'I must have yon bunch of violets, sweet Nydia,' said Glaucus, pressing
through the crowd, and dropping a handful of small coins into the
basket; 'your voice is more charming than ever.'
The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian's voice; then
as suddenly paused, while the blood rushed violently over neck, cheek,
and temples.
'So you are returned!' said she, in a low voice; and then repeated half
to herself, 'Glaucus is returned!'
'Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days. My garden
wants your care, as before; you will visit it, I trust, to-morrow. And
mind, no garlands at my house shall be woven by any hands but those of
the pretty Nydia.'
Nydia smiled joyously, but did not answer; and Glaucus, placing in his
breast the violets he had selected, turned gaily and carelessly from the
crowd.
'So she is a sort of client of yours, this child?' said Clodius.
'Ay--does she not sing prettily? She interests me, the poor slave!
Besides, she is from the land of the Gods' hill--Olympus frowned upon
her cradle--she is of Thessaly.'
'The witches' country.'
'True: but for my part I find every woman a witch; and at Pompeii, by
Venus! the very air seems to have taken a love-philtre, so handsome does
every face without a beard seem in my eyes.'
'And lo! one of the handsomest in Pompeii, old Diomed's daughter, the
rich Julia!' said Clodius, as a young lady, her face covered by her
veil, and attended by two female slaves, approached them, in her way to
the baths.
'Fair Julia, we salute thee!' said Clodius.
Julia partly raised her veil, so as with some coquetry to display a bold
Roman profile, a full dark bright eye, and a cheek over whose natural
olive art shed a fairer and softer rose.
'And Glaucus, too, is returned!' said she, glancing meaningly at the
Athenian. 'Has he forgotten,' she added, in a half-whisper, 'his
friends of the last year?'
'Beautiful Julia! even Lethe itself, if it disappear in one part of the
earth, rises again in another. Jupiter does not allow us ever to forget
for more than a moment: but Venus, more harsh still, vouchsafes not even
a moment's oblivion.'
'Glaucus is never at a loss for fair words.'
'Who is, when the object of them is so fair?'
'We shall see you both at my father's villa soon,' said Julia, turning
to Clodius.
'We will mark the day in which we visit you with a white stone,'
answered the gamester.
Julia dropped her veil, but slowly, so that her last glance rested on
the Athenian with affected timidity and real boldness; the glance
bespoke tenderness and reproach.
The friends passed on.
'Julia is certainly handsome,' said Glaucus.
'And last year you would have made that confession in a warmer tone.'
'True; I was dazzled at the first sight, and mistook for a gem that
which was but an artful imitation.'
'Nay,' returned Clodius, 'all women are the same at heart. Happy he who
weds a handsome face and a large dower. What more can he desire?'
Glaucus sighed.
They were now in a street less crowded than the rest, at the end of
which they beheld that broad and most lovely sea, which upon those
delicious coasts seems to have renounced its prerogative of terror--so
soft are the crisping winds that hover around its bosom, so glowing and
so various are the hues which it takes from the rosy clouds, so fragrant
are the perfumes which the breezes from the land scatter over its
depths. From such a sea might you well believe that Aphrodite rose to
take the empire of the earth.
'It is still early for the bath,' said the Greek, who was the creature
of every poetical impulse; 'let us wander from the crowded city, and
look upon the sea while the noon yet laughs along its billows.'
'With all my heart,' said Clodius; 'and the bay, too, is always the most
animated part of the city.'
Pompeii was the miniature of the civilization of that age. Within the
narrow compass of its walls was contained, as it were, a specimen of
every gift which luxury offered to power. In its minute but glittering
shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theatre, its
circus--in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice, of
its people, you beheld a model of the whole empire. It was a toy, a
plaything, a showbox, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the
representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards
hid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity--the moral of the
maxim, that under the sun there is nothing new.
Crowded in the glassy bay were the vessels of commerce and the gilded
galleys for the pleasures of the rich citizens. The boats of the
fishermen glided rapidly to and fro; and afar off you saw the tall masts
of the fleet under the command of Pliny. Upon the shore sat a Sicilian
who, with vehement gestures and flexile features, was narrating to a
group of fishermen and peasants a strange tale of shipwrecked mariners
and friendly dolphins--just as at this day, in the modern neighborhood,
you may hear upon the Mole of Naples.
Drawing his comrade from the crowd, the Greek bent his steps towards a
solitary part of the beach, and the two friends, seated on a small crag
which rose amidst the smooth pebbles, inhaled the voluptuous and cooling
breeze, which dancing over the waters, kept music with its invisible
feet. There was, perhaps, something in the scene that invited them to
silence and reverie. Clodius, shading his eyes from the burning sky,
was calculating the gains of the last week; and the Greek, leaning upon
his hand, and shrinking not from that sun--his nation's tutelary
deity--with whose fluent light of poesy, and joy, and love, his own
veins were filled, gazed upon the broad expanse, and envied, perhaps,
every wind that bent its pinions towards the shores of Greece.
'Tell me, Clodius,' said the Greek at last, 'hast thou ever been in
love?'
'Yes, very often.'
'He who has loved often,' answered Glaucus, 'has loved never. There is
but one Eros, though there are many counterfeits of him.'
'The counterfeits are not bad little gods, upon the whole,' answered
Clodius.
'I agree with you,' returned the Greek. 'I adore even the shadow of
Love; but I adore himself yet more.'
'Art thou, then, soberly and honestly in love? Hast thou that feeling
which the poets describe--a feeling that makes us neglect our suppers,
forswear the theatre, and write elegies? I should never have thought
it. You dissemble well.'
'I am not far gone enough for that,' returned Glaucus, smiling, 'or
rather I say with Tibullus--
He whom love rules, where'er his path may be, Walks safe and sacred.
In fact, I am not in love; but I could be if there were but occasion to
see the object. Eros would light his torch, but the priests have given
him no oil.'
'Shall I guess the object?--Is it not Diomed's daughter? She adores
you, and does not affect to conceal it; and, by Hercules, I say again
and again, she is both handsome and rich. She will bind the door-posts
of her husband with golden fillets.'
'No, I do not desire to sell myself. Diomed's daughter is handsome, I
grant: and at one time, had she not been the grandchild of a freedman, I
might have... Yet no--she carries all her beauty in her face; her
manners are not maiden-like, and her mind knows no culture save that of
pleasure.'
'You are ungrateful. Tell me, then, who is the fortunate virgin?'
'You shall hear, my Clodius. Several months ago I was sojourning at
Neapolis, a city utterly to my own heart, for it still retains the
manners and stamp of its Grecian origin--and it yet merits the name of
Parthenope, from its delicious air and its beautiful shores. One day I
entered the temple of Minerva, to offer up my prayers, not for myself
more than for the city on which Pallas smiles no longer. The temple was
empty and deserted. The recollections of Athens crowded fast and
meltingly upon me: imagining myself still alone in the temple, and
absorbed in the earnestness of my devotion, my prayer gushed from my
heart to my lips, and I wept as I prayed. I was startled in the midst of
my devotions, however, by a deep sigh; I turned suddenly round, and just
behind me was a female. She had raised her veil also in prayer: and
when our eyes met, methought a celestial ray shot from those dark and
smiling orbs at once into my soul. Never, my Clodius, have I seen
mortal face more exquisitely molded: a certain melancholy softened and
yet elevated its expression: that unutterable something, which springs
from the soul, and which our sculptors have imparted to the aspect of
Psyche, gave her beauty I know not what of divine and noble; tears were
rolling down her eyes. I guessed at once that she was also of Athenian
lineage; and that in my prayer for Athens her heart had responded to
mine. I spoke to her, though with a faltering voice--"Art thou not, too,
Athenian?" said I, "O beautiful virgin!" At the sound of my voice she
blushed, and half drew her veil across her face.--"My forefathers'
ashes," said she, "repose by the waters of Ilissus: my birth is of
Neapolis; but my heart, as my lineage, is Athenian."--"Let us, then,"
said I, "make our offerings together": and, as the priest now appeared,
we stood side by side, while we followed the priest in his ceremonial
prayer; together we touched the knees of the goddess--together we laid
our olive garlands on the altar. I felt a strange emotion of almost
sacred tenderness at this companionship. We, strangers from a far and
fallen land, stood together and alone in that temple of our country's
deity: was it not natural that my heart should yearn to my countrywoman,
for so I might surely call her? I felt as if I had known her for years;
and that simple rite seemed, as by a miracle, to operate on the
sympathies and ties of time. Silently we left the temple, and I was
about to ask her where she dwelt, and if I might be permitted to visit
her, when a youth, in whose features there was some kindred resemblance
to her own, and who stood upon the steps of the fane, took her by the
hand. She turned round and bade me farewell. The crowd separated us: I
saw her no more. On reaching my home I found letters, which obliged me
to set out for Athens, for my relations threatened me with litigation
concerning my inheritance. When that suit was happily over, I repaired
once more to Neapolis; I instituted inquiries throughout the whole city,
I could discover no clue of my lost countrywoman, and, hoping to lose in
gaiety all remembrance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened to
plunge myself amidst the luxuries of Pompeii. This is all my history.
I do not love; but I remember and regret.'
As Clodius was about to reply, a slow and stately step approached them,
and at the sound it made amongst the pebbles, each turned, and each
recognized the new-comer.
It was a man who had scarcely reached his fortieth year, of tall
stature, and of a thin but nervous and sinewy frame. His skin, dark and
bronzed, betrayed his Eastern origin; and his features had something
Greek in their outline (especially in the chin, the lip, and the brow),
save that the nose was somewhat raised and aquiline; and the bones, hard
and visible, forbade that fleshy and waving contour which on the Grecian
physiognomy preserved even in manhood the round and beautiful curves of
youth. His eyes, large and black as the deepest night, shone with no
varying and uncertain lustre. A deep, thoughtful, and half-melancholy
calm seemed unalterably fixed in their majestic and commanding gaze.
His step and mien were peculiarly sedate and lofty, and something
foreign in the fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments added
to the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately form.
Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, and
with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their
fingers; for Arbaces, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal
gift of the evil eye.
'The scene must, indeed, be beautiful,' said Arbaces, with a cold though
courteous smile, 'which draws the gay Clodius, and Glaucus the all
admired, from the crowded thoroughfares of the city.'
'Is Nature ordinarily so unattractive?' asked the Greek.
'To the dissipated--yes.'
'An austere reply, but scarcely a wise one. Pleasure delights in
contrasts; it is from dissipation that we learn to enjoy solitude, and
from solitude dissipation.'
'So think the young philosophers of the Garden,' replied the Egyptian;
'they mistake lassitude for meditation, and imagine that, because they
are sated with others, they know the delight of loneliness. But not in
such jaded bosoms can Nature awaken that enthusiasm which alone draws
from her chaste reserve all her unspeakable beauty: she demands from
you, not the exhaustion of passion, but all that fervor, from which you
only seek, in adoring her, a release. When, young Athenian, the moon
revealed herself in visions of light to Endymion, it was after a day
passed, not amongst the feverish haunts of men, but on the still
mountains and in the solitary valleys of the hunter.'
'Beautiful simile!' cried Glaucus; 'most unjust application! Exhaustion!
that word is for age, not youth. By me, at least, one moment of satiety
has never been known!'
Again the Egyptian smiled, but his smile was cold and blighting, and
even the unimaginative Clodius froze beneath its light. He did not,
however, reply to the passionate exclamation of Glaucus; but, after a
pause, he said, in a soft and melancholy voice:
