Kitabı oku: «The Emperor. Complete», sayfa 33
At last, in June, the Emperor could set out. He wished to traverse the province on foot and on horseback, and Sabina was to follow by boat as soon as the inundation should begin.
The Empress would gladly have returned to Rome or to Tibur, for Verus had been obliged to quit Egypt by the orders of the physician as soon as the summer heat had set in. He departed with his wife, as the son of the Imperial couple, but no word on Hadrian’s part had justified him in hoping confidently to be nominated as his successor to the sovereignty.
The handsome rake’s unlimited dissipations were severely checked by his sufferings, but not altogether prevented, and on his return to Rome he continued to indulge in all the pleasures of life. Hadrian’s hesitation and reluctance often disquieted him, for that imperial Sphinx had, only too frequently, given the most unexpected solutions to his mystifications. But the fatal end with which he had been threatened caused him small anxiety; nay, Ben Jochai’s prediction rather prompted him to enjoy to the utmost every hour of health and ease that Fate might still allow him.
CHAPTER XIX
Balbilla and her companion, Publius Balbinus and other illustrious Romans, Favorinus the sophist, and a numerous suite of chamberlains and servants, were to accompany the Empress by water, while Hadrian set forth on his land journey with a small escort to which he added a splendid array of huntsmen. Before he reached Memphis, in crossing the Libyan desert, through which his road lay, he had killed a few lions and many other beasts of prey, and here he had once more found Antinous the best of sporting companions. Cool headed in danger, indefatigable on foot, content and serviceable in all circumstances, the young fellow seemed to Hadrian to be a comrade created by the gods themselves for his special delectation. When Hadrian was in the humor to brood and be silent the whole day long, he never disturbed him by a word; but in these moods the Emperor found his favorite’s society indispensable, for the mere consciousness of his presence soothed him.
Antinous too, was happy on these occasions, for he felt that he was of some use to his venerated master and could thus alleviate the burden which had never ceased to weigh on his own soul ever since the crime he had committed. Besides, he preferred dreaming to talking, and the exercise in the open air preserved him from listless lassitude.
In Memphis Hadrian was detained a whole month, for there he was expected to visit the Egyptian temples with Sabina, who had arrived before him, and to submit to many ceremonials invested with the regalia of the Pharaohs. Sabina often felt as if she must faint when, crowned with the ponderous vulture-headed fillet of the Queens of Egypt, weighed down with long robes and golden ornaments, she was conducted with her husband, in procession, through all the rooms, over the roof and finally into the holiest place of some vast sanctuary. What senseless ceremonials they had to go through in the course of these long circuits, and how many sacrifices had they to attend! When she returned from these visitations she was utterly exhausted, and indeed, it was no small exertion to undergo so many fumigations with incense and so many aspersions, to listen to so many litanies and hymns, to parade through such endless halls and while being elevated to the rank of celestial beings, to be crowned with so many crowns in turn and decorated with all kinds of fillets and symbolic adornments.
Her husband set her a good example, however; through all the ceremonials he displayed the whole grave majesty of his nature, and among the Egyptians behaved as one of themselves. He even took pleasure in the mystical lore of the priests, with whom he often held long conversations.
As at Memphis, so in all the principal temples of the great cities to the southward, the Imperial pair accepted the homage of the hierarchy and the honors due to divinity. Wherever Hadrian granted money for the extension of a temple, he was required to perform the ceremony of laying a stone with his own hand. But he always found time to hunt in the desert, to manage the affairs of state, and to visit the most interesting monuments of past times, and at Memphis especially, the city of the dead, with the Pyramids, the great Sphinx, the Serapeum and the tombs of the Apis.
Before quitting the city he and his companions consulted the oracle of the sacred bull. The fairest future was promised to Balbilla; the bull to whom she had to offer a cake, with her face averted, had approved of her gift and had touched her hand with his moist muzzle. Hadrian was left in ignorance as to the sentence of the priests of Apis, for it was given to him in a sealed roll with an explanation of the signs it contained; but he was solemnly adjured not to open them before at least half a year had elapsed.
It was only in the cities that Hadrian met his wife, for he pursued his journey by land and she hers by water. The boats almost invariably reached their destination sooner than the land-travellers, and when they at last arrived, there was always a grand festival to welcome them, in which however Sabina but rarely took part. Balbilla proved herself all the more eager to make their arrival pleasant by some kindly surprise. She sincerely reverenced Hadrian, and his favorite’s beauty had an irresistible charm for her artist’s soul. It was a delight to her only to look at him; his absence troubled her, and when he returned she was always the first to greet him. And yet the bright girl troubled herself about him neither more nor less than the other ladies in Sabina’s train; only Balbilla asked nothing of him but the pleasure of looking at him and rejoicing in his beauty.
If he had dared to mistake her admiration for love and to have offered her his, the poetess would have indignantly brought him to his bearings; and yet she gave unqualified expression to her admiration of the Bithynian’s splendid person, and indeed with rather remarkable demonstrativeness.
When the travellers made their appearance again after a prolonged absence Antinous would find in the room in the ship where he was to live flowers, and choice fruits sent by her, and verses in which she had sung his praises. He put it all aside with the rest and only esteemed the donor the less; but the poetess knew nothing of these sentiments in her beautiful idol, and indeed troubled herself very little about his feelings. She had hitherto found no difficulty in keeping within the limits of what was becoming. But lately there had been moments in which she had owned to herself that she might be carried away into overstepping these limits. But what did she care for the opinion of those around her, or about the inner life of the Bithyman, whose external perfection of form was all that pleased her. She did not shrink from the possibility of arousing hopes in him which she never could nor intended to fulfil, for the idea did not once enter her mind; still she felt dissatisfied with herself, for there was one person who might disapprove of her proceedings, one who had indeed in plain words reprehended her fancy for doing honor to the handsome boy with offerings of flowers, and the opinion of that one person weighed with her more than that of all the rest of the men and women she knew, put together.
This one was Pontius the architect; and yet, strangely enough, it was precisely her remembrance of him that urged her on from one folly to another. She had often seen the architect in Alexandria, and when they parted she had allowed him to promise to follow her and the Empress, and to escort them at any rate for a part of their voyage up the Nile. But he came not, nor had he sent any report of himself, though he was alive and well, and every express that overtook them brought documents for Caesar in his handwriting.
So he, on whose faithful devotion she had built as on a rock, was no less self-seeking and fickle than other men. She thought of him every day and every hour; and as soon as a vessel from the north cast anchor within sight, she watched the voyagers as they disembarked to detect him among them. She longed for Pontius as a traveller who has lost his way sighs for a sight of the guide who has deserted him; and yet she was angry with him, for he had betrayed by a thousand tokens that he esteemed and cared for her, that she had a certain power over his strong will—and now he had broken his word and did not come.
And she? She had not been unmoved by his devotion, and had been gentler to this grandson of her father’s freed slave than to the best-born man of her own rank. And in spite of it all Pontius could spoil all the pleasure of her journey and stay in Alexandria instead of following in her wake. He could easily have intrusted his building to other architects—the great metropolis was swarming with them! Well, if he did not trouble himself about her she certainly need care even less about him. Perhaps at last, at the end of their travels he might yet come, and then he should see how much she cared for his admonitions.
But she sighed impatiently for the hour when she might read him all the verses she had addressed to Antinous, and ask him how he liked them. It gave her a childish pleasure to add to the number of these little poems, to finish them elaborately, and display in them all her knowledge and ability. She gave the preference to artificial and massive metres; some of the verses were in Latin, others in the Attic, and others again in the Aeolian dialects of Greek, for she had now learnt to use this, and all to punish Pontius—to vex Pontius—and at the same time to appear in his eyes as brilliant as she could. She belauded Antinous, but she wrote for Pontius, and for every flower she gave the lad she had sent a thought to the architect, though with a curl on her lips of scornful defiance.
But a young girl cannot be always praising the beauty of a youth in new and varied forms with complete impunity, and thus there were hours when Balbilla was inclined to believe that she really loved Antinous. Then she would call herself his Sappho, and he seemed destined to be her Phaon. During his long absences with the Emperor she would long to see him—nay, even with tears; but, as soon as he was by her side again, and she could look at his inanimate beauty and into his weary eyes, when she heard the torpid “Yes” or “No” with which he replied to her questions, the spell was entirely broken and she honestly confessed to herself that she would as soon see him before her hewn in marble as clothed in flesh and blood.
In such moments as these her memory of the architect was particularly fresh, and once, when their ship was sailing through a mass of lotos leaves, above which one splendid full-blown flower raised its head, her apt imagination, which rapidly seized on everything noteworthy and gave it poetic form, entwined the incident in a set of verses, in which she designated Antinous as the lotos-flower which fulfils its destiny simply by being beautiful, and comparing Pontius to the ship which, well constructed and well guided, invited the traveller to new voyages in distant lands.
The Nile voyage came to an end at Thebes of the hundred gates, and here nothing that could attract the Roman travellers remained unvisited. The tombs of the Pharaohs extending into the very heart of the rocky hills, and the grand temples that stood to the west of the city of the dead, shorn though they were of their ancient glory, filled the Emperor with admiration. The Imperial travellers and their companions listened to the famous colossus of Memnon, of which the upper portion had been overthrown by an earthquake, and three times in the dawn they heard it sound.
Balbilla described the incident in several long poems which Sabina caused to be engraved on the stone of the colossus. The poetess imagined herself as hearing the voice of Memnon singing to his mother Eos while her tears, the fresh morning dew, fell upon the image of her son, fallen before the walls of Troy. These verses she composed in the Aeolian dialect, named herself as their writer and informed the readers—among whom she included Pontius—that she was descended from a house no less noble than that of King Antiochus.
The gigantic structures on each bank of the Nile fully equalled Hadrian’s expectations, though they had suffered so much injury from earthquakes and sieges, and the impoverished priesthood of Thebes were no longer in a position to provide for their preservation even, much less for their restoration. Balbilla accompanied Caesar on a visit to the sanctuary of Ammon, on the eastern shore of the Nile. In the great hall, the most vast and lofty pillared hall in the world, her impressionable soul felt a peculiar exaltation, and as the Emperor observed how, with a heightened color she now gazed upward, and then again, leaning against a towering column, looked at the scene around her, he asked her what she felt, standing in this really worthy abode of the gods.
“One thing—above all things one thing!” cried the girl. “That architecture is the sublimest of the arts! This temple is to me like some grand epode, and the poet who composed it conceived it not in feeble words but formed it out of almost immovable masses. Thousands of parts are here combined to form a whole, and each is welded with the rest into beautiful harmony and helps to give expression to the stupendous idea which existed in the brain of the builder of this hall. What other art is gifted with the power of creating a work so imperishable and so far transcending all ordinary standards?”
“A poetess crowning the architect with laurels!” exclaimed the Emperor. “But is not the poet’s realm the infinite, and can the architect ever get beyond the finite and the limited?”
“Then is the nature of the divinity a measurable unit?” asked Balbilla. “No, it is not; and yet this hall gives one the impression that the very divinity might find space in it to dwell in.”
“Because it owes it existence to a master-mind, which while it conceived it stood on the boundary line of eternity. But do you think this temple will outlast the poems of Homer?”
“No; but the memory of it will no more fade away that of the wrath of Achilles or the wanderings of the experienced Odysseus.”
“It is a pity that our friend Pontius cannot hear you,” said Hadrian. “He has completed the plans for a work which is destined to outlive me and him and all of us.
“I mean my own tomb. Besides that I intend him to erect gates, courts and halls in the Egyptian style at Tibur, which may remind us of our travels in this wonderful country. I expect him to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” exclaimed Balbilla, and her face fired with a scarlet flush to her very brow.
CHAPTER XX
Shortly after starting from Thebes—on the second day of November—Hadrian came to a great decision. Verus should be acknowledged not merely as his son but also as his successor.
Sabina’s urgency would not alone have sufficed to put a term to his hesitancy, especially as it had lately been farther increased by a wish that was all his own. His wife’s heart had pined for a child, but he too had longed for a son, and he had found one in Antinous. His favorite was a boy he had picked up by chance, the son of humble though free parents, but it lay in the Emperor’s power to make him great, to confer on him the highest posts of honor in the Empire, and at last to recognize him publicly as his heir. Antinous, if any one, had deserved this at his hands, and on no other man could he so ungrudgingly bestow everything that he possessed.
These ideas and hopes had now filled his mind for many months, but the nature and the mood of the young Bithyman had been more and more adverse to them.
Hadrian had striven more earnestly than his predecessors to raise the fallen dignity of the Senate, and still he could count securely on its consent to any measure. The leading official authorities of the Republic had been recognized and allowed the full exercise of their powers. To be sure, be they whom they might, they all had to obey the Emperor, still they were always there; and even with a weak ruler at its head the Empire might continue to subsist within the limits established by Hadrian, and restricted with wise moderation. Nevertheless, only a few months previously he would not have ventured to think of the adoption of his favorite. Now he hoped to find himself somewhat nearer to the fulfilment of his wishes. It is true Antinous was still a dreamer; but in their wanderings and hunting excursions through Egypt he had proved himself gallant and prompt, intelligent, and, after their departure from Thebes, even bold and lively at times. Antinous, under this aspect, he himself might take in hand, and even name him as his successor in due time, when he had risen from one post of honor to another. For the present this plan must remain unrevealed.
When he publicly adopted Verus any idea of a possible new selection of a son was excluded, and he might unhesitatingly venture to appoint Sabina’s darling his successor, for the most famous of the Roman physicians had written to Hadrian, by his desire, saying that the praetor’s undermined strength could not be restored, and that, at the best, he could only have a limited number of years to live. Well, then, Verus might die slowly and contentedly in the midst of the most splendid anticipations, and when he should have closed his eyes it would be time enough to set the dreamer—by that time matured to vigorous manhood—in the vacant place.
On the return journey from Thebes to Alexandria Hadrian met his wife at Abydos, and revealed to her his intention of proclaiming the son of her choice as his successor. Sabina thanked him with an exclamation of “At last!” which expressed partly her satisfaction, but partly too her annoyance at her husband’s long delay. Hadrian gave her his permission to return to Rome from Alexandria, and on the very same day messages were despatched with letters both to the Senate and to the prefects of Egypt.
The despatch intended for Titianus charged him to proclaim publicly the adoption of the praetor, to arrange at the same time for a grand festival, and on that occasion to grant to the people, in Caesar’s name, all the boons and favors which by the traditional law of Egypt the Sovereign was expected to bestow at the birth of an heir to the throne. The whole suite of the Imperial pair celebrated Hadrian’s decision by splendid banquets, but the Emperor did not himself take part in them, but crossed to the other bank of the Nile and went to Antaeopolis in the desert, meaning to penetrate from thence into the gorges of the Arabian desert and to chase wild beasts. No one was to accompany him but Antinous, Mastor, and a few huntsmen and some dogs.
He meant to rejoin the ships at Besa. He had postponed his visit to this place till the return journey, because he had travelled up by the western shore of the Nile, and the passage across the river would have taken up too much time.
The travellers’ tents were pitched one sultry evening in November, between the Nile and the limestone range, in which was arrayed a long row of tombs of the period of the Pharaohs. Hadrian had gone to visit these, for the remarkable pictures on the walls delighted him, but Antinous remained behind, for he had already looked at similar works oftener than he cared for, in Upper Egypt. He found these pictures monotonous and unlovely, and he had not the patience to investigate their meaning as his master did. He had been a hundred times into the ancient rock-tombs, only not to leave Hadrian and not for his own amusement; but to-day—he could hardly bear himself for impatience and excitement, for he knew that a ride, a walk, of a few hours, would carry him to Besa and to Selene. The Emperor would remain absent three or four hours at any rate, and if he made up his mind to it he could have sought out the girl for whom his heart was longing before his return, and still be back again before his master.
But before acting he must reflect. There was the Emperor climbing the hill-side where he could see him, and messengers were expected and he had been charged to receive them. It they should bring bad news, his master must on no account be alone. Ten times did he go up to his good hunter to leap upon his back; once he even took down the horse’s head-gear to put on his bridle, but in the very act of slipping the complicated bit between the teeth of his steed his resolution gave way. During all this delay and hesitation the minutes slipped away, and at last it was so late that Hadrian might return and it was folly to think of carrying his plan into execution. The expected express arrived with several letters, but the Emperor did not come back. It grew dark, and heavy rain-drops fell from the overcast sky, and still Antinous was alone. His anxious longing was mingled with regret for the lost opportunity of seeing Selene and alarm at the Emperor’s prolonged absence.
In spite of the rain, which began to fill more violently, he went out into the open air, of which the sweltering oppressiveness had helped to fetter his feeble volition, and called to the dogs, with whose help he proposed seeking the Emperor; but just then he heard the bark of Argus, and soon after Hadrian and Mastor stepped out of the darkness into the brightness which shone out from the tent, where lights were burning.
The Emperor gave his favorite but a brief greeting and silently submitted while Antinous dried his hair and brought him some refreshments, and Mastor bathed his feet and dressed him in fresh garments. As he reclined with the Bithyman, before the supper which was standing ready, he said:
“A strange evening! how hot and oppressive the atmosphere is. We must be on the lookout, something serious is brewing.”
“What happened to you, my Lord?”
“Many things. At the door of the very first tomb that I was about to enter I found an old black woman who stretched out her hands against us to keep us out and shrieked out words that sounded horrible.”
“Did you understand her?”
“No—who can learn Egyptian.”
“Then you do not know what she said?”
“I was to find out—she cried out ‘Dead!’ and again ‘Dead!’ and in the tomb which she was watching there were I know not how many persons attacked by the plague.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes, I had only heard of this disease till then. It is frightful, and quite answers to the descriptions I had read of it.”
“But Caesar!” cried Antinous reproachfully and in alarm.
“When we turned our backs on the tombs,” continued Hadrian, paying no heed to the lad’s exclamation, “we were met by an elderly man dressed in white and a strange-looking maiden. She was lame but of remarkable beauty.”
“And she was going to the sick?”
“Yes, she had brought medicine and food to them.”
“But she did not go in among them?” asked Antinous eagerly.
“She did, in spite of my warnings. In her companion I recognized an old acquaintance.”
“An old one?”
“At any rate older than myself. We had met in Athens when we still were young. At that time he was one of the school of Plato and the most zealous, nay, perhaps the most gifted of us all.”
“How came such a man among the plague-stricken people of Besa? Is he become a physician?”
“No. But at Athens he sought fervently and eagerly for the truth, and now he asserts that he has found it.”
“Here, among the Egyptians?”
“In Alexandria among the Christians.”
“And the lame girl who accompanied the philosopher—does she too believe in the crucified God?”
“Yes. She is a sick-nurse or something of the kind. Indeed there is something grand in the ecstatic craze of these people.”
“Is it true that they worship an ass and a dove?”
“Nonsense!”
“I did not want to believe it; and at any rate they are kind, and succor all who suffer, even strangers who do not belong to their sect.”
“How do you know?”
“One hears a great deal about them in Alexandria.”
“Alas! alas!—I never persecute an imaginary foe, as such I reckon the creeds and ideas of other men; still, I cannot but ask myself whether it can add to the prosperity of the state when citizens cease to struggle against the pressure and necessity of life and console themselves for them instead, by the hope of visionary happiness in another world which perhaps only exists in the fancy of those who believe in it.”
“I should wish that life might end with death,” said Antinous thoughtfully; “and yet—”
“Well?”
“If I were sure that in that other world I should find those I long to see again, then I might long for a future life.”
“And would you really like, throughout all eternity, to push and struggle in the crowd of old acquaintances which death does not diminish but rather multiplies?”
“Nay, not that—but I should like to be permitted to live for ever with a few chosen friends.”
“And should I be one of them?”
“Yes—indeed,” cried Antinous warmly and pressing his lips to Hadrian’s hand.
“I was sure of it—but even with the promise of never being obliged to part with you my darling, I would never sacrifice the only privilege which man enjoys above the immortals.”
“What privilege can you mean?”
“The right of withdrawing from the ranks of the living as soon as annihilation seems more endurable than existence and I choose to call death to release me.”
“The gods, it is true, cannot die.”
“And the Christians only to link a new life on to death.”
“But a fairer and a happier than this on earth. They say it is a life of bliss. But the mother of this everlasting life is the ineradicable love of existence in even the most wretched of our race, and hope is its father. They believe in a complete freedom from suffering in that other world because He whom they call their Redeemer, the crucified Christ, has saved them from all sufferings by His death.”
“And can a man take upon him the sufferings of others, think you, like a garment or a burden?”
“They say so, and my friend from Athens is quite convinced. In books of magic there are many formulas by which misfortunes may be transferred not merely from men to beasts, but from one human being to another. Very remarkable experiments have even been carried out with slaves, and to this day I have to struggle in several, provinces to suppress human sacrifices by which the gods are to be reconciled or propitiated. Only think of the innocent Iphigenia who was dragged to the altar; did not the gulf in the Forum close when Curtius had leaped into it? When Fate shoots a fatal arrow at you and I receive it in my breast, perhaps she is content with the chance victim and does not enquire as to whom she has hit.”
“The gods would be exorbitant indeed if they were not content with your blood for mine!”
“Life is life, and that of the young is of better worth than that of the old. Many joys will yet bloom for you.”
“And you are indispensable to the whole world.”
“After me another will come. Are you ambitious, boy?”
“No, my Lord.”
“What then can be the meaning of this: that every one wishes me joy of my son Verus excepting you. Do you not like my choice?”
Antinous colored and looked at the ground, and Hadrian went on:
“Say honestly what you feel.”
“The praetor is ill.”
“He can have but a few years to live, and when he is dead—”
“He may recover—”
“When he is dead, I must look out for another son. What do you think now? Who is the being that every man, from a slave to a consul, would soonest hear call him ‘Father?”’
“Some one he tenderly loved.”
“True—and particularly when that one clung to him with unchangeable fidelity. I am a man like any other, and you, my good fellow, are always nearest to my heart, and I shall bless the day when I may authorize you, before all the world, to call me ‘Father.’ Do not interrupt me. If you resolutely concentrate your will and show as keen a sense for ruling men as you do for the chase, if you try to sharpen your wits and take in what I teach you, it may some day happen that Antinous instead of Verus—”
“Nay, not that, only not that!” cried the lad, turning very pale and raising his hands beseechingly.
“The greatness with which Destiny surprises us seems terrible so long as it is new to us,” said Hadrian. “But the seaman is soon accustomed to the storms, and we come to wear the purple as you do your chiton.”
“Oh, Caesar, I entreat you,” said Antinous, anxiously, “put aside these ideas; I am not fit for great things.”
“The smallest saplings grow to be palms.”
“But I am only a wretched little herb that thrives awhile in your shadow. Proud Rome—”
“Rome is my handmaid. She has been forced before now to be ruled by men of inferior stamp, and I should show her how the handsomest of her sons can wear the purple. The world may look for such a choice from a sovereign whom it has long known to be an artist, that is a high-priest of the Beautiful. And if not, I will teach it to form its taste on mine.”
“You are pleased to mock me, Caesar,” cried the Bithynian. “You certainly cannot be in earnest, and if it is true that you love me—”
“What now, boy?”
“You will let me live unknown for you, care for you; you will ask nothing of me but reverence and love and fidelity.”
“I have long had them, and I now would fain repay my Antinous for all these treasures.”
“Only let me stay with you, and if necessary let me die for you.”
“I believe, boy, you would be ready to make the sacrifice we were speaking of for me!”
“At any moment without winking an eyelash.”
“I thank you for those words. It has turned out a pleasant evening, and what a bad one I looked forward to—”
“Because the woman by the tomb startled you?”
“‘Dead,’ is a grim word. It is true that ‘death’—being dead—can frighten no wise man; but the step out of light into darkness is fearful. I cannot get the figure of the old hag and her shrill cry out of my mind. Then the Christian came up, and his discourse was strange and disturbing to my soul. Before it grew dark he and the limping girl went homewards; I stood looking after them and my eyes were dazzled by the sun which was sinking over the Libyan range. The horizon was clear, but behind the day-star there were clouds. In the west, the Egyptians say, lies the realm of death. I could not help thinking of this; and the oracle, the misfortunes that the stars threatened me with in the course of this year, the cry of the old woman—all these crowded into my mind together. But then, as I observed how the sun struggled with the clouds and approached nearer and nearer to the hill-tops on the farther side of the river, I said to myself: If it sets in full radiance you may look confidently to the future; if it is swallowed up by clouds before it sinks to rest, then destiny will fulfil itself; then you must shorten sail and wait for the storm.”
