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

“It spoke for some other Bassianus, Antoninus, Tarautus, or whatever they choose to call me,” Caesar broke in.

“Nay, my lord, not so. She prayed for you, the son of Severus. I spoke to her afterwards. She had seen you yesterday morning, and fancied she had noted how great and severe your sufferings were. This had gone to her heart. So she went thither to pray and sacrifice for you, although she knew that you were prosecuting her brother, the very painter of whom I spoke. I would you too could have heard how fervently she addressed the god, and then Hygeia!”

“A Greek, you say?” Caracalla remarked. “And she really did not know you, or dream that you could hear her?”

“No, my lord; assuredly not. She is a sweet maid, and if you would care to see her—”

Caesar had listened to the tale with great attention and evident expectancy; but suddenly his face clouded, and, heedless of the slaves who, under the guidance of his chamberlain Adventus, had now brought in the portrait, he sprang up, went close to Philostratus, and stormed out:

“Woe to you if you lie to me! You want to get the brother out of prison, and then, by chance, you come across the sister who is praying for me! A fable to cheat a child with!”

“I am speaking the truth,” replied Philostratus, coolly, though the rapid winking of Caesar’s eyelids warned him that his blood was boiling with wrath.

“It was from the sister, whom I overheard in the temple, that I learned of her brother’s peril, and I afterward saw that portrait.”

Caracalla stared at the floor for a moment in silence; then he looked up, and said, in a tone husky with agitation:

“I only long for anything which may bring me nearer to the perverse race over whom I rule, be it what it may. You offer it me. You are the only man who never asked me for anything. I have believed you to be as righteous as all other men are not. And now if you, if this time—”

He lowered his tones, which had become somewhat threatening, and went on very earnestly: “By all you hold most sacred on earth, I ask you, Did the girl pray for me, and of her own free impulse, not knowing that any one could hear her?”

“I swear it, by the head of my mother!” replied Philostratus, solemnly.

“Your mother?” echoed Caesar, and his brow began to clear. But suddenly the gleam of satisfaction, which for a moment had embellished his features, vanished, and with a sharp laugh he added: “And my mother! Do you suppose that I do not know what she requires of you? It is solely to please her that you, a free man, remain with me. For her sake you are bold enough to try now and then to quell the stormy sea of my passions. You do it with a grace, so I submit. And now my hand is raised to strike a wretch who mocks at me; he is a painter, of some talent, so, of course, you take him under your protection. Then, in a moment, your inventive genius devises a praying sister. Well, there is in that something which might indeed mollify me. But you would betray Bassianus ten times over to save an artist. And then, how my mother would fly to show her gratitude to the man who could quell her furious son! Your mother!—But I only squint when it suits me. My eye must become dimmer than it yet is before I fail to see the connection of ideas which led you to swear by your mother. You were thinking of mine when you spoke. To please her, you would deceive her son. But as soon as he touches the lie it vanishes into thin air, for it has no more substance than a soap bubble!” The last words were at once sad, angry, and scornful; but the philosopher, who had listened at first with astonishment and then with indignation, could no longer contain himself.

“Enough!” he cried to the angry potentate, in an imperious tone. Then, drawing himself up, he went on with offended dignity:

“I know what the end has been of so many who have aroused your wrath, and yet I have courage enough to tell you to your face, that to injustice, the outcome of distrust, you add the most senseless insult. Or do you really think that a just man—for so you have called me more than once—would outrage the manes of the beloved woman who bore him to please the mother of another man, even though she be Caesar’s? What I swear to by the head of my mother, friend and foe alike must believe; and he who does not, must hold me to be the vilest wretch on earth; my presence can only be an offense to him. So I beg you to allow me to return to Rome.”

The words were manly and spoken firmly, and they pleased Caracalla; for the joy of believing in the philosopher’s statement outweighed every other feeling. And since he regarded Philostratus as the incarnation of goodness—though he had lost faith in that—his threat of leaving disturbed him greatly. He laid his hand on his brave adviser’s arm, and assured him that he was only too happy to believe a thing so incredible.

Any witness of the scene would have supposed this ruthless fatricide, this tyrant—whose intercourse with the visions of a crazed and unbridled fancy made him capable of any folly, and who loved to assume the aspect of a cruel misanthrope—to be a docile disciple, who cared for nothing but to recover the favor and forgiveness of his master. And Philostratus, knowing this man, and the human heart, did not make it too easy for him to achieve his end. When he at last gave up his purpose of returning to Rome, and had more fully explained to Caesar how and where he had met Melissa, and what he had heard about her brother the painter, he lifted the wrapper from Korinna’s portrait, placed it in a good light, and pointed out to Caracalla the particular beauties of the purely Greek features.

It was with sincere enthusiasm that he expatiated on the skill with which the artist had reproduced in color the noble lines which Caracalla so much admired in the sculpture of the great Greek masters; how warm and tender the flesh was; how radiant the light of those glorious eyes; how living the waving hair, as though it still breathed of the scented oil! And when Philostratus explained that though Alexander had no doubt spoken some rash and treasonable words, he could not in any case be the author of the insulting verses which had been found at the Serapeum with the rope, Caracalla echoed his praises of the picture, and desired to see both the painter and his sister.

That morning, as he rose from his bed, he had been informed that the planets which had been seen during the past night from the observatory of the Serapeum, promised him fortune and happiness in the immediate future. He was himself a practiced star-reader, and the chief astrologer of the temple had pointed out to him how peculiarly favorable the constellation was whence he had deduced his prediction. Then, Phoebus Apollo had appeared to him in a dream; the auguries from the morning’s sacrifices had all been favorable; and, before he dispatched Philostratus to fetch Melissa, he added:

“It is strange! The best fortune has always come to me from a gloomy sky. How brightly the sun shone on my marriage with the odious Plautilla! It has rained,