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

to his wife?—There lies the gem. Look at it once again—No, child, no! This resemblance is not mere accident. The short-sighted, might call it superstition or a vain illusion; I know better. At least a portion of Alexander’s soul lives in this breast. A hundred signs—I will tell you about it later—make it a certainty to me. And yesterday morning.... I see it all again before me.... You stood above me, on the left, at a window.... I looked up;... our eyes met, and I felt in the depths of my heart a strange emotion.... I asked myself, silently, where I had seen that lovely face before. And the answer rang, you have already often met her; you know her!”

“My face reminded you of the gem,” interrupted Melissa, disquieted.

“No, no,” continued Caesar. “It was some thing else. Why had none of my many gems ever reminded me before of living people? Why did your picture, I know not how often, recur to my mind? And you? Only recollect what you have done for me. How marvelously we were brought together! And all this in the course of a single, short day. And you also.... I ask you, by all that is holy to you... Did you, after you saw me in the court of sacrifice, not think of me so often and so vividly that it astonished you?”

“You are Caesar,” answered Melissa, with increasing anxiety.

“So you thought of my purple robes?” asked Caracalla, and his face clouded over; “or perhaps only of my power that might be fatal to your family? I will know. Speak the truth, girl, by the head of your father!”

Then Melissa poured forth this confession from her oppressed heart:

“Yes, I could not help remembering you constantly,... and I never saw you in purple, but just as you had stood there on the steps;... and then—ah! I have told you already how sorry I was for your sufferings. I felt as if... but how can I describe it truly?—as if you stood much nearer to me than the ruler of the world could to a poor, humble girl. It was... eternal gods!...”

She stopped short; for she suddenly recollected anxiously that this confession might prove fatal to her. The sentence about the time which should be fulfilled for each was ringing in her ears, and it seemed to her that she heard for the second time the lady Berenike’s warning.

But Caracalla allowed her no time to think; for he interrupted her, greatly pleased, with the cry:

“It is true, then! The immortals have wrought as great a miracle in you as in me. We both owe them thanks, and I will show them how grateful I can be by rich sacrifices. Our souls, which destiny had already once united, have met again. That portion of the universal soul which of yore dwelt in Roxana, and now in you, Melissa, has also vanquished the pain which has embittered my life... You have proved it!—And now... it is beginning to throb again more violently—now—beloved and restored one, help me once more!”

Melissa perceived anxiously how the emperor’s face had flushed again during this last vehement speech, and at the same time the pain had again contracted his forehead and eyes. And she obeyed his command, but this time only in shy submission. When she found that he became quieter, and the movement of her hand once more did him good, she recovered her presence of mind. She remembered how often the quiet application of her hand had helped her mother to sleep.

She therefore explained to Caracalla, in a low whisper directly he began to speak again, that her desire to give him relief would be vain if he did not keep his eyes and lips closed. And Caracalla yielded, while her hand moved as lightly over the brow of the terrible man as when years ago it had soothed her mother to sleep.

When the sufferer, after a little time, murmured, with closed eyes

“Perhaps I could sleep,” she felt as if great happiness had befallen her.

She listened attentively to every breath, and looked as if spell-bound into his face, until she was quite sure that sleep had completely overcome Caesar.

She then crept gently on tiptoe to Philostratus, who had looked on in silent surprise at all that had passed between his sovereign and the girl. He, who was always inclined to believe in any miraculous cure, of which so many had been wrought by his hero Apollonius, thought he had actually witnessed one, and gazed with an admiration bordering on awe at the young creature who appeared to him to be a gracious instrument of the gods.

“Let me go now,” Melissa whispered to her friend. “He sleeps, and will not wake for some time.”

“At your command,” answered the philosopher, respectfully. At the same moment a loud voice was heard from the next room, which Melissa recognized as her brother Alexander’s, who impetuously insisted on his right of—being allowed at any time to see the emperor.

“He will wake him,” murmured the philosopher, anxiously; but Melissa with prompt determination threw her veil over her head and went into the adjoining room.

Philostratus at first heard violent language issuing from the mouth of Theocritus and the other courtiers, and the artist’s answers were not less passionate. Then he recognized Melissa’s voice; and when quiet suddenly reigned on that side of the door, the young girl again crossed the threshold.

She glanced toward Caracalla to see if he still slept, and then, with a sigh of relief, beckoned to her friend, and begged him in a whisper to escort her past the staring men. Alexander followed them.

Anger and surprise were depicted on his countenance, which was usually so happy. He had come with a report which might very likely induce Caesar to order the release of his father and brother, and his heart had stood still with fear and astonishment when the favorite Theocritus had told him in the anteroom, in a way that made the blood rush into his face, that his sister had been for some time endeavoring to comfort the suffering emperor—and it was nearly midnight.

Quite beside himself, he wished to force his way into Caesar’s presence, but Melissa had at that moment come out and stood in his way, and had desired him and the noble Romans, in such a decided and commanding tone, to lower their voices, that they and her brother were speechless.

What had happened to his modest sister during the last few days? Melissa giving him orders which he feebly obeyed! It seemed impossible! But there was something reassuring in her manner. She must certainly have thought it right to act thus, and it must have been worthy of her, or she would not have carried her charming head so high, or looked him so freely and calmly in the face.

But how had she dared to come between him and his duty to his father and brother?

While he followed her closely and silently through the imperial rooms, the implicit obedience he had shown her became more and more difficult to comprehend; and when at last they stood in the empty corridor which divided Caesar’s quarters from those of the high-priest, and Philostratus had returned to his post at the side of his sovereign, he could hold out no longer, and cried to her indignantly: