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

Berenike looked thoughtfully at the ground, and added, more quietly:

“Then try first to release your people, and afterward embark on my ship. It shall be ready for you. Melissa will use it, I know.—My veil, child! The chariot waits for me at the Temple of Isis.—You will accompany me there, Alexander, and we will drive to the harbor. There I will introduce you to the captain. It will be wise. Your father and brother are dearer to you than your sister; she is more important to me. If only I could go away myself—away from here, from the desolate house, and take her with me!”

And she raised her arm, as if she would throw a stone into the distance.

She impetuously embraced the young girl, took leave of her sister-in-law, and left the room with Alexander.

Directly Euryale was alone with Melissa, she comforted the girl in her kind, composed manner; for the unhappy matron’s gloomy presentiments had filled Melissa with fresh anxieties.

And what had she not gone through during the day!

Soon after her perilous interview with Caracalla, Timotheus, with the chief of the astrologers from the Serapeum, and the emperor’s astronomer, had come to her, to ask her on what day and at what hour she was born. They also inquired concerning the birthdays of her parents, and other events of her life. Timotheus had informed her that the emperor had ordered them to cast her nativity.

Soon after dinner she had gone, accompanied by the lady Berenike, who had found her at the chief priest’s house, to visit her lover in the sick-rooms of the Serapeum. Thankful and happy, she had found him with fully recovered consciousness, but the physician and the freedman Andreas, whom she met at the door of the chamber, had impressed on her the importance of avoiding all excitement. So it had not been possible for her to tell him what had happened to her people, or of the perilous step she had taken in order to save them. But Diodoros had talked of their wedding, and Andreas could confirm the fact that Polybius wished to see it celebrated as soon as possible.

Several pleasant subjects were discussed; but between whiles Melissa had to dissemble and give evasive answers to Diodoros’s questions as to whether she had already arranged with her brother and friends who should be the youths and maidens to form the wedding procession, and sing the hymeneal song.

As the two whispered to one another and looked tenderly at each other—for Diodoros had insisted on her allowing him to kiss not only her hands but also her sweet red lips—Berenike had pictured her dead daughter in Melissa’s place. What a couple they would have been! How proudly and gladly she would have led them to the lovely villa at Kanopus, which her husband and she had rebuilt and decorated with the idea that some day Korinna, her husband, and—if the gods should grant it—their children, might inhabit it! But even Melissa and Diodoros made a fine couple, and she tried with all her heart not to grudge her all the happiness that she had wished for her own child.

When it was time to depart, she joined the hands of the betrothed pair, and called down a blessing from the gods.

Diodoros accepted this gratefully.

He only knew that this majestic lady had made Melissa’s acquaintance through Alexander, and had won her affection, and he encouraged the impression that this woman, whose Juno-like beauty haunted him, had visited him on his bed of sickness in the place of his long-lost mother.

Outside the sick-room Andreas again met Melissa, and, after she had told him of her visit to the emperor, he impressed on her eagerly on no account to obey the tyrant’s call again. Then he had promised to hide her securely, either on Zeno’s estate or else in the house of another friend, which was difficult of access. When Dame Berenike had again, and with particular eagerness, suggested her ship, Andreas had exclaimed:

“In the garden, on the ship, under the earth—only not back to Caesar!”

The last question of the freedman’s, as to whether she had meditated further on his discourse, had reminded her of the sentence, “The fullness of the time is come”; and afterward the thought occurred to her, again and again, that in the course of the next few hours some decisive event would happen to her, “fulfilling the time,” as Andreas expressed it.

When, therefore, somewhat later, she was alone with the chief priest’s wife, who had concluded her comforting, pious exhortations, Melissa asked the lady Euryale whether she had ever heard the sentence, “When the fullness of the time is come.”

At this the lady cried, gazing at the girl with surprised inquiry:

“Are you, then, after all, connected with the Christians?”

“Certainly not,” answered the young girl, firmly. “I heard it accidentally, and Andreas, Polybius’s freedman, explained it to me.”

“A good interpreter,” replied the elder lady. “I am only an ignorant woman; yet, child, even I have experienced that a day, an hour, comes to every man in the course of his life in which he afterward sees that the time was fulfilled. As the drops become mingled with the stream, so at that moment the things we have done and thought unite to carry us on a new current, either to salvation or perdition. Any moment may bring the crisis; for that reason the Christians are right when they call on one another to watch. You also must keep your eyes open. When the time—who knows how soon?—is fulfilled for you, it will determine the good or evil of your whole life.”

“An inward voice tells me that also,” answered Melissa, pressing her hands on her panting bosom. “Just feel how my heart beats!”

Euryale, smiling, complied with this wish, and as she did so she shuddered. How pure and lovable was this young creature; and Melissa looked to her like a lamb that stood ready to hasten trustfully to meet the wolf!

At last she led her guest into the room where supper was prepared.

The master of the house would not be able to share it, and while the two women sat opposite one another, saying little, and scarcely touching either food or drink, Philostratus was announced.

He came as messenger from Caracalla, who wished to speak to Melissa.

“At this hour? Never, never! It is impossible!” exclaimed Euryale, who was usually so calm; but Philostratus declared, nevertheless, that denial was useless. The emperor was suffering particularly severely, and begged to remind Melissa of her promise to serve him gladly if he required her. Her presence, he assured Euryale, would do the sick man good, and he guaranteed that, so long as Caesar was tormented by this unbearable pain, the young woman had nothing to fear.

Melissa, who had risen from her seat when the philosopher had entered, exclaimed:

“I am not afraid, and will go with you gladly—”

“Quite right, child,” answered Philostratus, affectionately. Euryale, however, found it difficult to keep back her tears while she stroked the girl’s hair and arranged the folds of her garment. When at last she said good-by to Melissa and was embracing