A Thorny Path — Complete by Georg Ebers (howl and other poems txt) 📖

with his own hand all that Ptolemaeus had expected of his skill. Her eyes were dim with grateful emotion, and though Galenus strove to hinder her from pressing her lips to his hand she succeeded in doing so; he, however, kissed her brow with fatherly delight in her warmhearted sweetness, and said:

“Now go home happy, my child. That stone had hit your lover’s brain-roof a hard blow; the pressure of the broken beam—I mean a piece of bone—had robbed him of his consciousness of what a sweet bride the gods have bestowed on him. But the knife has done its work; the beam is in its place again; the splinters which were not needed have been taken out; the roof is mended, and the pressure removed. Your friend has recovered consciousness, and I will wager that at this moment he is thinking of you and wishes you were with him. But for the present you had better defer the meeting. For forty-eight hours he must remain in that little room, for any movement would only delay his recovery.”

“Then I shall stay here to nurse him,” cried Melissa, eagerly. But Galenus replied, decisively:

“That must not be if he is to get well. The presence of a woman for whom the sufferer’s heart is on fire is as certain to aggravate the fever as the scent of incense. Besides, child, this is no place for such as you.”

Her head drooped sadly, but he nodded to her cheeringly as he added:

“Ptolemaeus, who is worthy of your entire confidence, speaks of you as a girl of much sense, and you will surely not do anything to spoil my work, which was not easy. However, I must say farewell; other sick require my care.”

He held out his hand, but, seeing her eyes fixed on his and glittering through tears, he asked her name and family. It seemed to him of good augury for the long hours before him which he must devote to Caesar, that he should, so early in the day, have met so pure and fair a flower of girlhood.

When she had told him her own name and her father’s, and also mentioned her brothers, Philip the philosopher, and Alexander the painter, who was already one of the chief masters of his art here, Galenus answered heartily:

“All honor to his genius, then, for he is the one-eyed king in the land of the blind. Like the old gods, who can scarce make themselves heard for the new, the Muses too have been silenced. The many really beautiful things to be seen here are not new; and the new, alas! are not beautiful. But your brother’s work,” he added, kindly, “may be the exception.”

“You should only see his portraits!” cried Melissa.

“Yours, perhaps, among them?” said the old man, with interest. “That is a reminder I would gladly take back to Rome with me.”

Alexander had indeed painted his sister not long before, and how glad she was to be able to offer the picture to the reverend man to whom she owed so much! So she promised with a blush to send it him as soon as she should be at home again.

The unexpected gift was accepted with pleasure, and when he thanked her eagerly and with simple heartiness, she interrupted him with the assurance that in Alexandria art was not yet being borne to the grave. Her brother’s career, it was true, threatened to come to an untimely end, for he stood in imminent danger. On this the old man—who had taken his seat on a bench which the attendant physicians of the temple had brought forward-desired to know the state of the case, and Melissa briefly recounted Alexander’s misdemeanor, and how near he had been, yesterday, to falling into the hands of his pursuers. Then she looked up at the old man beseechingly; and as he had praised her beauty, so now—she herself knew not how she had such courage—the praises of his fame, his greatness and goodness, flowed from her lips. And her bold entreaties ended with a prayer that he would urge Caesar, who doubtless revered him as a father, to cease from prosecuting her brother.

The old man’s face had grown graver and graver; he had several times stroked his white beard with an uneasy gesture; and when, as she spoke the last words, she ventured to raise her timidly downcast eyes to his, he rose stiffly and said in regretful tones:

“How can I be vexed with a sister who knocks at any door to save a brother’s life? But I would have given a great deal that it had not been at mine. It is hard to refuse when I would so gladly accede, and yet so it must be; for, though Claudius Galenus does his best for Bassianus Antoninus as a patient, as he does for any other, Bassianus the man and the emperor is as far from him as fire from water; and so it must ever be during the short space of time which may yet be granted to him and me under the light of the sun.”

The last words were spoken in a bitter, repellent tone, and yet Melissa felt that it pained the old man to refuse her. So she earnestly exclaimed:

“Oh, forgive me! How could I guess—” She suddenly paused and added, “Then you really think that Caesar has not long to live?”

She spoke with the most anxious excitement, and her question offended Galenus. He mistook their purport, and his voice was wrathful as he replied, “Long enough yet to punish an insult!”

Melissa turned pale. She fancied that she apprehended the meaning of these stern words, and, prompted by an earnest desire not to be misunderstood by this man, she eagerly exclaimed:

“I do not wish him dead—no, indeed not; not even for my brother’s sake! But just now I saw him near, and I thought I could see that he was suffering great pain. Why, we pity a brute creature when it is in anguish. He is still so young, and it must be so hard to die!”

Galenus nodded approvingly, and replied:

“I thank you, in the name of my imperial patient.—Well, send me your portrait; but let it be soon, for I embark before sunset. I shall like to remember you. As to Caesar’s sufferings, they are so severe, your tender soul would not wish your worst enemy to know such pain. My art has few means of mitigating them, and the immortals are little inclined to lighten the load they have laid on this man. Of the millions who tremble before him, not one prays or offers sacrifice of his own free-will for the prosperity of the monarch.”

A flash of enthusiasm sparkled in Melissa’s eye, but Galenus did not heed it; he briefly bade her farewell and turned away to devote himself to other patients.

“There is one, at any rate,” thought she, as she looked after the physician, “who will pray and sacrifice for that unhappy man. Diodoros will not forbid it, I am sure.”

She turned to Andreas and desired him to take her to her lover. Diodoros was now really sleeping, and did not feel the kiss she breathed on his fore head. He had all her love; the suffering criminal she only pitied.

When they had quitted the temple she pressed her hand to her bosom and drew a deep breath as if she had just been freed from prison.