Serapis — Complete by Georg Ebers (books to read in your 20s .txt) 📖

“It is like a story,” Herse put in. “Before we left, the old lady—she must be eighty or more—took me aside and asked me where we were lodging. I told her at the Widow Mary’s and when she heard it she struck her crutch on the floor. ‘Do you like the place?’ she asked. I told her not at all, and said we could not possibly stop here.”

“Quite right!” cried Karnis. “The monks in the court-yard will kill us as dead as rats if they hear us learning heathen hymns.”

“That is what I told her; but the old lady did not allow me to finish; she drew me close to her and whispered, ‘only do as my granddaughter wishes and you shall be safely housed and take this for the present’—and she put her hand into the purse at her girdle, gave the gold into my hand, and added loud enough for the others to hear: ‘Fifty gold pieces out of my own pocket if Gorgo tells me that she is satisfied with your performance.’”

“Fifty gold pieces!” cried Karnis clasping his hands. “That brightens up the dull grey of existence. Fifty, then, are certain. If we sing six times that makes a talent—[estimated in 1880 at $1100]—and that will buy back our old vineyard at Leontium. I will repair the old Odeum—they have made a cowhouse of it—and when we sing there the monks may come and listen! You laugh? But you are simpletons—I should like to see who will forbid my singing on my own land and in my own country. A talent of gold!

“It is quite enough to pay on account, and I will not agree to any bargain that will not give me the field-slaves and cattle. Castles in the air, do you say? But just listen to me: We are sure you see of a hundred gold pieces at least...” He had raised his voice in his eagerness and while he spoke the curtains had been softly opened, and the dull glimmer of the lamp which stood in front of Orpheus fell on a head which was charming in spite of its disorder. A quantity of loose fair hair curled in papers stuck up all over the round head and fell over the forehead, the eyes were tired and still half shut, but the little mouth was wide awake and laughing with the frank amusement of light-hearted youth.

Karnis, without noticing the listener, had gone on with his visionary hopes of regaining his estates by his next earnings, but at this point the young girl, holding the curtain in her right hand, stretched out her plump left arm and begged in a humble whine:

“Good father Karnis, give me a little of your wealth; five poor little drachmae!”

The old man started; but he instantly recovered himself and answered good-naturedly enough:

“Go back to bed, you little hussy. You ought to be asleep instead of listening there!”

“Asleep?” said the girl. “While you are shouting like an orator against the wind! Five drachmae, father. I stick to that. A new ribband for me will cost one, and the same for Agne, two. Two I will spend on wine for us all, and that makes the five.”

“That makes four—you are a great arithmetician to be sure!”

“Four?” said Dada, as much amazed as though the moon had fallen. “If only I had a counting-frame. No, father, five I tell you—it is five.”

“No, child, four; and you shall have four,” replied her father. “Plutus is at the door and to-morrow morning you shall both have garlands.”

“Yes, of violets, ivy and roses,” added Dame Herse. “Is Agne asleep?”

“As sound as the dead. She always sleeps soundly unless she lies wide awake all the night through. But we were both so tired—and I am still. It is a comfort to yawn. Do you see how I am sitting?”

“On the clothes-chest?” said Herse.

“Yes, and the curtain is not a strong back to the seat. Fortunately if I fall asleep I shall drop forwards, not backwards.”

“But there is a bed for each of you,” said the mother, and giving the girl a gentle push she followed her into the sleeping-alcove. In a few minutes she came out again.

“That is just like Dada!” she exclaimed. “Little Papias had rolled off the chest on which he was sleeping, so the good girl had put him into her bed and was sitting on the chest herself, tired as she was.”

“She would do anything for that boy,” said Karnis. “But it is past midnight. Come, Orpheus, let us make the bed!”

Three long hen-coops which stood piled against the wall were laid on the ground and covered with mats; on these the tired men stretched their limbs, but they could not sleep.

The little lamp was extinguished, and for an hour all was still in the dark room. Then, suddenly, there was a loud commotion; some elastic object flew against the wall with a loud flap, and Karnis, starting up, called out: “Get out—monster!”

“What is it?” cried Herse who had also been startled, and the old man replied angrily:

“Some daemon, some dog of a daemon is attacking me and giving me no peace. Wait, you villain—there, perhaps that will settle you,” and he flung his second sandal. Then, without heeding the rustling fall of some object that he had hit by accident, he gasped out:

“The impudent fiend will not let me be. It knows that we need Agne’s voice, and it keeps whispering, first in one ear and then in the other, that I should threaten to sell her little brother if she refuses; but I—I—strike a light, Orpheus!—She is a good girl and rather than do such a thing...”

“The daemon has been close to me too,” said the son as he blew on the spark he had struck.

“And to me too,” added Herse nervously. “It is only natural. There are no images of the gods in this Christian hovel. Away, hateful serpent! We are honest folks and will not agree to any vile baseness. Here is my amulet, Karnis; if the daemon comes again you must turn it round—you know how.”