by Georg Ebers
CHAPTER V.
Pontius had gone to the steward's room, with a frowning brow, but itwas with a smile on his strongly-marked lips, and a brisk step that hereturned to his work-people. The foreman came to meet him with looks ofenquiry as he said. "The steward was a little offended and with reason;but now we are capital friends and he will do what he can in the matterof lighting."
In the hall of the Muses he paused outside the screen, behind whichPollux was working, and called out:
"Friend sculptor, listen to me, it is high time to have supper."
"It is, indeed," replied Pollux, "else it will be breakfast."
"Then lay aside your tools for a quarter of an hour and help me and thepalace-steward to demolish the food that has been sent me."
"You will need no second assistant if Keraunus is there. Food meltsbefore him like ice before the sun."
"Then come and save him from an overloaded stomach."
"Impossible, for I am just now dealing most unmercifully with a bowlfull of cabbage and sausages. My mother had cooked that food of the godsand my father has brought it in to his first-born son."
"Cabbage and sausages!" repeated the architect, and its tone betrayedthat his hungry stomach would fain have made closer acquaintance withthe savory mess.
"Come in here," continued Pollux, "and be my guest. The cabbage hasexperienced the process which is impending over this palace--it has beenwarmed up."
"Warmed-up cabbage is better than freshly-cooked, but the fire overwhich we must try to make this palace enjoyable again, burns too hotlyand must be too vigorously stirred. The best things have been all takenout, and cannot be replaced."
"Like the sausages, I have fished out of my cabbages," laughed thesculptor. "After all I cannot invite you to be my guest, for it wouldbe a compliment to this dish if I were now to call it cabbage withsausages. I have worked it like a mine, and now that the vein ofsausages is nearly exhausted, little remains but the native soil inwhich two or three miserable fragments remain as memorials of pastwealth. But my mother shall cook you a mess of it before long, and sheprepares it with incomparable skill."
"A good idea, but you are my guest."
"I am replete."
"Then come and spice our meal with your good company."
"Excuse me, sir; leave me rather here behind my screen. In the firstplace, I am in a happy vein, and on the right track; I feel thatsomething good will come of this night's work."
"And tomorrow--"
"Hear me out."
"Well."
"You would be doing your other guest an ill-service by inviting me."
"Do you know the steward then?"
"From my earliest youth, I am the son of the gatekeeper of the palace."
"Oh, ho! then you came from that pretty little lodge with the ivy andthe birds, and the jolly old lady."
"She is my mother--and the first time the butcher kills she will concoctfor you and me a dish of sausages and cabbage without an equal."
"A very pleasing prospect."
"Here comes a hippopotamus--on closer inspection Keraunus, the steward."
"Are you his enemy?"
"I, no; but he is mine--yes," replied Pollux. "It is a foolish story.When we sup together don't ask me about it if you care to have a jollycompanion And do not tell Keraunus that I am here, it will lead to nogood."
"As you wish, and here are our lamps too."
"Enough to light the nether world," exclaimed Pollux, and waving hishand to the architect in farewell he vanished behind the screens todevote himself entirely to his model.
It was long past midnight, and the slaves who had set to work with muchzeal had finished their labors in the hall of the Muses. They were nowallowed to rest for some hours on straw that had been spread for themin another wing of the building. The architect himself wished to takeadvantage of this time to refresh himself by a short sleep, for theexertions of the morrow, but between this intention and its fulfilmentan obstacle was interposed, the preposterous dimensions namely of hisguest. He had invited the steward on purpose to give him his fill ofmeat, and Keraunus had shown himself amenable to encouragement in thisrespect. But after the last dish bad been removed the steward thoughtthat good manners demanded that he should honor his entertainer byhis illustrious presence, and at the same time the prefect's good wineloosened the tongue of the man, who was not usually communicative.
First he spoke of the manifold infirmities which tormented him andendangered his life, and when Pontius, to divert his talk into otherchannels, was so imprudent as to allude to the Council of Citizens,Keraunus gave full play to his eloquence, and, while he emptied cupafter cup of wine, tried to lay down the reasons which had made him andhis friends decide on staking everything in order to deprive the membersof the extensive community of Jews in the city of their rights ascitizens, and to expel them, if possible, from Alexandria. So warm washis zeal that he totally forgot the presence of the architect, andhis humble origin, and declared to be indispensable, that even thedescendants of freed-slaves should be disenfranchised.
Pontius saw in the steward's inflamed eyes and cheeks that it was thewine which spoke within him, and he made no answer; and determined thatthe rest he needed should not be thus abridged, he rose from table andbriefly excusing himself he retired to the room in which the couch hadbeen prepared for him. After he had undressed he desired his slaveto see what Keraunus was about, and soon received the reassuringinformation that the steward was fast asleep and snoring.
"Only listen," said the slave, to confirm his report. "You can hear himgrunting and snuffing as far as this. I pushed a cushion under his head,for otherwise, so full as he is, the stout gentleman might come to someharm."
Love is a plant which springs up for many who have never sown it, andgrows into a spreading tree for many who have neither fostered nortended it. How little had Keraunus ever done to win the heart of hisdaughter, how much on the contrary which could not fail to overshadowand trouble her young life. And yet Selene, whose youth--for she wasbut nineteen--needed repose and to whom the evening with the reprieve ofsleep brought more pleasure than the morning with its load of cares andlabor, sat by the three-branched lamp and watched, and tormented herselfmore and more as it grew later and later, at her father's long absence.About a week before the strong man had suddenly lost consciousness;only, it is true, for a few minutes, and the physician had told her thatthough he appeared to be in superabundant health, the attack indicatedthat he must follow his prescriptions strictly and avoid all kindsof excess. A single indiscretion, he had declared, might swiftly andsuddenly cut the thread of his existence. After her father had gone outin obedience to the architect's invitation, Selene had brought out heryoungest brothers' and sisters' garments, in order to mend them. Hersister Arsinoe, who was her junior by two years, and whose fingers wereas nimble as her own, might indeed have helped her, but she had goneto bed early and was sleeping by the children who could not be leftuntended at night. Her female slave, who had been in her grandmother'sservice, ought to have assisted her; but the old half-blind negresssaw even worse by lamp-light than by daylight, and after a few stitchescould do no more. Selene sent her to bed and sat down alone to her work.
For the first hour she sewed away without looking up, considering,meanwhile, how she could best contrive to support the family till theend of the month on the few drachmae she could dispose of. As it gotlater she grew wearier and wearier, but still she sat at the work,though her pretty head often sank upon her breast. She must await herfather's return, for a potion prepared by the physician stood waitingfor him, and she feared he would forget it if she did not remind him.
By the end of the second hour sleep overcame her, and she felt as ifthe chair she was sitting on was giving way under her, and as if it wassinking at first slowly and then quicker and quicker, into a deep abyssthat opened beneath her. Looking up for help in her dream, she could seenothing but her father's face, which looked aside with indifference. Asher dream went on she called
him and called him again, but for a longtime he did not seem to hear her. At last he looked down at her andwhen he perceived her he smiled, but instead of helping her he picked upstones and clods from the edge of the gulf and threw them on her handswith which she had clutched the brambles and roots that grew out of therift of the rocks. She entreated him to cease, implored him, shriekedto him to spare her, but not a muscle moved in the face above her; itseemed set in a vacant smile, and even his heart was dead too, for heruthlessly flung down now a pebble, now a clod, one after the other,till her hands were losing their last feeble hold and she was on thepoint of falling into the fatal gulf below. Her own cry of terroraroused her, but during the brief process of returning from her dream toactuality, she saw through swiftly parting mists--only for an instant,and yet quite plainly--the tall grass of a meadow, spangled withox-eye daisies, white and gold, with violet-hued blue bells and scarletpoppies, among which she was lying--as in a soft green bed, whilenear the sward lay a sparkling blue lake and behind it rose beautifulswelling hills, with red cliffs, and green groves, and meadows bright inthe clear sunshine. A clear sky, across which a soft breeze gentlyblew light silvery flakes of cloud, bent over the lovely but fleetingpicture, which she could not compare with anything she had ever seennear her own home.
She had only slept for a short time, but when, once more thoroughlyawake, she rubbed her eyes, she thought her dream must have lasted forhours.
One flame of the three-branched lamp had flickered into extinction andthe wick of another was beginning to waste. She hastily put it out witha pair of tongs that hung by a chain, and then after pouring fresh oilinto the lamp that was still burning she carried the light into herfather's sleeping room.
He had not yet returned. She was seized with a mortal terror. Had thearchitect's wine bereft him of his senses? Had he on his way back to hisrooms been seized with a fresh attack of giddiness? In spirit she sawthe heavy man incapable of raising himself, dying perhaps where he hadfallen.
No choice remained to her; she must go at once to the hall of the Musesand see what had happened to her father, pick him up, give him helpor--if he still were feasting--endeavor to tempt him back by any excuseshe could find. Everything was at stake; her father's life and with itmaintenance and shelter for eight helpless creatures.
The December night was stormy, a keen and bitter wind blew through theill-closed opening in the roof of the room as Selene, before she beganher expedition, tied a handkerchief over her head and threw over hershoulders a white mantle which had been worn by her dead mother. In thelong corridor which lay between her father's rooms and the front portionof the palace, she had to screen the flickering light of the little lampwith her left hand, carrying it in her right; the flame blown aboutby the draught and her own figure were mirrored here and there in thepolished surface of the dark marble. The thick sandals she had tied onto her feet roused loud echoes in the empty rooms as they fell on thestone pavements, and terror possessed Selene's anxious soul. Her fingerstrembled as they held the lamp and her heart beat audibly as, with batedbreath, she went through the cupolaed hall in which Ptolemy Euergetes'the fat' was said, some years ago, to have murdered his own son, and inwhich even a deep breath roused an echo.
But even in this room she did not forget to look to the right and leftfor her father. She breathed a sigh of relief when she perceiveda streak of light which shone through the gaping rift of a crackedside-door of the hall of the Muses and fell in a broken reflection onthe floor and the wall of the last room through which she had to pass.She now entered the large hall which was dimly lighted by the lampsbehind the sculptor's screen, and by several tapers, now burnt down low.These were standing on a table knocked together out of blocks of woodand planks at the extreme end of the hall, and behind this her fatherwas sound asleep.
The deep notes brought out of the sleeper's broad chest, were echoed ina very uncanny way from the bare walls of the vast empty room, and shewas frightened by them and still more by the long black shadows of thepillars, that lay, like barriers, across her path. She stood listeningin the middle of the hall and soon recognized in the alarming tonesa sound that was only too familiar. Without a moment's hesitation shestarted to run, and hastened to the sleeper, shook him, pushed him,called him, sprinkled his forehead with water, and appealed to him bythe tenderest names with which her sister Arsinoe was wont to coax him.When, in spite of all this, he neither spoke nor stirred, she flung thefull light of the lamp on his face. Then she thought she perceived thata bluish tinge had overspread his bloated features, and she broke intothe deep, agonized, weeping which, a few hours previously had touchedthe architect's heart.
There was a sudden stir behind the screens which enclosed the sculptorand the work in progress. Pollux had been working for a long timewith zeal and pleasure, but at last the steward's snoring had begun todisturb him. The body of the Muse had already taken a definite form andhe could begin to work out the head with the earliest dawn of day. Henow dropped his arms wearily, for as soon as he ceased to create withhis whole heart and mind he felt tired, and saw plainly that without amodel he could do nothing satisfactory with the drapery of his Urania.So he pulled his stool up to a great chest full of gypsum to get alittle repose by leaning against it.
But sleep avoided the artist who was too much excited by his rapidnight's work, and as soon as Selene opened the door he sat upright andpeeped through an opening between the frames of his place of retirement.When he saw the tall draped figure in whose hand a lamp was trembling,when he watched her cross the spacious hall, and then suddenly standstill, he was not a little startled, but this did not hinder him fromnoting every step of the nocturnal spectre with far more curiosity thanalarm. Then, when Selene looked round her, and the lamp illuminated herface, be recognized the steward's daughter, and immediately knew whatshe must be seeking.
Her vain attempts to rouse the sleeper, though somewhat pathetic, had inthem at the same time something irresistibly ludicrous, and Pollux feltsorely tempted to laugh. But as soon as Selene began to weep so bitterlyhe hastily pushed apart two of the laths of the screen, went up andcalled her name, at first softly not to frighten her, and then moreloudly. When she turned her head he begged her warmly not to be alarmedfar he was no ghost, only a very humble and ordinary mortal, in fact-asshe might see--nothing more, alas! than the son of Euphorian, thegate-keeper, good for nothing as yet, but treading the path to somethingbetter.
"You, Pollux?" asked the girl with surprise.
"The very man. But you--can I help you?"
"My poor father," sobbed Selene. "He does not stir, he is immovable--andhis face--oh! merciful gods."
"A man who snores is not dead," said the sculptor. "But the doctor toldhim--"
"He is not even ill! Pontius only gave him stronger wine to drink thanhe is used to. Let him be; he is sleeping with the pillow under hisneck, as comfortably as a child. When he began just now to trumpet alittle too loud I whistled as loud as a plover, for that often silencesa snorer; but I could more easily have made those stone Muses dance thanhave roused him."
"If only we could get him to bed."
"Well, if you have four horses at hand."
"You are as bad as you ever were!"
"A little less so, Selene, only you must become accustomed again tomy way of speaking. This time I only mean that we two together are notstrong enough to carry him away."
"But what can I do, then? The doctor said--"
"Never mind the doctor. The complaint your father is suffering from isone I know well. It will be gone to-morrow, perhaps by sundown, and theonly pain it will leave behind, he will feel under his wig. Only leavehim to sleep."
"But it is so cold here."
"Take my cloak and cover him with that."
"Then you will be frozen."
"I am used to it. How long has Keraunus had dealings with the doctor?"
Selene related the accident that had befallen her father and howjustified were her fears. The sculptor listened to her in silence
andthen said in a quite altered tone:
"I am truly sorry to hear it. Let us put some cold water on hisforehead, and until the slaves come back again I will change the wetcloth every quarter of an hour. Here is a jar and a handkerchief--good,they might have been left on purpose. Perhaps, too, it will wake him,and if not the people shall carry him to his own rooms."
"Disgraceful, disgraceful!" sighed the girl.
"Not at all; the high-priest of Serapis even is sometimes unwell. Onlylet me see to it."
"It will excite him afresh if he sees you. He is so angry with you--sovery angry."
"Omnipotent Zeus, what harm have I done you, fat father! The godsforgive the sins of the wise, and a man will not forgive the faultcommitted by a stupid lad in a moment of imprudence."
"You mocked at him."
"I set a clay head that was like him on the shoulders of the fat Silenusnear the gate, that had lost its own head. It was my first piece ofindependent work."
"But you did it to vex my father."
"Certainly not, Selene; I was delighted with the joke and nothing more."
"But you knew how touchy he is."
"And does a wild boy of fifteen ever reflect on the consequences of hisaudacity? If he had but given me a thrashing his annoyance would havedischarged itself like thunder and lightning, and the air would havebeen clear again. But, as it was, he cut the face off the work with aknife, and deliberately trod the pieces under foot as they lay on theground. He gave me one single blow--with his thumb--which I still feel,it is true, and then he treated me and my parents with such scorn, socoldly and hardly, with such bitter contempt--"
"He never is really violent, but wrath seems to eat him inwardly, and Ihave rarely seen him so angry as he was that time."
"But if he had only settled the account with me on the spot! but myfather was by, and hot words fell like rain, and my mother added hershare, and from that time there has been utter hostility between ourlittle house and you up here. What hurt me most was that you and yoursister were forbidden to come to see us and to play with me."
"That has spoilt many pleasant hours for me, too."
"It was nice when we used to dress up in my father's theatrical fineryand cloaks."
"And when you made us dolls out of clay.".
"Or when we performed the Olympian games."
"I was always the teacher when we played at school with our littlebrothers and sisters."
"Arsinoe gave you most trouble."
"Oh! and what fun when we went fishing!"
"And when we brought home the fishes and mother gave us meal and raisinsto cook them."
"Do you remember the festival of Adonis, and how I stopped the runawayhorse of that Numidian officer?"
"The horse had knocked over Arsinoe, and when we got home mother gaveyou an almond-cake."
"And your ungrateful sister bit a great piece out of it and left me onlya tiny morsel. Is Arsinoe as pretty as she promised to become? It istwo years since I last saw her; at our place we never have time to leavework till it is dark. For eight months I had to work for the master atPtolemais, and often saw the old folks but once in the month."
"We go out very little, too, and we are not allowed to go into yourparents' house. My sister--"
"Is she pretty?"
"Yes, I think she is. Whenever she can get hold of a piece of ribbon sheplaits it in her hair, and the men in the street turn round to look ather. She is sixteen now."
"Sixteen! What, little Arsinoe! Why, how long then is it since yourmother died?"
"Four years and eight months."
"You remember the date very exactly; such a mother is not easilyforgotten, indeed. She was a good woman and a kinder I never met. Iknow, too, that she tried to mollify your father's feeling, but shecould not succeed, and then she need must die!"
"Yes," said Selene gloomily. "How could the gods decree it! They areoften more cruel than the hardest hearted man."
"Your poor little brothers and sisters!"
The girl bowed her head sadly and Pollux stood for some time with hiseyes fixed on the ground. Then he raised his head and exclaimed:
"I have something for you that will please you."
"Nothing ever pleases me now she is dead."
"Yes, yes indeed," replied the young sculptor eagerly. "I could notforget the good soul, and once in my idle moments I modelled her bustfrom memory. To-morrow I will bring it to you."
"Oh!" cried Selene, and her large heavy eyes brightened with a sunnygleam.
"Now, is not it true, you are pleased?"
"Yes indeed, very much. But when my father learns that it is you whohave given me the portrait--"
"Is he capable of destroying it?"
"If he does not destroy it, he will not suffer it in the house as soonas he knows that you made it." Pollux took the handkerchief from thesteward's head, moistened it afresh, and exclaimed as he rearranged iton the forehead of the sleeping man:
"I have an idea. All that matters is that my bust should serve to remindyou often of your mother; the bust need not stand in your rooms. Thebusts of the women of the house of Ptolemy stand on the rotunda, whichyou can see from your balcony, and which you can pass whenever youplease; some of them are badly mutilated and must be got rid of. I willundertake to restore the Berenice and put your mother's head on hershoulders. Then you have only to go out and look at her. Will that do?"
"Yes, Pollux; you are a good man."
"So I told you just now. I am beginning to improve. But time--time! if Iam to undertake to repair Berenice I must begin by saving the minutes."
"Go back to your work now; I know how to apply a wet compress only toowell."
With these words Selene threw back her mantle over her shoulders so asto leave her hands free for use, and stood with her slender figure,her pale face, and the fine broadly-flowing folds of rich stuff, like astatue in the eyes of the young sculptor.
"Stop--stay so--just so," cried Pollux to the astonished girl, so loudlyand eagerly that she was startled.
"Your cloak hangs with a wonderfully-free flow from your shoulders--inthe name of all the gods do not touch it. If only I might model from itI should in a few minutes gain a whole day for our Berenice. I willwet the handkerchief at intervals in the pauses." Without waiting forSelene's answer the sculptor hastened into his nook and returned firstwith one of the lamps he worked by in each hand, and some small tools inhis mouth, and then fetched his wax model which he placed on the outerside of the table, behind which the steward was sleeping. The taperswere put out, the lamps pushed aside, and raised or lowered, and when atlast a tolerably suitable light was procured Pollux threw himself on astool, straddled his legs, craned his head forward as far as his neckwould allow, looking, with his hooked nose, like a vulture that strivesto descry his distant prey-cast his eyes down, raised them again to takein something fresh, and after a long gaze looked down again while hisfingers and nails moved over the surface of the wax-figure, sinkinginto the plastic material, applying new pieces to apparently completeportions, removing others with a decided nip and rounding them off withbewildering rapidity to use them for a fresh purpose.
He seemed to be seized with cramp in his hands, but still under hisknotted brow his eye shone earnest, resolute and calm, and yet full ofprofound and speechless inspiration. Selene had said not a word thatpermitted his using her as a model; but, as if his enthusiasm wasinfectious, she remained motionless, and when, as he worked, his gazemet hers she could detect the stern earnestness which at this momentpossessed her eager companion.
Neither of them opened their lips for some time. At last he stood backfrom his work, stooping low to look first at Selene and then at hisstatuette with keen examination from head to foot; and then, drawing adeep breath, and rubbing the wax over with his finger, he said:
"There, that is how it must go! Now I will wet your father'shandkerchief and then we can go on again. If you are tired you canrest."
She availed herself but little of this permis
sion and presently hebegan work again. As he proceeded carefully to replace some folds of herdrapery which had fallen out of place, she moved her foot as if to drawback, but he begged her earnestly to stand still and she obeyed hisrequest.
Pollux now used his fingers and modelling tools more calmly; his gazewas less wistful and he began to talk again.
"You are very pale," he said. "To be sure the lamp-light and a sleeplessnight have something to do with it."
"I look just the same by daylight, but I am not ill."
"I thought Arsinoe would have been like your mother, but now I see manyfeatures of her face in yours again. The oval of their form is the sameand, in both, the line of the nose runs almost straight to the forehead;you have her eyes and the same bend of the brow, but your mouth issmaller and more sharply cut, and she could hardly have made such aheavy knot of her hair. I fancy, too, that yours is lighter than hers."
"As a girl she must have had still more hair, and perhaps she may havebeen as fair as I was--I am brown now."
"Another thing you inherit from her is that your hair, without beingcurly, lies upon your head in such soft waves."
"It is easy to keep in order."
"Are not you taller than she was?"
"I fancy so, but as she was stouter she looked shorter. Will you soonhave done?"
"You are getting tired of standing?"
"Not very."
"Then have a little more patience. Your face reminds me more and moreof our early years; I should be glad to see Arsinoe once more. I feelat this moment as if time had moved backwards a good piece. Have you thesame feeling?"
Selene shook her head.
"You are not happy?"
"No."
"I know full well that you have very heavy duties to perform for yourage."
"Things go as they may."
"Nay, nay. I know you do not let things go haphazard. You take care ofyour brothers and sisters like a mother."
"Like a mother!" repeated Selene, and she smiled a bitter negative.
"Of course a mother's love is a thing by itself, but your father and thelittle ones have every reason to be satisfied with yours."
"The little ones are perhaps, and Helios who is blind, but Arsinoe doeswhat she can."
"You certainly are not content, I can hear it in your voice, and youused formerly to be as merry and happy as your sister, though perhapsnot so saucy."
"Formerly--"
"How sadly that sounds! And yet you are handsome, you are young, andlife lies before you."
"But what a life!"
"Well, what?" asked the sculptor, and taking his hands from his workhe looked ardently at the fair pale girl before him and cried outfervently:
"A life which might be full of happiness and satisfied affection."
The girl shook her head in negation and answered coldly:
"'Love is joy,' says the Christian woman who superintends us at workin the papyrus factory, and since my mother died I have had no love. Ienjoyed all my share of happiness once for all in my childhood, now Iam content if only we are spared the worst misfortunes. Otherwise I takewhat each day brings, because I can not do otherwise. My heart is empty,and if I ever feel anything keenly, it is dread. I have long sinceceased to expect any thing good of the future."
"Girl!" exclaimed Pollux. "Why, what has been happening to you? I donot understand half of what you are saying. How came you in the papyrusfactory?"
"Do not betray me," begged Selene. "If my father were to hear of it."
"He is asleep, and what you confide to me no one will ever hear ofagain."
"Why should I conceal it? I go every day with Arsinoe for two hours tothe manufactory, and we work there to earn a little money."
"Behind your father's back?"
"Yes, he would rather that we should starve than allow it. Every day Ifeel the same loathing for the deceit; but we could not get on withoutit, for Arsinoe thinks of nothing but herself, plays draughts with myfather, curls his hair, plays with the children as if they were dolls,but it is my part to take care of them."
"And you, you say, have no share of love. Happily no one believes you,and I least of all. Only lately my mother was telling me about you, andI thought you were a girl who might turn out just such a wife as a womanought to be."
"And now?"
"Now, I know it for certain."
"You may be mistaken."
"No, no! your name is Selene, and you are as gentle as the kindlymoonlight; names, even, have their significance."
"And my blind brother who has never even seen the light is calledHelios!" answered the girl.
Pollux had spoken with much warmth, but Selene's last words startled himand checked the effervescence of his feelings. Finding he did not answerher bitter exclamation, she said, at first coolly, but with increasingwarmth:
"You are beginning to believe me, and you are right, for what I do forthe children is not done out of love, or out of kindness, or because Iset their welfare above my own. I have inherited my father's pride, andit would be odious to me if my brothers and sisters went about in rags,and people thought we were as poor and helpless as we really are. Whatis most horrible to me is sickness in the house, for that increases theanxiety I always feel and swallows up my last coin; the children mustnot perish for want of it. I do not want to make myself out worse than Iam; it grieves me too to see them drooping. But nothing that I do bringsme happiness--at most it moderates my fears. You ask what I am afraidof?--of everything, everything that can happen to me, for I have noreason to look forward to anything good. When there is a knock, it maybe a creditor; when people look at Arsinoe in the street, I seem to seedishonor lurking round her; when my father acts against the advice ofthe physician I feel as if we were standing already roofless in the openstreet. What is there that I can do with a happy mind? I certainly amnot idle, still I envy the woman who can sit with her hands in herlap and be waited on by slaves, and if a golden treasure fell into mypossession, I would never stir a finger again, and would sleep everyday till the sun was high and make slaves look after my father and thechildren. My life is sheer misery. If ever we see better days I shallbe astonished, and before I have got over my astonishment it will all beover."
The sculptor felt a cold chill, and his heart which had opened wide tohis old playfellow shrank again within him. Before he could find theright words of encouragement which he sought, they heard in the hall,where the workmen and slaves were sleeping, the blast of a trumpetintended to awake them. Selene started, drew her mantle more closelyround her, begged Pollux to take care of her father, and to hide thewine-jar which was standing near him from the work-people and then,forgetting her lamp, she went hastily toward the door by which shehad entered. Pollux hurried after her to light the way and while heaccompanied her as far as the door of her rooms, by his warm and urgentwords which appealed wonderfully to her heart, he extracted from her apromise to stand once more in her mantle as his model.
A quarter of an hour later the steward was safe in bed and stillsleeping soundly, while Pollux, who had stretched himself on a mattressbehind his screen, could not for a long time cease to think of the palegirl with her benumbed soul. At last sleep overcame him too, and a sweetdream showed him pretty little Arsinoe, who but for him must infalliblyhave been killed by the Numidian's restive horse, taking away her sisterSelene's almond-cake and giving it to him. The pale girl submittedquietly to the robbery and only smiled coldly and silently to herself.