Arachne, Volume 2.

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ARACHNE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 2.

In the extreme northern portion of the little city of Tennis a large,
perfectly plain whitewashed building stood on an open, grass-grown
square.

The side facing the north rested upon a solid substructure of hard blocks
of hewn stone washed by the waves.

This protecting wall extended along both sides of the long, plain
edifice, and prevented the water from overflowing the open space which
belonged to it.

Archias, the owner of the largest weaving establishment in Tennis, the
father of the Alexandrian aristocrat who had arrived the evening before,
was the owner of the house, as well as of the broad plain on which he had
had it built, with the indestructible sea wall, to serve as a storehouse
to receive the supplies of linen, flax, and wool which were manufactured
in his factories.

It was favourably situated for this purpose, for the raw materials could
be moved from the ships which brought them to Tennis directly into the
building. But as the factories were at a considerable distance, the
transportation required much time and expense, and therefore Archias had
had a canal dug connecting the workshops with the water, and at its end
erected a new storehouse, which rendered a second transportation of the
ships' cargoes unnecessary.

The white mansion had not yet been devoted to any other purpose when the
owner determined to offer the spacious empty rooms of the ware house to
his nephews, the sculptors Hermon and Myrtilus, for the production of two
works with whose completion he associated expectations of good fortune
both for the young artists, who were his nephews and wards, and himself.

The very extensive building which now contained the studios and spacious
living apartments for the sculptors and their slaves would also have
afforded ample room for his daughter and her attendants, but Daphne had
learned from the reports of the artists that rats, mice, and other
disagreeable vermin shared the former storehouse with them, so she had
preferred to have tents pitched in the large open space which belonged
it.

True, the broad field was exposed to the burning sun, and its soil was
covered only with sand and pitiably scorched turf, but three palm trees,
a few sunt acacias, two carob trees, a small clump of fig trees, and the
superb, wide-branched sycamore on the extreme outer edge had won for it
the proud name of a "garden."

Now a great change in its favour had taken place, for Daphne's beautiful
tent, with walls and top of blue and white striped sail-cloth, and the
small adjoining tents of the same colours, gave it a brighter aspect.

The very roomy main tent contained the splendidly furnished sitting and
dining rooms. The beds occupied by Daphne and her companion, Chrysilla,
had been placed in an adjoining one, which was nearly as large, and the
cook, with his assistants, was quartered in a third.

The head keeper, the master of the hounds, and most of the slaves
remained in the transports which had followed the state galley. Some had
slept under the open sky beside the dog kennel hastily erected for
Daphne's pack of hounds.

So, on the morning after the wholly unexpected arrival of the owner's
daughter, the "garden" in front of the white house, but yesterday
a desolate field, resembled an encampment, whose busy life was varied
and noisy enough.

Slaves and freedmen had been astir before sunrise, for Daphne was up
betimes in order to begin the hunt in the early hour when the birds left
their secret nooks on the islands.

Her cousins, the young sculptors, to please her, had gone out, too, but
the sport did not last long; for when the market place of Tennis, just
between the morning and noontide hours, was most crowded, the little
boats which the hunters had used again touched the shore.

With them and Daphne's servants seafaring men also left the boats--
Biamite fishermen and boatmen, who knew the breeding places and nests of
the feathered prey--and before them, barking loudly and shaking their
dripping bodies, the young huntress's brown and white spotted dogs ran
toward the tents.

Dark-skinned slaves carried the game, which had been tied in bunches
while in the boats, to the white house, where they laid three rows of
large water fowl, upon the steps leading to the entrance.

Daphne's arrows were supposed to have killed all these, but the master of
the hunt had taken care to place among his mistress's booty some of the
largest pelicans and vultures which had been shot by the others.

Before retiring to her tent, she inspected the result of the shooting
expedition and was satisfied.

She had been told of the numbers of birds in this archipelago, but the
quantity of game which had been killed far exceeded her greatest
expectations, and her pleasant blue eyes sparkled with joy as she began
to examine the birds which had been slaughtered in so short a time.

Yet, ere she had finished the task, a slight shadow flitted over her
well-formed and attractive though not beautiful features.

The odour emanating from so many dead fowls, on which the sun, already
high in the heavens, was shining, became disagreeable to her, and a
strong sense of discomfort, whose cause, however, she did not seek, made
her turn from them.

The movement with which she did so was full of quiet, stately grace, and
the admiring glance with which Hermon, a tall, black-bearded young man,
watched it, showed that he knew how to value the exquisite symmetry of
her figure.

The somewhat full outlines of her form and the self-possession of her
bearing would have led every one to think her a young matron rather than
a girl; but the two artists who accompanied her on the shooting party had
been intimate with her from childhood, and knew how much modesty and
genuine kindness of heart were united with the resolute nature of this
maiden, who numbered two and twenty years.

Fair-haired Myrtilus seemed to pay little heed to the game which Gras,
Archias's Bithynian house steward, was counting, but black-bearded Hermon
had given it more attention, and when Daphne drew back he nodded
approvingly, and pointing to the heap of motionless inhabitants of the
air, exclaimed with sincere regret: "Fie upon us human wretches! Would
the most bloodthirsty hyena destroy such a number of living creatures in
a few hours? Other beasts of prey do not kill even one wretched sparrow
more than they need to appease their hunger. But we and you, tender-
hearted priestess of a gracious goddess--leading us friends of the Muse--
we pursue a different course! What a mound of corpses! And what will
become of it? Perhaps a few geese and ducks will go into the kitchen;
but the rest--the red flamingoes and the brave pelicans who feed their
young with their own blood? They are only fit to throw away, for the
Biamites eat no game that is shot, and your black slaves, too, would
refuse to taste it. So we destroy hundreds of lives for pastime. Base
word! As if we had so many superfluous hours at our disposal ere we
descend into Hades. A philosopher among brutes would be entitled to cry
out, 'Shame upon you, raging monster!'"

"Shame on you, you perpetual grumbler," interrupted Daphne in an offended
tone. "Who would ever have thought it cruel to test the steady hand and
the keen eye upon senseless animals in the joyous chase? But what shall
we call the fault-finder, who spoils his friend's innocent enjoyment of a
happy morning by his sharp reproaches?"

Hermon shrugged his shoulders, and, in a voice which expressed far more
compassion than resentment, answered: "If this pile of dead birds pleases
you, go on with the slaughter. You can sometimes save the arrows and
catch the swarming game with your hands. If your lifeless victims yonder
were human beings, after all, they would have cause to thank you; for
what is existence?"

"To these creatures, everything," said Myrtilus, the Alexandrian's other
cousin, beckoning to Daphne, who had summoned him to her aid by a
beseeching glance, to draw nearer. "Gladly as I would always and
everywhere uphold your cause, I can not do so this time. Only look here!
Your arrow merely broke the wing of yonder sea eagle, and he is just
recovering from the shock. What a magnificent fellow! How wrathfully
and vengefully his eyes sparkle! How fiercely he stretches his brave
head toward us in helpless fury, and--step back!--how vigorously, spite
of the pain of his poor, wounded, drooping pinion, he flaps the other,
and raises his yellow claws to punish his foes! His plumage glistens and
shines exquisitely where it lies smooth, and how savagely he puffs out
the feathers on his neck! A wonderful spectacle! The embodiment of
powerful life! And the others by his side. We transformed the poor
creatures into a motionless, miserable mass, and just now they were
cleaving the air with their strong wings, proclaiming by proud, glad
cries to their families among the reeds their approach with an abundant
store of prey. Every one was a feast to the eyes before our arrows
struck it, and now? When Hermon, with his pitying heart, condemns this
kind of hunting, he is right. It deprives free, harmless creatures of
their best possession--life--and us thereby of a pleasant sight. In
general, a bird's existence seems to me also of little value, but beauty,
to me as to you, transcends everything else. What would existence be
without it? and wherever it appears, to injure it is infamous."

Here a slight cough interrupted the young artist, and the moist glitter
of his blue eyes also betrayed that he was suffering from an attack of
severe pain in his lungs; but Daphne nodded assent to him, and to Hermon
also, and commanded the steward Gras to take the birds out of her sight.

"But," said the Bithynian, "our mistress will doubtless allow us at least
to take the hard lower part of the pelicans' beaks, and the wing feathers
of the flamingoes and birds of prey, to show our master on our return as
trophies."

"Trophies?" repeated the girl scornfully. "Hermon, you are better
than I and the rest of us, and I see that you are right. Where game
flies toward us in such quantities, hunting becomes almost murder. And
successes won by so slight an exertion offer little charm. The second
expedition before sunset, Gras, shall be given up. The master of the
hounds, with his men and the dogs, will return home on the transports
this very day. I am disgusted with sport here. Birds of prey, and those
only when brought down from the air, would probably be the right game in
this place."

"Those are the very ones to which I would grant life," said Hermon,
smiling, "because they enjoy it most."

"Then we will at least save the sea eagle," cried Daphne, and ordered the
steward, who was already having the dead fowl carried off, to care for
the wounded bird of prey; but when the latter struck furiously with his
beak at the Biamite who attempted to remove it, Hermon again turned to
the girl, saying: "I thank you in the eagle's name for your good will,
you best of women; but I fear even the most careful nursing will not help
this wounded creature, for the higher one seeks to soar, the more surely
he goes to destruction if his power of flight is broken. Mine, too, was
seriously injured."

"Here?" asked Daphne anxiously. "At this time, which is of such great
importance to you and your art?"

Then she interrupted herself to ask Myrtilus's opinion, but as he had
gone away coughing, she continued, in a softer tone: "How anxious you
can make one, Hermon! Has anything really happened which clouds your
pleasure in creating, and your hope of success?"

"Let us wait," he answered, hastily throwing back his head, with its
thick, waving raven locks. "If, in leaping over the ditch, I should fall
into the marsh, I must endure it, if thereby I can only reach the shore
where my roses bloom!"

"Then you fear that you have failed in the Demeter?" asked Daphne.

"Failed?" repeated the other. "That seems too strong. Only the work is
not proving as good as I originally expected. For the head we both used
a model--you will see--whose fitness could not be surpassed. But the
body! Myrtilus knows how earnestly I laboured, and, without looking to
the right or the left, devoted all my powers to the task of creation.
True, the models did not remain. But even had a magic spell doubled my
ability, the toil would still have been futile. The error is there; yet
I am repairing it. To be sure, many things must aid me in doing so, for
which I now hope; who knows whether it will not again be in vain? You
are acquainted with my past life. It has never yet granted me any great,
complete success, and if I was occasionally permitted to pluck a flower,
my hands were pricked by thorns and nettles!"

He pursed up his lips as if to hiss the unfriendly fate, and Daphne felt
that he, whose career she had watched from childhood with the interest of
affection, and to whom, though she did not confess it even to herself,
she had clung for years with far more than sisterly love, needed a kind
word.

Her heart ached, and it was difficult for her to assume the cheerful tone
which she desired to use; but she succeeded, and her voice sounded gay
and careless enough as she exclaimed to the by no means happy artist and
Myrtilus, who was just returning: "Give up your foolish opposition, you
obstinate men, and let me see what you have accomplished during this long
time. You promised my father that you would show your work to no one
before him, but believe my words, if he were here he would give you back
the pledge and lead me himself to the last production of your study.
Compassion would compel you disobliging fellows to yield, if you could
only imagine how curiosity tortures us women. We can conquer it where
more indifferent matters are concerned. But here!--it need not make you
vainer than you already are, but except my father, you are dearest in all
the world to me. And then, only listen! In my character as priestess of
Demeter I hereby release you from your vow, and thus from any evil
consequences of your, moreover, very trivial guilt; for a father and
daughter who live together, as I do with your uncle, are just the same as
one person. So come! Wearied as I am by the miserable hunting excursion
which caused me such vexation, in the presence of your works--rely upon
it--I shall instantly be gay again, and all my life will thank you for
your noble indulgence."

While speaking, she walked toward the white house, beckoning to the young
men with a winning, encouraging smile.

It seemed to produce the effect intended, for the artists looked at
each other irresolutely, and Hermon was already asking himself whether
Daphne's arguments had convinced Myrtilus also, when the latter, in great
excitement, called after her: "How gladly we would do it, but we must not
fulfil your wish, for it was no light promise--no, your father exacted an
oath. He alone can absolve us from the obligation of showing him, before
any one else, what we finish here. It is not to be submitted to the
judges until after he has seen it."

"Listen to me!" Daphne interrupted with urgent warmth, and began to
assail the artists with fresh entreaties.

For the second time black-bearded Hermon seemed inclined to give up his
resistance, but Myrtilus cried in zealous refusal: "For Hermon's sake,
I insist upon my denial. The judges must not talk about the work until
both tasks are completed, for then each of us will be as good as certain
of a prize. I myself believe that the one for Demeter will fall to me."

"But Hermon will succeed better with the Arachne?" asked Daphne eagerly.

Myrtilus warmly assented, but Hermon exclaimed: "If I could only rely
upon the good will of the judges!"

"Why not?" the girl interrupted. "My father is just, the king is an
incorruptible connoisseur, and certainly yesterday evening you, too,
believed the others to be honest men; as for your fellow-candidate
Myrtilus, he will no more grudge a prize to you than to himself."

"Why should he?" asked Hermon, as if he, too, was perfectly sure of his
friend. "We have shared many a bit of bread together. When we
determined upon this competition each knew the other's ability. Your
father commissioned us to create peaceful Demeter, the patroness of
agriculture, peace, marriage, and Arachne, the mortal who was the most
skilful of spinners; for he is both a grain dealer and owner of spinning
factories. The best Demeter is to be placed in the Alexandrian temple of
the goddess, to whose priestesses you belong; the less successful one in
your own house in the city, but whose Demeter is destined for the
sanctuary, I repeat, is now virtually decided. Myrtilus will add this
prize to the others, and grant me with all his heart the one for the
Arachne. The subject, at any rate, is better adapted to my art than to
his, and so I should be tolerably certain of my cause. Yet my anxiety
about the verdict of the judges remains, for surely you know how much the
majority are opposed to my tendency. I, and the few Alexandrians who,
following me, sacrifice beauty to truth, swim against the stream which
bears you, Myrtilus, and those who are on your side, smoothly along. I
know that you do it from thorough conviction, but with other acknowledged
great artists and our judges, you, too, demand beauty--always beauty. Am
I right, or wrong? Is not any one who refuses to follow in the footsteps
left by the ancients of Athens as certain of condemnation as the
convicted thief or murderer? But I will not follow the lead of the
Athenians, inimitably great though they are in their own way, because I
would fain be more than the ancients of Ilissus: a disciple and an
Alexandrian."

"The never-ending dispute," Myrtilus answered his fellow-artist, with a
cordiality in which, nevertheless, there was a slight accent of pity.

"Surely you know it, Daphne. To me the ideal and its embodiment within
the limits of the natural, according to the models of Phidias,
Polycletus, and Myron is the highest goal, but he and his co-workers seek
objects nearer at hand."

"Or rather we found them," cried Hermon, interrupting his companion with
angry positiveness. "The city of Alexandria, which is growing with
unprecedented vigour, is their home. There, the place to which every
race on earth sends a representative, the pulse of the whole world is
throbbing. There, whoever does not run with the rest is run over; there,
but one thing is important--actual life. Science has undertaken to
fathom it, and the results which it gains with measures and numbers is of
a different value and more lasting than that which the idle sport of the
intellects of the older philosophers obtained. But art, her nobler
sister, must pursue the same paths. To copy life as it is, to reproduce
the real as it presents itself, not as it might or must be, is the task
which I set myself. If you would have me carve gods, whom man can not
represent to himself except in his own form, allow me also to represent
them as reality shows me mortals. I will form them after the models of
the greatest, highest, and best, and also, when the subject permits, in
powerful action in accordance with my own power, but always as real men
from head to foot. We must also cling to the old symbols which those who
order demand, because they serve as signs of recognition, and my Demeter,
too, received the bundle of wheat."

As the excited artist uttered this challenge a defiant glance rested upon
his comrade and Daphne. But Myrtilus, with a soothing gesture of the
hand, answered: "What is the cause of this heat? I at least watch your
work with interest, and do not dispute your art so long as it does not
cross the boundaries of the beautiful, which to me are those of art."

Here the conversation was interrupted; the steward Gras brought a letter
which a courier from Pelusium had just delivered.

Thyone, the wife of Philippus, the commander of the strong border
fortress of Pelusium, near Tennis, had written it. She and her husband
had been intimate friends of Hermon's father, who had served under the
old general as hipparch, and through him had become well acquainted with
his wealthy brother Archias and his relatives.

The Alexandrian merchant had informed Philippus--whom, like all the
world, he held in the highest honour as one of the former companions of
Alexander the Great--of his daughter's journey, and his wife now
announced her visit to Daphne. She expected to reach Tennis that evening
with her husband and several friends, and mentioned especially her
anticipation of meeting Hermon, the son of her beloved Erigone and her
husband's brave companion in arms.

Daphne and Myrtilus received the announcement with pleasure; but
Hermon, who only the day before had spoken of the old couple with great
affection, seemed disturbed by the arrival of the unexpected guests. To
avoid them entirely appeared impossible even to him, but he declared in
an embarrassed tone, and without giving any reason, that he should
scarcely be able to devote the entire evening to Daphne and the
Pelusinians.

Then he turned quickly toward the house, to which a signal from his slave
Bias summoned him.

CHAPTER VI.

As soon as Hermon had disappeared behind the door Daphne begged Myrtilus
to accompany her into the tent.

After taking their seats there, the anxious exclamation escaped her lips:
"How excited he became again! The stay in Tennis does not seem to agree
with you--you are coughing, and father expected so much benefit to your
ailment from the pure moist air, and to Hermon still more from the lonely
life here in your society. But I have rarely seen him more strongly
enlisted in behalf of the tendency opposed to beauty."

"Then your father must be satisfied with the good effect which our
residence here has exerted upon me," replied Myrtilus. "I know that he
was thinking of my illness when he proposed to us to complete his
commissions here. Hermon--the good fellow!--could never have been
induced to leave his Alexandria, had not the hope of thereby doing me a
kindness induced him to follow me. I will add it to the many for which
I am already indebted to his friendship. As for art, he will go his own
way, and any opposition would be futile. A goddess--he perceives it
himself--was certainly the most unfortunate subject possible for his--"

"Is his Demeter a complete failure?" asked Daphne anxiously.

"Certainly not," replied Myrtilus eagerly.

"The head is even one of his very best. Only the figure awakens grave
doubts. In the effort to be faithful to reality, the fear of making
concessions to beauty, he lapsed into ungraceful angularity and a
sturdiness which, in my opinion, would be unpleasing even in a mortal
woman. The excess of unbridled power again makes it self visible in the
wonderfully gifted man. Many things reached him too late, and others too
soon."

Daphne eagerly asked what he meant by these words, and Myrtilus replied:
"Surely you know how he became a sculptor. Your father had intended him
to be his successor in business, but Hermon felt the vocation to become
an artist--probably first in my studio--awake with intense force. While
I early placed myself under the instruction of the great Bryaxis, he was
being trained for a merchant's life. When he was to guide the reed in
the countinghouse, he sketched; when he was sent to the harbour to direct
the loading of the ships, he became absorbed in gazing at the statues
placed there. In the warehouse he secretly modelled, instead of
attending to the bales of goods. You are certainly aware what a sad
breach occurred then, and how long Hermon was restrained before he
succeeded in turning his back upon trade."

"My father meant so kindly toward him," Daphne protested. "He was
appointed guardian to you both. You are rich, and therefore he aided in
every possible way your taste for art; but Hermon did not inherit from
his parents a single drachm, and so my father saw the most serious
struggles awaiting him if he devoted himself to sculpture. And, besides,
he had destined his nephew to become his successor, the head of one of
the largest commercial houses in the city."

"And in doing so," Myrtilus responded, "he believed he had made the best
provision for his happiness. But there is something peculiar in art.
I know from your father himself how kind his intentions were when he
withdrew his assistance from Hermon, and when he had escaped to the
island of Rhodes, left him to make his own way during the first period of
apprenticeship through which he passed there. Necessity, he thought,
would bring him back to where he had a life free from anxiety awaiting
him. But the result was different. Far be it from me to blame the
admirable Archias, yet had he permitted his ward to follow his true
vocation earlier, it would have been better for him."

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