The Emperor, Part 1, Volume 4.
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Georg Ebers >> The Emperor, Part 1, Volume 4.
"Certainly! but how then can you find courage to expose yourself for the
sixth time to a form of calumny that it is difficult to counteract?"
"Because I can have anything destroyed that I choose," laughed the spoilt
girl. "Otherwise sitting still is not much to my taste."
"That is very true," sighed Claudia. "But from you I expect something
strikingly good."
"Thank you," said Pollux, "and I will take the utmost pains to complete
something that may correspond to my own expectations of what a marble
portrait ought to be, that deserves to be preserved to posterity."
"And those expectations require--?"
Pollux considered for a moment, and then he replied:
"I have not always the right words at my command, for all that I feel as
an artist. A plastic presentiment, to satisfy its creator, must fulfil
two conditions; first it must record for posterity in forms of eternal
resemblance all that lay in the nature of the person it represents;
secondly, it must also show to posterity what the art of the time when it
was executed, was capable of."
"That is a matter of course--but you are forgetting your own share."
"My own fame you mean?"
"Certainly."
"I work for Papias and serve my art, and that is enough; meanwhile Fame
does not trouble herself about me, nor do I trouble myself about her."
"Still, you will put your name on my bust?"
"Why not?"
"You are as prudent as Cicero."
"Cicero?"
"Perhaps you would hardly know old Tullius' wise remark that the
philosophers who wrote of the vanity of writers put their names to their
books all the same."
"Oh! I have no contempt for laurels, but I will not run after a thing
which could have no value for me, unless it came unsought, and because it
was my due."
"Well and good; but your first condition could only be fulfilled in its
widest sense if you could succeed in making yourself acquainted with my
thoughts and feelings, with the whole of my inmost mind."
"I see you and talk to you," replied Pollux. Claudia laughed aloud, and
said:
"If instead of two sittings of two hours you were to talk to her for
twice as many years you would always find something new in her. Not a
week passes in which Rome does not find in her something to talk about.
That restless brain is never quiet, but her heart is as good as gold, and
always and everywhere the same."
"And did you suppose that that was new to me?" asked Pollux. "I can see
the restless spirit of my model in her brow and in her mouth, and her
nature is revealed in her eyes."
"And in my snub-nose?" asked Balbilla.
"It bears witness to your wonderful and whimsical notions, which astonish
Rome so much."
"Perhaps you are one more that works for the hammer of the slaves,"
laughed Balbilla.
"And even if it were so," said Pollux, "I should always retain the memory
of this delightful hour." Pontius the architect here interrupted the
sculptor, begging Balbilla to excuse him for disturbing the sitting;
Pollux must immediately attend to some business of importance, but in ten
minutes he would return to his work. No sooner were the two ladies
alone, than Balbilla rose and looked inquisitively round and about the
sculptor's enclosed work-room; but her companion said:
"A very polite young man, this Pollux, but rather too much at his ease,
and too enthusiastic."
"An artist," replied Balbilla, and she proceeded to turn over every
picture and tablet with the sculptor's studies in drawing, raised the
cloth from the wax model of the Urania, tried the clang of the lute which
hung against one of the canvas walls, was here, there, and everywhere,
and at last stood still in front of a large clay model, placed in a
corner of the studio, and closely wrapped in cloths.
"What may that be?" asked Claudia.
"No doubt a half-finished new model."
Balbilla felt the object in front of her with the tips of her fingers,
and said: "It seems to me to be a head. Something remarkable at any
rate. In these close covered dishes we sometimes find the best meat.
Let its unveil this shrouded portrait."
"Who knows what it may be?" said Claudia, as she loosened a twist in the
cloths which enveloped the bust. There are often very remarkable things
to be seen in such workshops.
"Hey, what, it is only a woman's head! I can feel it," cried Balbilla.
"But you can never tell," the older lady went on, untying a knot.
"These artists are such unfettered, unaccountable beings."
"Do you lift the top, I will pull here," and a moment later the young
Roman stood face to face with the caricature which Hadrian had moulded on
the previous evening, in all its grimacing ugliness. She recognized
herself in it at once, and at the first moment, laughed loudly, but the
longer she looked at the disfigured likeness, the more vexed, annoyed and
angry she became. She knew her own face, feature for feature, all that
was pretty in it, and all that was plain, but this likeness ignored
everything in her face that was not unpleasing, and this it emphasized
ruthlessly, and exaggerated with a refinement of spitefulness. The head
was hideous, horrible, and yet it was hers. As she studied it in
profile, she remembered what Pollux had declared he could read in her
features, and deep indignation rose up in her soul.
Her great inexhaustible riches, which allowed her the reckless
gratification of every whim, and secured consideration, even for her
follies, had not availed to preserve her from many disappointments which
other girls, in more modest circumstances, would have been spared. Her
kind heart and open hand had often been abused, even by artists, and it
was self-evident to her, that the man who could make this caricature, who
had so enjoyed exaggerating all that was unlovely in her face, had wished
to exercise his art on her features, not for her own sake, but for that
of the high price she might be inclined to pay for a flattering likeness.
She had found much to please her in the young sculptor's fresh and happy
artist nature, in his frank demeanor and his honest way of speech. She
felt convinced that Pollux, more readily than anybody else, would
understand what it was that lent a charm to her face, which was in no way
strictly beautiful, a charm which could not be disputed in spite of the
coarse caricature which stood before her.
She felt herself the richer by a painful experience, indignant, and
offended. Accustomed as she was to give prompt utterance even to her
displeasure, she exclaimed hotly, and with tears in her eyes:
"It is shameful, it is base. Give me my wraps Claudia. I will not stay
an instant longer to be the butt of this man's coarse and spiteful
jesting."
"It is unworthy," cried the matron, "so to insult a person of your
position. It is to be hoped our litters are waiting outside."
Pontius had overheard Balbilla's last words. He had come into the work-
place without Pollux, who was still speaking to the prefect, and he said
gravely as he approached Balbilla:
"You have every reason to be angry, noble lady. This thing is an insult
in clay, malicious, and at the same time coarse in every detail; but it
was not Pollux who did it, and it is not right to condemn without a
trial."
"You take your friend's part!" exclaimed Balbilla. "I would not tell a
lie for my own brother."
"You know how to give your words the aspect of an honorable meaning in
serious matters, as he does in jest."
"You are angry and unaccustomed to bridle your tongue," replied the
architect. "Pollux, I repeat it, did not perpetrate the caricature, but
a sculptor from Rome."
"Which of them? I know them all."
"I may not name him."
"There--you see.--Come away Claudia."
"Stay," said Pontius, decisively. "If you were any one but yourself, I
would let you go at once in your anger, and with the double charge on
your conscience of doing an injustice to two well-meaning men. But as
you are the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus, I feel it to be due to
myself to say, that if Pollux had really made this monstrous bust he
would not be in this palace now, for I should have turned him out and
thrown the horrid object after him. You look surprised--you do not know
who I am that can address you so."
"Yes, yes," cried Balbilla, much mollified, for she felt assured that the
man who stood before her, as unflinching as if he were cast in bronze,
and with an earnest frown, was speaking the truth, and that he must have
some right to speak to her with such unwonted decision. "Yes indeed, you
are the principal architect of the city; Titianus, from whom we have
heard of you, has told us great things of you; but how am I to account
for your special interest in me?"
"It is my duty to serve you--if necessary, even with my life."
"You," said Balbilla, puzzled. "But I never saw you till yesterday."
"And yet you may freely dispose of all that I have and am, for my
grandfather was your grandfather's slave."
"I did not know"--said Balbilla, with increasing confusion.
"Is it possible that your noble grandfather's instructor, the venerable
Sophinus, is altogether forgotten. Sophinus, whom your grandfather
freed, and who continued to teach your father also."
"Certainly not--of course not," cried Balbilla. "He must have been a
splendid man, and very learned besides."
"He was my father's father," said Pontius.
"Then you belong to our family," exclaimed Balbilla, offering him a
friendly hand.
"I thank you for those words," answered Pontius. "Now, once more, Pollux
had nothing to do with that image."
"Take my cloak, Claudia," said the girl. "I will sit again to the young
man."
"Not to-day--it would spoil his work," replied Pontius. "I beg of you to
go, and let the annoyance you so vehemently expressed die out some where
else. The young sculptor must not know that you have seen this
caricature, it would occasion him much embarrassment. But if you can
return to-morrow in a calmer and more happy humor, with your lively
spirit tuned to a softer key, then Pollux will be able to make a likeness
which may satisfy the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus."
"And, let us hope, the grandson of his learned teacher also," answered
Balbilla, with a kindly farewell greeting, as she went with her companion
towards the door of the hall of the Muses, where her slaves were waiting.
Pontius escorted her so far in silence, then he returned to the work-
place, and safely wrapped the caricature up again in its cloths.
As he went out into the hall again, Pollux hurried up to meet him,
exclaiming:
"The Roman architect wants to speak to you, he is a grand man!"
"Balbilla was called away, and bid me greet you," replied Pontius. "Take
that thing away for fear she should see it. It is coarse and hideous."
A few moments later he stood in the presence of the Emperor, who
expressed the wish to play the part of listener while Balbilla was
sitting. When the architect, after begging him not to let Pollux know of
the incident, told him of what had occurred in the screened-off studio,
and how angry the young Roman lady had been at the caricature, which was
certainly very offensive, Hadrian rubbed his hands and laughed aloud with
delight. Pontius ground his teeth, and then said very earnestly:
"Balbilla seems to me a merry-hearted girl, but of a noble nature. I see
no reason to laugh at her." Hadrian looked keenly into the daring
architect's eyes, laid his hand on his shoulder, and replied with a
certain threatening accent in his deep voice:
"It would be an evil moment for you, or for any one, who should do so in
my presence. But age may venture to play with edged tools, which
children may not even touch."
CHAPTER XVIII.
Selene entered the gate-way in the endlessly-long walk of sun-dried
bricks which enclosed the wide space where stood the court-yards, water-
tanks and huts, belonging to the great papyrus manufactory of Plutarch,
where she and her sister were accustomed to work. She could generally
reach it in a quarter of an hour, but to-day it had taken more than four
times as long and she herself did not know how she had managed to hold
herself up, and to walk-limp-stumble along, in spite of the acute pain
she was suffering. She would willingly have clung to every passer-by,
have held on to every slow passing vehicle, to every beast of burden that
overtook her--but man and beast mercilessly went on their way, without
paying any heed to her. She got many a push from those who were hurrying
by and who scarcely turned round to look at her, when from time to time
she stopped to sink for a moment on to the nearest door-step, or some low
cornice or bale of goods; to dry her eyes, or press her hand to her foot,
which was now swollen to a great size, hoping, as she did so, to be able
to forget, under the sense of a new form of pain, the other unceasing and
unendurable torment, at least for a few minutes.
The street boys who had run after her, and laughed at her, ceased
pursuing her when they found that she constantly stopped to rest. A
woman with a child in her arms once asked her, as she stopped to rest a
minute on a threshold, whether she wanted anything, but walked on when
Selene shook her head and made no other answer.
Once she thought she must give up altogether, when suddenly the street
was filled with jeering boys and inquisitive men and women--for Verus,
the superb Verus, came by in his chariot, and what a chariot! The
Alexandrian populace were accustomed to see much that was strange in the
busy streets of their crowded city; but this vehicle attracted every eye,
and excited astonishment, admiration and mirth, wherever it appeared, and
not unfrequently the bitterest ridicule. The handsome Roman stood in the
middle of his gilt chariot, and himself drove the four white horses,
harnessed abreast; on his head he wore a wreath, and across his breast,
from one shoulder, a garland of roses. On the foot-board of the quadriga
sat two children, dressed as Cupids; their little legs dangled in the
air, and they each held, attached by a long gilt wire, a white dove which
fluttered in front of Verus.
The dense and hurrying crowd, crushed Selene remorselessly against the
wall; instead of looking at the wonderful sight she covered her face with
her hands to hide the distortion of pain in her features; still she just
saw the splendid chariot, the gold harness on the horses, and the figure
of the insolent owner glide past her, as if in a dream that was blurred
by pain, and the sight infused into her soul, that was already harassed
by pain and anxiety, a feeling of bitter aversion, and the envious
thought that the mere trappings of the horses of this extravagant
prodigal would suffice to keep her and her family above misery for a
whole year.
By the time the chariot had turned the next corner, and the crowd had
followed it, she had almost fallen to the ground. She could not take
another step, and looked round for a litter, but, while generally there
was no lack of them, in this spot, to-day there was not one to be seen.
The factory was only a few hundred steps farther, but in her fancy they
seemed like so many stadia. Presently some of the workmen and women from
the factory came by, laughing and showing each other their wages, so the
payment must be now going on. A glance at the sun showed her how long
she had already been on her way, and remind her of the purpose of her
walk.
With the exertion of all her strength, she dragged herself a few steps
farther; then, just as her courage was again beginning to fail, a little
girl came running towards her who was accustomed to wait upon the workers
at the table where Selene and Arsinoe were employed, and who held in her
hand a pitcher. She called the dusky little Egyptian, and said:
"Hathor, pray come back to the factory with me. I cannot walk any
farther, my foot is so dreadfully painful; but if I lean a little on your
shoulder, I shall get on better."
"I cannot," said the child. "If I make haste home I shall have some
dates," and she ran on.
Selene looked after her, and an inward voice, against which she had had
to rebel before to-day, asked her why she of all people must be a
sufferer for others, when they thought only of themselves, and with a
heavy sigh, she made a fresh attempt to proceed on her way.
When she had gone a few steps, neither seeing not hearing anything that
passed her, a girl came up to her, and asked her timidly, but kindly,
what was the matter. It was a leaf-joiner who sat opposite to her at the
works, a poor, deformed creature, who, nevertheless, plied her nimble
fingers contentedly and silently, and who at first had taught Selene and
Arsinoe many useful tricks of working. The girl offered her crooked
shoulder unasked as a support to Selene, and measured her step; to those
of the sufferer with as much nicety as if she felt everything that Selene
herself did; thus, without speaking, they reached the door of the
factory; there, in the first court-yard the little hunchback made Selene
sit down on one of the bundles of papyrus-stems which lay all about the
place, by the side of the tanks in which the plants were dipped to
freshen them, and arranged in order, built up into high heaps, according
to the localities whence they were brought. After a short rest, they
went on through the hall in which the triangular green stems were sorted,
according to the quality of the white pith they contained. The next
rooms, in which men stripped the green sheath from the pith, and the long
galleries where the more skilled hands split the pith with sharp knives
into long moist strips about a finger wide, and of different degrees of
fineness, seemed to Selene to grow longer the farther she went, and to be
absolutely interminable.
Generally the pith-splitters sat here in long rows, each at his own
little table, on each side of a gangway left for the slaves, who carried
the prepared material to the drying-house; but, to-day, most of them had
left their places and stood chatting together and packing up their wooden
clips, knives, and sharpening-stones. Half way down this room Selene's
hand fell from her companion's shoulder, she turned giddy, and said in a
low tone:
"I can go no farther--"
The little hunchback held her up as well as she could, and though she
herself was far from strong, she succeeded in dragging, rather than
carrying, Selene to an empty couch and in laying her upon it. A few
workmen gathered around the senseless girl, and brought some water, then
when she opened her eyes again, and they found that she belonged to the
rooms where the prepared papyrus-leaves were gummed together, some of
them offered to carry her thither, and before Selene could consent they
had taken up the bench and lifted it with its light burden. Her damaged
foot hung down, and gave the poor girl such pain that she cried out, and
tried to raise the injured limb and hold her ankle in her band; her
comrade helped by taking the poor little foot in her own hand, and
supporting it with tender and cautious care.
As she thus went by, carried, as it were, in triumph by the men, and
borne high in the air, everyone turned to look at her, and the suffering
girl felt this rather as if she were some criminal being carried through
the streets to exhibit her disgrace to the citizens. But when she found
herself in the large rooms where, in one place men, and in another the
most skilled of the women and girls were employed in laying the narrow
strips of papyrus crosswise over each other, and gumming them together,
she had recovered strength enough to pull her veil over her face which
she held down. Arsinoe, and she herself, in order to remain unrecognized
had always been accustomed to walk through these rooms closely veiled,
and not to lay their wraps aside till they reached the little room where
they sat with about twenty other women to glue the sheets together.
Every one looked at her with curious enquiry. Her foot certainly hurt
her, the cut in her head was burning, and she felt altogether intensely
miserable; still there was room and to spare in her soul for the false
pride that she inherited from her father, and for the humiliating
consciousness that she was regarded by these people as one of themselves.
In the room in which she worked, none but free women were employed, but
more than a thousand slaves worked in the factory and she would as soon
have eaten with beasts without plate or spoon, as have shared a meal with
them. At one time, when every thing in their house seemed going to ruin,
it was her own father who had suggested the papyrus factory to her
attention, by telling her, with indignation, that the daughter of an
impoverished citizen had degraded herself and her whole class by devoting
herself to working in the papyrus factory to earn money. She was pretty
well paid, to be sure, and in answer to Selene's enquiry, he had stated
the amount she earned and mentioned the name of the rich manufacturer to
whom she had sold her social standing for gold.
Soon after this Selene had gone alone to the factory, had discussed all
that was necessary with the manager, and had then begun, with Arsinoe, to
work regularly in the factory where they now for two years had spent some
hours of every day in gumming the papyrus-leaves together.
How many a time at the beginning of a new week, or when under the
influence of a special fit of aversion to her work, had Arsinoe refused
to go with her ever again to the factory; how much persuasive eloquence
had she expended, how many new ribbons had she bought, how often had she
consented to allow her to go to some spectacle, which consumed half a
week's wages, to induce Arsinoe to persist in her work, or to avert the
fulfilment of her threat to tell her father, whither her daily walk--as
she called it--tended.
When Selene, who had been carried as far as the door of her own work-
room, was sitting once more in her usual place in front of the long table
on which she worked, and where hundreds of prepared papyrus strips were
to be joined together, she felt scarcely able to raise the veil from her
face. She drew the uppermost sheets towards her, dipped the brush in the
gum-jar, and began to touch the margin of the leaf with it--but in the
very act, her strength forsook her, the brush fell from her fingers, she
dropped her hands on the table and her face in her hands, and began to
cry softly.
While she sat thus, her tears slowly flowing, her shoulders heaving, and
her whole body shaken with shuddering sobs, a woman who sat opposite to
her, beckoned to the deformed girl, and after whispering to her a few
words grasped her hand firmly and warmly and looked straight into her
eyes with her own, which though lustreless were clear and steady; then
the little hunchback silently took Arsinoe's vacant place by Selene, and
pushed the smaller half of the papyrus leaves over to the woman, and both
set diligently to work on the gumming.
They had been thus occupied for some time when Selene at last raised her
head and was about to take up her brush again. She looked round for it
and perceived her companion, whom she had not even thanked for her
helpfulness, busily at work in Arsinoe's seat. She looked at her
neighbor with eyes still full of tears, and as the girl, who was wholly
absorbed in her task, did not notice her gaze, Selene said in a tone of
surprise rather than kindliness.
"This is my sister's place; you may sit here to-day, but when the factory
opens again she must sit by me again."
"I know, I know," said the workwoman shyly. "I am only finishing your
sheets because I have no more of my own to do, and I can see how badly
your foot is hurting you."
The whole transaction was so strange and novel to Selene that she did not
even understand her neighbor's meaning, and she only said, with a shrug:
"You may earn all you can, for aught I can do; I cannot do anything to-
day."
Her deformed companion colored and looked up doubtfully at her opposite
neighbor, who at once laid aside her brush and said, turning to Selene:
"That is not what Mary means, my child. She is doing one-half of your
day's task and I am doing the other, so that your suffering foot may not
deprive you of your day's pay."
"Do I look so very poor then?" exclaimed Keraunus' daughter, and a faint
crimson tinged her pale cheeks.
"By no means, my child," replied the woman. "You and your sister are
evidently of good family--but pray let us have the pleasure of being of
some help to you.
"I do not know--" Selene stammered.
"If you saw that it hurt me to stoop when the wind blows the strips of
papyrus on to the floor, would you not willingly pick them up for me?"
continued the woman. "What we are doing for you is neither less nor yet
much more than that. In a few minutes we shall have finished and then we
can follow the others, for every one else has left. I am the overseer of
the room, as you know, and must in any case remain here till the last
work-woman has gone."
Selene felt full well that she ought to be grateful for the kindness
shown her by these two women, and yet she had a sense of having a deed of
almsgiving forced upon her acceptance, and she answered quickly, still
with the blood mounting to her cheeks. "I am very grateful for your good
intentions, of course, very grateful; but here each one must work for
herself, and it would ill-become me to allow you to give me the money you
have earned."