Serapis, Volume 5.

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SERAPIS

By Georg Ebers

Volume 5.

CHAPTER XX.

Gorgo, when she had left her grandmother, could not rest. Her lofty
calmness of demeanor had given way to a restless mood such as she had
always contemned severely in others, since she had ceased to be a
vehement child and grown to be a woman. She tried to beguile the alarm
that made her pulses beat so quickly, and the heart-sickness that ached
like a wound, by music and singing; but this only added to her torment.
The means by which she could usually recover her equanimity of mind had
lost their efficacy, and Sappho's longing hymn, which she began to sing,
had only served to bring the fervid longing of her own heart to light--
to set it, as it were, in the full glare of the sun. She had become
aware that every fibre, every nerve of her being yearned for the man she
loved; she would have thrown away her life like a hollow nut for one
single hour of perfect joy with him and in him. The faith in the old
gods, the heathen world which contained the ideal of her young soul, her
detestation of Christianity, her beautiful art--everything, in short,
that had filled the spiritual side of her life, was cast into the shade
by the one absorbing passion that possessed her soul. Every feeling,
every instinct, urged her to abandon herself entirely to her lover, and
yet she never for one instant doubted which side she would take in the
approaching conflict of the great powers that ruled the world. The last
few hours had only confirmed her conviction that the end of all things
was at hand. The world was on the eve of destruction; she foresaw that
she must perish--perish with Constantine, and that, in her eyes, was a
grace from the gods.

While Damia was vainly struggling to liberate her soul from the bondage
of the flesh, Gorgo had been wandering uneasily about the house; now
going to the slaves, encouraging them with brave words, and giving them
employment to keep them from utter desperation, and then stealing up to
see whether her grandmother might not by this time be in need of her.
As it grew dark she observed that several of the women, and even some of
the men, had made their escape. These were such as had already shown a
leaning towards the new faith, and who now made off to join their fellow-
Christians, or to seek refuge in the churches under the protection of the
crucified God whose supreme power might, perhaps, even yet, avert the
impending catastrophe.

Twice had Porphyrius sent a messenger to assure his mother and daughter
that all was well with him, that a powerful party was prepared to defend
the Serapeum, and that he should pass the night in the temple. The
Romans were evidently hesitating to attack it, and if, next morning, the
heathen should succeed in repelling the first onset, reinforcements might
yet be brought up in time. Gorgo could not share these hopes; a client
of her father's had brought in a rumor that the Biamites, after advancing
as far as Naucratis, had been dispersed by a few of the Imperial
maniples. Fate was stalking on its way, and no one could give it pause.

The evening brought no coolness, and when it was already quite dark,
as her grandmother had not yet called her, Gorgo could no longer control
her increasing anxiety, so, after knocking in vain at the door of the
observatory, she went in. Her old nurse preceded her with a lamp, and
the two women stood dumb with consternation, for the old lady lay
senseless on the ground. Her head was thrown back against the seat of
the chair off which she had slipped, and her pale face was lifeless and
horrible to look at, with its half-closed eyes and dropped jaw. Wine,
water, and strong essences were all at hand, and they laid the
unconscious woman on a couch intended for the occasional use of the
wearied observer. In a few minutes they had succeeded in reviving the
old lady; but her eyes rested without recognition on the girl who knelt
by her side, and she murmured to herself: "The ravens--where are they
gone? Ravens!"

Her glance wandered round the room, to the tablets and rolls which had
been tossed off the couch and the table to make room for her, and for the
lamps and medicaments. They lay in disorder on the floor, and the sight
of this confusion produced a favorable excitement and reaction; she
succeeded in expressing herself in husky accents and broken, hardly
intelligible sentences, so far as to scold them sharply for their
irreverence for the precious documents, and for the disorder they had
created. The waiting-woman proceeded to pick them up: but Damia again
became unconscious. Gorgo bathed her brow and tried to pour some wine
between her teeth, but she clenched them too firmly, till the slave-woman
came to her assistance and they succeeded in making Damia swallow a few
drops. The old woman opened her eyes, smacking her tongue feebly; but
she took the cup into her own hand to hold it to her lips; and though she
trembled so that half the contents were spilt, she drank eagerly till it
was quite empty. "More," she gasped with the eagerness of intense
thirst, "more--I want drink !"

Gorgo gave her a second and a third draught which Damia drank with equal
eagerness; then, with a deep breath, she looked up fully conscious, at
her granddaughter.

"Thank you, child," she said. "Now I shall do very well for a little
while. The material world and all that belongs to it weighs us down and
clings to us like iron fetters. We may long and strive to be free, but
it pursues us and holds us fast. Only those who are content with their
miserable humanity can enjoy it. They laugh, as you know, at Praxilla,
the poetess, because she makes the dying Adonis lament, when face to face
with death, that he is forced to leave the apples and pears behind him.
But is not that subtly true? Yes, yes; Praxilla is right! We fast, we
mortify ourselves--I have felt it all myself--to partake of divinity. We
almost perish of hunger and thirst, when we might be so happy if only we
would be satisfied with apples and pears! No man has ever yet succeeded
in the great effort; those who would be truly happy must be content with
small things. That is what makes children so happy. Apples and pears!
Well, everything will be at an end for me ere long--even those. But if
the great First Cause spares himself in the universal crash, there is
still the grand idea of Apples and Pears; and who knows but that it may
please Him, when this world is destroyed, to frame another to come after
it. Will He then once more embody the ideas of Man--and Apples and
Pears? It would be plagiarism from himself. Nay, if He is merciful, He
will never again give substance to that hybrid idea called Man; or, if He
does, He will let the poor wretch be happy with apples and pears--I mean
trivial joys; for all higher joys, be they what they may, are vanity and
vexation.... Give me another draught. Ah, that is good! And to-morrow
is the end. I could find it in my heart to regret the good gifts of
Dionysus myself; it is better than apples and pears; next to that comes
the joy that Eros bestows on mortals, and there must be an end to all
that, too. That, however, is above the level of apples and pears. It is
great, very great happiness, and mingled therefor with bitter sorrow.
Rapture and anguish--who can lay down the border line that divides them?
Smiles and tears alike belong to both. And you are weeping? Aye, aye--
poor child! Come here and kiss me." Damia drew the head of the kneeling
girl close to her bosom and pressed her lips to Gorge's brow. Presently,
however, she relaxed her embrace and, looking about the room, she
exclaimed:

"How you have mixed and upset the book-rolls! If only I could show you
how clearly everything agrees and coincides. We know now exactly how it
will all happen. By the day after to-morrow there will be no more earth,
no more sky; and I will tell you this, child: If, when Serapis falls, the
universe does not crumble to pieces like a ruinous hovel, then the wisdom
of the Magians is a lie, the course of the stars has nothing to do with
the destinies of the earth and its inhabitants, the planets are mere
lamps, the sun is no more than a luminous furnace, the old gods are
marsh-fires, emanations from the dark bog of men's minds--and the great
Serapis... But why be angry with him? There is no doubt--no if nor but
....Give me the diptychon and I will show you our doom. There--just
here--my sight is so dazzled, I cannot make it out.--And if I could, what
matter? Who can alter here below what has been decided above? Leave me
to sleep now, and I will explain it all to you to-morrow if there is
still time. Poor child, when I think how we have tormented you to learn
what you know, and how industrious you have been! And now--to what end?
I ask you, to what end? The great gulf will swallow up one and all."

"So be it, so be it !" cried Gorgo interrupting her. "Then, at any
rate, nothing that I love on earth will be lost to me before I die!"

"And the enemy will perish in the same ruin!" continued Damia, her eyes
sparkling with revived fire. "But where shall we go to--where? The
soul is divine by nature and cannot be destroyed. It must return--say,
am I right or wrong?--It will return to its first fount and cause; for
like attracts and absorbs like, and thus our deification, our union with
the god will be accomplished."

"I believe it--I am sure of it!" replied Gorgo with conviction.

"You are sure of it?" retorted the old woman. "But I am not. For our
clearest knowledge is but guesswork when it is not based on numbers.
Nothing is proved or provable but by numbers, but they are surer than the
rocks in the sea; that is why I believe in our coming doom, for, on those
tablets, we have calculated it to a certainty. But who can calculate
evidence of the future fate of the soul? If, indeed, the old order
should not pass away--if the depths should remain below and the empyrean
still keep its place above--then, to be sure, your studies would not be
in vain; for then your soul, which is fixed on spiritual, supernatural
and sublime conceptions, would be drawn upwards to the great Intelligence
of which it is the offspring, to the very god, and become one with him--
absorbed into him, as the rain-drop fallen from a cloud rises again
and is reunited to its parent vapor. Then--for there may be a
metempsychosis--your songful spirit might revive to inform
a nightingale, then . . ."

Damia paused; and gazed upwards as if in ecstasy, and it was not till a
few minutes later that she went on, with a changed expression in her
face: "Then my son's widow, Mary, would be hatched out of a serpent's egg
and would creep a writhing asp... Great gods! the ravens! What can they
mean? They come again. Air, air! Wine! I cannot--I am choking--take
it away!--To-morrow--to-day... Everything is going; do you see--do you
feel? It is all black--no, red; and now black again. Everything is
sinking; hold me, save me; the floor is going from under me.--Where is
Porphyrius? Where is my son?--My feet are so cold; rub them. It is the
water! rising--it is up to my knees. I am sinking--help! save me!
help!" The dying woman fought with her arms as if she were drowning; her
cries for help grew fainter, her head drooped on her laboring chest, and
in a few minutes she had breathed her last in her grandchild's arms, and
her restless, suffering soul was free.

Never before had Gorgo seen death. She could not persuade herself that
the heart which had been so cold for others, but had throbbed so warmly
and tenderly for her, was now stilled for ever; that the spirit which,
even in sleep, had never been at rest, had now found eternal peace. The
slave-woman had hastily taken her place, had closed the dead woman's eyes
and mouth, and done all she could to diminish the horror of the scene,
and the terrible aspect of the dead in the sight of the girl who had been
her one darling. But Gorgo had remained by her side, and, while she did
everything in her power to revive the stiffening body, the overwhelming
might of Death had come home to her with appalling clearness. She felt
the limbs of one she had loved growing cold and rigid under her hands,
and her spirit rose in obstinate rebellion against the idea that
annihilation stood between her and the woman who had so amply filled
a mother's place. She insisted on having every method of resuscitation
tried that had ever been heard of, and made her nurse send for
physicians, though the woman solemnly assured her that human help was of
no avail: then she sent for the priest of Saturn who--as the dead woman
herself had told her--knew mighty spells which had called back many a
departed spirit to the body it had quitted.

When, at last, she was alone and gazed on the hard, set features of the
dead, though she shuddered with horror, she so far controlled herself as
to press her lips in sorrow and gratitude to the thin hand whose caresses
she had been wont to accept as a mere matter of course. How cold and
heavy it was! She shivered and dropped it, and the large rings on the
fingers rattled on the wooden frame of the couch. There was no hope; she
understood that her friend and mother was indeed dead and silent forever.

Deep and bitter grief overwhelmed her completely, with the sense of
abandoned loneliness, the humiliating feeling of helplessness against a
brutal power that marches on, scorning humanity, as a warrior treads down
the grass and flowers in his path. She fell on her knees by the corpse,
sobbing passionately, and crying like an indignant child when a stronger
companion has robbed it of some precious possession. She wept with rage
at her own impotence; and her tears flowed faster and faster as she more
fully realized how lonely she was, and what a blow this must be to her
father. In this hour no pleasant reminiscences of past family happiness
came to infuse a drop of sweetness into the bitterness of her grief.
Only one reflection brought her any comfort, and that was the thought
that the grave which had yawned already for her grandmother would soon,
very soon, open for herself and all living souls. On the table, close at
hand, lay the evidence of their impending doom, and a longing for that
end gradually took complete possession of her, excluding every other
feeling. Thinking of this she rose from her knees and ceased to weep.

When, presently, her waiting-woman should return, she was resolved to
leave the house at once; she could not bear to stay; her feelings and
duty alike indicated the place where she might find the last hour's
happiness that she expected or desired of life. Her father must learn
from herself, and not from a stranger, of the loss that had befallen
them, and she knew that he was in the Serapeum--on the very spot where
she might hope next morning to meet Constantine. It would be her lover's
duty to open the gate to destruction, and she would be there to pass
through it at his side.

She waited a long, long time, but at last there was a noise on the
stairs. That was her nurse's step, but she was not alone. Had she
brought the leech and the exorciser? The door opened and the old steward
came in, carrying a three-branched lamp; then followed the slave-woman,
and then--her heart stood still then came Constantine and his mother.

Gorgo, pale and speechless, received her unexpected visitors. The nurse
had failed to find the physician, whose aid would, at any rate, have come
too late; and as the housekeeper had taken herself off with others of the
Christian slaves, the faithful soul had said to herself that "her child"
would want some womanly help and comfort in her trouble, and had gone to
the house of their neighbor Clemens, to entreat his wife to come with her
to see the dead, and visit her forlorn young mistress. Constantine, who
had come home a short time previously, had said nothing, but had
accompanied the two women.

While Constantine gazed with no unkindly feelings at the still face of
Damia--to whom, after all, he owed many a little debt of kindness--and
then turned to look at Gorgo who stood downcast, pale, and struggling
to breathe calmly, Dame Marianne tried to proffer a few words of
consolation. She warmly praised everything in the dead woman which
was not in her estimation absolutely reprobate and godless, and brought
forward all the comforting arguments which a pious Christian can command
for the edification and encouragement of those who mourn a beloved
friend; but to Gorgo all this well-meant discourse was as the babble of
an unknown tongue; and it was only when, at length, Marianne went up to
her and drew her to her motherly bosom, to kiss her, and bid her be
welcome under Clelnens' roof till Porphyrius should be at home again,
that she understood that the good woman meant kindly, and honestly
desired to help and comfort her.

But the allusion to her father reminded her of the first duty in her
path; she roused her energies, thanked Marianne warmly, and begged her
only to assist her in carrying the corpse into the thalamos, and then to
take charge of the keys. She herself, she explained, meant at once to
seek her father, since he ought to learn from no one but herself of his
mother's death. Nor would she listen for a moment to her friend's
pressing entreaties that she would put off this task, and pass the night,
at any rate, under her roof.

Constantine had kept in the background; it was not till Gorgo approached
the dead and gave the order to carry the body down into the house that he
came forward, and with simple feeling offered her his hand. The girl
looked frankly in his face, and, as she put her hand in his, she said in
a low voice: "I was unjust to you, Constantine. I insulted and hurt you;
but I repented sincerely, even before you had left the house. And you
owe me no grudge, I know, for you understood how forlorn I must be and
came to see me. There is no ill-feeling, is there, nothing to come
between us?"

"Nothing, nothing!" he eagerly exclaimed, seizing her other hand with
passionate fervor.

She felt as if all the blood in her body had rushed in a full tide to her
heart--as if he were some part of her very being, that had been torn out,
snatched from her, and that she must have back again, even if it cost
them both their life and happiness. The impulse was irresistible; she
drew away her hands from his grasp and flung them round his neck,
clinging to him as a weary child clings to its mother. She did not know
how it had come about--how such a thing was possible, but it was done;
and without paying any heed to Marianne, who looked on in dismay while
her son's lips were pressed to the brow and lips of the lovely
idolatress, she wept upon her lover's shoulders, feeling a thousand
roses blossoming in her soul and a thousand thorns piercing and
tearing her heart.

It had to be, that she felt; it was at once their union and their
parting. Their common destiny was but for a moment, and that moment had
come and gone. All that now retrained for them was death--destruction,
with all things living; and she looked forward to this, as a man watches
for the dawn after a sleepless night. Marianne stood aside; she dimly
perceived that something vital was going on, that something inevitable
had happened which would admit of no interference. Gorgo, as she freed
herself from Constantine's embrace, stood strangely solemn and
unapproachable. To the simple matron she was an inscrutable riddle to
which she could find no clue; but she was pleased, nevertheless, when
Gorgo came up to her and kissed her hand. She could not utter a word,
for she felt that whatever she might say, it would not be the right
thing; and it was a real relief to her to busy herself over the removal
of the body, in which she could be helpful.

Gorgo had covered the dead face; and when old Damia had been carried down
to the thalamos and laid in state on the bridal bed, she strewed the
couch with flowers.

Meanwhile, the priest of Saturn had been found, and he declared in all
confidence that no power on earth could have recalled this departed soul.
Damia's sudden end and the girl's great grief went to his faithful heart,
and he gladly acceded to Gorgo's request that he would wait for her by
the garden-gate and escort her to the Serapeum. When he had left them
she gave the keys of her grandmother's chests and cupboards into
Marianne's keeping; then she went into the adjoining room, where
Constantine had been waiting while she decked the bed of death, and bid
him a solemn, but apparently calm, farewell. He put out his arm to clasp
her to his heart, but this she would not permit; and when he besought her
to go home with them she answered sadly, "No, my dearest... I must not;
I have other duties to fulfil."

"Yes," he replied emphatically, "and I, too--I have mine. But you have
given yourself to me. You are my very own; you belong to me only, and
not to yourself; and I desire, I command you to yield to my first
request. Go with my mother, or stay here, if you will, with the dead.
Wherever your father may be, it is not, cannot be, the right place for
you--my betrothed bride. I can guess where be is. Oh! Gorgo, be
warned.

"The fate of the old gods is sealed. We are the stronger and to-morrow,
yes to-morrow--by your own head, by all I hold dear and sacred!--Serapis
will fall!"

"I know it," she said firmly. "And you are charged to lay hands on the
god?"

"I am, and I shall do it."

She nodded approbation and then said submissively and sweetly: "It is
your duty, and you cannot do otherwise. And come what may we are one,
Constantine, forever one. Nothing can part us. Whatever the future may
bring, we belong to each other, to stand or fall together. I with you,
you with me, till the end of time." She gave him her hand and looked
lovingly into his eyes; then she threw herself into his mother's arms and
kissed her fondly.

"Come, come with me, my child," said Marianne; but Gorgo freed herself,
exclaiming: "Go, go; if you love me leave me; go and let me be alone."

She went back into the thalamos where the dead lay at peace, and before
the others could follow her she had opened a door hidden behind some
tapestry near the bed, and fled into the garden.

CHAPTER XXI.

The night was hot and gloomy. Heavy clouds gathered in the north, and
wreaths of mist, like a hot vapor-bath, swayed over the crisply-foaming
wavelets that curled the lustreless waters of the Mareotis Lake. The
moon peeped, pale and shrouded, out of a russet halo, and ghostly
twilight reigned in the streets, still heated by the baked walls of the
houses.

To the west, over the desert, a dull sulphurous yellow streaked the black
clouds, and from time to time the sultry air was rent by a blinding flash
sent across the firmament from the north. There was a hot, sluggish wind
blowing from the southwest, which drove the sand across the lake into the
streets; the fine grit stung: and burnt the face of the wanderer who
hurried on with half-closed eyes and tightly-shut lips. A deep
oppression seemed to have fallen on nature and on man; the sudden gusts
of the heated breeze, the arrow-like shafts of lightning, the weird
shapes and colors of the clouds, all combined to give a sinister, baleful
and portentous aspect to this night, as though skies and waters, earth
and air were brooding over some tremendous catastrophe.

Gorgo had thrown a veil and handkerchief round her head and followed the
priest with an aching brow and throbbing heart. When she heard a step
behind her she started-for it might be Constantine following her up; when
a gust of wind flung the stinging sand in her face, or the storm-flash
threw a lurid light on the sky, her heart stood still, for was not this
the prelude to the final crash.

She was familiar with the way they were going, but its length seemed to
have stretched tenfold. At last, however, they reached their
destination. She gave the pass-word at the gate of her father's timber-
yard and exchanged the signs agreed upon; in a few minutes she had made
her way through the piles of beams and planks that screened the entrance
to the aqueduct--a slave who knew her leading the way with a light--and
she and her companion entered the underground passage.

It was hot and close; bats, scared by the flare of the torch, fluttered
round her with a ghostly rustle, startling and disgusting her; still,
she felt less alarm here than outside; and when, as she went forward she
thought of the great temple she was coming to, of its wonderful beauty
and solemn majesty, she only cared to press onward to that refuge of
ineffable splendor where all would be peace. To die there, to perish
there with her lover, did not seem hard; nay, she felt proud to think
that she might await death in the noblest edifice ever raised to a god by
mortal hands. Here Fate might have its way; she had known the highest
joy she had ever dreamed of, and where on earth was there a sublimer tomb
than this sanctuary of the sovereign of the universe, whose supremacy
even the other gods acknowledged with trembling!

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