CHAPTER III.
It must be late, for Hermon felt the cool breeze, which in this region rose between midnight and sunrise, on his burned face and, shivering, drew his mantle closer round him.
Yet it seemed impossible to return to the cabin; the memory of Ledscha imploring vengeance, and the stern image of the avenging goddess in the cella of the little Temple of Nemesis, completely mastered him. In the close cabin these terrible visions, united with the fear of having reaped undeserved praise, would have crouched upon his breast like harpies and stifled or driven him mad. After what had happened, to number the swift granting of the insulted Biamite’s prayer among the freaks of chance was probably a more arbitrary and foolish proceeding than, with so many others, to recognise the incomprehensible power of Nemesis. Ledscha had loosed it against him and his health, perhaps even his life, and he imagined that she was standing before him with the bridle and wheel, threatening him afresh.
Shivering, as if chilled to the bone, overwhelmed by intense horror, he turned his blinded eyes upward to the blackness above and raised his hand, for the first time since he had joined the pupils of Straton in the Museum, to pray. He besought Nemesis to be content, and not add to blindness new tortures to augment the terrible ones which rent his soul, and he did so with all the ardour of his passionate nature.
The steward Gras had received orders to wake the Lady Thyone if anything unusual happened to the blind man, and when he heard the unfortunate artist groan so pitifully that it would have moved a stone, and saw him raise his hand despairingly to his head, he thought it was time to utter words of consolation, and a short time after the anxious matron followed him.
Her low exclamation startled Hermon. To be disturbed in the first prayer after so long a time, in the midst of the cries of distress of a despairing soul, is scarcely endurable, and the blind man imposed little restraint upon himself when his old friend asked what had occurred, and urged him not to expose himself longer to the damp night air.
At first he resolutely resisted, declaring that he should lose his senses alone in the close cabin.
Then, in her cordial, simple way, she offered to bear him company in the cabin. She could not sleep longer, at any rate; she must leave him early in the morning, and they still had many things to confide to each other.
Touched by so much kindness, he yielded and, leaning on the Bithynian’s arm, followed her, not into his little cabin, but into the captain’s spacious sitting room.
Only a single lamp dimly lighted the wainscoting, composed of ebony, ivory, and tortoise shell, the gay rug carpet, and the giraffe and panther skins hung on the walls and doors and flung on the couches and the floor.
Thyone needed no brilliant illumination for this conversation, and the blinded man was ordered to avoid it.
The matron was glad to be permitted to communicate to Hermon so speedily all that filled her own heart.
While he remained on deck, she had gone to Daphne’s cabin.
She had already retired, and when Thyone went to the side of the couch she found the girl, with her cheeks wet with tears, still weeping, and easily succeeded in leading the motherless maiden to make a frank confession.
Both cousins had been dear to her from childhood; but while Myrtilus, though often impeded by his pitiable sufferings, had reached by a smooth pathway the highest recognition, Hermon’s impetuous toiling and striving had constantly compelled her to watch his course with anxious solicitude and, often unobserved, extend a helping hand.
Sympathy, disapproval, and fear, which, however, was always blended with admiration of his transcendent powers, had merged into love. Though he had disdained to return it, it had nevertheless been perfectly evident that he needed her, and valued her and her opinion. Often as their views differed, the obstinate boy and youth had never allowed any one except herself a strong influence over his acts and conduct. But, far as he seemed to wander from the paths which she believed the right ones, she had always held fast to the conviction that he was a man of noble nature, and an artist who, if he only once fixed his eyes upon the true goal, would far surpass by his mighty power the other Alexandrian sculptors, whatever names they bore, and perhaps even Myrtilus.
To the great vexation of her father who, after her mother’s death, in an hour when his heart was softened, had promised that he would never impose any constraint upon her in the choice of a husband, she had hitherto rejected every suitor. She had showed even the distinguished Philotas in Pelusium, without the least reserve, that he was seeking her in vain; for just at that time she thought she had perceived that Hermon returned her love, and after his abrupt departure it had become perfectly evident that the happiness of her life depended upon him.
The terrible misfortune which had now befallen him had only bound her more firmly to the man she loved. She felt that she belonged to him indissolubly, and the leech’s positive assurance that his blindness was incurable had only increased the magic of the thought of being and affording tenfold more to the man bereft of sight than when, possessing his vision, the world, life, and art belonged to him. To be able to lavish everything upon the most beloved of mortals, and do whatever her warm, ever-helpful heart prompted, seemed to her a special favour of the gods in whom she believed.
That it was Demeter, to the ranks of whose priestesses she belonged, who was so closely associated with his blinding, also seemed to her no mere work of chance. The goddess on whom Hermon had bestowed the features of her own face had deprived him of sight to confer upon her the happiness of brightening and beautifying the darkness of his life.
If she saw aright, and it was only the fear of obtaining, with herself, her wealth, that still kept him from her, the path which would finally unite them must be found at last. She hoped to conquer also her father’s reluctance to give his only child in marriage to a blind man, especially as Hermon’s last work promised to give him the right to rank with the best artists of his age.
The matron had listened to this confession with an agitated heart. She had transported herself in imagination into the soul of the girl’s mother, and brought before her mind what objections the dead woman would have made to her daughter’s union with a man deprived of sight; but Daphne had firmly insisted upon her wish, and supported it by many a sensible and surprising answer. She was beyond childhood, and her three-and-twenty years enabled her to realize the consequences which so unusual a marriage threatened to entail.
As for Thyone herself, she was always disposed to look on the bright side, and the thought that this vigorous young man, this artist crowned with the highest success, must remain in darkness to the end of his life, was utterly incompatible with her belief in the goodness of the gods. But if Hermon was cured, a rare wealth of the greatest happiness awaited him in the union with Daphne.
The mood in which she found the blind man had wounded and troubled her. Now she renewed the bandage, saying: “How gladly I would continue to use my old hands for you, but this will be the last time in a long while that I am permitted to do this for the son of my Erigone; I must leave you to-morrow.”
Hermon clasped her hand closely, exclaiming with affectionate warmth: “You must not go, Thyone! Stay here, even if it is only a few days longer.”
What pleasure these words gave her, and how gladly she would have fulfilled his wish! But it could not be, and he did not venture to detain her by fresh entreaties after she had described how her aged husband was suffering from her absence.
“I often ask myself what he still finds in me,” she said. “True, so long a period of wedded life is a firm tie. If I am gone and he does not find me when he returns home from inspections, he wanders about as if lost, and does not even relish his food, though the same cook has prepared it for years. And he, who forgets nothing and knows by name a large number of the many thousand men he commands, would very probably, when I am away, join the troops with only sandals on his feet. To miss my ugly old face really can not be so difficult! When he wooed me, of course I looked very different. And so—he confessed it himself—so he always sees me, and most plainly when I am absent from his sight. But that, Hermon, will be your good fortune also. All you now know as young and beautiful will continue so to you as long as this sorrowful blindness lasts, and on that very account you must not remain alone, my boy—that is, if your heart has already decided in favour of any one—and that is the case, unless these old eyes deceive me.”
“Daphne,” he answered dejectedly, “why should I deny that she is dear to me? And yet, how dare the blind man take upon himself the sin of binding her young life—”
“Stop! stop!” Thyone interrupted with eager warmth. “She loves you, and to be everything to you is the greatest happiness she can imagine.”
“Until repentance awakes, and it is too late,” he answered gravely. “But even were her love strong enough to share her husband’s misfortune patiently—nay, perhaps with joyous courage—it would still be contemptible baseness were I to profit by that love and seek her hand.”
“Hermon!” the matron now exclaimed reproachfully; but he repeated with strong emphasis: “Yes, it would be baseness so great that even her most ardent love could not save me from the reproach of having committed it. I will not speak of her father, to whom I am so greatly indebted. It may be that it might satisfy Daphne, full of kindness as she is, to devote herself, body and soul, to the service of her helpless companion. But I? Far from thinking constantly, like her, solely of others and their welfare, I should only too often, selfish as I now am, be mindful of myself. But when I realize who I am, I see before me a blind man who is poorer than a beggar, because the scorching flames melted even the gold which was to help him pay his debts.”
“Folly!” cried the matron. “For what did Archias gather his boundless treasures? And when his daughter is once yours—”
“Then,” Hermon went on bitterly, “the blinded artist’s poverty will be over. That is your opinion, and the majority of people will share it. But I have my peculiarities, and the thought of being rescued from hunger and thirst by the woman I love, and who ought to see in me the man from whom she receives the best gifts—to be dependent on her as the recipient of her alms—seems to me worse than if I were once more to lose my sight. I could not endure it at all! Every mouthful would choke me. Just because she is so dear to me, I can not seek her hand; for, in return for her great self-sacrificing love, I could give her nothing save the keen discontent which seizes the proud soul that is forced constantly to accept benefits, as surely as the ringing sound follows the blow upon the brass. My whole future life would become a chain of humiliations, and do you know whither this unfortunate marriage would lead? My teacher Straton once said that a man learns to hate no one more easily than the person from whom he receives benefits which it is out of his power to repay. That is wise, and before I will see my great love for Daphne transformed to hate, I will again try the starving which, while I was a sculptor at Rhodes, I learned tolerably well.”
“But would not a great love,” asked Thyone, “suffice to repay tenfold the perishable gifts that can be bought with gold and silver?”
“No, and again no!” Hermon answered in an agitated tone. “Something else would blend with the love I brought to the marriage, something that must destroy all the compensation it might offer; for I see myself becoming a resentful misanthrope if I am compelled to relinquish the pleasure of creating and, condemned to dull inaction, can do nothing except allow myself to be tended, drink, eat, and sleep. The gloomy mood of her unfortunate husband would sadden Daphne’s existence even more than my own; for, Thyone, though I should strive with all my strength to bear patiently, with her dear aid, the burden imposed upon me, and move on through the darkness with joyous courage, like many another blind man, I could not succeed.”
“You are a man,” the matron exclaimed indignantly, “and what thousands have done before you—”
“There,” he loudly protested, “I should surely fail; for, you dear woman, who mean so kindly by me, my fate is worse than theirs. Do you know what just forced from my lips the exclamation of pain which alarmed you? I, the only child of the devout Erigone, for whose sake you are so well disposed toward me, am doomed to misfortune as surely as the victim dragged to the altar is certain of death. Of all the goddesses, there is only one in whose power I believe, and to whom I just raised my hands in prayer. It is the terrible one to whom I was delivered by hate and the deceived love which is now dragging me by the hair, and will rob and torture me till I despair of life. I mean the gray daughter of Night, whom no one escapes, dread Nemesis.”
Thyone sank down into the chair by the blind artist’s side, asking softly, “And what gave you into her avenging hands, hapless boy?”
“My own abominable folly,” he answered mournfully and, with the feeling that it would relieve his heart to pour out to this true friend what he would usually have confided only to his Myrtilus, he hurriedly related how he had recognised in Ledscha the best model for his Arachne, how he had sought her love, and then, detained by Althea, left her in the lurch and most deeply offended and insulted her. Lastly, he gave a brief but vivid description of his meeting with the vengeful barbarian girl in the Temple of Nemesis, how Ledscha had invoked upon him the wrath of the terrible goddess, and how the most horrible punishment had fallen upon him directly after the harsh accusation of the Biamite.
The matron had listened to this confession in breathless suspense. Now she fixed her eyes on the floor, shook her gray head gently, and said anxiously: “Is that it? It certainly puts things in a different light. As the son of your never-to-be-forgotten mother, you are indeed dear to my heart; but Daphne is not less dear to me, and though in your marriage I just saw happiness for you both, that is now past. What is poverty, what is blindness! Eros would reconcile far more difficult problems, but his arrows are shattered on the armour of Nemesis. Where there is a pair of lovers, and she raises her scourge against one of them, the other will also be struck. Until you feel that you are freed from this persecutor, it would be criminal to bind a loving woman to you and your destiny. It is not easy to find the right path for you both, for even Nemesis and her power do not make the slightest change in the fact that you need faithful care and watching in your blindness. Daylight brings wisdom, and we will talk further to-morrow.”
She rose as she spoke; but Hermon detained her, while from his lips escaped the anxious question, “So you will take Daphne away from me, and leave me alone in my blindness?”
“You in your blindness?” cried Thyone, and the mere reproachful tone of the question banished the fear. “I would as quickly deprive my own son of my support as I would you just at this time, my poor boy; but whether my conscience will permit me to let Daphne remain near you only grant me, I repeat it, until sunrise to-morrow for reflection. My old heart will then find the right way.”
“Yet whatever you may decide concerning us,” pleaded the blind man, “tell Daphne that, on the eve of losing her, I first felt in its full power how warmly I love her. Even without Nemesis, the joy of making her mine would have been denied me. Fate will never permit me to possess her; yet never again to hear her gentle voice, never more to feel her dear presence, would be blinding me a second time.”
“It need not be imposed upon you long,” said the matron soothingly.
Then she went close to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said: “The power of the goddess who punishes the misdeeds of the reckless is called irresistible and uncontrollable; but one thing softens even her, and checks her usually resistless wheel: it is a mother’s prayer. I heard this from my own mother, and experienced it myself, especially in my oldest son Eumedes, who from the wildest madcap became an ornament of his class, and to whom the King—you doubtless know it—intrusted the command of the fleet which is to open the Ethiopian land of elephants to the Egyptian power. You, Hermon, are an orphan, but for you, too, the souls of your parents live on. Only I do not know whether you still honour and pray to them.”
“I did until a few years ago,” replied Hermon.
“But later you neglected this sacred duty,” added Thyone. “Yet how was that possible? In our barren Pelusium I could not help thinking hundreds of times of the grove which Archias planted in your necropolis for the dead members of his family, and how often, while we were in Alexandria, it attracted me to think in its shade of your never-to-be-forgotten mother. There I felt her soul near me; for there was her home, and in imagination I saw her walking and resting under the trees. And you—her beloved child—you remained aloof from this hallowed spot! Even at the festival of the dead you omitted prayers and sacrifices?”
The blind artist assented to this question by a silent bend of the head; but the matron indignantly exclaimed: “And did not you know, unhappy man, that you were thus casting away the shield which protects mortals from the avenging gods? And your glorious mother, who would have given her life for you? Yet you loved her, I suppose?”
“Thyone!” Hermon cried, deeply wounded, holding out his right hand as if in defence. “Well, well!” said the matron. “I know that you revere her memory. But that alone is not sufficient. On memorial festivals, and especially on the birthdays, a mother’s soul needs a prayer and a gift from the son, a wreath, a fillet, fragrant ointment, a piece of honey, a cup of wine or milk—all these things even the poor man spares from his penury—yet a warm prayer, in pure remembrance and love, would suffice to rob the wrath of Nemesis, which the enraged barbarian girl let loose upon you, of its power. Only your mother, Hermon, the soul of the noble woman who bore you, can restore to you what you have lost. Appeal for aid to her, son of Erigone, and she will yet make everything right.”
Bending quickly over the artist as she spoke, she kissed his brow and moved steadily away, though he called her name with yearning entreaty.
A short time after, the steward Gras led Hermon to his cabin, and while undressing him reported that a messenger from Pelusium had announced that the commandant Philippus was coming to Tennis the next morning, before the market place filled, to take his wife with him to Alexandria, where he was going by the King’s command.
Hermon only half listened, and then ordered the Bithynian to leave him.
After he had reclined on the couch a short time, he softly called the names of the steward, Thyone, and Daphne. As he received no answer, and thus learned that he was alone, he rose, drew himself up to his full height, gazed heavenward with his bandaged eyes, stretched both hands toward the ceiling of the low cabin, and obeyed his friend’s bidding.
Thoroughly convinced that he was doing right, and ashamed of having so long neglected what the duty of a son commanded, he implored his mother’s soul for forgiveness.
While doing so he again found that the figure which he recalled to his memory appeared before him with marvellous distinctness. Never had she been so near him since, when a boy of seven, she clasped him for the last time to her heart. She tenderly held out her arms to him, and he rushed into her embrace, shouting exultantly while she hugged and kissed him. Every pet name which he had once been so glad to hear, and during recent years had forgotten, again fell from her lips. As had often happened in days long past, he again saw his mother crown him for a festival. Pleased with the little new garment which she herself had woven for him and embroidered with a tiny tree with red apples, beneath which stood a bright-plumaged duckling, she led him by the hand in the necropolis to the empty tomb dedicated to his father.
It was a building the height of a man, constructed of red Cyprian marble, on which, cast in bronze, shield, sword, and lance, as well as a beautiful helmet, lay beside a sleeping lion. It was dedicated to the memory of the brave hipparch whom he had been permitted to call his father, and who had been burned beside the battlefield on which he had found a hero’s death.
Hermon now again beheld himself, with his mother, garlanding, anointing, and twining with fresh fillets the mausoleum erected by his uncle Archias to his brave brother. The species of every flower, the colour of the fillets-nay, even the designs embroidered on his little holiday robe—again returned to his mind, and, while these pleasant memories hovered around him, he appealed to his mother in prayer.
She stood before him, young and beautiful, listening without reproach or censure as he besought her forgiveness and confided to her his sins, and how severely he was punished by Nemesis.
During this confession he felt as though he was kneeling before the beloved dead, hiding his face in her lap, while she bent over him and stroked his thick, black hair. True, he did not hear her speak; but when he looked up again he could see, by the expression of her faithful blue eyes, that his manly appearance surprised her, and that she rejoiced in his return to her arms.
She listened compassionately to his laments, and when he paused pressed his head to her bosom and gazed into his face with such joyous confidence that his heart swelled, and he told himself that she could not look at him thus unless she saw happiness in store for him.
Lastly, he began also to confide that he loved no woman on earth more ardently than the very Daphne whom, when only a pretty little child, she had carried in her arms, yet that he could not seek the wealthy heiress because manly pride forbade this to the blind beggar.
Here the anguish of renunciation seized him with great violence, and when he wished to appeal again to his mother his exhausted imagination refused its service, and the vision would not appear.
Then he groped his way back to the bed, and, as he let his head sink upon the pillows, he fancied that he would soon be again enwrapped in the sweet slumber of childhood, which had long shunned his couch.
It was years since he had felt so full of peace and hope, and he told himself, with grateful joy, that every childlike emotion had not yet died within him, that the stern conflicts and struggles of the last years had not yet steeled every gentle emotion.
CHAPTER IV.
The sun of the following day had long passed its meridian when Hermon at last woke. The steward Gras, who had grown gray in the service of Archias, was standing beside the couch.
There was nothing in the round, beardless face of this well-fed yet active man that could have attracted the artist, yet the quiet tones of his deep voice recalled to memory the clear, steadfast gaze of his gray eyes, from which so often, in former days, inviolable fidelity, sound sense, caution, and prudence had looked forth at him.
What the blind man heard from Gras surprised him—nay, at first seemed impossible. To sleep until the afternoon was something unprecedented for his wakeful temperament; but what was he to say to the tidings that the commandant of Pelusium had arrived in his state galley early in the morning and taken his wife, Daphne, and Chrysilla away with him to Alexandria?
Yet it sounded credible enough when the Bithynian further informed him that the ladies had left messages of remembrance for him, and said that Archias’s ship, upon which he was, would be at his disposal for any length of time he might desire. Gras was commissioned to attend him. The Lady Thyone especially desired him to heed her counsel.
While the steward was communicating this startling news as calmly as if everything was a matter of course, the events of the preceding night came back to Hermon’s memory with perfect distinctness, and again the fear assailed him that the rescued Demeter was the work of Myrtilus, and not his own.
So the first question he addressed to Gras concerned the Tennis goldsmith, and it was a keen disappointment to Hermon when he learned that the earliest time he could expect to see him would be the following day. The skilful artisan had been engaged for weeks upon the gold ornaments on the new doors of the holy of holies in the Temple of Amon at Tanis. Urgent business had called him home from the neighbouring city just before the night of the attack; but yesterday evening he had returned to Tanis, where his wife said he would have only two days’ work to do.
This answer, however, by no means appeased Hermon’s impatience. He commanded that a special messenger should be sent to summon the goldsmith, and the Bithynian received the order with a slight shake of his round head.
What new trouble had befallen the usually alert young artist that he received this unexpected change in his situation as apathetically as a horse which is led from one stall to another, and, instead of questioning him, thought only of hastening his interview with the goldsmith? If his mistress, who had left him full of anxiety from the fear that her departure would deeply agitate the blind man, should learn how indifferently he had received it! He, Gras, certainly would not betray it. Eternal gods—these artists! He knew them. Their work was dearer to their hearts than their own lives, love, or friendship.
During breakfast, of which the steward was obliged to remind him, Hermon pondered over his fate; but how could he attain any degree of clearness of vision until he secured accurate information concerning the statue of Demeter? Like a dark cloud, which sweeps over the starry sky and prevents the astronomer from seeing the planets which he desires to observe, the fear that Proclus’s praise had been bestowed upon the work of Myrtilus stood between him and every goal of his thought.
Only the fact that he still remained blind, and not even the faintest glimmer of light pierced the surrounding darkness, while the sun continued its course with glowing radiance, and that, blinded and beggared, he must despise himself if he sought to win Daphne, was certain. No reflection could alter it.
Again the peace of mind which he thought he had regained during slumber was destroyed. Fear of the artisan’s statement even rendered it impossible to pray to his mother with the affectionate devotion he had felt the day before.
The goldsmith had directed the rescue of the Demeter, yet he would scarcely have been able to distinguish it from the statue by Myrtilus; for though, like his friend, he had often employed his skilful hands in the arrangement of the gold plates at the commencement of the work, the Egyptian had been summoned to Tennis before the statues had attained recognisable form. He had not entered the studios for several months, unless Bias had granted him admittance without informing his master. This was quite possible, for the slave’s keen eyes certainly had not failed to notice how little he and Myrtilus valued the opinion of the honest, skilful, but extremely practical and unimaginative man, who could not create independently even the smallest detail.
So it was impossible to determine at present whether Chello had seen the finished statues or not, yet Hermon desired the former with actual fervour, that he might have positive certainty.
While reflecting over these matters, the image of the lean Egyptian goldsmith, with his narrow, brown, smooth-shaven face and skull, prominent cheek bones, receding brow, projecting ears and, with all its keenness, lustreless glance, rose before him as if he could see his bodily presence. Not a single word unconnected with his trade, the weather, or an accident, had ever reached the friends’ ears from Chello’s thick lips, and this circumstance seemed to warrant Hermon in the expectation of learning from him the pure, unadulterated truth.
Rarely had a messenger of love been awaited with such feverish suspense as the slave whom Gras had despatched to Tanis to induce the goldsmith to return home. He might come soon after nightfall, and Hermon used the interval to ask the Bithynian the questions which he had long expected.
The replies afforded little additional information. He learned only that Philippus had been summoned to Alexandria by the King, and that the Lady Thyone and her husband had talked with the leech and assented to his opinion that it would be better for Hermon to wait here until the burns on his face were healed before returning to Alexandria.
For Daphne’s sake this decision had undoubtedly been welcome to the matron, and it pleased him also; for he still felt so ill physically, and so agitated mentally, that he shrank from meeting his numerous acquaintances in the capital.
The goldsmith! the goldsmith! It depended upon his decision whether he would return to Alexandria at all.
Soon after Hermon had learned from Gras that the stars had risen, he was informed that he must wait patiently for his interview with the Egyptian, as he had been summoned to the capital that very day by a messenger from Proclus.
Then the steward had fresh cause to marvel at his charge, for this news aroused the most vehement excitement.
In fact, it afforded the prospect of a series—perhaps a long one—of the most torturing days and nights. And the dreaded hours actually came—nay, the anguish of uncertainty had become almost unendurable, when, on the seventh day, the Egyptian at last returned from Alexandria. They had seemed like weeks to Hermon, had made his face thinner, and mingled the first silver hairs in his black beard.
The calls of the cheerful notary and the daily visits of the leech, an elderly man, who had depressed rather than cheered him by informing him of many cases like his own which all proved incurable, had been his sole diversion. True, the heads of the Greek residents of Tennis had also sometimes sought him: the higher government officials, the lessees of the oil monopoly and the royal bank, as well as Gorgias, who, next to Archias the Alexandrian, owned the largest weaving establishments, but the tales of daily incidents with which they entertained Hermon wearied him. He listened with interest only to the story of Ledscha’s disappearance, yet he perceived, from the very slight impression it made upon him, how little he had really cared for the Biamite girl.
His inquiries about Gula called down upon him many well-meant jests. She was with her parents; while Taus, Ledscha’s young sister, was staying at the brick-kiln, where the former had reduced the unruly slaves to submission.
Care had been taken to provide for his personal safety, for the attack might perhaps yet prove to have been connected with the jealousy of the Biamite husbands.
The commandant of Pelusium had therefore placed a small garrison of heavily armed soldiers and archers in Tennis, for whom tents had been pitched on the site of the burned white house.
Words of command and signals for changing the guards often reached Hermon when he was on the deck of his ship, and visitors praised the wise caution and prompt action of Alexander the Great’s old comrade.
The notary, a vivacious man of fifty, who had lived a long time in Alexandria and, asserting that he grew dull and withered in little Tennis, went to the capital as frequently as possible, had often called upon the sculptor at first, and been disposed to discuss art and the other subjects dear to Hermon’s heart, but on the third day he again set off for his beloved Alexandria. When saying farewell, he had been unusually merry, and asked Hermon to send him away with good wishes and offer sacrifices for the success of his business, since he hoped to bring a valuable gift on his return from the journey.
The blind artist was glad to have other visits for a short time, but he preferred to be alone and devote his thoughts to his own affairs.
He now knew that his love was genuine. Daphne seemed the very incarnation of desirable, artless, heart-refreshing womanliness, but his memory could not dwell with her long; anxiety concerning Chello’s report only too quickly interrupted it, as soon as he yielded to its charm.
He did not think at all of the future. What was he to appoint for a time which the words of a third person might render unendurable?
When Gras at last ushered in the goldsmith, his heart throbbed so violently that it was difficult for him to find the words needed for the questions he desired to ask.
The Egyptian had really been summoned to Alexandria by Proclus, not on account of the Demeter, but the clasp said to belong to Myrtilus, found amid the ruins of the fallen house, and he had been able to identify it with absolute positiveness as the sculptor’s property.
He had been referred from one office to another, until finally the Tennis notary and Proclus opened the right doors to him.
Now the importance of his testimony appeared, since the will of the wealthy young sculptor could not be opened until his death was proved, and the clasp which had been found aided in doing so.
Hermon’s question whether he had heard any particulars about this will was answered by the cold-hearted, dull-brained man in the negative.
He had done enough, he said, by expressing his opinion. He had gone to Alexandria unwillingly, and would certainly have stayed in Tennis if he could have foreseen what a number of tiresome examinations he would be obliged to undergo. He had been burning with impatience to quit the place, on account of the important work left behind in Tanis, and he did not even know whether he would be reimbursed for his travelling expenses.
During this preliminary conversation Hermon gained the composure he needed.
He began by ascertaining whether Chello remembered the interior arrangement of the burned white house, and it soon appeared that he recollected it accurately.
Then the blind man requested him to tell how the rescue of the statue had been managed, and the account of the extremely prosaic artisan described so clearly and practically how, on entering the burning building, he found Myrtilus’s studio already inaccessible, but the statue of Demeter in Hermon’s still uninjured, that the trustworthiness of his story could not be doubted.
One circumstance only appeared strange, yet it was easily explained. Instead of standing on the pedestal, the Demeter was beside it, and even the slow-witted goldsmith inferred from this fact that the robbers had intended to steal it and placed it on the floor for that purpose, but were prevented from accomplishing their design by the interference of Hermon and the people from Tennis.
After the Egyptian, in reply to the artist’s inquiry concerning what other works of art and implements he had seen in the studio, had answered that nothing else could be distinguished on account of the smoke, he congratulated the sculptor on his last work. People were already making a great stir about the new Demeter. It had been discussed not only in the workshop of his brother, who, like himself, followed their father’s calling, but also in the offices, at the harbour, in the barbers’ rooms and the cookshops, and he, too, must admit that, for a Greek goddess, that always lacked genuine, earnest dignity, it really was a pretty bit of work.
Lastly, the Egyptian asked to whom he should apply for payment for the remainder of his labour.
The strip of gold, from which Hermon had ordered the diadem to be made, had attracted his attention on the head of his Demeter, and compensation for the work upon this ornament was still due.
Hermon, deeply agitated, asked, with glowing cheeks, whether Chello really positively remembered having prepared for him the gold diadem which he had seen in Alexandria, and the Egyptian eagerly assured him that he had done so. Hitherto he had found the sculptors honest men, and Hermon would not withhold the payment for his well-earned toil.
The artist strenuously denied such an intention; but when, in his desire to have the most absolute assurance, he again asked questions about the diadem, the Egyptian thought that the blind sculptor doubted the justice of his demand, and wrathfully insisted upon his claim, until Gras managed to whisper, undetected by Hermon, that he would have the money ready for him.
This satisfied the angry man. He honestly believed that he had prepared the gold for the ornament on the head of the Demeter in Alexandria; yet the statue chiselled by Myrtilus had also been adorned with a diadem, and Chello had wrought the strip of gold it required. Only it had escaped his memory, because he had been paid for the work immediately after its delivery.
Glad to obey his mistress’s orders to settle at once any debts which the artist might have in Tennis, the steward followed the goldsmith while Hermon, seizing the huge goblet which had just been filled with wine and water for him drained it at one long draught. Then, with sigh of relief, he restored it to its place, raised his hand and his blinded eyes heavenward, and offered a brief, fervent thanksgiving to his mother’s soul and the great Demeter, whom, he might now believe it himself, he had honoured with a masterpiece which had extorted warm admiration even from a connoisseur unfriendly his art.
When Gras returned, he said, with a grin of satisfaction, that the goldsmith was like all the rest of his countrymen. The artists did not owe him another drachm; the never-to-be-forgotten Myrtilus had paid for the work ordered by Hermon also.
Then, for the first time since he had been led on board the ship, a gay laugh rang fro the blind man’s lips, rising in deep, pure, joyous tones from his relieved breast.
The faithful gray eyes of honest Gras glittered with tears at the musical tones, and how ardently he wished for his beloved mistress when the sculptor, not content with this, exclaimed as gleefully as in happier days: “Hitherto I have had no real pleasure from my successful work, old Gras, but it is awaking now! If my Myrtilus were still alive, and these miserable eyes yet possessed the power of rejoicing in the light and in beautiful human forms, by the dog! I would have the mixing vessels filled, wreath after wreath brought, boon companions summoned, and with flute-playing, songs, and fiery words, offer the Muses, Demeter, and Dionysus their due meed of homage!”
Gras declared that this wish might easily be fulfilled. There was no lack of wine or drinking cups on the vessel, the flute-players whom he had heard in the Odeum at Tanis did not understand their business amiss, flowers and wreaths could be obtained, and all who spoke Greek in Tennis would accept his invitation.
But the Bithynian soon regretted this proposal, for it fell like a hoar-frost upon the blind man’s happy mood. He curtly declined. He would not play host where he was himself a guest, and pride forbade him to use the property of others as though it were his own.
He could not regain his suddenly awakened pleasure in existence before Gras warned him it was time to go to rest. Not until he was alone in the quiet cabin did the sense of joy in his first great success overpower him afresh.
He might well feel proud delight in the work which he had created, for he had accomplished it without being unfaithful to the aims he had set before him.
It had been taken from his own studio, and the skilful old artisan had recognised his preliminary work upon the diadem which he, Hermon, had afterward adorned with ornaments himself. But, alas! this first must at the same time be his last great success, and he was condemned to live on in darkness.
Although abundant recognition awaited him in Alexandria, his quickly gained renown would soon be forgotten, and he would remain a beggared blind man. But it was now allowable for him to think secretly of possessing Daphne; perhaps she would wait for him and reject other suitors until he learned in the capital whether he might not hope to recover his lost sight. He was at least secure against external want; the generous Archias would hardly withhold from him the prize he had intended for the successful statue, although the second had been destroyed. The great merchant would do everything for his fame-crowned nephew, and he, Hermon, was conscious that had his uncle been in his situation he would have divided his last obol with him. Refusal of his assistance would have been an insult to his paternal friend and guardian.
Lastly, he might hope that Archias would take him to the most skilful leeches in Alexandria and, if they succeeded in restoring his lost power of vision, then—then Yet it seemed so presumptuous to lull himself in this hope that he forbade himself the pleasure of indulging it.
Amid these consoling reflections, Hermon fell asleep, and awoke fresher and more cheerful than he had been for some time.
He had to spend two whole weeks more in Tennis, for the burns healed slowly, and an anxious fear kept him away from Alexandria.
There the woman he loved would again meet him and, though he could assure Thyone that Nemesis had turned her wheel away from him, he would have been permitted to treat Daphne only with cool reserve, while every fibre of his being urged him to confess his love and clasp her in his arms.
Gras had already written twice to his master, telling him with what gratifying patience Hermon was beginning to submit to his great misfortune, when the notary Melampus returned from Alexandria with news which produced the most delightful transformation in the blind artist’s outer life.
More swiftly than his great corpulence usually permitted the jovial man to move, he ascended to the deck, calling: “Great, greater, the greatest of news I bring, as the heaviest but by no means the most dilatory of messengers of good fortune from the city of cities. Prick up your ears, my friend, and summon all your strength, for there are instances of the fatal effect of especially lavish gifts from the blind and yet often sure aim of the goddess of Fortune. The Demeter, in whom you proved so marvellously that the art of a mortal is sufficient to create immortals, is beginning to show her gratitude. She is helping to twine wreaths for you in Alexandria.”
Here the vivacious man suddenly hesitated and, while wiping his plump cheeks, perspiring brow, and smooth, fat double chin with his kerchief, added in a tone of sincere regret: “That’s the way with me! In one thing which really moves me, I always forget the other. The fault sticks to me like my ears and nose. When my mother gave me two errands, I attended to the first in the best possible way, but overlooked the second entirely, and was paid for it with my father’s staff, yet even the blue wales made no change in the fault. But for that I should still be in the city of cities; but it robbed me of my best clients, and so I was transferred to this dullest of holes. Even here it clings to me. My detestable exultation just now proves it. Yet I know how dear to you was the dead man who manifests his love even from the grave. But you will forgive me the false note into which my weakness led me; it sprang from regard for you, my young friend. To serve your cause, I forgot everything else. Like my mother’s first errand, it was performed in the best possible way. You will learn directly. By the lightnings of Father Zeus and the owl of Athene, the news I bring is certainly great and beautiful; but he who yearned to make you happy was snatched from you and, though his noble legacy must inspire pleasure and gratitude, it will nevertheless fill your poor eyes with sorrowful tears.”
Melampus turned, as he spoke, to the misshapen Egyptian slave who performed the duties of a clerk, and took several rolls from the drumshaped case that hung around his neck; but his prediction concerning Hermon was speedily fulfilled, for the notary handed him the will of his friend Myrtilus.
It made him the heir of his entire fortune and, however happy the unexpected royal gift rendered the blind man, however cheering might be the prospects it opened to him for the future and the desire of his heart, sobs nevertheless interrupted the affectionate words which commenced the document Melampus read aloud to him.
Doubtless the tears which Hermon dedicated to the most beloved of human beings made his blinded eyes smart, but he could not restrain them, and even long after the notary had left him, and the steward had congratulated him on his good fortune, the deep emotion of his tender heart again and again called forth a fresh flood of tears consecrated to the memory of his friend.
The notary had already informed the grammateus of the disposition which Myrtilus had made of his property in Hermon’s favour a few days before, but, by the advice of the experienced Proclus, the contents of the will had been withheld from the sculptor; the unfortunate man ought to be spared any disappointment, and proof that Myrtilus was really among the victims of the accident must first be obtained.
The clasp found in the ruins of the white house appeared to furnish this, and the notary had put all other business aside and gone to Alexandria to settle the matter.
The goldsmith Chello, who had fastened a new pin to the clasp, and could swear that it had belonged to Myrtilus, had been summoned to the capital as a witness, and, with the aid of the influential grammateus of the Dionysian games and priest of Apollo, the zeal of Melampus had accomplished in a short time the settlement of this difficult affair, which otherwise might perhaps have consumed several months.
The violent death of Myrtilus had been admitted as proved by the magistrate, who had been prepossessed in Hermon’s favour by his masterpiece. Besides, no doubts could be raised concerning the validity of a will attested by sixteen witnesses. The execution of this last testament had been intrusted to Archias, as Myrtilus’s nearest relative, and several other distinguished Alexandrians.
The amount of the fortune bequeathed had surprised even these wealthy men, for under the prudent management of Archias the property inherited by the modest young sculptor had trebled in value.
The poor blind artist had suddenly become a man who might be termed “rich,” even in the great capital.
Again the steward shook his head; this vast, unexpected inheritance did not seem to make half so deep an impression upon the eccentric blind man as the news received a short time ago that his trivial debt to the goldsmith Chello was already settled. But Hermon must have dearly loved the friend to whom he owed this great change of fortune, and grief for him had cast joy in his immense new wealth completely into the shade.
This conjecture was confirmed on the following morning, for the blind man had himself led to the Greek necropolis to offer sacrifices to the gods of the nether world and to think of his friend.
When, soon after noon, the lessee of the royal bank appeared on the ship to offer him as many drachmae or talents as he might need for present use, he asked for a considerable sum to purchase a larger death-offering for his murdered friend. The next morning he went with the architect of the province to the scene of the conflagration, and had him mark the spot of ground on which he desired to erect to his Myrtilus a monument to be made in Alexandria.
At sunset, leaning on the steward’s arm, he went to the Temple of Nemesis, where he prayed and commissioned the priest to offer a costly sacrifice to the goddess in his name.
On the return home, Hermon suddenly stood still and mentioned to Gras the sum which he intended to bestow upon the blind in Tennis. He knew now what it means to live bereft of light, and, he added in a low tone, to be also poor and unable to earn his daily bread.
On the ship he asked the Bithynian whether his burned face had become presentable again, and no longer made a repulsive impression.
This Gras could truthfully assure him. Then the artist’s features brightened, and the Bithynian heard genuine cheerfulness ring in the tones of his voice as he exclaimed: “Then, old Gras, we will set out for Alexandria as soon as the ship is ready to sail. Back to life, to the society of men of my own stamp, to reap the praise earned by my own creations, and to the only divine maiden among mortals—to Daphne!”
“The day after to-morrow!” exclaimed the steward in joyous excitement; and soon after the carrier dove was flying toward the house of Archias, bearing the letter which stated the hour when his fame-crowned blind nephew would enter the great harbour of Alexandria.
The evening of the next day but one the Proserpina was bearing Hermon away from the city of weavers toward home.
As the evening breeze fanned his brow, his thoughts dwelt sadly on his Myrtilus. Hitherto it had always seemed as if he was bound, and must commit some atrocious deed to use the seething power condemned to inaction. But as the galley left the Tanitic branch of the Nile behind, and the blind man inhaled the cool air upon the calm sea, his heart swelled, and for the first time he became fully aware that, though the light of the sun would probably never shine for him again, and therefore the joy of creating, the rapture of once more testing his fettered strength, would probably be forever denied him, other stars might perhaps illumine his path, and he was going, in a position of brilliant independence, toward his native city, fame, and—eternal gods!—love.
Daphne had conquered, and he gave only a passing thought to Ledscha and the hapless weaver Arachne.