CHAPTER III.
The guests were all gone. Their departing mirth and joy had been smittendown by the drunkard's abusive words, like fresh young corn beneatha hail storm. Rhodopis was left standing alone in the empty, brightlydecorated (supper-room). Knakias extinguished the colored lamps onthe walls, and a dull, mysterious half-light took the place of theirbrilliant rays, falling scantily and gloomily on the piled-up plates anddishes, the remnants of the meal, and the seats and cushions, pushed outof their places by the retiring guests. A cold breeze came through theopen door, for the dawn was at hand, and just before sunrise, the air isgenerally unpleasantly cool in Egypt. A cold chill struck the limbs ofthe aged woman through her light garments. She stood gazing tearlesslyand fixedly into the desolate room, whose walls but a few minutes beforehad been echoing with joy and gladness, and it seemed to her that thedeserted guest-chamber must be like her own heart. She felt as if a wormwere gnawing there, and the warm blood congealing into ice.
Lost in these thoughts, she remained standing till at last her oldfemale slave appeared to light her to her sleeping apartment.
Silently Rhodopis allowed herself to be undressed, and then, assilently, lifted the curtain which separated a second sleeping apartmentfrom her own. In the middle of this second room stood a bedstead ofmaplewood, and there, on white sheets spread over a mattress of finesheep's wool, and protected from the cold by bright blue coverlets's,lay a graceful, lovely girl asleep; this was Rhodopis' granddaughter,Sappho. The rounded form and delicate figure seemed to denote onealready in opening maidenhood, but the peaceful, blissful smile couldonly belong to a harmless, happy child.
One hand lay under her head, hidden among the thick dark brown hair, theother clasped unconsciously a little amulet of green stone, which hunground her neck. Over her closed eyes the long lashes trembled almostimperceptibly, and a delicate pink flush came and went on the cheek ofthe slumberer. The finely-cut nostrils rose and fell with her regularbreathing, and she lay there, a picture of innocence, of peace, smilingin dreams, and of the slumber that the gods bestow on early youth, whencare has not yet come.
Softly and carefully, crossing the thick carpets on tiptoe, thegrey-haired woman approached, looked with unutterable tenderness intothe smiling, childish face, and, kneeling down silently by the side ofthe bed, buried her face in its soft coverings, so that the girl'shand just came in contact with her hair. Then she wept, and withoutintermission; as though she hoped with this flood of tears to wash awaynot only her recent humiliation, but with it all other sorrow from hermind.
At length she rose, breathed a light kiss on the sleeping girl'sforehead, raised her hands in prayer towards heaven, and returned to herown room, gently and carefully as she had come.
At her own bedside she found the old slave-woman, still waiting for her.
"What do you want so late, Melitta?" said Rhodopis, kindly, under herbreath. "Go to bed; at your age it is not good to remain up late, andyou know that I do not require you any longer. Good night! and do notcome to-morrow until I send for you. I shall not be able to sleepmuch to-night, and shall be thankful if the morning brings me a shortrepose."
The woman hesitated; it seemed that she had some thing on her mind whichshe feared to utter.
"There is something you want to ask me?" said Rhodopis.
Still the old slave hesitated.
"Speak!" said Rhodopis, "speak at once, and quickly."
"I saw you weeping," said the slave-woman, "you seem ill or sad; let mewatch this night by your bedside. Will you not tell me what ails you?You have often found that to tell a sorrow lightens the heart andlessens the pain. Then tell me your grief to-day too; it will do yougood, it will bring back peace to your mind."
"No," answered the other, "I cannot utter it." And then she continued,smiling bitterly: "I have once more experienced that no one, not even agod, has power to cancel the past of any human being, and that, in thisworld, misfortune and disgrace are one and the same. Good night, leaveme; Melitta!"
At noon on the following day, the same boat, which, the evening before,had carried the Athenian and the Spartan, stopped once more beforeRhodopis' garden.
The sun was shining so brightly, so warmly and genially in the dark blueEgyptian sky, the air was so pure and light, the beetles were humming somerrily, the boatmen singing so lustily and happily, the shores ofthe Nile bloomed in such gay, variegated beauty, and were so thicklypeopled, the palm-trees, sycamores, bananas and acacias were soluxuriant in foliage and blossom, and over the whole landscape therarest and most glorious gifts seemed to have been poured out with suchdivine munificence, that a passer-by must have pronounced it the veryhome of joy and gladness, a place from which sadness and sorrow had beenforever banished.
How often we fancy, in passing a quiet village hidden among itsorchards, that this at least must be the abode of peace, and unambitiouscontentment! But alas! when we enter the cottages, what do we find?there, as everywhere else, distress and need, passion and unsatisfiedlonging, fear and remorse, pain and misery; and by the side of these,Ah! how few joys! Who would have imagined on coming to Egypt, that thisluxuriant, laughing sunny land, whose sky is always unclouded, couldpossibly produce and nourish men given to bitterness and severity? thatwithin the charming, hospitable house of the fortunate Rhodopis, coveredand surrounded, as it was, with sweet flowers, a heart could have beenbeating in the deepest sadness? And, still more, who among all theguests of that honored, admired Thracian woman, would have believedthat this sad heart belonged to her? to the gracious, smiling matron,Rhodopis herself?
She was sitting with Phanes in a shady arbor near the cooling spray ofa fountain. One could see that she had been weeping again, but her facewas beautiful and kind as ever. The Athenian was holding her hand andtrying to comfort her.
Rhodopis listened patiently, and smiled the while; at times her smilewas bitter, at others it gave assent to his words. At last however sheinterrupted her well-intentioned friend, by saying:
"Phanes, I thank you. Sooner or later this last disgrace must beforgotten too. Time is clever in the healing art. If I were weak Ishould leave Naukratis and live in retirement for my grandchild alone;a whole world, believe me, lies slumbering in that young creature. Manyand many a time already I have longed to leave Egypt, and as often haveconquered the wish. Not because I cannot live without the homage of yoursex; of that I have already had more than enough in my life, but becauseI feel that I, the slave-girl and the despised woman once, am nowuseful, necessary, almost indispensable indeed, to many free and noblemen. Accustomed as I am, to an extended sphere of work, in its natureresembling a man's, I could not content myself in living for one beingalone, however dear. I should dry up like a plant removed from a richsoil into the desert, and should leave my grandchild desolate indeed,three times orphaned, and alone in the world. No! I shall remain inEgypt.
"Now that you are leaving, I shall be really indispensable to ourfriends here. Amasis is old; when Psamtik comes to the throne we shallhave infinitely greater difficulties to contend with than heretofore. Imust remain and fight on in the fore-front of our battle for the freedomand welfare of the Hellenic race. Let them call my efforts unwomanly ifthey will. This is, and shall be, the purpose of my life, a purpose towhich I will remain all the more faithful, because it is one of thoseto which a woman rarely dares devote her life. During this last nightof tears I have felt that much, very much of that womanly weakness stilllingers in me which forms at once the happiness and misery of our sex.To preserve this feminine weakness in my granddaughter, united withperfect womanly delicacy, has been my first duty; my second to freemyself entirely from it. But a war against one's own nature cannot becarried on without occasional defeat, even if ultimately successful.When grief and pain are gaining the upperhand and I am well nigh indespair, my only help lies in remembering my friend Pythagoras, thatnoblest among men, and his words: 'Observe a due proportion in allthings, avoid excessive joy as well as complaining grief, and seek tokeep thy soul in tune and
harmony like a well-toned harp.'"
[There is no question that Pythagoras visited Egypt during the reign of Amasis, probably towards the middle of the 6th century (according to our reckoning, about 536 B. C.) Herod. II. 81-123. Diod. I. 98. Rich information about Pythagoras is to be found in the works of the very learned scholar Roeth, who is however occasionally much too bold in his conjectures. Pythagoras was the first among Greek thinkers (speculators). He would not take the name of a wise man or "sage," but called himself "Philosophos," or a "friend of wisdom."]
"This Pythagorean inward peace, this deep, untroubled calm, I see dailybefore me in my Sappho; and struggle to attain it myself, though many astroke of fate untunes the chords of my poor heart. I am calm now! Youwould hardly believe what power the mere thought of that first of allthinkers, that calm, deliberate man, whose life acted on mine likesweet, soft music, has over me. You knew him, you can understand whatI mean. Now, mention your wish; my heart is as calmly quiet as the Nilewaters which are flowing by so quietly, and I am ready to hear it, be itgood or evil."
"I am glad to see you thus," said the Athenian. "If you had rememberedthe noble friend of wisdom, as Pythagoras was wont to call himself alittle sooner, your soul would have regained its balance yesterday. Themaster enjoins us to look back every evening on the events, feelings andactions of the day just past.
"Now had you done this, you would have felt that the unfeignedadmiration of all your guests, among whom were men of distinguishedmerit, outweighed a thousandfold the injurious words of a drunkenlibertine; you would have felt too that you were a friend of the gods,for was it not in your house that the immortals gave that noble old manat last, after his long years of misfortune, the greatest joy that canfall to the lot of any human being? and did they not take from you onefriend only in order to replace him in the same moment, by another and abetter? Come, I will hear no contradiction. Now for my request.
"You know that people sometimes call me an Athenian, sometimes aHalikarnassian. Now, as the Ionian, AEolian and Dorian mercenaries havenever been on good terms with the Karians, my almost triple descent(if I may call it so) has proved very useful to me as commander of boththese divisions. Well qualified as Aristomachus may be for the command,yet in this one point Amasis will miss me; for I found it an easy matterto settle the differences among the troops and keep them at peace, whilehe, as a Spartan, will find it very difficult to keep right with theKarian soldiers.
"This double nationality of mine arises from the fact that my fathermarried a Halikarnassian wife out of a noble Dorian family, and, at thetime of my birth, was staying with her in Halikarnassus, having comethither in order to take possession of her parental inheritance. So,though I was taken back to Athens before I was three months old, Imust still be called a Karian, as a man's native land is decided by hisbirthplace.
"In Athens, as a young nobleman, belonging to that most aristocraticand ancient family, the Philaidae, I was reared and educated in all thepride of an Attic noble. Pisistratus, brave and clever, and though ofequal, yet by no means of higher birth, than ourselves, for there existsno family more aristocratic than my father's, gained possession of thesupreme authority. Twice, the nobles, by uniting all their strength,succeeded in overthrowing him, and when, the third time, assisted byLygdamis of Naxos, the Argives and Eretrians, he attempted to return, weopposed him again. We had encamped by the temple of Minerva at Pallene,and were engaged in sacrificing to the goddess, early, before our firstmeal, when we were suddenly surprised by the clever tyrant, who gainedan easy, bloodless victory over our unarmed troops. As half of theentire army opposed to the tyrant was under my command, I determinedrather to die than yield, fought with my whole strength, implored thesoldiers to remain steadfast, resisted without yielding a point, butfell at last with a spear in my shoulder.
"The Pisistratidae became lords of Athens. I fled to Halikarnassus, mysecond home, accompanied by my wife and children. There, my name beingknown through some daring military exploits, and, through my havingonce conquered in the Pythian games, I was appointed to a command inthe mercenary troops of the King of Egypt; accompanied the expeditionto Cyprus, shared with Aristomachus the renown of having conqueredthe birthplace of Aphrodite for Amasis, and finally was namedcommander-in-chief of all the mercenaries in Egypt.
"Last summer my wife died; our children, a boy of eleven and a girlof ten years, remained with an aunt in Halikarnassus. But she too hasfollowed to the inexorable Hades, and so, only a few days ago I sent forthe little ones here. They cannot, however, possibly reach Naukratis inless than three weeks, and yet they will already have set out on theirjourney before a letter to countermand my first order could reach them.
"I must leave Egypt in fourteen days, and cannot therefore receive themmyself.
"My own intentions are to go to the Thracian Chersonese, where my uncle,as you know, has been called to fill a high office among the Dolonki.The children shall follow me thither; my faithful old slave Korax willremain in Naukratis on purpose to bring them to me.
"Now, if you will show to me that you are in deed and truth my friend,will you receive the little ones and take care of them till the nextship sails for Thrace? But above all, will you carefully conceal themfrom the eyes of the crown-prince's spies? You know that Psamtik hatesme mortally, and he could easily revenge himself on the father throughthe children. I ask you for this great favor, first, because I know yourkindness by experience; and secondly, because your house has been madesecure by the king's letter of guarantee, and they will therefore besafe here from the inquiries of the police; notwithstanding that, by thelaws of this most formal country, all strangers, children not excepted,must give up their names to the officer of the district.
"You can now judge of the depth of my esteem, Rhodopis; I am committinginto your hands all that makes life precious to me; for even my nativeland has ceased to be dear while she submits so ignominiously to hertyrants. Will you then restore tranquillity to an anxious father'sheart, will you--?"
"I will, Phanes, I will!" cried the aged woman in undisguised delight."You are not asking me for any thing, you are presenting me with a gift.Oh, how I look forward already to their arrival! And how glad Sapphowill be, when the little creatures come and enliven her solitude! Butthis I can assure you, Phanes, I shall not let my little guests departwith the first Thracian ship. You can surely afford to be separated fromthem one short half-year longer, and I promise you they shall receivethe best lessons, and be guided to all that is good and beautiful."
"On that head I have no fear," answered Phanes, with a thankful smile."But still you must send off the two little plagues by the first ship;my anxiety as to Psamtik's revenge is only too well grounded. Take mymost heartfelt thanks beforehand for all the love and kindness which youwill show to my children. I too hope and believe, that the merry littlecreatures will be an amusement and pleasure to Sappho in her lonelylife."
"And more," interrupted Rhodopis looking down; "this proof of confidencerepays a thousand-fold the disgrace inflicted on me last night in amoment of intoxication.--But here comes Sappho!"