Let the Roman senator not despise the poor Pompeian. Away, slave--and
remember, the Phrygian attagens.'
The chief disappeared within his natural domain, and Diomed rolled back
his portly presence to the more courtly chambers. All was to his
liking--the flowers were fresh, the fountains played briskly, the mosaic
pavements were as smooth as mirrors.
'Where is my daughter Julia?' he asked.
'At the bath.'
'Ah! that reminds me!--time wanes!--and I must bathe also.'
Our story returns to Apaecides. On awaking that day from the broken and
feverish sleep which had followed his adoption of a faith so strikingly
and sternly at variance with that in which his youth had been nurtured,
the young priest could scarcely imagine that he was not yet in a dream;
he had crossed the fatal river--the past was henceforth to have no
sympathy with the future; the two worlds were distinct and
separate--that which had been, from that which was to be. To what a bold
and adventurous enterprise he had pledged his life!--to unveil the
mysteries in which he had participated--to desecrate the altars he had
served--to denounce the goddess whose ministering robe he wore! Slowly
he became sensible of the hatred and the horror he should provoke
amongst the pious, even if successful; if frustrated in his daring
attempt, what penalties might he not incur for an offence hitherto
unheard of--for which no specific law, derived from experience, was
prepared; and which, for that very reason, precedents, dragged from the
sharpest armoury of obsolete and inapplicable legislation, would
probably be distorted to meet! His friends--the sister of his
youth--could he expect justice, though he might receive compassion, from
them? This brave and heroic act would by their heathen eyes be regarded,
perhaps, as a heinous apostasy--at the best as a pitiable madness.
He dared, he renounced, everything in this world, in the hope of
securing that eternity in the next, which had so suddenly been revealed
to him. While these thoughts on the one hand invaded his breast, on the
other hand his pride, his courage, and his virtue, mingled with
reminiscences of revenge for deceit, of indignant disgust at fraud,
conspired to raise and to support him.
The conflict was sharp and keen; but his new feelings triumphed over his
old: and a mighty argument in favor of wrestling with the sanctities of
old opinions and hereditary forms might be found in the conquest over
both, achieved by that humble priest. Had the early Christians been
more controlled by 'the solemn plausibilities of custom'--less of
democrats in the pure and lofty acceptation of that perverted
word--Christianity would have perished in its cradle!
As each priest in succession slept several nights together in the
chambers of the temple, the term imposed on Apaecides was not yet
completed; and when he had risen from his couch, attired himself, as
usual, in his robes, and left his narrow chamber, he found himself
before the altars of the temple.
In the exhaustion of his late emotions he had slept far into the
morning, and the vertical sun already poured its fervid beams over the
sacred place.
'Salve, Apaecides!' said a voice, whose natural asperity was smoothed by
long artifice into an almost displeasing softness of tone. 'Thou art
late abroad; has the goddess revealed herself to thee in visions?'
'Could she reveal her true self to the people, Calenus, how incenseless
would be these altars!'
'That,' replied Calenus, 'may possibly be true; but the deity is wise
enough to hold commune with none but priests.'
'A time may come when she will be unveiled without her own
acquiescence.'
'It is not likely: she has triumphed for countless ages. And that which
has so long stood the test of time rarely succumbs to the lust of
novelty. But hark ye, young brother! these sayings are indiscreet.'
'It is not for thee to silence them,' replied Apaecides, haughtily.
'So hot!--yet I will not quarrel with thee. Why, my Apaecides, has not
the Egyptian convinced thee of the necessity of our dwelling together in
unity? Has he not convinced thee of the wisdom of deluding the people
and enjoying ourselves? If not, oh, brother! he is not that great
magician he is esteemed.'
'Thou, then, hast shared his lessons?' said Apaecides, with a hollow
smile.
'Ay! but I stood less in need of them than thou. Nature had already
gifted me with the love of pleasure, and the desire of gain and power.
Long is the way that leads the voluptuary to the severities of life; but
it is only one step from pleasant sin to sheltering hypocrisy. Beware
the vengeance of the goddess, if the shortness of that step be
disclosed!'
'Beware, thou, the hour when the tomb shall be rent and the rottenness
exposed,' returned Apaecides, solemnly. 'Vale!'
With these words he left the flamen to his meditations. When he got a
few paces from the temple, he turned to look back. Calenus had already
disappeared in the entry room of the priests, for it now approached the
hour of that repast which, called prandium by the ancients, answers in
point of date to the breakfast of the moderns. The white and graceful
fane gleamed brightly in the sun. Upon the altars before it rose the
incense and bloomed the garlands. The priest gazed long and wistfully
upon the scene--it was the last time that it was ever beheld by him!
He then turned and pursued his way slowly towards the house of Ione; for
before possibly the last tie that united them was cut in twain--before
the uncertain peril of the next day was incurred, he was anxious to see
his last surviving relative, his fondest as his earliest friend.
He arrived at her house, and found her in the garden with Nydia.
'This is kind, Apaecides,' said Ione, joyfully; 'and how eagerly have I
wished to see thee!--what thanks do I not owe thee? How churlish hast
thou been to answer none of my letters--to abstain from coming hither to
receive the expressions of my gratitude! Oh! thou hast assisted to
preserve thy sister from dishonour! What, what can she say to thank
thee, now thou art come at last?'
'My sweet Ione, thou owest me no gratitude, for thy cause was mine. Let
us avoid that subject, let us recur not to that impious man--how hateful
to both of us! I may have a speedy opportunity to teach the world the
nature of his pretended wisdom and hypocritical severity. But let us
sit down, my sister; I am wearied with the heat of the sun; let us sit
in yonder shade, and, for a little while longer, be to each other what
we have been.'
Beneath a wide plane-tree, with the cistus and the arbutus clustering
round them, the living fountain before, the greensward beneath their
feet; the gay cicada, once so dear to Athens, rising merrily ever and
anon amidst the grass; the butterfly, beautiful emblem of the soul,
dedicated to Psyche, and which has continued to furnish illustrations to
the Christian bard, rich in the glowing colors caught from Sicilian
skies, hovering about the sunny flowers, itself like a winged flower--in
this spot, and this scene, the brother and the sister sat together for
the last time on earth. You may tread now on the same place; but the
garden is no more, the columns are shattered, the fountain has ceased to
play. Let the traveler search amongst the ruins of Pompeii for the
house of Ione. Its remains are yet visible; but I will not betray them
to the gaze of commonplace tourists. He who is more sensitive than the
herd will discover them easily: when he has done so, let him keep the
secret.
They sat down, and Nydia, glad to be alone, retired to the farther end
of the garden.
'Ione, my sister,' said the young convert, 'place your hand upon my
brow; let me feel your cool touch. Speak to me, too, for your gentle
voice is like a breeze that hath freshness as well as music. Speak to
me, but forbear to bless me! Utter not one word of those forms of
speech which our childhood was taught to consider sacred!'
'Alas! and what then shall I say? Our language of affection is so woven
with that of worship, that the words grow chilled and trite if I banish
from them allusion to our gods.'
'Our gods!' murmured Apaecides, with a shudder: 'thou slightest my
request already.'
'Shall I speak then to thee only of Isis?'
'The Evil Spirit! No, rather be dumb for ever, unless at least thou
canst--but away, away this talk! Not now will we dispute and cavil; not
now will we judge harshly of each other. Thou, regarding me as an
apostate! and I all sorrow and shame for thee as an idolater. No, my
sister, let us avoid such topics and such thoughts. In thy sweet
presence a calm falls over my spirit. For a little while I forget. As
I thus lay my temples on thy bosom, as I thus feel thy gentle arm
embrace me, I think that we are children once more, and that the heaven
smiles equally upon both. For oh! if hereafter I escape, no matter what
peril; and it be permitted me to address thee on one sacred and awful
subject; should I find thine ear closed and thy heart hardened, what
hope for myself could countervail the despair for thee? In thee, my
sister, I behold a likeness made beautiful, made noble, of myself.
Shall the mirror live for ever, and the form itself be broken as the
potter's clay? Ah, no--no--thou wilt listen to me yet! Dost thou
remember how we went into the fields by Baiae, hand in hand together, to
pluck the flowers of spring? Even so, hand in hand, shall we enter the
Eternal Garden, and crown ourselves with imperishable asphodel!'
Wondering and bewildered by words she could not comprehend, but excited
even to tears by the plaintiveness of their tone, Ione listened to these
outpourings of a full and oppressed heart. In truth, Apaecides himself
was softened much beyond his ordinary mood, which to outward seeming was
usually either sullen or impetuous. For the noblest desires are of a
jealous nature--they engross, they absorb the soul, and often leave the
splenetic humors stagnant and unheeded at the surface. Unheeding the
petty things around us, we are deemed morose; impatient at earthly
interruption to the diviner dreams, we are thought irritable and
churlish. For as there is no chimera vainer than the hope that one
human heart shall find sympathy in another, so none ever interpret us
with justice; and none, no, not our nearest and our dearest ties,
forbear with us in mercy! When we are dead and repentance comes too
late, both friend and foe may wonder to think how little there was in us
to forgive!
'I will talk to thee then of our early years,' said Ione. 'Shall yon
blind girl sing to thee of the days of childhood? Her voice is sweet
and musical, and she hath a song on that theme which contains none of
those allusions it pains thee to hear.'
'Dost thou remember the words, my sister?' asked Apaecides.
'Methinks yes; for the tune, which is simple, fixed them on my memory.'
'Sing to me then thyself. My ear is not in unison with unfamiliar
voices; and thine, Ione, full of household associations, has ever been
to me more sweet than all the hireling melodies of Lycia or of Crete.
Sing to me!'
Ione beckoned to a slave that stood in the portico, and sending for her
lute, sang, when it arrived, to a tender and simple air, the following
verses:--
REGRETS FOR CHILDHOOD
I
It is not that our earlier Heaven
Escapes its April showers,
Or that to childhood's heart is given
No snake amidst the flowers.
Ah! twined with grief
Each brightest leaf,
That's wreath'd us by the Hours!
Young though we be, the Past may sting,
The present feed its sorrow;
But hope shines bright on every thing
That waits us with the morrow.
Like sun-lit glades,
The dimmest shades
Some rosy beam can borrow.
II
It is not that our later years
Of cares are woven wholly,
But smiles less swiftly chase the tears,
And wounds are healed more slowly.
And Memory's vow
To lost ones now,
Makes joys too bright, unholy.
And ever fled the Iris bow
That smiled when clouds were o'er us.
If storms should burst, uncheered we go,
A drearier waste before us--
And with the toys
Of childish joys,
We've broke the staff that bore us!
Wisely and delicately had Ione chosen that song, sad though its burthen
seemed; for when we are deeply mournful, discordant above all others is
the voice of mirth: the fittest spell is that borrowed from melancholy
itself, for dark thoughts can be softened down when they cannot be
brightened; and so they lose the precise and rigid outline of their
truth, and their colors melt into the ideal. As the leech applies in
remedy to the internal sore some outward irritation, which, by a gentler
wound, draws away the venom of that which is more deadly, thus, in the
rankling festers of the mind, our art is to divert to a milder sadness
on the surface the pain that gnaweth at the core. And so with
Apaecides, yielding to the influence of the silver voice that reminded
him of the past, and told but of half the sorrow born to the present, he
forgot his more immediate and fiery sources of anxious thought. He
spent hours in making Ione alternately sing to, and converse with him;
and when he rose to leave her, it was with a calmed and lulled mind.
'Ione,' said he, as he pressed her hand, 'should you hear my name
blackened and maligned, will you credit the aspersion?'
