Der Kaiser. English

by Georg Ebers

  CHAPTER IV.

  In the Caesareum, where the Empress dwelt, the lights were extinguishedone after another; but in the palace of Lochias they grew more numerousand brighter. In festal illuminations of the harbor pitch cressets onthe roof, and long rows of lamps that accumulated architectonic featuresof the noble structure, were always kindled; but inside it, no blazeso brilliant had ever lighted it within the memory of man. The harborwatchmen at first gazed anxiously up at Lochias, for they feared thata fire must have broken out in the old palace; they were soon reassuredhowever, by one of the prefect's lictors, who brought them a command tokeep open the harbor gates that night, and every night till the Emperorshould have arrived, to all who might wish to proceed from Lochias tothe city, or from the city to the peninsula, under the orders of Pontiusthe architect. And till long past midnight not a quarter of an hourpassed in which the people whom the architect had summoned to his aidwere not knocking at the harbor gates, which, though not locked were allguarded. The little house belonging to the gate-keeper was also brightlylighted up; the birds and cats belonging to the old woman whom theprefect and his companions had found slumbering by her wine-jar, werenow fast asleep, but the little dogs still flew loudly yelping into theyard each time a new-comer entered by the open gate.

  "Come, Aglaia, what will folks think of you? Thalia, my beauty, behavelike a good dog; come here, Euphrosyne, and don't be so silly!" criedthe old lady in a voice which was both pleasant and peremptory, asshe stood-wide awake now-behind her table, folding together the driedclothes. The little barking beasts who were thus endowed with thenames of the three Graces did not trouble themselves much about heraffectionate admonitions; to their sorrow, for it happened morethan once to each of them, when they had got under the feet of somenew-comer, to creep, whining and howling, into the house again to seekconsolation from their mistress, who would pick up the sufferer andsoothe it with kisses and coaxing.

  The old lady was no longer alone, for in the background, on a long andnarrow couch which stood in front of the statue of Apollo, lay a tall,lean man, wearing a red chiton. A little lamp hanging from the ceilingthrew a dull light on him and on the lute he was playing. To the faintsound of the instrument, which was rather a large one, and which he hadpropped on the pillow by his side, he was singing, or rather murmuringa long ditty. Twice, thrice, four times he repeated it in the same way.Now and again he suddenly let his voice sound more loudly--and thoughhis hair was quite grey his voice was not unpleasing--and sang a fewphrases full of expression and with artistic delivery; and then, whenthe dogs barked too vehemently, he would spring up, and with his lute inhis left-hand and a long pliable rattan in his right, he would rush intothe court-yard, shout the names of the dogs, and raise his cane as if hewould kill them; but he always took care not to hit them, only to beaton the pavement near them. When, returning from such an excursion, hestretched himself again on his couch, the old woman, pointing to thehanging-lamp which the impatient creature often knocked with his head,would call out, "Euphorion, mind the oil."

  And he each time answered with the same threatening gesture and the sameglare in his black eyes:

  "The little brutes!"

  The singer had been diligently practising his musical exercises forabout an hour, when the dogs rushed into the court-yard, not barkingthis time, but yelping loudly with joy. The old woman laid aside thewashing and listened, but the tall man said:

  "As many birds come flying before the Emperor as gulls before a storm.If only they would leave us in peace--"

  "Hark, that is Pollux; I know by the dogs," said the woman, hasteningas fast as she could over the threshold and out to meet him. Butthe expected visitor was already at the door. He picked up the threefour-footed Graces who leaped round him, one after the other by theskin of the neck, and gave each a tap on its nose. Then, seeing theold woman, he took her head between his hands, and kissed her forehead,saying, "Good-evening, little Mother," and shook hands with the singer,adding, "How are you, great, big Father?"

  "You are as big as I am," replied the man thus addressed, and he drewthe younger man towards him, and laid one of his broad hands on his owngrey head and the other on that of his first-born, with its wealth ofbrown hair.

  "As if we were cast in the same mould," cried the youth; and in fact hewas very like his father--like, no doubt, as a noble hunter is likea worn-out hack--as marble is like limestone--as a cedar is like afir-tree. Both were remarkably tall, had thick hair, dark eyes, andstrongly aquiline noses, exactly of the same shape; but the cheerfulbrightness which irradiated the countenance of the youth had certainlynot been inherited from the lute-player, but from the little woman wholooked up into his face and patted his arm.

  But whence did he derive the powerful, but indescribable something whichgave nobility to his head, and of which it was impossible to say whetherit lay in his eye, or in the lofty brow, arched so differently to thatof either parent?

  "I knew you would come," cried his mother. "This afternoon I dreamed it,and I can prove that I expected you, for there, on the brazier, standsthe stewed cabbage and sausage waiting for you."

  "I cannot stay now," replied Pollux. "Really, I cannot, though yourkind looks would persuade me, and the sausage winks at me out of thecabbage-pan. My master, Papias, is gone on ahead, and in the palacethere we are to work wonders in less time than it generally takes toconsider which end the work should be begun at."

  "Then I will carry the cabbage into the palace for you," said Doris,standing on tip-toe to hold a sausage to the lips of her tall son.Pollux bit off a large mouthful and said, as he munched it:

  "Excellent! I only wish that the thing I am to construct up theremay turn out as good a statue as this savory cylinder--now fastdisappearing--was a superior and admirable sausage."

  "Have another?" said Doris.

  "No mother; and you must not bring the cabbage either. Up to midnightnot a minute must be lost, and if I then leave off for a little whileyou must by that time be dreaming of all sorts of pleasant things."

  "I will carry you the cabbage then," said his father, "for I shallnot be in bed so early at any rate. The hymn to Sabina, composed byMesomedes, is to be performed with the chorus, as soon as the Empressvisits the theatre, and I am to lead the upper part of the old men,who grow young again at the sight of her. The rehearsal is fixed forto-morrow, and I know nothing about it yet. Old music, note for note, isready and safe in my throat, but new things--new things!"

  "It is according to circumstances," said Pollux, laughing.

  "If only they would perform your father's Satyr-play, or his Theseus!"cried Doris.

  "Only wait a little, I will recommend him to Caesar as soon as he isproud to call me his friend, as the Phidias of the age. Then, whenhe asks me 'Who is the happy man who begot you?' I will answer: It isEuphorion, the divine poet and singer; and my mother, too, is a worthymatron, the gate-keeper of your palace, Doris, the enchantress, whoturns dingy clothes into snow-white linen."

  These last words the young artist sang in a fine and powerful voice to amode invented by his father.

  "If only you had been a singer!" exclaimed Euphorion.

  "Then I should have enjoyed the prospect," retorted Pollux, "of spendingthe evening of my life as your successor in this little abode."

  "And now for wretched pay, you plant the laurels with which Papiascrowns himself!" answered the old man shrugging his shoulders.

  "His hour is coming, too," cried Doris, "his merit will be recognized; Isaw him in my dreams, with a great garland on his curly head!"

  "Patience, father-patience," said the young man, grasping his father'shand. "I am young and strong, and do all I can. Here, behind thisforehead, good ideas are seething; what I have succeeded in carrying outby myself, has at any rate brought credit and fame to others, althoughit is all far from resembling the ideal of beauty that here--here--Iseem to see far away and behind a cloud; still I feel that if, in amoment of kindness, Fortune will but shed a few fresh drops of dew onit all I sha
ll, at any rate, turn out something better than the mereill-paid right-hand of Papias, who, without me does not know what heought to do, or how to do it."

  "Only keep your eyes open and work hard," cried Doris.

  "It is of no use without luck," muttered the singer, shrugging hisshoulders.

  The young artist bid his parents good-night, and was about to leave, buthis mother detained him to show him the young goldfinches, hatched onlythe day before. Pollux obeyed her wish, not merely to please her, butbecause he liked to watch the gay little bird that sat warming andsheltering her nestlings. Close to the cage stood the huge wine-jar andhis mother's cup, decorated by his own hand. His eye fell on these,and he pushed them aside in silence. Then, taking courage, he said,laughing: "The Emperor will often pass by here, mother; give upcelebrating your Dionysiac festival. How would it do if you filled thejar with one-fourth wine and three-fourths water? It does not tastebadly."

  "Spoiling good gifts," replied his mother.

  "One-fourth wine-to please me," Pollux entreated, taking his mother bythe shoulders and kissing her forehead.

  "To please you, you great boy!" said Doris, as her eyes filled withtears. "Why for you, if I must, I would drink nothing but wretchedwater. Euphorion you may finish what is left in the jar presently."

  .........................

  Pontius had already begun his labors, at first with aid only of hisassistants who had followed him on foot. Measuring, estimating, sendingshort notes and writing figures, names and suggestions on the plan,and on his folding wax-tablets, he was not idle for an instant, thoughfrequently interrupted by the appointed superintendents of the workshopsand manufactures in Lochias, whose co-operation he required. They onlycame at this late hour because they were called upon by the prefect'sorders.

  Papias, the sculptor, introduced himself among the latest, thoughPontius had written to him with his own hand that he had to communicateto him a very remunerative and particularly pressing commission for theEmperor, which might, perhaps, be taken in hand that very night. Thematter in question was a statue of Urania, which must be completed ineight days by the same method which Papias had introduced at the lastfestival of Adonis, and to the scale which he, Pontius, indicated,in the palace of Lochias itself. With regard to several works ofrestoration which had to be carried out with equal rapidity, and as tothe price to be paid, they could agree at the same time and place.

  The sculptor was a man of foresight and did not appear on the scenealone but with his best assistant, Pollux, the son of the worthy coupleat the gate, and several slaves who dragged after him sundry trunks andcarts loaded with tools, boards, clay, gypsum and other raw materialsof his art. On the road to Lochias he had informed the young sculptor ofthe business in hand, and had told him in a condescending tone that hewould be permitted to try his skill in reconstructing the Urania. At thegate he had permitted Pollux to greet his parents, and had gone aloneinto the palace to open his bargain with the architect without thepresence of witnesses.

  The young artist perfectly understood his master. He knew that he wouldbe expected to carry out the statue of Urania, while his task-master,after making some trifling alterations in the completed work, woulddeclare that it was his own. Pollux had for two years been obliged,more than once, to put up with similar treatment; and now, as usual, hesubmitted to this dishonest manoeuvre because, under his master therewas plenty to do, and the delight of work was to him the greatest hecould have.

  Papias, to whom he had gone early as an apprentice and to whom he owedthe knowledge he possessed, was no miser, still Pollux needed money, notfor himself alone but because he had taken on himself the charge of awidowed sister and her children as if they were his own family. He wasalways glad to take some comfort into the narrow home of his parents,who were poor, and to maintain his younger brother Teuker--who haddevoted himself to the same art--during the years of his apprenticeship.Again and again he had thought of telling his master that he shouldstart on his own footing and earn laurels for himself, but what thenwould become of those who relied on his help, if he gave up his regularearnings and if he got no commissions when there were so many unknownbeginners eager for them? Of what avail were all his ability and themost honest good-will if no opportunity offered for his executing hiswork in noble materials? With his own means he certainly was in noposition to do so.

  While he was talking to his parents Papias had opened his transactionswith the architect. Pontius explained to the sculptor what was requiredand Papias listened attentively; he never interrupted the speaker, butonly stroked his face from time to time, as if to make it smoother thanit was already, though it was shaved with peculiar care and formed andcolored like a warm mask; meanwhile draping the front of his rich bluetoga, which he wore in the fashion of a Roman senator, into fresh folds.

  But when Pontius showed him, at the end of the rooms destined for theEmperor, the last of the statues to be restored, and which needed a newgrin, Papias said decisively:

  "It cannot be done."

  "That is a rash verdict," replied the architect. "Do you not knowthe proverb, which, being such a good one, is said to have been firstuttered by more than one sage: 'That it shows more ill-judgment topronounce a thing impossible than to boast that we can achieve a taskhowever much it may seem to transcend our powers.'"

  Papias smiled and looked down at his gold-embroidered shoes as he said:

  "It is more difficult to us sculptors to imagine ourselves wagingTitanic warfare against the impossible, than it is to you who work withenormous masses. I do not yet see the means which would give me courageto begin the attack."

  "I will tell you," replied Pontius quickly and decidedly. "On yourside good-will, plenty of assistants and night-watchers; on ours, theCaesar's approval and plenty of gold."

  After this the transaction came to a prompt and favorable issue, and thearchitect could but express his entire approbation, in most cases, ofthe sculptor's judicious and well-considered suggestions.

  "Now I must go home," concluded Papias. "My assistants will proceed atonce with the necessary preparations. The work must be carried on behindscreens, so that no one may disturb us or hinder us with remarks."

  Half an hour later a scaffolding was already erected in the middle ofthe hall where the Urania was to stand.

  It was concealed from; public gaze by thick linen stretched on tallwooden frames, and behind these screens Pollux was busied in framinga small model in wax, while his master had returned home to makearrangements for the labors of the following day.

  It wanted only an hour of midnight, and still the supper sent to thepalace for the architect by the prefect remained untouched. Pontius washungry enough, but before attacking the meal that a slave had set out ona marble table--the roast meat which looked so inviting, the orange-redcrayfish, the golden-brown pasty and the many-hued fruits--he conceivedit his duty to inspect the rooms to be restored. It was needful to seewhether the slaves who had been set, in the first place to clean out allthe rooms, were being intelligently directed by the men set over them,whether they were doing their duty and had all that they required; theyhad got some hours to work, then they were to rest and to begin again atsunrise, reinforced by other laborers both slave and free.

  More and better lighting was universally demanded, and when, in the hallof the Muses, the men who were cleaning the pavement and scraping thecolumns loudly clamored for torches and lamps, a young man's head peeredover the screen which shut in the place reserved for the restoration ofthe Urania, and a lamentable voice cried out:

  "My Muse, with her celestial sphere, is the guardian of star-gazers andis happiest in the dark--but not till she is finished. To form her wemust have light and more light--and when it is lighter here the voice ofthe people down there, which does not sound very delightful up in thishollow space, will diminish somewhat also. Give light, then, O, men!Light for my goddess, and for your scrubbers and scourers."

  Pontius looked up smiling at Pollux, who had uttered this appe
al, andanswered:

  "Your cry of distress is fully justified, my friend. But do you reallybelieve in the power of light to diminish noise?"

  "At any rate," replied Pollux, "where it is absent, that is to say inthe dark, every noise seems redoubled."

  "That is true, but there are other reasons for that," answered thearchitect. "To-morrow in an interval of work we will discuss thesematters. Now I will go to provide you with lamps and lights."

  "Urania, the protectress of the fine arts, will be beholden to you,"cried Pollux as the architect went away.

  Pontius meanwhile sought his chief foreman to ask him whether he haddelivered his orders to Keraunus, the palace-steward, to come tohim, and to put the cressets and lamps commonly used for the externalilluminations, at the service of his workmen.

  "Three times," was the answer "have I been myself to the man, but eachtime he puffed himself out like a frog and answered me not a word, butonly sent me into a little room with his daughter--whom you must see,for she is charming--and a miserable black slave, and there I foundthese few wretched lamps that are now burning."

  "Did you order him to come to me?"

  "Three hours ago, and again a second time, when you were talking withPapias."

  The architect turned his back upon the foreman in angry haste,unrolled the plan of the palace, quickly found upon it the abode of therecalcitrant steward, seized a small red-clay lamp that was standingnear him, and being quite accustomed to guide himself by a plan, wentstraight through the rooms, which were not a few, and by a long corridorfrom the hall of the Muses, to the lodging of the negligent official. Anunclosed door led him into a dark ante-chamber followed by another room,and finally into a large, well-furnished apartment. All these door-ways,into what seemed to be at once the dining and sitting-room of thesteward, were bereft of doors, and could only be closed by stuffcurtains, just now drawn wide open. Pontius could therefore look in,unhindered and unperceived, at the table on which a three-branchedbronze lamp was standing between a dish and some plates. The stout manwas sitting with his rubicund moon-face towards the architect, who,indignant as he was, would have gone straight up to him with swiftdecision, if, before entering the second room, a low but pitiful sob hadnot fallen on his ear.

  The sob proceeded from a slight young girl who came forward from a doorbeyond the sitting-room, and who now placed a platter with a loaf on thetable by the steward.

  "Come, do not cry, Selene," said the steward, breaking the bread slowlyand with an evident desire to soothe his child.

  "How can I help crying," said the girl. "But tomorrow morning let me buya piece of meat for you; the physician forbade you to eat bread."

  "Man must be filled," replied the fat man, "and meat is dear. I havenine mouths to fill, not counting the slaves. And where am I to get themoney to fill us all with meat?"

  "We need none, but for you it is necessary."

  "It is of no use, child. The butcher will not trust us any more, theother creditors press us, and at the end of the month we shall have justten drachmae left us."

  The girl turned pale, and asked in anxiety:

  "But, father, it was only to-day that you showed me the three goldpieces which you said had been given you as a present out of the moneydistributed on the arrival of the Empress."

  The steward absently rolled a piece of bread-crumb between his fingersand said:

  "I spent that on this fibula with an incised onyx--and as cheap as dirt,I can tell you. If Caesar comes he must see who and what I am; and if Idie any one will give you twice as much for it as I paid. I tell you theEmpress's money was well laid out on the thing." Selene made no answer,but she sighed deeply, and her eye glanced at a quantity of uselessthings which her father had acquired and brought home because they werecheap, while she and her seven sisters wanted the most necessary things.

  "Father," the girl began again after a short silence, "I ought not togo on about it, but even if it vexes you, I must--the architect, who issettling all the work out there, has sent for you twice already."

  "Be silent!" shouted the fat man, striking his hand on the table. "Whois this Pontius, and who am I!"

  "You are of a noble Macedonian family, related perhaps even to thePtolemies; you have your seat in the Council of the Citizens--but do,this time, be condescending and kind. The man has his hands full, he istired out."

  "Nor have I been able to sit still the whole day, and what is fitting,is fitting. I am Keraunus the son of Ptolemy, whose father came intoEgypt with Alexander the Great, and helped to found this city, and everyone knows it. Our possessions were diminished; but it is for that veryreason that I insist on our illustrious blood being recognized. Pontiussends to command the presence of Keraunus! If it were not infuriating itwould be laughable--for who is this man, who? I have told you his fatherwas a freedman of the former prefect Claudius Balbillus, and by thefavor of the Roman his father rose and grew rich. He is the descendantof slaves, and you expect that I shall be his obedient humble servant,whenever he chooses to call me?"

  "But father, my dear father, it is not the son of Ptolemy, but thepalace-steward that he desires shall go to hire."

  "Mere chop-logic!--you have nothing to say, not a step do I take to goto him."

  The girl clasped her hands over her face, and sobbed loudly andpitifully. Keraunus started up and cried out, beside himself.

  "By great Serapis. I can bear this no longer. What are you whimperingabout?"

  The girl plucked up courage and going up to the indignant man she said,though more than once interrupted by tears.

  "You must go father--indeed you must. I spoke to the foreman, and hetold me coolly and decidedly that the architect was placed here inCaesar's name, and that if you do not obey him you will at once besuperseded in your office. And if that were to happen, if that--Ofather, father, only think of blind Helios and poor Berenice! Arsinoeand I could earn our bread, but the little ones--the little ones."

  With these words the girl fell on her knees lifting her hands inentreaty to her obstinate parent. The blood had mounted to the man'sface and eyes, and pressing his hand to his purple forehead he sank backin his chair as if stricken with apoplexy. His daughter sprang up andoffered him the cup full of wine and water which was standing on thetable; but Keraunus pushed it aside with his hands, and panted out,while he struggled for breath:

  "Supersede me--in my place--turn me out of this palace! Why there,in that ebony trunk, lies the rescript of Euergetes which confers thestewardship of this residence on my ancestor Philip, and as a hereditarydignity in his family. Now Philip's wife had the honor of being theking's mistress--or, as some say, his daughter. There lies the document,drawn up in red and black ink on yellow papyrus and ratified with theseal and signature of Euergetes the Second. All the princes of theLagides have confirmed it, all the Roman prefects have respected it, andnow--now."

  "But father" said the girl interrupting her father, and wringing herhands in despair, "you still hold the place and if you will only givein."

  "Give in, give in," shrieked the corpulent steward shaking his fat handsabove his blood-shot face. "I will give in--I will not bring you all tomisery--for my children's sake I will allow myself to be ill-treatedand down-trodden, I will go--I will go directly. Like the pelican I willfeed my children with my heart's blood. But you ought to know what itcosts me, to humiliate myself thus; it is intolerable to me, and myheart is breaking--for the architect, the architect has trampled uponme as if I were his servant; he wished--I heard him with these ears--heshrieked after me a villainous hope that I might be smothered in myown fat--and the physician has told me I may die of apoplexy! Leave me,leave me. I know those Romans are capable of anything. Well--here I am;fetch me my saffron-colored pallium, that I wear in the council, fetchme my gold fillet for my head. I will deck myself like a beast forsacrifice, and I will show him--"

  Not a word of this harangue had escaped the ears of the architect whohad been at first indignant and then moved to laughter, and withal ithad
touched his heart. A sluggish and torpid character was repugnant tohis vigorous nature, and the deliberate and indifferent demeanor of thestout steward, on an occasion which had prompted him and all concernedto act as quickly and energetically as possible, had brought words tohis lips which he now wished that he had never spoken. It is true thatthe steward's false pride had roused his indignation, and who can listencalmly to any comment on a stain on his birth? But the appeal of thismiserable father's daughter had gone to his heart. He pitied the fatuoussimpleton whom, with a turn of his hand, he could reduce to beggary, andwho had evidently been far more deeply hurt by his words than Pontiushad been by what he had overheard, and so he followed the kindly impulseof a noble nature to spare the unfortunate.

  He rapped loudly with his knuckles on the inside of the door-post of theante-room, coughed loudly, and then said, bowing deeply to the stewardon the threshold of the sitting-room:

  "Noble Keraunus--I have come, as beseems me, to pay you my respects.Excuse the lateness of the hour, but you can scarcely imagine how busy Ihave been since we parted."

  Keraunus had at first started at the late visitor, then he stared at himin consternation. He now went towards him, stretched out both hands asif suddenly relieved of a nightmare, and a bright expression of suchwarm and sincere satisfaction overspread his countenance that Pontiuswondered how he could have failed to observe what a well-cut face thisfat original had.

  "Take a seat at our humble table," said Keraunus. "Go Selene and callthe slaves. Perhaps there is yet a pheasant in the house, a roast fowlor something of the kind--but the hour, it is true, is late."

  "I am deeply obliged to you," replied the architect, smiling. "My supperis waiting for me in the hall of the Muses, and I must return to mywork-people. I should be grateful to you if you would accompany me. Wemust consult together as to the lighting of the rooms, and such mattersare best discussed over a succulent roast and a flask of wine."

  "I am quite at your service," said Keraunus with a bow.

  "I will go on ahead," said the architect, "but first will you have thegoodness to give all that you have in the way of cressets, lights andlamps to the slaves, who, in a few minutes, shall await your orders atyour door."

  When Pontius had departed, Selene exclaimed with a deep sigh

  "Oh! what a fright I have had! I will go now and find the lamps. Howterribly it might have ended."

  "It is well that he should have come," murmured Keraunus. "Consideringhis birth and origin, the architect is certainly a well-bred man."