Book: Serapis, Complete

G >> Georg Ebers >> Serapis, Complete




"So young--so handsome--a masterpiece of the Creator's hand! . . . Only
to-day as gay as a lark, the pride and joy of his mother-and now! How
many hopes, how much triumph and happiness are extinct with that life. O
Lord my Saviour, Thou hast said that not only those who call Thee Lord,
Lord, shall find grace with our Father in Heaven, and that Thou hast shed
Thy blood for the salvation even of the heathen--save, redeem this one!
Thou that are the Good Shepherd, have mercy on this wandering sheep!"

Stirred to the bottom of his soul the old man threw up his arms and gazed
upwards rapt in ecstasy. But presently, with an effort, he said to the
deaconess:

"You know, Sister, that this lad was the only son of Berenice, the widow
of Asclepiodorus, the rich shipowner. Poor, bereaved mother! Only
yesterday he was driving his guadriga out of the gate on the road to
Marea, and now--here! Go and tell her of this terrible occurrence. I
would go myself but that, as I am a priest, it might be painful to her to
learn of his tragic end from one of the very men against whom the poor
darkened youth had drawn the sword. So do you go, Sister, and treat the
poor soul very tenderly; and if you find it suitable show her very gently
that there is One who has balm for every wound, and that we--we and all
who believe in Him--lose what is dear to us only to find it again. Tell
her of hope: Hope is everything. They say that green is the color of
hope, for it is the spring-tide of the heart. There may be a Spring for
her yet."

The deaconess rose, pressed a kiss on the eyes of the dead youth,
promised Eusebius that she would do her best and went away. He, too, was
about to leave when he heard a sound of low sobbing from one of the
benches. He stood still to listen, shook his old head, and muttering to
himself:

"Great God--merciful and kind. . . . Thou alone canst know wherefore Thou
hast set the rose-garland of life with so many sharp thorns," he went up
to Agne who rose at his approach.

"Why, my child," he said kindly, "what are you weeping for? Have you,
too, lost some dear one killed in the fray?"

"No, no," she hastily replied with a gesture of terror at the thought.

"What then do you want here at so late an hour?"

"Nothing--nothing," she said. "That is all over! Good God, how long I
must have been sitting here--I--I know I must go; yes, I know it."

"And are you alone-no one with you?"

She shook her head sadly. The old man looked at her narrowly.

"Then I will take you safe home," he said. "You see I am an old man and a
priest. Where do you live, my child?"

"I? I. . ." stammered Agne, and a torrent of scalding tears fell down her
cheeks. "My God! my God! where, where am I to go?"

"You have no home, no one belonging to you?" asked the old man. "Come,
child, pluck up your courage and tell me truly what it is that troubles
you; perhaps I may be able to help you."

"You?" she said with bitter melancholy. "Are not you one of the Bishop's
priests?"

"I am a deacon, and Theophilus is the head of my church; but for that
very reason . . ."

"No," said Agne sharply, "I will deceive no one. My parents were Arians,
and as my beliefs are the same as theirs the Bishop has driven me away as
an outcast, finally and without pity."

"Indeed," said Eusebius. "Did the Bishop do that? Well, as the head of a
large community of Christians he, of course, is bound to look at things
in their widest aspect; small things, small people can be nothing to him.
I, on the contrary, am myself but a small personage, and I care for small
things. You know, child, that the Lord has said 'that in his Father's
kingdom there are many mansions,' and that in which Arius dwells is not
mine; but it is in the Father's kingdom nevertheless. It cannot be so
much amiss after all that you should cling to the creed of your parents.
What is your name?"

"Agne."

"Agne, or the lamb. A pretty, good name! It is a name I love, as I, too,
am a shepherd, though but a very humble one, so trust yourself to me,
little lamb. Tell me, why are you crying? And whom do you seek here? And
how is it that you do not know where to find a home?"

Eusebius spoke with such homely kindness, and his voice was so full of
fatherly sympathy that hope revived in Agne's breast, and she told him
with frank confidence all he wanted to know.

The old man listened with many a "Hum" and "Ha"--then he bid her
accompany him to his own house, where his wife would find a corner that
she might fill.

She gladly agreed, and thanked him eagerly when he also told the
doorkeeper to bring Papias after them if he should be found. Relieved of
the worst of her griefs, Agne followed her new friend through the streets
and lanes, till they paused at the gate of a small garden and he said:
"Here we are. What we have we give gladly, but it is little, very little.
Indeed, who can bear to live in luxury when so many are perishing in want
and misery?"

As they went across the plot, between the little flower-beds, the deacon
pointed to a tree and said with some pride: "Last year that tree bore me
three hundred and seven peaches, and it is still healthy and productive."

A hospitable light twinkled in the little house at the end of the garden,
and as they entered a queer-looking dog came out to meet his master,
barking his welcome. He jumped with considerable agility on his
fore-legs, but his hind legs were paralyzed and his body sloped away and
stuck up in the air as though it were attached to an invisible board.

"This is my good friend Lazarus," said the old man cheerfully. "I found
the poor beggar in the road one day, and as he was one of God's
creatures, although he is a cripple, I comfort myself with the verse from
the Psalms: 'The Lord has no joy in the strength of a horse, neither
taketh he pleasure in any man's legs.'"

He was so evidently content and merry that Agne could not help laughing
too, and when, in a few minutes, the deacon's wife gave her a warm and
motherly reception she would have been happier than she had been for a
long time past, if only her little brother had not been a weight on her
mind and if she had not longed so sadly to have him safe by her side. But
even that anxiety presently found relief, for she was so weary and
exhausted that, after eating a few mouthfuls, she was thankful to lie
down in the clean bed that Elizabeth had prepared for her, and she
instantly fell asleep. She was in the old deacon's bed, and he made ready
to pass the night on the couch in his little sitting-room.

As soon as the old couple were alone Eusebius told his wife how and where
he had met the girl and ended by saying:

"It is a puzzling question as to these Arians and other Christian
heretics. I cannot be hard on them so long as they cling faithfully to
the One Lord who is necessary to all. If we are in the right--and I
firmly believe that we are--and the Son is of one substance of the
Father, he is without spot or blemish; and what can be more divine than
to overlook the error of another if it concerns ourselves, or what more
meanly human than to take such an error amiss and indulge in a cruel or
sanguinary revenge on the erring soul? Do not misunderstand me. I,
unfortunately--or rather, I say, thank God!--I have done nothing great
here on earth, and have never risen to be anything more than a deacon.
But if a boy comes up to me and mistakes me for an acolyte or something
of that kind, is that a reason why I should flout or punish him? Not a
bit of it.

"And to my belief our Saviour is too purely divine to hate those who
regard Him as only 'God-like.' He is Love. And when Arius goes to Heaven
and sees Jesus Christ in all His divine glory, and falls down before Him
in an ecstasy of joy and repentance, the worst the Lord will do to him
will be to take him by the ear and say: 'Thou fool! Now thou seest what I
really am; but thine errors be forgiven!'"

Elizabeth nodded assent. "Amen," she said, "so be it.--And so, no doubt,
it will be. Did the Lord cast out the woman taken in adultery? Did he not
give us the parable of the Samaritan?--Poor little girl! We have often
wished for a daughter and now we have found one; a pretty creature she is
too. God grants us all our wishes! But you must be tired, old man; go to
rest now."

"Directly, directly," said Eusebius; but then, striking his forehead with
his hand, he went on in much annoyance: "And with all this tumult and
worry I had quite forgotten the most important thing of all: Marcus! He
is like a possessed creature, and if I do not make a successful appeal to
his conscience before he sleeps this night mischief will come of it. Yes,
I am very tired; but duty before rest. It is of no use to contradict me,
Mother. Get me my cloak; I must go to the lad." And a few minutes later
the old man was making his way to the house in the Canopic street.




CHAPTER XV.

Dread and anxiety had taken possession of the merchant's household after
Constantine had left them. Messengers came hurrying in, one after
another, to request the presence of Olympius. A heathen secretary of
Evagrius the Governor, had revealed what was astir, and the philosopher
had at once prepared to return to the Serapeum. Porphyrius himself
ordered his closed harmamaxa to be brought out, and undertook to fetch
weapons and standards to the temple from a storehouse where they were
laid by. This building stood on a plot of ground belonging to him in
Rhacotis, behind a timber-yard which was accessible from the streets in
front and behind, but sheltered from the public gaze by sheds and
wood-stacks.

The old aqueduct, which supplied the courts of sacrifice and the
Subterranean crypts of the temple where the mysteries of Serapis were
celebrated, passed close by the back-wall of this warehouse. Since the
destruction of the watercourse, under the Emperor Julian, the underground
conduit had been dry and empty, and a man by slightly stooping could
readily pass through it unseen into the Serapeum. This mysterious passage
had lately been secretly cleared out, and it was now to be used for the
transport of the arms to the temple precincts.

Damia had been present at the brief but vehement interview between her
son and Olympius, and had thrown in a word now and again: "It is serious,
very serious!" or, "Fight it out--no quarter!"

The parting was evidently a very painful one to Olympius; when the
merchant held out both his hands the older man clasped them in his and
held them to his breast, saying: "Thanks, my friend; thanks for all you
have done. We have lived--and if now we perish it is for the future
happiness of our grandchildren. What would life be to you and me if it
were marred by scourgings and questionings?--The omens read ill, and if I
am not completely deceived we are at the beginning of the end. What lies
beyond! . . . we as philosophers must meet it calmly. The supreme Mind that
governs us has planned the universe so well, that it is not likely that
those things of which we now have no knowledge should not also be ordered
for the best. The pinions of my soul beat indeed more freely and lightly
as I foresee the moment when it shall be released from the burden of this
flesh!"

The High-Priest raised his arms as though indeed he were prepared to soar
and uttered a fervent and inspired prayer in which he rehearsed to the
gods all that he and his had done in their honor and vowed to offer them
fresh sacrifices. His expressions were so lofty, and his flow of language
so beautiful and free, that Porphyrius did not dare to interrupt him,
though this long delay on the part of the leader of the cause made him
intolerably anxious. When the old man--who was as emotional as a
boy--ceased speaking, his white beard was wet with tears, and seeing that
even Damia's and Gorgo's eyes were moist, he was preparing to address
them again; but Porphyrius interposed. He gave him time only to press his
lips to Datnia's hand and to bid Gorgo farewell.

"You were born into stirring times," he said to her, "but under a good
sign. Two worlds are in collision; which shall survive?--For you, my
darling, I have but one wish: May you be happy!"

He left the room and the merchant paced up and down lost in gloomy
thoughts. Presently, as he caught his mother's eye fixed uneasily upon
him, he murmured, less to her than to himself: "If he can think thus of
what the end will be, who can still dare to hope?" Damia drew herself up
in her chair.

"I," she exclaimed passionately, "I--I dare, and I do hope and trust in
the future. Is everything to perish which our forefathers planned and
founded? Is this dismal superstition to overwhelm and bury the world and
all that is bright and beautiful, as the lava stream rolled over the
cities of Vesuvius? No, a thousand times no! Our retrograde and cowardly
generation, which has lost all heart to enjoy life in sheer dread of
future annihilation, may perhaps be doomed by the gods, as was that of
Deucalion's day. Well--if so, what must be must! But such a world as they
dream of never can, never will last. Let them succeed in their monstrous
scheme! if the Temple of temples, the House of Serapis, were to be in
ashes and the image of the mighty god to be dashed to pieces, what
then. . . . I say what then? Then indeed everything will be at an end--we,
everybody; but they too, they, too, will perish."

She clenched her fist with hatred and revenge and went on: "I know what I
know--there are legible and infallible signs, and it is given to me to
interpret them, and I tell you: It is true, unerringly true, as every
Alexandrian child has learnt from its nurse: When Serapis falls the earth
will collapse like a dry puff-ball under a horse's hoof. A hundred
oracles have announced it, it is written in the prophecies of the
heavenly bodies, and in the scroll of Fate. Let them be! Let it come! The
end is sweet to those who, in the hour of death, can see the enemy thrust
the sword into his own breast."

The old woman sank back panting and gasping for breath, but Gorgo
hastened to support her in her arms and she soon recovered. Hardly had
she opened her eyes again than, seeing her son still in the room, she
went on angrily:

"You--here still? Do you think there is any time to spare? They will be
waiting, waiting for you! You have the key and they need weapons."

"I know what I am about," replied Porphyrius calmly. "All in good time. I
shall be on the spot long before the youngsters have assembled. Cyrus
will bring me the pass-words and signs; I shall send off the messengers,
and then I shall still be in time for action."

"Messengers! To whom?"

"To Barkas. He is at the head of more than a thousand Libyan peasants and
slaves. I shall send one, too, to Pachomius to bid him win us over
adherents among the Biamite fishermen and the population of the eastern
Delta."

"Right, right--I know. Twenty talents--Pachomius is poor--twenty talents
shall be his, out of my private coffer, if only they are here in time."

"I would give ten, thirty times as much if they were only here now!"
cried the merchant, giving way for the first time to the expression of
his real feelings. "When I began life my father taught me the new
superstitions. Its chains still hang about me; but in this fateful hour I
feel more strongly than ever, and I mean to show, that I am faithful to
the old gods. We will not be wanting; but alas! there is no escape for us
now if the Imperial party are staunch. If they fall upon us before Barkas
can join us, all is lost; if, on the contrary, Barkas comes at once and
in time, there is still some hope; all may yet be well. What can a party
of monks do? And as yet only our Constantine's heavy cavalry have come to
the assistance of the two legions of the garrison."

"Our Constantine!" shrieked Damia. "Whose? I ask you, whose? We have
nothing to do with that miserable Christian!"

But Gorgo turned upon her at once:

"Indeed, grandmother," she exclaimed, quivering with rage, "but we have!
He is a soldier and must do his duty; but he is fondly attached to us."

"Us, us?" retorted the old woman with a laugh. "Has he sworn love to you,
let me ask? Has he? and you-do you believe him, simple fool? I know him,
I know him! Why, for a scrap of bread and a drop of wine from the hand of
his priest he would see you and all of us plunged into misery! But see,
here are the messengers."

Porphyrius gave his instructions to the young men who now entered the
hall, hurried them off, clasped Gorgo in a tender embrace and then bent
over his mother to kiss her--a thing he had not done for many a day. Old
Damia laid aside her stick, and taking her son's face in both her
withered hands, muttered a few words which were half a fond appeal and
half a magical formula, and then the women were alone. For a long while
both were silent. The old woman sat sunk in her arm-chair while Gorgo
stood with her back against the pedestal of a bust of Plato, gazing
meditatively at the ground. At last it was Damia who spoke, asking to be
carried into the women's rooms.

Gorgo, however, stopped her with a gesture, went close to her and said:
"No, wait a minute, mother; first you must hear what I have to say."

"What you have to say?" asked her grandmother, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yes. I have never deceived you; but one thing I have hitherto concealed
from you because I was never till this morning sure of it myself--now I
am. Now I know that I love him."

"The Christian?" said the old woman, pushing aside a shade that screened
her eyes.

"Yes, Constantine; I will not hear you abuse him." Damia laughed sharply,
and said in a tone of supreme scorn:

"You will not? Then you had better stop your ears, my dear, for as long
as my tongue can wag. . . ."

"Hush, grandmother, say no more," said the girl resolutely. "Do not
provoke me with more than I can bear. Eros has pierced me later than he
does most girls and has done it but once, but how deeply you can never
know. If you speak ill of him you only aggravate the wound and you would
not be so cruel! Do not--I entreat you; drop the subject or else. . ."

"Or else?"

"Or else I must die, mother--and you know you love me."

Her tone was soft but firm; her words referred to the future, but that
future was as clear to Gorgo's view as if it were past. Damia gave a
hasty, sidelong glance at her grandchild, and a cold chill ran through
her; the--girl stood and spoke with an air of inspiration--she was full
of the divinity as Damia thought, and the old woman herself felt as
though she were in a temple and in the immediate presence of the
Immortals.

Gorgo waited for a reply, but in vain; and as her grandmother remained
silent she went back to her place by the pedestal. At last Damia raised
her wrinkled face, looked straight in the girl's eyes and asked:

"And what is to be the end of it?"

"Aye--what?" said Gorgo gloomily and she shook her head. "I ask myself
and can find no answer, for his image is ever present to me and yet walls
and mountains stand between us. That face, that image--I might perhaps
force myself to shatter it; but nothing shall ever induce me to let it be
defiled or disgraced! Nothing!"

The old woman sank into brooding thought once more; mechanically she
repeated Gorgo's last word, and at intervals that gradually became longer
she murmured, at last scarcely audibly: "Nothing--nothing!"

She had lost all sense of time and of her immediate surroundings, and
long-forgotten sorrows crowded on her memory: The dreadful day when a
young freedman--a gifted astronomer and philosopher who had been
appointed her tutor, and whom she had loved with all the passion of a
vehement nature--had been kicked out of her father's house by slaves, for
daring to aspire to her hand. She had given him up--she had been forced
to do so; and after she was the wife of another and he had risen to fame,
she had never given him any token that she had not forgotten him. Two
thirds of a century lay between that happy and terrible time, and the
present. He had been dead many a long year, and still she remembered him,
and was thinking of him even now. A singular effort of fancy showed her
herself, as she had then been, and Gorgo--whom she saw not with her
bodily eyes, though the girl was standing in front of her--two young
creatures side by side. The two were but one in her vision; the same
anguish that embittered one life now threatened the other. But after all
she, Damia, had dragged this grief after her through the weary decades,
like the iron ball at the end of a chain which keeps the galley-slave to
his place at the oar, and from which he can no more escape than from a
ponderous and ever-present shadow; and Gorgo's sorrow could not at any
rate be for long, since the end of all things was at hand--it was coming
slowly but with inevitable certainty, nearer and nearer every hour.

When had a troop of enthusiastic students and hastily-collected
peasant-soldiers ever been able to snake an effectual stand against the
hosts of Rome? Damia, who only a few minutes since had spoken with such
determined encouragement to her son, had terrible visions of the Imperial
legions putting Olympius to rout, with the Libyans under Barkas and the
Biamite rabble under Pachomius; storming the Serapeum and reducing it to
ruin: Firebrands flying through its sacred halls, the roof giving way,
the vaults falling in; the sublime image of the god--the magnificent work
of Bryaxis--battered by a hail of stones, and sinking to mingle with the
reeking dust. Then a cry rose up from all nature, as though every star in
heaven, every wave of ocean, every leaf of the forest, every blade in the
meadow, every rock on the shore and every grain of sand in the
measureless desert had found a voice; and this universal wail of "Woe,
woe!" was drowned by rolling thunder such as the ear of man had never
heard, and no mortal creature could hear and live. The heavens opened,
and out of the black gulf of death-bearing clouds poured streams of fire;
consuming flames rose to meet it from the riven womb of earth, rushing
up to lick the sky. What had been air turned to fire and ashes, the
silver and gold stars fell crashing from the firmament, and the heavens
themselves bowed and collapsed, burying the ruined earth. Ashes, ashes,
fine grey dusty ashes pervaded space, till presently a hurricane rose and
swept away the chaos of gloom, and vast nothingness yawned before her: a
bottomless abyss--an insatiable throat, swallowing down with greedy
thirst all that was left; till where the world had been, with gods and
men and all their works, there was only nothingness; hideous, inscrutable
and unfathomable. And in it, above it, around it--for what are the
dimensions of nothingness?--there reigned the incomprehensible Unity of
the Primal One, in calm and pitiless self-concentration, beyond--the
Real, nay even beyond the Conceivable--for conception implies
plurality--the Supreme One of the Neo-Platonists to whose school she
belonged.

The old woman's blood ran cold and hot as she pictured the scene; but she
believed in it, and chose to believe in it; "Nothing, nothing . . ." which
she had begun by muttering, insensibly changed to "Nothingness,
nothingness!" and at last she spoke it aloud.

Gorgo stood spellbound as she gazed at her grandmother. What had come
over her? What was the meaning of this glaring eye, this gasping breath,
this awful expression in her face, this convulsive action of her hands?
Was she mad? And what did she mean by "Nothingness, nothingness. . ."
repeated in a sort of hollow cry?

Terrified beyond bearing she laid her hand on Dalnia's shoulder, saying:
"Mother, mother! wake up! What do you mean by saying 'nothingness,
nothingness' in that dreadful way?"

Dainia collected her scattered wits, shivered with cold and then said,
dully at first, but with a growing cheerfulness that made Gorgo's blood
run cold: "Did I say 'nothingness'? Did I speak of the great void, my
child? You are quick of hearing. Nothingness--well, you have learnt to
think; are you capable of defining the meaning of the word--a monster
that has neither head nor tail, neither front nor back--can you, I say,
define the idea of nothingness?"

"What do you mean, mother?" said Gorgo with growing alarm.

"No, she does not know, she does not understand," muttered the old woman
with a dreary smile. "And yet Melampus told me, only yesterday, that you
understood his lesson on conic sections better than many men. Aye, aye,
child; I, too, learnt mathematics once, and I still go through various
calculations every night in my observatory; but to this day I find it
difficult to conceive of a mathematical point. It is nothing and yet it
is something. But the great final nothingness!--And that even is
nonsense, for it can be neither great nor small, and come neither sooner
nor later. Is it not so, my sweet? Think of nothing--who cannot do that;
but it is very hard to imagine nothingness. We can neither of us achieve
that. Not even the One has a place in it. But what is the use of racking
our brains? Only wait till to-morrow or the day after; something will
happen then which will reduce our own precious persons and this beautiful
world to that nothingness which to-day is inconceivable. It is coming; I
can hear from afar the brazen tramp of the airy and incorporeal monster.
A queer sort of giant--smaller than the mathematical point of which we
were speaking, and yet vast beyond all measurement. Aye, aye; our
intelligence, polyp-like, has long arms and can apprehend vast size and
wide extent; but it can no more conceive of nothingness than it can of
infinite space or time.

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