The Sisters — Complete by Georg Ebers (feel good books to read txt) 📖

the glory of Rome and to your health, Publius Cornelius Scipio, and to our last critical conjecture, my Aristarchus—to subtle thinking and deep drinking!”

“To deep thinking and subtle drinking!” retorted the person thus addressed, while he raised the cup, looked into the wine with his twinkling eyes and lifted it slowly to his nose—a long, well-formed and slightly aquiline nose—and to his thin lips.

“Oh! Aristarchus,” exclaimed Euergetes, and he frowned. “You please me better when you clear up the meaning of your poets and historians than when you criticise the drinking-maxims of a king. Subtle drinking is mere sipping, and sipping I leave to the bitterns and other birds that live content among the reeds. Do you understand me? Among reeds, I say—whether cut for writing, or no.”

“By subtle drinking,” replied the great critic with perfect indifference, as he pushed the thin, gray hair from his high brow with his slender hand. “By subtle drinking I mean the drinking of choice wine, and did you ever taste anything more delicate than this juice of the vines of Anthylla that your illustrious brother has set before us? Your paradoxical axiom commends you at once as a powerful thinker and as the benevolent giver of the best of drinks.”

“Happily turned,” exclaimed Cleopatra, clapping her hands, “you here see, Publius, a proof of the promptness of an Alexandrian tongue.”

“Yes!” said Euergetes, “if men could go forth to battle with words instead of spears the masters of the Museum in Alexander’s city, with Aristarchus at their head, they might rout the united armies of Rome and Carthage in a couple of hours.”

“But we are not now in the battle-field but at a peaceful meal,” said the king, with suave amiability. “You did in fact overhear our secret Euergetes, and mocked at my faithful Egyptians, in whose place I would gladly set fair Greeks if only Alexandria still belonged to me instead of to you.—However, a splendid procession shall not be wanting at your birthday festival.”

“And do you really still take pleasure in these eternal goose-step performances?” asked Euergetes, stretching himself out on his couch, and folding his hands to support the back of his head. “Sooner could I accustom myself to the delicate drinking of Aristarchus than sit for hours watching these empty pageants. On two conditions only can I declare myself ready and willing to remain quiet, and patiently to dawdle through almost half a day, like an ape in a cage: First, if it will give our Roman friend Publius Cornelius Scipio any pleasure to witness such a performance—though, since our uncle Antiochus pillaged our wealth, and since we brothers shared Egypt between us, our processions are not to be even remotely compared to the triumphs of Roman victors—or, secondly, if I am allowed to take an active part in the affair.”

“On my account, Sire,” replied Publius, “no procession need be arranged, particularly not such a one as I should here be obliged to look on at.”

“Well! I still enjoy such things,” said Cleopatra’s husband. “Well-arranged groups, and the populace pleased and excited are a sight I am never tired of.”

“As for me,” cried Cleopatra, “I often turn hot and cold, and the tears even spring to my eyes, when the shouting is loudest. A great mass of men all uniting in a common emotion always has a great effect. A drop, a grain of sand, a block of stone are insignificant objects, but millions of them together, forming the sea, the desert or the pyramids, constitute a sublime whole. One man alone, shouting for joy, is like a madman escaped from an asylum, but when thousands of men rejoice together it must have a powerful effect on the coldest heart. How is it that you, Publius Scipio, in whom a strong will seems to me to have found a peculiarly happy development, can remain unmoved by a scene in which the great collective will of a people finds its utterance?”

“Is there then any expression of will, think you,” said the Roman, “in this popular rejoicing? It is just in such circumstances that each man becomes the involuntary mimic and duplicate of his neighbor; while I love to make my own way, and to be independent of everything but the laws and duties laid upon me by the state to which I belong.”

“And I,” said Euergetes, “from my childhood have always looked on at processions from the very best places, and so it is that fortune punishes me now with indifference to them and to everything of the kind; while the poor miserable devil who can never catch sight of anything more than the nose or the tip of a hair or the broad back of those who take part in them, always longs for fresh pageants. As you hear, I need have no consideration for Publius Scipio in this, willing as I should be to do so. Now what would you say, Cleopatra, if I myself took a part in my procession—I say mine, since it is to be in my honor; that really would be for once something new and amusing.”

“More new and amusing than creditable, I think,” replied Cleopatra dryly.

“And yet even that ought to please you,” laughed Euergetes. “Since, besides being your brother, I am your rival, and we would sooner see our rivals lower themselves than rise.”

“Do not try to justify yourself by such words,” interrupted the king evasively, and with a tone of regret in his soft voice. “We love you truly; we are ready to yield you your dominion side by side with ours, and I beg you to avoid such speeches even in jest, so that bygones may be bygones.”

“And,” added Cleopatra, “not to detract from your dignity as a king and your fame as a sage by any such fool’s pranks.”

“Madam teacher, do you know then what I had in my mind? I would appear as Alcibiades, followed by a train of flute-playing women, with Aristarchus to play the part of Socrates. I have often been told that he and I resemble each other—in many points, say the more sincere; in every point, say the more polite of my friends.”

At these words Publius measured with his eye the frame of the royal young libertine, enveloped in transparent robes; and recalling to himself, as he gazed, a glorious statue of that favorite of the Athenians, which he had seen in the Ilissus, an ironical smile passed over his lips. It was not unobserved by Euergetes and it offended him, for there was nothing he liked better than to be compared to the nephew of Pericles; but he suppressed his annoyance, for Publius Cornelius Scipio was the nearest relative of the most influential men of Rome, and, though he himself wielded royal power, Rome exercised over him the sovereign will of a divinity.

Cleopatra noticed what was passing in her brother’s mind, and in order to interrupt his further speech and to divert his mind to fresh thoughts, she said cheerfully:

“Let us then give up the procession, and think of some other mode of celebrating your birthday. You, Lysias, must be experienced in such matters, for Publius tells me that you were the leader in all the games of Corinth. What can we devise to entertain Euergetes and ourselves?”

The Corinthian looked for a moment into his cup, moving it slowly about on the marble slab of the little table at his side, between an oyster pasty and a dish of