Chapter 269

"Mine, you mean to say," Ledscha answered bitterly, "would be less suitable for this purpose. Yet they, too, can wear a different expression from the present one. You, I think, have learned this. Only I shall never acquire the art of dissimulation, not even in your society."

"You seem to be angry on account of my absence yesterday evening?" Hermon asked in an altered tone, clasping her hand; but Ledscha snatched it from him, exclaiming: "The model of the Demeter, the daughter of the wealthy Archias, detained you, you were going to tell me, and you think that ought to satisfy the barbarian maiden."

"Folly!" he answered angrily. "I owe a debt of gratitude to her father, who was my guardian, and custom commands you also to honour a guest. But your obstinacy and jealousy are unbearable. What great thing is it that I ask of your love? A little patience. Practise it. Then your turn will come too."

"Of course, the second and third will follow the first," she answered bitterly. "After Gula, the sailor's wife, you lured my innocent young sister, Taus, to this apartment; or am I mistaken in the order, and was Gula the second?"

"So that's it!" cried Hermon, who was surprised rather than alarmed by this betrayal of his secret. "If you want confirmation of the fact, very well--both were here."

"Because you deluded them with false vows of love."

"By no means. My heart has nothing what ever to do with these visits. Gula came to thank me because I rendered her a service--you know it--which to every mother seems greater than it is."

"But you certainly did not underestimate it," Ledscha impetuously interrupted, "for you demanded her honour in return."

"Guard your tongue!" the artist burst forth angrily. "The woman visited me unasked, and I let her leave me as faithful or as unfaithful to her husband as she came. If I used her as a model--"

"Gula, whom the sculptor transforms into a goddess," Ledscha interrupted, with a sneering laugh.

"Into a fish-seller, if you wish to know it," cried Hermon indignantly. "I saw in the market a young woman selling shad. I took the subject, and found in Gula a suitable model. Unfortunately, she ventured here far too seldom. But I can finish it with the help of the sketch--it stands in yonder cupboard."

"A fish-seller," Ledscha repeated contemptuously. "And for what did my Taus, poor lovely child, seem desirable?"

"Over opposite," Hermon answered quickly, as if he wished to get rid of a troublesome duty, pointing through the window out of doors, "the free maidens, during the hot days, took off their sandals and waded through the water. There I saw your sister's feet. They were the prettiest of all, and Gula brought the young girl to me. I had commenced in Alexandria a figure of a girl holding her foot in her hand to take out a thorn, so I used your sister's for it."

"And when my turn comes?" Ledscha demanded.

"Then," he replied, freshly captivated by the magic of her beauty, in a kinder, almost tender tone, "then I will make of you, in gold and ivory, you wonderfully lovely creature, the counterpart of this goddess."

"And you will need a long time for it?"

"The oftener you come the faster the work will advance."

"And the more surely the Biamite women will point their fingers at me."

"Yet you ventured here to-day, unasked, in the broad light of noon."

"Because I wish to remind you myself that I shall expect you this evening. Yesterday you did not appear; but to-day-I am right, am I not?--to-day you will come."

"With the greatest delight, if it is possible," he answered eagerly.

A warmer glance from her dark eyes rested upon him. The blood seethed in his veins, and as he extended both hands to her and ardently uttered her name, she rushed forward, clinging to him with passionate devotion, as if seeking assistance, but when his lips touched hers she shrank back and loosed her soft arms from his neck.

"What does this mean?" asked the sculptor in surprise, trying to draw her toward him again; but Ledscha would not permit it, pleading in a softer tone than before: "Not now; but--am I not right, dearest--I may expect you this evening? Just this once let the daughter of Archias yield to me, who loves you better. We shall have a full moon to-night, and you have heard what was predicted to me--to-night the highest bliss which the gods can bestow upon a mortal awaits me."

"And me also," cried Hermon, "if you will permit me to share it with you."

"Then I will expect you on the Pelican Island--just when the full moon is over the lofty poplars there. You will come? Not to the Owl's Nest: to the Pelican Island. And though your love is far less, far cooler than mine, yet you will not defraud me of the best happiness of my life?"

"How could I?" he asked, as if he felt wounded by such distrust. "What detains me must be something absolutely unavoidable."

Ledscha's eyebrows contracted sharply, and in a choked voice she exclaimed: "Nothing must detain you--nothing, whatever it may be! Though death should threaten, you will be with me just at midnight."

"I will, if it is possible," he protested, painfully touched by the vehemence of her urging. "What can be more welcome to me also than to spend happy hours with you in the silence of a moonlight night? Besides, my stay in Tennis will not be long."

"You are going?" she asked in a hollow tone.

"In three or four days," he answered carelessly; "then Myrtilus and I will be expected in Alexandria. But gently--gently--how pale you are, girl! Yes, the parting! But in six weeks at latest I shall be here again; then real life will first begin, and Eros will make the roses bloom for us."

Ledscha nodded silently, and gazing into his face with a searching look asked, "And how long will this season of blossoming last?"

"Several months, girl; three, if not six."

"And then?"

"Who looks so far into the future?"

She lowered her glance, and, as if yielding to the inevitable, answered: "What a fool I was! Who knows what the morrow may bring? Are we even sure whether, six months hence, we shall not hate, instead of loving, each other?"

She passed her hand across her brow as she spoke, exclaiming: "You said just now that only the present belonged to man. Then let us enjoy it as though every moment might be the last. By the light of the full moon to-night, the happiness which has been predicted to me must begin. After it, the orb between the horns of Astarte will become smaller; but when it fulls and wanes again, if you keep your promise and return, then, though they may curse and condemn me, I will come to your studio and grant what you ask. But which of the goddesses do you intend to model from me as a companion statue to the Demeter?"

"This time it can not be one of the immortelles," he answered hesitatingly, "but a famous woman, an artist who succeeded in a competition in vanquishing even the august Athene."

"So it is no goddess?" Ledscha asked in a disappointed tone.

"No, child, but the most skilful woman who ever plied the weaver's shuttle."

"And her name?"

"Arachne."

The young girl started, exclaiming contemptuously: "Arachne? That is--that is what you Greeks call the most repulsive of creatures--the spider."

"The most skilful of all creatures, that taught man the noble art of weaving," he eagerly retorted.

Here he was interrupted; his friend Myrtilus put his fair head into the room, exclaiming: "Pardon me if I interrupt you--but we shall not see each other again for some time. I have important business in the city, and may be detained a long while. Yet before I go I must perform the commission Daphne gave me for you. She sends word that she shall expect you without fail at the banquet for the Pelusinian guests. Your absence, do you hear?--pardon the interruption, fairest Ledscha--your absence would seriously anger her."

"Then I shall be prepared for considerable trouble in appeasing her," replied Hermon, glancing significantly at the young girl.

Myrtilus crossed the threshold, turned to the Biamite, and said in his quiet, cheerful manner: "Where beautiful gifts are to be brought to Eros, it beseems the friend to strew with flowers the path of the one who is offering the sacrifices; and you, if everything does not deceive me, would fain choose to-night to serve him with the utmost devotion. Therefore, I shall need forgiveness from you and the god, if I beseech you to defer the offering, were it only until to-morrow."

Ledscha silently shrugged her shoulders and made no answer to the inquiring glance with which Hermon sought hers, but Myrtilus changed his tone and addressed a grave warning to his friend to consider well that it would be an insult to the manes of his dead parents if he should avoid the old couple from Pelusium, who had been their best friends and had taken the journey hither for his sake.

Hermon looked after him in painful perplexity, but the Biamite also approached the threshold, and holding her head haughtily erect, said coldly: "The choice is difficult for you, as I see. Then recall to your memory again what this night of the full moon means--you are well aware of it--to me. If, nevertheless, you still decide in favour of the banquet with your friends, I can not help it; but I must now know: Shall this night belong to me, or to the daughter of Archias?"

"Is it impossible to talk with you, unlucky girl, as one would with other sensible people?" Hermon burst forth wrathfully. "Everything is carried to extremes; you condemn a brief necessary delay as breach of faith and base treachery. This behaviour is unbearable."

"Then you will not come?" she asked apathetically, laying her hand upon the door; but Hermon cried out in a tone half beseeching, half imperious: "You must not go so! If you insist upon it, surely I will come. There is no room in your obstinate soul for kind indulgence. No one, by the dog, ever accused me of being specially skilled in this smooth art; yet there may be duties and circumstances--"

Here Ledscha gently opened the door; but, seized with a fear of losing this rare creature, whose singular beauty attracted him powerfully, even now, this peerless model for a work on which he placed the highest hopes, he strode swiftly to her side, and drawing her back from the threshold, exclaimed: "Difficult as it is for me on this special day, I will come, only you must not demand what is impossible. The right course often lies midway. Half the night must belong to the banquet with my old friends and Daphne; the second half--"

"To the barbarian, you think--the spider," she gasped hoarsely. "But my welfare as well as yours depends on the decision. Stay here, or come to the island--you have your choice."

Wrenching herself from his hold as she spoke, she slipped through the doorway and left the room.

Hermon, with a muttered oath, stood still, shrugging his shoulders angrily.

He could do nothing but yield to this obstinate creature's will.

In the atrium Ledscha met the slave Bias, and returned his greeting only by a wave of the hand; but before opening the side door which was to lead her into the open air, she paused, and asked bluntly in the language of their people: "Was Arachne--I don't mean the spider, but the weaver whom the Greeks call by that name--a woman like the rest of us? Yet it is said that she remained victor in a contest with the goddess Athene."

"That is perfectly true," answered Bias, "but she had to atone cruelly for this triumph; the goddess struck her on the forehead with the weaver's shuttle, and when, in her shame and rage, she tried to hang herself, she was transformed into the spider."

Ledscha stood still, and, while drawing the veil over her pallid face, asked with quivering lips, "And is there no other Arachne?"

"Not among mortals," was the reply, "but even here in this house there are more than enough of the disagreeable, creeping creatures which bear the same name."

Ledscha now went clown the steps which led to the lawn, and Bias saw that she stumbled on the last one and would have fallen had not her lithe body regained its balance in time.

"A bad omen!" thought the slave. "If I had the power to build a wall between my master and the spider yonder, it should be higher than the lighthouse of Sostratus. To heed omens guides one safely through life. I know what I know, and will keep my eyes open, for my master too."

CHAPTER IX.

Hermon had intended to add a few more touches to his Demeter, but he could not do it. Ledscha, her demand, and the resentment with which she had left him, were not to be driven from his mind.

There was no doubt that he must seek her if he was not to lose her, yet he reproached himself for having acted like a thoughtless fool when he proposed to divide the night between her and Daphne.

There was something offensive in the proposal to so proud a creature. He ought to have promised positively to come, and then left the banquet somewhat earlier. It would have been easy to apologize for his late arrival, and Ledscha would have had no cause to be angry with him.

Now she had, and her resentment awakened in him--though he certainly did not lack manly courage--an uncomfortable feeling closely allied to anxiety.

Angered by his own conduct, he asked himself whether he loved the barbarian, and could find no satisfactory answer.

At their first meeting he had felt that she was far superior to the other Biamite maidens, not only in beauty but in everything else. The very acerbity of her nature had seemed charming. To win this wonderful, pliant creature, slender as a cypress, whose independence merged into fierce obstinacy, had appeared to him worth any sacrifice; and having perceived in her an admirable model for his Arachne, he had also determined to brave the dangers which might easily arise for the Greek from a love affair with a Biamite girl, whose family was free and distinguished.

It had been easier for him to win her heart than he expected; yet at none of the meetings which she granted him had he rejoiced in the secret bond between them.

Hitherto her austere reserve had been invincible, and during the greater part of their interviews he had been compelled to exert all his influence to soothe, appease her, and atone for imprudent acts which he had committed.

True, she, too, had often allowed herself to display passionate tenderness, but always only to torture him with reproaches and demands inspired by her jealousy, suspicion, and wounded pride.

Yet her beauty, and the strong power of resistance which she offered to his wooing, exerted so bewitching a thrall over him that he had been led into conceding far too much, and making vows which he could not and did not desire to fulfil.

Love had usually been to him a richly flowing well-spring of gay delight, but this bond had plunged him from one vexation into another, one anxiety to another, and now that he had almost reached the goal of his wishes, he could not help fearing that he had transformed Ledscha's love to hate.

Daphne was dear to him. He esteemed her highly, and owed her a great debt of gratitude. Yet in this hour he anathematized her unexpected journey to Tennis; for without it he would have obtained from Ledscha that very day what he desired, and could have returned to Alexandria with the certainty of finding her ready later to pose as the model for his Arachne.

Never could he find anywhere a more fitting one.

He had devoted himself with passionate love to his art, and even his enemies numbered him among its most promising disciples. Yet hither to he had not succeeded in obtaining a great and undisputed success. On the other hand, he had experienced what were termed failures in abundant measure.

The art to which he had gained entrance by so severe a struggle, and on whose soil he had laboured diligently enough, proved, so far as outward recognition was concerned, cruel to the enthusiastic disciple. Yet even now he would not have abandoned it at any price; the joy of creation compensated him richly for suffering and disappointment. Confidence in his own powers and the final triumph of his conviction had deserted him only occasionally, and for a few brief hours.

He was born for conflicts. What ill-success, what antagonism and difficulties he had encountered! Some day the laurel which had so long adorned the brow of Myrtilus must also grow green for him and the great talent whose possession he felt. With the Arachne--he was sure of this--he would compel even his opponents to accord him the recognition for which hitherto he had striven in vain.

While pacing restlessly up and down the spacious apartment, stopping from time to time before his work to fix his eyes angrily upon it, he thought of his friend's Demeter, whose head also had Daphne's features, who also bore in her hand a bundle of wheat, and even in attitude did not differ very widely from his own. And yet--eternal gods!--how thoroughly dissimilar the two were!

In the figure created by Myrtilus, supernatural dignity blended with the utmost womanly charm; in his, a pleasing head rested upon a body in whose formation he had used various models without striving to accomplish anything except to depart as far as possible from established custom, with which he was at variance.

Yet had he not found himself, nevertheless, compelled to follow the old rules? One arm was raised, the other hung down; the right foot was put forward, the left one back.

Exactly the same as in Myrtilus's statue, and thousands of other figures of Demeter!

If he could have used the hammer and chisel, the thing might have become more powerful; but how many things he had had to consider in employing the accursed gold and ivory upon which Archias obstinately insisted!

This hammering, chipping, and filing told unfavourably upon his power and his aspiration toward grandeur.

This time the battle seemed to be lost.

It was fortunate that the conqueror was no other than Myrtilus. Often as he had gone astray in his young life, many as were the errors he had committed, not even the faintest shadow of an envious feeling concerning his friend's more successful work had ever stained his soul.

True, the fact that fate, in addition to such abundant gifts of mind and spirit, had also endowed the latter with great worldly possessions, while he, but for the generosity of his uncle Archias, must have starved, had often led Hermon to inveigh angrily against the injustice of the gods. Yet he did not grudge Myrtilus the wealth without which he could not imagine him, and which his invalid friend needed to continue successfully the struggle against the insidious disease inherited with the gold. And his sufferings! Hermon could not have endured keener pain had they been his own. He must even rejoice over the poor dear fellow's victory; for if he, Hermon, succeeded with his Arachne as he hoped, it would make Myrtilus--he could swear to it--happier than his own triumph.

After these reflections, which again reminded him of the second appointment and of Ledscha, the sculptor turned away from his work and went to the window to look across at Pelican Island, where she must not await him in vain.

The boat which was to convey him over to it lay ready in the little flotilla, where a magnificently equipped galley had just been moored to the shore, undoubtedly the one that had brought the guests from Pelusium hither. The best thing he could do was to greet them at once, share the banquet with them, and, before the dessert was served, seek the beautiful woman whom his absence threatened to make his foe. And she was certainly justified in resenting it if, with cruel lack of consideration, he paid no heed to what had been prophesied for her on this night of the full moon.

For the first time compassion mingled with his feelings for Ledscha. If to avoid the fleeting censure of aristocratic friends he left in the lurch the simple barbarian maiden who loved him with ardent passion, it was no evidence of resolute strength of soul, but of pitiful, reprehensible weakness. No, no! He must take the nocturnal voyage in order not to grieve Ledscha.

Soon after the girl's abrupt departure he dressed himself in festal garments for the banquet. It would flatter Ledscha also if he went to her in this attire and, with his figure drawn up to its full height, he walked toward the door to go to the Alexandrian's tent.

But what did this mean? Myrtilus was standing before his Demeter, scanning it intently with his keen artist eyes. Hermon had not noticed his entrance, and did not disturb him now, but fixed his gaze upon his mobile features in intense expectation.

There were few of his fellow-artists whose opinion he valued as highly as that of this darling of the Muse.

At a slight shake of the head, which Hermon interpreted as disapproval, he clinched his teeth; but soon his lips relaxed and his breast heaved with a sigh of relief, for the sunny glance that Myrtilus bent upon the face of the goddess seemed to show Hermon that it aroused his approval, and, as if relieved from an oppressive nightmare, he approached his friend.

The latter turned toward him, exclaiming: Daphne! As in the case of yonder bust, you have succeeded most perfectly with this dear face--only--"

"Only," Hermon repeated slowly; "I am familiar with that evil word. Doubts knock at the door with it. Out with them honestly. I gave up my last hope of the prize yesterday while looking at your Demeter. Besides, careful scrutiny has just destroyed the last gleam of satisfaction with my own work. But if you like the head, what seem to you the greatest defects in the figure?"

"It has nothing to do with defects, which, with your rare ability, can scarcely exist," replied the other, the faint pink flush in his beardless cheeks deepening to a more vivid hue. "It refers rather to the expression which you have given the divinity in yonder statue." Here Myrtilus hesitated, and, turning so that he stood face to face with Hermon, asked frankly, "Did you ever seek the goddess and, when you found her, did you feel any supernatural power and beauty?"

"What a question!" exclaimed Hermon in astonishment. "A pupil of Straton, and go in search of beings and powers whose existence he denies! What my mother instilled into my heart I lost with my childhood, and you address your question only to the artist who holds his own ground, not to the boy. The power that calls creation to life, and maintains it, has for me long had nothing in common with those beings like mortals whom the multitude designates by the name of divinities."

"I think differently," replied Myrtilus. "While I numbered myself among the Epicureans, whose doctrine still possesses the greatest charm for me, I nevertheless shared the master's opinion that it is insulting the gods to suppose that they will disturb their blissful repose for the sake of us insignificant mortals. Now my mind and my experience rebel against holding to this view, yet I believe with Epicurus, and with you, that the eternal laws of Nature bow to neither divine nor human will."

"And yet," said Hermon, "you expect me to trouble myself about those who are as powerless as myself!"