt the savage youngster in exchangefor bites with which the African surprised him in the midst of theirgames. The revolt of the mercenaries broke out with those horrors whichgave it the name of "the truceless war," and his father, who hadremained faithful to Carthage and would not take up arms with hiscompanions, was despite his loyalty crucified by the Carthaginianpopulace, who, forgetting his wounds received in the service of theRepublic, saw in him only a foreigner, a friend of Hamilcar who washated by the partisans of Hanno. The son miraculously escaped thesered-handed reprisals; and Hamilcar's faithful slave smuggled him aboardship for Athens.

  There, under the protection of relatives, he received the education ofall young Greeks. He won prizes in the Gymnasium, in wrestling, inrunning, and in throwing the discus; he learned to ride unbridled horsesbareback, balancing himself merely by resting his toe in a groove of thelance; to temper the rudeness of this education he was taught to playthe lyre and to sing verses in diverse styles, and being strong of bodyand mind, he was sent, as were all Athenian youths, to pass his militaryapprenticeship in the garrisons on the frontier.

  The monotony of this existence bored him; it was dull, and he lovedpleasure; the blood of his forefathers, soldiers of fortune all, surgedthrough his body; and he ran away from Attica to take charge of afishing fleet in the Euxine Sea. Then he became a navigator, trading onland and sea; his caravans threaded Asia, through warlike tribes, andamong peoples who dwelt in the lethargy of a remote and decadentcivilization. He was a powerful personage in the court of some tyrantswho admired him on seeing him drink at a gulp an amphora of perfumedwine, and overcome the giants of the guard in a boxing match with theagile dexterity of a true Athenian; and, loaded with riches, he built apalace in Rhodes near the sea, and he gave banquets which lasted threedays and nights. The earthquake which flung down the Colossus, alsodestroyed his fortune; his ships were sunk, his warehouses full ofmerchandise disappeared beneath the waves, and he began again hispilgrimage roundabout the world; in some places he was a singing master,in others a military instructor of the young men, until, attracted bythe Spartan war, he enlisted in the army of Cleomenes, the last Greekhero, accompanying him at the moment in which, vanquished, he embarkedfor Alexandria. Poor, disappointed, convinced that riches would neverreturn to him, saddened at seeing the whole world filled with the namesof Carthage and Rome, while that of Greece was sinking into oblivion, hehad come to take final refuge in Saguntum, the small and almost unknownRepublic, in search of bread and of peace. Perhaps, in this retiredspot, if war did not disturb its calm, he would write the history of hisadventures.

  Sonnica followed his narrative with interest, fixing upon Actaeon aglance of sympathy.

  "And you, who have been a hero and a potentate, have come to serve thiscity as a simple mercenary?"

  "Mopsus the archer has promised to give me a post of distinction amonghis troops."

  "That is not enough, Actaeon. You would have to live like the othersoldiers, spending your life in the Forum taverns, and sleeping on thesteps of the Temple of Hercules. No! here is your home! Sonnica willprotect you!"

  In her sparkling eyes, enlarged by the dark circle traced about them,shone an almost maternal love and sympathy.

  The Athenian gazed at her with admiration as she sat erect in her chairlike a white cloud in the dimly illuminated library, which, like allGrecian rooms, received no other light than that entering through thedoorway.

  "Let us go into the garden, Actaeon. The afternoon is delicious, and wecan imagine ourselves for a moment in the groves of the Academy."

  They went out of the house and strolled along a winding avenue borderedby tall laurels, above which peeped the tops of banana trees, irrigatedwith wine to accelerate their growth. On the terrace two peacocks hailedthem with strident calls, strutting along the balustrade and spreadingtheir majestic tails.

  Actaeon, on beholding his beautiful protectress in the light of the sun,felt a thrill of desire rush through his body. She wore as her onlycovering a Grecian chiton, an open tunic, fastened with metal claspsover the shoulders, and secured around the waist by a golden girdle. Thearms emerged bare from the white wrapping, and the left side of thetunic, closed from the armpit to the knee by small brooches, half openedat each step, revealing her pearly nudity. The material was so delicatethat its transparency displayed the outlines of her rosy body, whichseemed to float in a veil of woven foam.

  "Does my dress astonish you, Actaeon?"

  "No; I admire you. You seem to me Aphrodite surging from the waves. Itis a long time since I have seen the women of Athens disclosing theirdivine beauty. I am corrupted by my travels, through the rude customs ofthe barbarians."

  "It may happen so. As Herodotus says, nearly all who are not Greeksconsider it opprobrious to appear nude.--If you only knew howscandalized the people of this city were in the beginning at my Atheniancustoms!--as if there existed anything more beautiful in the world thanthe human form!--as if the nude were not the supreme beauty! I adorePhryne, astonishing with her nude body the old men of the Areopagus;making the thousands of pilgrims gathered on the Eleusinian strand shoutwith enthusiasm when they saw her white form surge from among the veils,like the moon from behind the clouds. I believe in the promise of herbosom more than in the power of the gods."

  "Do you doubt the gods?" asked Actaeon, with his fine Athenian smile.

  "The same as do you and all those from _there_. The gods now serve onlyas themes for artists, and if they are tolerated in old Homer, it isbecause he was skilled in celebrating their quarrels in graceful verse.No; I do not believe in them; they are as simple and credulous aschildren, but I love them because they are sane and beautiful."

  "In what do you believe, then, Sonnica?"

  "I do not know--in something mysterious that surrounds us and animateslife; I believe in beauty and love."

  She was silent a moment, standing in a pensive attitude; then shecontinued:

  "I hate the barbarians, not because they have no treasures of art, butfor the odium they cast on love, which they enchain with all manner oflaws and restrictions. They are hypocritical and deformed; they makereproduction a crime, and they hate the nude, hiding the body with allkinds of rags, as if it were an abominable spectacle--when carnal love,th
e meeting of two bodies, is the sublime love through which we areborn, and without which the fount of existence would dryup--extinguishing the world."

  "That is why we are great," said Actaeon with gravity. "On this accountour arts fill the earth, and all bow before the moral grandeur ofGreece. We are the people that has known how to honor life making a cultof its origin; we satisfy the impulses of love without hypocrisy, andbecause of this we understand better than others the needs of thespirit. Intelligence wings more truly when it does not feel the weightof the body tormented by pudicity. We love and study; our gods go naked,with no other adornment than the ray of immortal light upon theforehead. They do not demand blood, like those barbarian divinitiesenwrapped in clothing which only leaves uncovered their frowningassassin faces; they are as beautiful as human beings, they laugh likethem, and their peals of merriment wafted around Olympus gladden theearth."

  "Love is the most virtuous sentiment; from it emanates all greatness.Only the barbarians calumniate it, hiding it as a dishonest thing."

  "I know a people," said Actaeon, "among whom love, the divine fusion ofbodies, is looked upon as an impurity. Israel is an amalgamation ofmiserable tribes, occupying an arid region surrounding a temple ofbarbaric construction, copied from all peoples. They are hypocrites,rapacious and cruel; on this account they abominate love. If such apeople were to attain universal influence like Greece, if it shoulddominate the world, imposing its beliefs, the eternal light which shineson the Parthenon would go out; humanity would grope in darkness, withthe heart dry and the thought dead; the world would be a necropolis, allwould be moving corpses, and centuries and more centuries would passbefore man would again find the road, coming back to our smiling gods,to the cult of beauty that gladdens life."

  Sonnica, listening to the Greek, approached the tall rose bushes andbegan to pluck the flowers, smelling them with delight. She imaginedherself in Athens, in the garden on the Street of Tripods, listening toher poet who had initiated her into the sweet mysteries of art and love.And she gazed sweetly at Actaeon, with frank and sincere passion, withthe submission of a slave, saying "I love you" with her eyes, as if onlyawaiting a word to fall into his arms.

  The breeze lightly stirred the whole garden. Bits of purple sky inflamedby the setting sun could be seen through the foliage. A mysteriouspenumbra began to form beneath the trees. The sounds from the fields,the stirring of the people outside the villa in the houses of theslaves, and even the cries of the exotic birds on the terrace seemed tocome from a distant world.

  Between two clumps of rose bushes stood an image of Priapos carved fromthe trunk of a tree. The rustic god was smiling with a lewd expression,arching his hairy breast and thrusting his abdomen forward.

  Sonnica smiled on seeing the Athenian looking at him.

  "You know that it is an ancient custom to place the gardens under theprotection of Priapos," said Sonnica. "They say that he frightens awaythieves. My slaves believe it firmly, and I keep the god as a symbol oflife in the midst of these roses, which are as beautiful as those ofPaestum. The allurements of Priapos complete the sweet charm of aboundingNature."

  The two Greeks walked on in silence, with slow step, along an avenue ofslender cypresses at the end of which opened a grotto, its rocky wallsdraped with ivy, allowing a greenish, diffused light to filter throughits openings. A white cupid spilled from a shell a stream of water liketender falling tear-drops, caught in an alabaster basin. There theluxurious Sonnica spent the warmer part of the day.

  Actaeon was conscious of a soft, warm touch upon his shoulder.

  "Sonnica!"

  Caressing her around her gold-encircled waist, her white and satiny armsknotted themselves responsive about his neck like ivory serpents; herhead fell upon the shoulder of the Greek, who, looking down, saw fixedupon him a pair of violet eyes moist with ecstatic emotion.

  "You are Athens come back to me!" She murmured sweetly, with batedbreath. "When I met you this morning on the steps of Aphrodite's templeI thought you must be Apollo descended to earth. I felt the Olympianfire, impossible to resist. Long have I scorned love, but at last thelittle god is avenged, and--and--I love you!"

  Like a soft glow the beauty of the Greek shone in the twilight of thegrotto.

  * * * * *

  Nine guests were bidden to Sonnica's banquet, and as night closed inthey came, some in chariots, others mounted on gaily caparisoned horses,passing between rows of slaves holding lighted torches.

  When Sonnica and Actaeon entered the festal hall, the guests stood ingroups near the purple couches arranged about the curving table, themarble top of which some slaves were washing with sponges and perfumedwater. Four enormous bronze lampadaries occupied the corners of thetriclinium. From their brackets were suspended numberless little jars ofperfumed oil, in which floated wicks, shedding a rich light. Garlands ofroses and foliage hung from lamp to lamp, constituting a fragrant borderfor the banquet hall. Near a door leading to the peristyle stood carvedwooden tables piled with gold and silver dishes and the keen-edgedcarving knives for the use of the slaves.

  Alorcus the Celtiberian stood talking with Lachares and three of thoseyoung Greeks who so scandalized the Saguntines in the Forum by theireffeminate ways. The arrogant barbarian, according to the custom of hisrace, wore his sword belted to his waist until the banquet began, whenhe hung it upon the ivory _anaclintron_ of the couch that he might haveit ever within reach of his hand.

  At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, andAlcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Actaeon had spoken that morning onthe esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation.

  The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchantswhom Sonnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited toher nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added tothese occasions.

  As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined theirfelicity in Sonnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon withwhich she inclined toward Actaeon her blonde head, crowned with roses andviolets.

  "At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy.

  "He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberianresignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that Sonnica,the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people."

  Actaeon, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with theself-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a manaccustomed to princely splendors--he whom a stroke of fortune hadsuddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition.

  At a signal from Sonnica the guests reclined upon the purple coucheswhich surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hallbearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephorae, littlewillow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy ease, asif gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and withtheir delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers.

  Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance.

  "Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter."

  The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this.

  "Throw him out, Sonnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the youngmen, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress andmanners.

  "It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said thegrave citizens.

  Sonnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which theparasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few daysbefore, she said frigidly to the steward:

  "Drive him away with a club."

  The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which aslave passed from couch to couch, and Sonnica had given the order tocommence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed clubclutched in his hand.

  "I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows,but after each one he works his way a little farther into
the house."

  "And what does he say?"

  "He says that one of Sonnica's feasts is impossible without the presenceof Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."

  The woman displayed compassion; the guests laughed; and Sonnica gave theorder to admit the philosopher, but before the steward had left theroom to comply with her command Euphobias had already entered the hall,cringing, humble, but looking at the assembled company with insolenteyes.

  "The gods be with you! May joy ever attend you, beautiful Sonnica!"

  Turning to the steward he said loftily:

  "Brother, now that you see that I get in anyhow, try to wield a lessheavy hand in future."

  Accompanied by the laughter of the guests he rubbed his forehead onwhich a lump had begun to rise, and with a corner of his time-wornmantle he wiped off a few drops of blood close to one ear.

  "Greeting, lousy one!" the gallant Lachares called to him.

  "Away from us!" shouted the other youths.

  But Euphobias paid no attention. He smiled at Actaeon, seeing himreclining near Sonnica, and his eyes shone with a malicious expression.

  "You have arrived where I thought you would. You will master theseeffeminate creatures who surround Sonnica and who heap insults upon me."

  Paying no heed to the mocking retorts of the young gallants he addedwith a servile smile:

  "I trust you will not forget your old friend Euphobias. Now you can sethim up to all the wine he wishes in the taverns of the Forum."

  The philosopher took the couch at the farther end of the table, and herefused the crown offered him by the slave.

  "I have not come for flowers; I have come to eat. I can find plenty ofroses merely by taking a stroll in the country; but what I do not findin Saguntum is a crust of bread for a philosopher."

  "Are you hungry?" asked Sonnica.

  "I am more thirsty than hungry. I have spent the whole day talking inthe Forum; they all listened to me, but it never occurred to any one torefresh my throat."

  According to the Grecian custom an _arbiter bibendi_ must be chosen, aguest of honor who should propose the toasts, announce the moment fordrinking, and direct the conversation.

  "Let us choose Euphobias," said Alorcus, with the grave humor of aCeltiberian.

  "No!" protested Sonnica. "One night we put him in charge of the banquetfor a joke, and we were all drunk before the third course. He proposed apotation at every mouthful."

  "Why choose a king?" said the philosopher. "We already have one atSonnica's side. Let it be the Athenian!"

  "Yes, let it be he," said the elegant Lachares, "and may he not allowyou to speak during the whole night, insolent parasite!"

  In the centre of the table stood a broad bronze crater, over the edgesof which peeped a group of nymphs looking at themselves in the oval lakeof wine. Each guest had a slave at his back to serve him, and theydipped wine from the crater to fill the glasses of the guests for thefirst libation. They were murrhine cups, brought from Asia at a greatprice, of mysterious fabrication, into which entered the dust of certainshells, and myrrh, hardened and tinted. They were white and opaque, likeivory, holding pieces of colored glass embedded, and their mysteriouscomposition gave a voluptuous fragrance to the wine.

  Actaeon raised himself in his couch to propose the first toast in honorof the chosen divinity.

  "Drink to Diana, Athenian," spoke the grave voice of Alcon; "drink tothe Saguntine goddess!"

  But in the hand which remained free the Athenian felt another, delicateand beringed, clasping it with a warm caress, so he dedicated hislibation to Aphrodite, and the young men greeted it with shouts ofenthusiasm. Aphrodite was to be the goddess for that night! While theyoung men thought of the dancers from Gades, the great attraction of thebanquet, Sonnica and Actaeon, their elbows resting on the cushions,caressed each other with their eyes, while they leaned shoulder toshoulder, close to the edge of the table.

  Strong slaves, perspiring from standing over the fires in the kitchens,set upon the table the food for the first course, served in great platesof red Saguntine terra cotta. There were shellfish raw and broiled, allhighly spiced. Fresh oysters, mussels, enchinoderms dressed with parsleyand mint, asparagus, peppers, lettuce, peacock eggs, tripe seasoned withcumin and vinegar, and fried birds swimming in a sauce of grated cheese,oil, vinegar, and silphium. There was also served _oxygarum_ made in thefisheries of New Carthage--a paste of tunny milt, loaded with salt andvinegar, which excited the palate, stimulating one to drink wine.

  The aroma from these dishes floated through the festal hall.

  "Talk not to me about the nest of the phoenix!" said Euphobias withhis mouth full. "According to the poets, the phoenix bestrews itsnest with incense, bay, and cinnamon, but I swear by the gods that Iwould rather be in Sonnica's triclinium than in that nest!"

  "Which does not prevent your dedicating insulting verses to me, yourascal," said the Greek woman, smiling.

  "Because I am fond of you, and I protest against your follies. By day Iam a philosopher; but at night my stomach compels me to come to you, sothat your menials may beat me, and that you may give me something toeat."

  The slaves removed the plates of the first course, and brought on thesecond which consisted of fish and meat. A small roasted wild boaroccupied the centre of the table; great pheasants with their plumagelaid as a covering upon their cooked flesh, were displayed on platessurrounded by hard-boiled eggs and fragrant herbs; thrushes spitted uponreeds were arranged in form of crowns; hares, on being carved, displayeda stuffing of rosemary and thyme; and wild doves were brought on withquails and thrushes. There were innumerable dishes of fish, remindingthe Greeks of the viands of their native land, and between mouthfulsthey discussed the glauci from Megara, the eels from Scione, and breamsand xiphiae from the coasts of Phalerum and from the Hellespont.

  Each guest chose his favorite food from among the different dishes, andregaled his friends with it, presents being carried by slaves from oneend of the table to the other. More wines, in sealed and dusty amphorae,were brought up from the cellars, and overflowed the festal goblets.Wine from Chios, rare and costly, mingled with those from Caecubum, fromFalerno, and from Massico, in Italy, and those from Laurona and from theSaguntine domain. To the bouquet of these liquids was added the aroma ofthe sauces, into which entered, following the complicated recipes of theGrecian cuisine, silphium, parsley, sesame, fennel, cumin, and garlic.

  Sonnica barely touched her food; she neglected the successive plates,heaped with presents from her guests, to smile at Actaeon.

  "I love you," she whispered. "I feel as if a Thessalian magus had cast aspell over me. My whole being responds to the throb of love. Do you seethese fishes? I am afraid to eat them; I feel that I would be committinga sacrilege, because roses and fishes are dedicated to Venus, the motherof our joy. I only wish to drink--to drink profoundly. I feel within mea fire which caresses, yet consumes me."

  The guests gormandized, rendering tribute to Sonnica's cook, an Asiatic,purchased in Athens by one of her navigators. He had cost her almost theprice of a villa; but they considered the money well spent, and theyadmired the art with which his meditations in a corner of the kitchenproduced these astonishing combinations, afterward executed by the otherslaves--above all that happy invention of a mild sauce of dates andhoney for the roasts. With such a slave it were possible to enjoy one'sfood throughout the whole of life and to ward off death for many years.

  The second course had ended. The guests were lying surfeited on theircouches, loosening their garments. The slaves served them with wine inhorn-shaped flagons of alabaster, which permitted a slender stream togurgle from its spout, so that they need not lift themselves to drink.The purple drapery of the couches was stained with wine. The greatlampadaries in the corners, with their tapers of perfumed oil, seemed toglow more faintly in the dense atmosphere charged with vapor from thesteaming viands. The garlands of roses hanging in festoons from thelamps wilted in the heavy atmosphere. Through the o
pen door the guestscaught glimpses of the columns of the peristyle, and of a strip of darkblue sky in which twinkled many stars.

  The pacific Alcon rising up in his couch, smiled with the amiability ofmild intoxication, gazing at the splendor of the firmament.

  "I drink to the beauty of our city!" he said, raising the horn filledwith wine.

  "To the Grecian Zacynthus!" shouted Lachares.

  "Yes, let Saguntum be Greek!" answered his friends.

  The conversation turned upon the great festival which, at Sonnica'sinitiative, the Greeks of Saguntum would celebrate in honor of Minervaon gathering the harvest. The Panathenaic festivals should end with aprocession like that which took place in Athens, and which Phidias hadimmortalized in marble in his famous friezes. The young men spoke withenthusiasm of the horses they would ride, and of the contests for whichthey were training by persistent exercise. Sonnica patronized thefestivals with her immense wealth, and she wished to make these asfamous as that one which Athens celebrated on the dedication of theParthenon.

  The Saguntine youths would race outside the walls in the morning todemonstrate that they were as clever as the Celtiberian horsemen; themore pacific would contest in the Forum, lyre in hand, to win the crownoffered to the one who should hymn the poems of Homer most creditably;afterward the procession would reveal all its magnificence through thestreets of the city, climbing up to the Acropolis; and in the afternoonthe race of the flaming torch would take place to divert the people, whowould hiss at him who let his torch go out, and would whip up him whotraveled slowly to protect the flame.

  "But do you really believe in Minerva?" Euphobias asked of Sonnica.

  "I believe in what I see," she replied. "I believe in spring, in theresurrection of the verdant fields, in the grain which springs from theground to nourish man from its golden bearded heads; the flowers, whichare the incense-bearers of the earth; and, above all the goddesses, Ilove Athene for the wisdom with which she endows man and makes himdivine, and I love Minerva for her bounty which maintains them."

  The slaves laid the third course on the table, and the guests,half-inebriated, raised themselves in their couches to look at thelittle baskets of fruit, the plates covered with pastry toasted over thefire in the Cappadocian style; buns made of sesame flour, filled withhoney, and browned in the oven; and cakes of cheese stuffed with stewedfruits.

  Small amphorae containing the choicest wines, brought from the uttermostends of the world by Sonnica's ships, were uncorked. Wine from Byblus inPhoenicia saturated the atmosphere with a fragrance as penetrating asbottles of perfume; that from Lesbos which on being poured gave forth aravishing odor of roses, and, in addition to these, cups were filledwith cordials from Erythrea and Heraclea, strong and spiritous, andthose from Rhodes and Chios, prudently mixed with sea-water to aid thedigestion.

  Some slaves, to excite again the appetite of the guests, and to makethem drink, offered plates of locusts cured in brine; radishes withvinegar and mustard, toasted garbanzos, and olives, prized for theirsize and flavor, swimming in a piquant sauce.

  Actaeon could eat nothing, diverted by Sonnica, who, leaving her_epiclintron_, pressed against him, rubbing her cheek upon theAthenian's with mingling breath. Thus they remained in silence, eachwatching the image reflected from the pupils of the other.

  "Let me kiss you on the eyes," murmured Sonnica, "they are the windowsof the soul, and I imagine that through them my caress will penetrate tothe depths of your being."

  The arrogant Alorcus, grave as all Celtiberians when intoxicated, spokeof the coming festival as he gazed into his empty cup. He had fivehorses in the city, the finest his tribe could furnish, and if themagistrates would allow him to take part in the rejoicings, despite hisbeing a foreigner, the Saguntines would have a chance to admire thestrength and swiftness of his beautiful coursers. The crown should fallto him, unless some unexpected event summoned him from the city.

  Lachares and his elegant friends proposed to contest for the prize insinging, and their effeminate hands, slender and beringed, movednervously over the table as if already thrumming the lyre, while theirpainted lips sang Homeric verses in subdued tones. Euphobias, lying onhis back on his couch, gazed aloft with dreamy eyes, with no otherearthly desire than to reach forth his glass and call for wine; butAlcon and the Greek merchants became impatient at the slowness of thebanquet.

  "The dancers! Let the daughters from Gades come!" they called withtremulous voices, the fiery spark of intoxication glowing in their eyes.

  "Yes; let the dancing girls come!" cried Euphobias rousing from hisstupor. "I want to see how this honorable people disturbs its digestion,which is the best gift to man, by the lewd steps of the daughters ofHercules."

  Sonnica made a sign to her steward, and in a moment the joyous sound offlutes was heard in the peristyle.

  "The auletai!" shouted the guests.

  Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearinga chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at everystep, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingersplaying over the holes of the instrument.

  Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began asweet melopoeia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couchesand to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as oldacquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, theywatched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayedrhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet.

  Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the endof an hour the guests became bored.

  "We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the sameflutists who always play at your banquets, Sonnica. Since you havefallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let ussee the dancers!"

  "Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men.

  "Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instantfrom Actaeon's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end ofthe banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I canguess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see alittle slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like thoseof celebrated Athenian performers."

  Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the fartherend of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobiashad fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic wasdisgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine.

  "Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothingbetter to dissipate drunkenness."

  The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying noattention to the philosopher's protests.

  "I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutesme. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate asto sit at a table like Sonnica's, the food which I eat escapes me."

  "Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied Sonnica,resting her head again on Actaeon's breast.

  The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted hermistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of aboutfourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervousand agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like aboy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculinebeauty.

  She uttered a shout, and doubling over with elastic vigor stood on herhands, and with feet in the air and her head almost touching the floor,she began to run swiftly about the triclinium. Then, with a powerfulspring of her arms, she leaped upon the table, and trotted on her handsamong the confusion of plates, amphorae, and cups, without upsettingthem.

  The guests applauded with enthusiasm. The two Greek merchants offeredher their goblets, pinching her cheeks while she drank, and passingtheir hands caressingly over her back.

  "Lachares," said the philosopher to his aristocratic enemy, "why haveyou and your companions not brought your beautiful slave boys who ser
veyou as supports in the Forum?"

  "Sonnica will not allow it," replied the young gallant, pleased at thequestion, not suspecting the irony in Euphobias' words. "She is asuperior woman, but this is the only one of the refined customs ofAthens which she declines to tolerate. She believes in Jupiter and Leda;but she spits upon the beautiful Ganymede. She is not a full-fledgedAthenian."

  A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by agroup of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat.The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist,again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords withoutdisturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand,followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades,which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She pausednear a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single handshe bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened themuscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout thiswhole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abradingthe skin.

  When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The twoold men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish facepeeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.

  "But, Sonnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek everforget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with yourlove; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades presentthemselves quickly!"

  Sonnica appeared to be sleeping upon Actaeon's breast, spellbound by hisclose, warm, throbbing heart.

  "Bid them enter----let my guests do what they wish----only leave us inpeace!"

  Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and theGaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like astampeding flock.

  They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin apale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; theirbodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in theirsemi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms andankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at theslightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flockaccustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeingmen only in their hours of intoxication.

  The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with aninsolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheekspainted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears,and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the mostinfamous traffic.

  Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at himwith amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton armspeeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down withjewels.

  "Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.

  "I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with asqueaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums.

  Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip theircastanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on aglobe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm.

  The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairsof dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swingto the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions.They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect,spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodieswheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparentfoam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; theygracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outliningtheir contours among the veils--contortions in which the trunk revolvedon the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery,which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations,fanned up the flames of the lamps.

  Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and thedancing ceased.

  "More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches withexcitement.

  It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by takinga brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuchmarked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolongedlament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come fromhis infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love withwords of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and weregreeted with a roar of enthusiasm.

  The dancers sprang into the centre of the triclinium, whirling swiftly,as if possessed of a fever. Each song served as a lash further to excitetheir nerves, and their bare feet tripped over the mosaic likesnow-white birds, or rose in gentle flight, trailing clouds of gauze,displaying well modeled limbs with tinkling ornaments which scatteredsilvery tones. Their gently curving abdomens seemed to assume a separateexistence, moving like restless animals over their bodies which theyheld in sacerdotal rigidity, contracting in circular waves, forming awhirlpool of voluptuous undulations, of which the umbilicus was the rosycentre. They accompanied the dance with incessant snapping of fingers.Gathering the gauzy draperies beneath their arms and adjusting themaround their hips, they moved their amphoral curves with seductiverhythm, sighing langourously, with bowed heads, as if enchanted by thecontemplation of their own beauty. Suddenly the music grew fainter, asif drawing away, and the dancers, their feet together and limbs halfopened, descended in a slow spiral, with gentle undulations, until theytouched the floor; the instant their callipygian charms grazed themosaic, they recoiled like suddenly awakened serpents, and the castanetsclacked and the timbrel beat louder, accompanied by the howls of themusicians who animated them with lascivious words and exclamations ofsupreme abandon.

  The guests, red with emotion, their eyes sparkling and their mouths dry,had rushed into the centre of the triclinium, interrupting the dance,mixing with the couples and grasping them. Euphobias lay snoring at thefoot of his couch. Sonnica had disappeared long before, leaving thetriclinium, supported by a slave without lifting her head from Actaeon'sshoulder.

  The veils of the dancing girls fell to the foot of the table; theydevoured the sweetmeats and fruits, they drank from the amphorae, plungedtheir heads into the crater of the nymphs, and laughed on seeing theirfaces bespattered with wine. The eunuch continued singing and poundingfuriously on the floor to mark the rhythm for his musicians. In vain!The girls who tried to dance could not escape from the hands of theguests, who at every turn slapped them on their buttocks and tore offtheir veils. The young men rolled at the foot of the lamps, maddened bythese bacchantes wise in perversion, reared in a port to whichnavigators brought both the refinements and the corruptions of theentire world. Alorcus the Celtiberian, brutalized by his enthusiasm,walked around the triclinium making a display of his strength bysustaining in his sinewy hands two dancing girls, who screamed withfright, while outside could be noted in the darkness of the peristylethe movement of the slaves, men and women, from the kitchens, creepingnear to enjoy from without the spectacle of the bacchanal.

  It was not yet dawn when Actaeon awoke, wondering, no doubt, at the softcouch and at the perfumes of the dormitory. Sonnica was lying besidehim, and by the light of a lamp hanging near the door he could see asmile of felicity flitting over her lips.

  After the intoxication of the night the Athenian felt a vehement desireto breathe the fresh, open air. He was stifling where he was, inSonnica's room, sunk down in the couch that seemed to burn with the fireof their recent passion, near the form, which now lay inert and with noother sign of life than the gentle sighs which inflated her bosom.

  The Greek softly tiptoed out to the peristyle. The lamps were stillburning in the triclinium, and an insufferable vapor of viands, wines,and sweaty bodies floated through the doorway. He saw the guests lyingon the floor among the snoring women. Euphobias had awakened from hisdrunken sleep, and, occupying the place of honor, Sonnica's couch, wasforging for himself
the illusion of being master of the villa. Wrappedin his tattered mantle he was compelling two sleepy dancing girls todance, contemplating their nude flesh with a disdainful stare like a manwho considers himself above carnal desires.

  As Actaeon appeared in the triclinium some slaves fled, fearing lest theyshould be punished for their curiosity. Not wishing to be seen by thephilosopher the Greek went out of the house seeking the cool garden.There he noticed the same flight before his steps. Embracing couplesfled along the avenues; from behind the clumps of foliage aroseexclamations of surprise as he approached, and in the dissipatingshadows of the night the garden seemed animated by a mysterious lifebeneath its leafy bowers.

  They were slaves who, excited by the feast, continued beneath the opensky the scenes of the triclinium.

  The Greek smiled, reflecting that the feast was destined to augment hismistress' wealth.

  "Let them enjoy themselves in peace. To disturb them would damageSonnica's interests."

  He passed out of the garden so as not to interfere with the joy of themiserable flock which, forgetting every trouble, sought each otherthere in the dim light of dawn.

  He crossed Sonnica's immense dominions, through groves of fig trees andextensive olive orchards, until suddenly he found himself in the highwayof the Serpent. It was deserted. In the distance he heard the gallopingof a horse and saw in the bluish light of dawn a rider who wasundoubtedly making for the port.

  As he drew near Actaeon recognized him in spite of his head being coveredby the hood of a war mantle. It was the Celtiberian shepherd. The Greekdashed into the centre of the roadway and grasped the horse by thebridle, while the rider, checked in his race, leaned back, tugging atthe knife which he wore in his belt.

  "Be calm!" said Actaeon in a low voice. "If I stop you it is to say thatI have recognized you. You are Hannibal, the son of the great Hamilcar!Your disguise may serve you among the Saguntines, but your boyhoodfriend knows you."

  The African bent his head forward with its bushy mass of hair, and hisimperious eyes made out the Greek in the dim light.

  "Is it you, Actaeon? When I met you so many times yesterday I knew thatyou would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"

  "I am living in the house of Sonnica the rich."

  "I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent asthe courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and Ithink I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase afterwomen. And are you doing nothing else?"

  "I am a soldier in the pay of the city."

  "You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, aman educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city ofbarbarians and merchants!"

  Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of theGreek. At last he added resolutely:

  "Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginianship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage toplace myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, animmense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heapingmountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friendof my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons ofHamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling allthree of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave likeyour father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that youmay reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I dividemy conquests among my captains!"

  "No, Carthaginian," said Actaeon gravely. "I do not hate you; I rememberour early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Yourlineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloodyshade of my father."

  "Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fightfor any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, andriches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory andour despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacificand stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,Actaeon, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."

  "No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers Ishould remember the mob that crucified Lysias."

  "That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war towhich the mercenaries impelled us. My father lamented it a thousandtimes, remembering his faithful Lysias. With my protection I will makeamends for that injustice of Carthage."

  "I will not follow you, Hannibal. I have bid farewell to war and booty.I prefer to grow old here in this sweet and tranquil life, at the sideof my Sonnica, loving peace like any one of those Saguntines who dwellsin the merchants' ward."

  "Peace? Peace?"

  A strident and brutal shout of laughter, like that which Actaeon hadheard on the steps of Aphrodite's temple when the Roman legates wereembarking, broke the silence of the roadway.

  "Listen well, Actaeon," said the African, recovering his gravity, "theproof that I still remember my boyhood affection for you lies in thefrankness with which I speak my mind. Only to you, understand it well!If, sleeping in my tent, I should learn on awaking that what is in mymind had escaped in words, I would stab the sentinel who guarded mysleep. You speak of peace! Actaeon, awake! If you think of growing old intranquility in any part of the world, flee with that Greek woman whomyou love, far, far away! Where I am, there shall be no peace until Ihave become the sovereign of the world! War marches ahead of myfootsteps; he who will not submit to me must die or become my slave!"

  The Greek comprehended the significance of the threat.

  "Remember, Hannibal, that this city is Rome. The Republic has taken itfor an ally and protects it."

  "Do you imagine that I fear Rome? If I hate Saguntum it is because sheis proud of her alliance, and that she scorns and forgets me, in spiteof my being near. She fancies herself secure because that far-awayRepublic protects her, and she laughs at me, though I reign over all thePeninsula as far as the Ebro, and am encamped almost at her very gates.She antagonizes the Turdetani, who are my allies, as are all the Iberiantribes, and within her walls she beheads the citizens who love me, thosewho were friends of the great Hamilcar. Ah, blind and vainglorious city!How dear shall it cost thee to live near to Hannibal without knowinghim!"

  Turning about in his saddle he glared with menacing eyes at theAcropolis of Saguntum, which stood forth above the fog of the earlymorn.

  "You could scarcely lay siege to her ally before Rome would fall uponyou!"

  "Let her come!" replied the African arrogantly. "That is what I want, Ihate peace! I will not submit to seeing Carthage subdued while thereexist men like me and my friends. Either Rome or Africa! Let the finalclash come! The sooner the better, the supreme struggle; and let thatnation which is left standing be ruler of the world! I hate the rich ofmy country who live content in the shame of defeat because it enablesthem to traffic calmly and to cram their vaults with silver. Those arethe wretches who, after our defeat in Sicily, dared to dream ofabandoning Carthage and of moving wholesale to the islands of the GreatSea to live in tranquility. They are Carthaginians indeed; true sons ofPhoenicia, with no other conception of glory than trade, nor otheraspiration than to find new ports where they can market their wares! WeBarcas are Libyans; we descend from the gods; like them we havegreatness of thought; we must be masters, or die! Those merchants do notunderstand that it is not enough to be rich; that one must dominate andinstill fear; and they formed in Carthage a peace-party, whichembittered my father's life by defeats, and they leave me with no otherresources than those that I can procure on the Peninsula. They do notknow the Barcas, despite the fact that we struggle to make Carthage aworld power! My father, when he lost Sicily, foresaw the futureextinction of our nation, and he wished to prevent it. We had lost agreat part of our ancient commerce. We needed an army to defend us fromambitious Rome, and we did not have it.
The citizens of Carthage aregood, at the best, to fight on their own soil. The merchant cannot bearthe weight of arms nor endure marches for months and years throughhostile countries. The profit derived from booty conquered with blood,he can win more easily standing behind his bales of goods, and as heloves money he does not wish to pay it out to foreign soldiers. That iswhy Hamilcar brought us to the Peninsula, and here we have givenCarthage new ports and markets, and the Barcas have an army gatheredtogether by their own efforts. Little does it matter that theCarthaginian Senate, lovers of peace, refuse to send us soldiers. TheIberian tribes loved my father after putting his bravery to the test,and they will rise in arms at the voice of the Barcas against whateverenemy we may designate."

  Hannibal turned his gaze toward the distant mountains, as if he couldbehold the innumerable barbarian tribes who lived behind them scratchingthe earth, or pasturing their flocks. "Hamilcar fell," he said sadly,"just as he was beginning to see his dreams realized in a great armywith which to enter anew into strife with Rome, with riches of his ownto carry on the war without need of assistance from the Africanmerchants. Hasdrubal, the handsome husband of my sister, frittered awayeight years on succeeding to his authority. He was a good governor, buta timid commander. Perhaps it was Baal, our savage god, who guided thearm of his assassin that he might be succeeded by another capable ofexterminating the eternal enemy of Carthage. That one shall be I! Listenwell, Greek! You are the only one who shares my thought. The moment forfighting the final battle has come. Soon shall Rome know that thereexists a Hannibal who defies her by taking possession of Saguntum."

  "You have scant power for that, African. Saguntum is strong, and I, whocome from New Carthage, have seen there nothing but the elephants, thefragments of the army which your father brought, and the Numidiancavalry which your friends have sent from Africa."

  "You forget the Iberians and the Celtiberians, the whole Peninsula,which will rise bodily and flock to the taking of Saguntum. The countryis poor, and the city is overstocked with riches. I have noted it well.There is enough in it to pay an army for entire years, and even theLusitanian tribes from the coast of the Great Sea will come attracted bythe hope of loot and urged on by the hatred of rude natives for a city,opulent and civilized, where dwell their exploiters. It will be no greattask for Hannibal to take possession of a republic of farmers andmerchants."

  "And after you become master, what then?"

  The African answered nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with anenigmatic smile.

  "You are silent, Hannibal. But after you are master of Saguntum you willhave gained nothing. Rome will hurl her thunder at you for violating hertreaties, and the Carthaginian Senate will curse you; it will set aprice upon your head; it will order your soldiers to disobey you; andyou will die crucified, or you will wander about the world like afugitive slave."

  "No! Fire of Baal!" shouted the chief arrogantly. "Carthage will attemptnothing against me; she will accept war with Rome, even though to-dayshe may not wish it. I have there innumerable partisans of the Barcas;the populace which loves war, because it yields cargoes of loot fordistribution; the people of the out-lying districts, whose enthusiasm Ikeep at white heat by sending them riches sacked on the Peninsula, afterhaving paid my troops. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal did the same. They wouldbe ready to cut off the heads of the rich if anything were attemptedagainst Hannibal. Since following my father for nine years, I have notreturned to Carthage, but the people adore my name. Even those of thepeace-party will follow me to war, if to war I drag them."

  "And how will you conquer Rome?"

  "I know not," said Hannibal with his mysterious smile. "I harbor a worldof thoughts which would provoke the laughter of my friends if I shouldrelate them. I see myself like a Titan scaling immense mountains,following the course of the eagle, ploughing through the snow, climbingto the very sky to fall upon my enemy with greater force. Ask me nomore; I know nothing further. My will says, 'I desire,' and that isenough--I shall carry it through!"

  Hannibal was silent, wrinkling his brows as if fearing he had said toomuch.

  It was now daylight. Women with baskets on their heads were passingalong the road. Two slaves carrying a great amphora hanging from a poleswung between their shoulders, stopped near them a moment to rest. TheAfrican patted his horse's neck as if preparing to leave.

  "For the last time, Greek, will you come?"

  Actaeon shook his head.

  "I know you too well to beg you to forget that you have seen Hannibal.You are astute. You know that what we have spoken here must be swallowedin the silence of the fields, and must be repeated to no one. Be happyin your new love, and live in peace, since, though born to soar as aneagle, you choose to stay here in a barnyard. If ever you oppose me asan enemy and contend against me, I will not crucify you; you shall notbecome my slave. I love you, although you will not follow me. I do notforget that you were the first who taught me to hurl a dart. May Baalguard you, Actaeon! My men await me at the port."

  His mantle floating in the breeze, he started on a gallop, raising acloud of dust, scattering the country people and slaves, who scurried tothe sides of the road to give him passage.