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

At this, Melissa cast a meaning glance at Coeranus and the lady, and, although surprise and alarm sealed her lips, her uplifted hands and whole gesture sufficiently expressed her entreaty that he would not betray her. He understood and obeyed. It pleased him to share a secret with this fair child. He had, in fact, overheard her, and understood with amazement that she was praying fervently for Caesar.

This stirred his curiosity to the highest pitch. So he said, in an undertone:

“All that I saw and heard in the temple is our secret, sweet maid. But what on earth can have prompted you to pray so urgently for Caesar? Has he done you or yours any great benefit?”

Melissa shook her head, and Philostratus went on with increased curiosity:

“Then are you one of those whose heart Eros can fire at the sight of an image, or the mere aspect of a man?”

To this she answered hastily:

“What an idea! No, no. Certainly not.”

“No?” said her new friend, with greater surprise. “Then perhaps your hopeful young soul expects that, being still but a youth, he may, by the help of the gods, become, like Titus, a benefactor to the whole world?”

Melissa looked timidly at the matron, who was still talking with her brother-in-law, and hastily replied:

“They all call him a murderer! But I know for certain that he suffers fearful torments of mind and body; and one who knows many things told me that there was not one among all the millions whom Caesar governs who ever prays for him; and I was so sorry—I can not tell you—”

“And so,” interrupted the philosopher, “you thought it praiseworthy and pleasing to the gods that you should be the first and only one to offer sacrifice for him, in secret, and of your own free will? That was how it came about? Well, child, you need not be ashamed of it.”

But then suddenly his face clouded, and he asked, in a grave and altered voice:

“Are you a Christian?”

“No,” she replied, firmly. “We are Greeks. How could I have offered a sacrifice of blood to Asklepios if I had believed in the crucified god?”

“Then,” said Philostratus, and his eyes flashed brightly, “I may promise you, in the name of the gods, that your prayer and offering were pleasing in their eyes. I myself, noble girl, owe you a rare pleasure. But, tell me—how did you feel as you left the sanctuary?”

“Light-hearted, my lord, and content,” she answered, with a frank, glad look in her fine eyes. “I could have sung as I went down the road, though there were people about.”

“I should have liked to hear you,” he said, kindly, and he still held her hand, which he had grasped with the amiable geniality that characterized him, when they were joined by the senator and his sister-in-law.

“Has she won your good offices?” asked Coeranus; and Philostratus replied, quickly, “Anything that it lies in my power to do for her shall certainly be done.”

Berenike bade them both to join her in her own rooms, for everything that had to do with the banquet was odious to her; and as they went, Melissa told her new friend her brother’s story. She ended it in the quiet sitting-room of the mistress of the house, an artistic but not splendid apartment, adorned only with the choicest works of early Alexandrian art. Philostratus listened attentively, but, before she could put her petition for help into words, he exclaimed:

“Then what we have to do is, to move Caesar to mercy, and that—Child, you know not what you ask!”

They were interrupted by a message from Seleukus, desiring Coeranus to join the other guests, and as soon as he had left them Berenike withdrew to take off the splendor she hated. She promised to return immediately and join their discussion, and Philostratus sat for a while lost in thought. Then he turned to Melissa and asked her:

“Would you for their sakes be able to make up your mind to face bitter humiliation, nay, perhaps imminent danger?”

“Anything! I would give my life for them!” replied the girl, with spirit, and her eyes gleamed with such enthusiastic self-sacrifice that his heart, though no longer young, warmed under their glow, and the principle to which he had sternly adhered since he had been near the imperial person, never to address a word to the sovereign but in reply, was blown to the winds.

Holding her hand in his, with a keen look into her eyes, he went on:

“And if you were required to do a thing from which many a man even would recoil—you would venture?”

And again the answer was a ready “Yes.” Philostratus released her hand, and said:

“Then we will dare the worst. I will smooth the way for you, and to-morrow—do not start—tomorrow you yourself, under my protection, shall appeal to Caesar.”

The color faded from the girl’s cheeks, which had been flushed with fresh hopes, and her counselor had just expressed his wish to talk the matter over with the lady Berenike, when she came into the room. She was now dressed in mourning, and her pale, beautiful face showed the traces of the tears she had just shed. The dark shadows which, when they surround a woman’s eyes, betray past storms of grief, as the halo round the moon—the eye of night—gives warning of storms to come, were deeper than ever; and when her sorrowful gaze fell on Melissa, the girl felt an almost irresistible longing to throw herself into her arms and weep on her motherly bosom.

Philostratus, too, was deeply touched by the appearance of this mother, who possessed so much, but for whom everything dearest to a woman’s heart had been destroyed by a cruel stroke of Fate. He was glad to be able to tell her that he hoped to soften Caesar. Still, his plan was a bold one; Caracalla had been deeply offended by the scornful tone of the attacks on him, and Melissa’s brother was perhaps the only one of the scoffers who had been taken. The crime of the Alexandrian wits could not be left unpunished. For such a desperate case only desperate remedies could avail; he therefore ventured to propose to conduct Melissa into Caesar’s presence, that she might appeal to his clemency.

The matron started as though a scorpion had stung her. In great agitation, she threw her arm round the girl as if to shelter her from imminent danger, and Melissa, seeking help, laid her head on that kind breast. Berenike was reminded, by the scent that rose up from the girl’s hair, of the hours when her own child had thus fondly clung to her. Her motherly heart had found a new object to love, and exclaiming, “Impossible!” she clasped Melissa more closely.

But Philostratus begged to be heard. Any plea urged by a third person he declared would only be the ruin of the rash mediator.

“Caracalla,” he went