Glaucus--in tending the flowers that at least repaid her love.
Sometimes she entered the chamber where he sat, and sought a
conversation, which she nearly always broke off abruptly--for
conversation with Glaucus only tended to one subject--Ione; and that
name from his lips inflicted agony upon her. Often she bitterly
repented the service she had rendered to Ione: often she said inly, 'If
she had fallen, Glaucus could have loved her no longer'; and then dark
and fearful thoughts crept into her breast.
She had not experienced fully the trials that were in store for her,
when she had been thus generous. She had never before been present when
Glaucus and Ione were together; she had never heard that voice so kind
to her, so much softer to another. The shock that crushed her heart
with the tidings that Glaucus loved, had at first only saddened and
benumbed--by degrees jealousy took a wilder and fiercer shape; it
partook of hatred--it whispered revenge. As you see the wind only
agitate the green leaf upon the bough, while the leaf which has lain
withered and seared on the ground, bruised and trampled upon till the
sap and life are gone, is suddenly whirled aloft--now here--now
there--without stay and without rest; so the love which visits the happy
and the hopeful hath but freshness on its wings! its violence is but
sportive. But the heart that hath fallen from the green things of life,
that is without hope, that hath no summer in its fibres, is torn and
whirled by the same wind that but caresses its brethren--it hath no
bough to cling to--it is dashed from path to path--till the winds fall,
and it is crushed into the mire for ever.
The friendless childhood of Nydia had hardened prematurely her
character; perhaps the heated scenes of profligacy through which she had
passed, seemingly unscathed, had ripened her passions, though they had
not sullied her purity. The orgies of Burbo might only have disgusted,
the banquets of the Egyptian might only have terrified, at the moment;
but the winds that pass unheeded over the soil leave seeds behind them.
As darkness, too, favors the imagination, so, perhaps, her very
blindness contributed to feed with wild and delirious visions the love
of the unfortunate girl. The voice of Glaucus had been the first that
had sounded musically to her ear; his kindness made a deep impression
upon her mind; when he had left Pompeii in the former year, she had
treasured up in her heart every word he had uttered; and when any one
told her that this friend and patron of the poor flower-girl was the
most brilliant and the most graceful of the young revellers of Pompeii,
she had felt a pleasing pride in nursing his recollection. Even the
task which she imposed upon herself, of tending his flowers, served to
keep him in her mind; she associated him with all that was most charming
to her impressions; and when she had refused to express what image she
fancied Ione to resemble, it was partly, perhaps, that whatever was
bright and soft in nature she had already combined with the thought of
Glaucus. If any of my readers ever loved at an age which they would now
smile to remember--an age in which fancy forestalled the reason, let
them say whether that love, among all its strange and complicated
delicacies, was not, above all other and later passions, susceptible of
jealousy? I seek not here the cause: I know that it is commonly the
fact.
When Glaucus returned to Pompeii, Nydia had told another year of life;
that year, with its sorrows, its loneliness, its trials, had greatly
developed her mind and heart; and when the Athenian drew her
unconsciously to his breast, deeming her still in soul as in years a
child--when he kissed her smooth cheek, and wound his arm round her
trembling frame, Nydia felt suddenly, and as by revelation, that those
feelings she had long and innocently cherished were of love. Doomed to
be rescued from tyranny by Glaucus--doomed to take shelter under his
roof--doomed to breathe, but for so brief a time, the same air--and
doomed, in the first rush of a thousand happy, grateful, delicious
sentiments of an overflowing heart, to hear that he loved another; to be
commissioned to that other, the messenger, the minister; to feel all at
once that utter nothingness which she was--which she ever must be, but
which, till then, her young mind had not taught her--that utter
nothingness to him who was all to her; what wonder that, in her wild and
passionate soul, all the elements jarred discordant; that if love
reigned over the whole, it was not the love which is born of the more
sacred and soft emotions? Sometimes she dreaded only lest Glaucus
should discover her secret; sometimes she felt indignant that it was not
suspected: it was a sign of contempt--could he imagine that she presumed
so far? Her feelings to Ione ebbed and flowed with every hour; now she
loved her because he did; now she hated him for the same cause. There
were moments when she could have murdered her unconscious mistress;
moments when she could have laid down life for her. These fierce and
tremulous alternations of passion were too severe to be borne long. Her
health gave way, though she felt it not--her cheek paled--her step grew
feebler--tears came to her eyes more often, and relieved her less.
One morning, when she repaired to her usual task in the garden of the
Athenian, she found Glaucus under the columns of the peristyle, with a
merchant of the town; he was selecting jewels for his destined bride.
He had already fitted up her apartment; the jewels he bought that day
were placed also within it--they were never fated to grace the fair form
of Ione; they may be seen at this day among the disinterred treasures of
Pompeii, in the chambers of the studio at Naples.
'Come hither, Nydia; put down thy vase, and come hither. Thou must take
this chain from me--stay--there, I have put it on. There, Servilius,
does it not become her?'
'Wonderfully!' answered the jeweller; for jewellers were well-bred and
flattering men, even at that day. 'But when these ear-rings glitter in
the ears of the noble Ione, then, by Bacchus! you will see whether my
art adds anything to beauty.'
'Ione?' repeated Nydia, who had hitherto acknowledged by smiles and
blushes the gift of Glaucus.
'Yes,' replied the Athenian, carelessly toying with the gems; 'I am
choosing a present for Ione, but there are none worthy of her.'
He was startled as he spoke by an abrupt gesture of Nydia; she tore the
chain violently from her neck, and dashed it on the ground.
'How is this? What, Nydia, dost thou not like the bauble? art thou
offended?'
'You treat me ever as a slave and as a child,' replied the Thessalian,
with ill-suppressed sobs, and she turned hastily away to the opposite
corner of the garden.
Glaucus did not attempt to follow, or to soothe; he was offended; he
continued to examine the jewels and to comment on their fashion--to
object to this and to praise that, and finally to be talked by the
merchant into buying all; the safest plan for a lover, and a plan that
any one will do right to adopt, provided always that he can obtain an
Ione!
When he had completed his purchase and dismissed the jeweller, he
retired into his chamber, dressed, mounted his chariot, and went to
Ione. He thought no more of the blind girl, or her offence; he had
forgotten both the one and the other.
He spent the forenoon with his beautiful Neapolitan, repaired thence to
the baths, supped (if, as we have said before, we can justly so
translate the three o'clock coena of the Romans) alone, and abroad, for
Pompeii had its restaurateurs--and returning home to change his dress
ere he again repaired to the house of Ione, he passed the peristyle, but
with the absorbed reverie and absent eyes of a man in love, and did not
note the form of the poor blind girl, bending exactly in the same place
where he had left her. But though he saw her not, her ear recognized at
once the sound of his step. She had been counting the moments to his
return. He had scarcely entered his favorite chamber, which opened on
the peristyle, and seated himself musingly on his couch, when he felt
his robe timorously touched, and, turning, he beheld Nydia kneeling
before him, and holding up to him a handful of flowers--a gentle and
appropriate peace-offering--her eyes, darkly upheld to his own, streamed
with tears.
'I have offended thee,' said she, sobbing, 'and for the first time. I
would die rather than cause thee a moment's pain--say that thou wilt
forgive me. See! I have taken up the chain; I have put it on: I will
never part from it--it is thy gift.'
'My dear Nydia,' returned Glaucus, and raising her, he kissed her
forehead, 'think of it no more! But why, my child, wert thou so
suddenly angry? I could not divine the cause?'
'Do not ask!' said she, coloring violently. 'I am a thing full of
faults and humors; you know I am but a child--you say so often: is it
from a child that you can expect a reason for every folly?'
'But, prettiest, you will soon be a child no more; and if you would have
us treat you as a woman, you must learn to govern these singular
impulses and gales of passion. Think not I chide: no, it is for your
happiness only I speak.'
'It is true,' said Nydia, 'I must learn to govern myself I must bide, I
must suppress, my heart. This is a woman's task and duty; methinks her
virtue is hypocrisy.'
'Self-control is not deceit, my Nydia,' returned the Athenian; and that
is the virtue necessary alike to man and to woman; it is the true
senatorial toga, the badge of the dignity it covers!'
'Self-control! self-control! Well, well, what you say is right! When I
listen to you, Glaucus, my wildest thoughts grow calm and sweet, and a
delicious serenity falls over me. Advise, ah! guide me ever, my
preserver!'
'Thy affectionate heart will be thy best guide, Nydia, when thou hast
learned to regulate its feelings.'
'Ah! that will be never,' sighed Nydia, wiping away her tears.
'Say not so: the first effort is the only difficult one.'
'I have made many first efforts,' answered Nydia, innocently. 'But you,
my Mentor, do you find it so easy to control yourself? Can you conceal,
can you even regulate, your love for Ione?'
'Love! dear Nydia: ah! that is quite another matter,' answered the young
preceptor.
'I thought so!' returned Nydia, with a melancholy smile. 'Glaucus, wilt
thou take my poor flowers? Do with them as thou wilt--thou canst give
them to Ione,' added she, with a little hesitation.
'Nay, Nydia,' answered Glaucus, kindly, divining something of jealousy
in her language, though he imagined it only the jealousy of a vain and
susceptible child; 'I will not give thy pretty flowers to any one. Sit
here and weave them into a garland; I will wear it this night: it is not
the first those delicate fingers have woven for me.'
The poor girl delightedly sat down beside Glaucus. She drew from her
girdle a ball of the many-colored threads, or rather slender ribands,
used in the weaving of garlands, and which (for it was her professional
occupation) she carried constantly with her, and began quickly and
gracefully to commence her task. Upon her young cheeks the tears were
already dried, a faint but happy smile played round her lips--childlike,
indeed, she was sensible only of the joy of the present hour: she was
reconciled to Glaucus: he had forgiven her--she was beside him--he
played caressingly with her silken hair--his breath fanned her
cheek--Ione, the cruel Ione, was not by--none other demanded, divided,
his care. Yes, she was happy and forgetful; it was one of the few
moments in her brief and troubled life that it was sweet to treasure, to
recall. As the butterfly, allured by the winter sun, basks for a little
in the sudden light, ere yet the wind awakes and the frost comes on,
which shall blast it before the eve--she rested beneath a beam, which,
by contrast with the wonted skies, was not chilling; and the instinct
which should have warned her of its briefness, bade her only gladden in
its smile.
'Thou hast beautiful locks,' said Glaucus. 'They were once, I ween
well, a mother's delight.'
Nydia sighed; it would seem that she had not been born a slave; but she
ever shunned the mention of her parentage, and, whether obscure or
noble, certain it is that her birth was never known by her benefactors,
nor by any one in those distant shores, even to the last. The child of
sorrow and of mystery, she came and went as some bird that enters our
chamber for a moment; we see it flutter for a while before us, we know
not whence it flew or to what region it escapes.
Nydia sighed, and after a short pause, without answering the remark,
said: 'But do I weave too many roses in my wreath, Glaucus? They tell
me it is thy favorite flower.'
'And ever favored, my Nydia, be it by those who have the soul of poetry:
it is the flower of love, of festival; it is also the flower we dedicate
to silence and to death; it blooms on our brows in life, while life be
worth the having; it is scattered above our sepulchre when we are no
more.'
'Ah! would,' said Nydia, 'instead of this perishable wreath, that I
could take thy web from the hand of the Fates, and insert the roses
there!'
'Pretty one! thy wish is worthy of a voice so attuned to song; it is
uttered in the spirit of song; and, whatever my doom, I thank thee.'
'Whatever thy doom! is it not already destined to all things bright and
fair? My wish was vain. The Fates will be as tender to thee as I
should.'
'It might not be so, Nydia, were it not for love! While youth lasts, I
may forget my country for a while. But what Athenian, in his graver
manhood, can think of Athens as she was, and be contented that he is
