Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Homo Sum — Complete by Georg Ebers (great novels .TXT) 📖
- Author: Georg Ebers
Book online «Homo Sum — Complete by Georg Ebers (great novels .TXT) 📖». Author Georg Ebers
Meanwhile Marthana had prepared the brown mixture. Petrus had his staff and felt-hat brought to him, gave Hermas the medicine and desired him to follow him.
Sirona looked after the couple as they went. “What a pity for such a fine lad!” she exclaimed. “A purple coat would suit him better than that wretched sheepskin.”
The mistress shrugged her shoulders, and signing to her daughter said: “Come to work, Marthana, the sun is already high. How the days fly! the older one grows the quicker the hours hurry away.”
“I must be very young then,” said the centurion’s wife, “for in this wilderness time seems to me to creep along frightfully slow. One day is the same as another, and I often feel as if life were standing perfectly still, and my heart pulses with it. What should I be without your house and the children?—always the same mountain, the same palm-trees, the same faces!—”
“But the mountain is glorious, the trees are beautiful!” answered Dorothea. “And if we love the people with whom we are in daily intercourse, even here we may be contented and happy. At least we ourselves are, so far as the difficulties of life allow. I have often told you, what you want is work.”
“Work! but for whom?” asked Sirona. “If indeed I had children like you! Even in Rome I was not happy, far from it; and yet there was plenty to do and to think about. Here a procession, there a theatre; but here! And for whom should I dress even? My jewels grow dull in my chest, and the moths eat my best clothes. I am making doll’s clothes now of my colored cloak for your little ones. If some demon were to transform me into a hedge-hog or a grey owl, it would be all the same to me.”
“Do not be so sinful,” said Dorothea gravely, but looking with kindly admiration at the golden hair and lovely sweet face of the young woman. “It ought to be a pleasure to you to dress yourself for your husband.”
“For him?” said Sirona. “He never looks at me, or if he does it is only to abuse me. The only wonder to me is that I can still be merry at all; nor am I, except in your house, and not there even but when I forget him altogether.”
“I will not hear such things said—not another word,” interrupted Dorothea severely. “Take the linen and cooling lotion, Marthana, we will go and bind up Anubis’ wound.”
CHAPTER IV.
Petrus went up the mountain side with Hermas. The old man followed the youth, who showed him the way, and as he raised his eyes from time to time, he glanced with admiration at his guide’s broad shoulders and elastic limbs. The road grew broader when it reached a little mountain plateau, and from thence the two men walked on side by side, but for some time without speaking till the senator asked: “How long now has your father lived up on the mountain?”
“Many years,” answered Hermas. “But I do not know how many—and it is all one. No one enquires about time up here among us.”
The senator stood still a moment and measured his companion with a glance.
“You have been with your father ever since he came?” he asked.
“He never lets me out of his sight;” replied Hermas. “I have been only twice into the oasis, even to go to the church.”
“Then you have been to no school?”
“To what school should I go! My father has taught me to read the Gospels and I could write, but I have nearly forgotten how. Of what use would it be to me? We live like praying beasts.”
Deep bitterness sounded in the last words, and Petrus could see into the troubled spirit of his companion, overflowing as it was with weary disgust, and he perceived how the active powers of youth revolted in aversion against the slothful waste of life, to which he was condemned. He was grieved for the boy, and he was not one of those who pass by those in peril without helping them. Then he thought of his own sons, who had grown up in the exercise and fulfilment of serious duties, and he owned to himself that the fine young fellow by his side was in no way their inferior, and needed nothing but to be guided aright. He thoughtfully looked first at the youth and then on the ground, and muttered unintelligible words into his grey beard as they walked on. Suddenly he drew himself up and nodded decisively; he would make an attempt to save Hermas, and faithful to his own nature, action trod on the heels of resolve. Where the little level ended the road divided, one path continued to lead upwards, the other deviated to the valley and ended at the quarries. Petrus was for taking the latter, but Hermas cried out, “That is not the way to our cave; you must follow me.”
“Follow thou me!” replied the senator, and the words were spoken with a tone and expression, that left no doubt in the youth’s mind as to their double meaning. “The day is yet before us, and we will see what my laborers are doing. Do you know the spot where they quarry the stone?”
“How should I not know it?” said Hermas, passing the senator to lead the way. “I know every path from our mountain to the oasis, and to the sea. A panther had its lair in the ravine behind your quarries.”
“So we have learnt,” said Petrus. “The thievish beasts have slaughtered two young camels, and the people can neither catch them in their toils nor run them down with dogs.”
“They will leave you in peace now,” said the boy laughing. “I brought down the male from the rock up there with an arrow, and I found the mother in a hollow with her young ones. I had a harder job with her; my knife is so bad, and the copper blade bent with the blow; I had to strangle the gaudy devil with my hands, and she tore my shoulder and bit my arm. Look! there are the scars. But thank God, my wounds heal quicker than my father’s. Paulus says, I am like an earth-worm; when it is cut in two the two halves say good-bye to each other, and crawl off sound and gay, one way, and the other another way. The young panthers were so funny and helpless, I would not kill them, but I did them up in my sheepskin, and brought them to my father. He laughed at the little beggars, and then a Nabataean took them to be sold at Clysma to a merchant from Rome. There and at Byzantium, there is a demand for all kinds of living beasts of prey. I got some money for them, and for the skins of the old ones, and kept it to pay for my journey, when I went with the others to Alexandria to ask the blessing of the new Patriarch.”
“You went to the metropolis?” asked Petrus. “You saw the great structures, that secure the coast from the inroads of the sea, the tall Pharos with the far-shining fire, the strong bridges, the churches, the palaces and
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