If it was not strange that Ione thus enthralled the Egyptian, far less strange was it that she had captured, as suddenly as irrevocably, the bright and sunny heart of the Athenian. The gladness of a temperament which seemed woven from the beams of light had led Glaucus into pleasure. He obeyed no more vicious dictates when he wandered into the dissipations of his time, than the exhilarating voices of youth and health. He threw the brightness of his nature over every abyss and cavern through which he strayed. His imagination dazzled him, but his heart never was corrupted. Of far more penetration than his companions deemed, he saw that they sought to prey upon his riches and his youth: but he despised wealth save as the means of enjoyment, and youth was the great sympathy that united him to them. He felt, it is true, the impulse of n.o.bler thoughts and higher aims than in pleasure could be indulged: but the world was one vast prison, to which the Sovereign of Rome was the Imperial gaoler; and the very virtues, which in the free days of Athens would have made him ambitious, in the slavery of earth made him inactive and supine. For in that unnatural and bloated civilization, all that was n.o.ble in emulation was forbidden. Ambition in the regions of a despotic and luxurious court was but the contest of flattery and craft. Avarice had become the sole ambition-men desired praetorships and provinces only as the license to pillage, and government was but the excuse of rapine. It is in small states that glory is most active and pure-the more confined the limits of the circle, the more ardent the patriotism. In small states, opinion is concentrated and strong-every eye reads your actions-your public motives are blended with your private ties-every spot in your narrow sphere is crowded with forms familiar since your childhood-the applause of your citizens is like the caresses of your friends. But in large states, the city is but the court: the provinces-unknown to you, unfamiliar in customs, perhaps in language-have no claim on your patriotism, the ancestry of their inhabitants is not yours. In the court you desire favor instead of glory; at a distance from the court, public opinion has vanished from you, and self-interest has no counterpoise.
Italy, Italy, while I write, your skies are over me-your seas flow beneath my feet, listen not to the blind policy which would unite all your crested cities, mourning for their republics, into one empire; false, pernicious delusion! your only hope of regeneration is in division. Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, may be free once more, if each is free. But dream not of freedom for the whole while you enslave the parts; the heart must be the centre of the system, the blood must circulate freely everywhere; and in vast communities you behold but a bloated and feeble giant, whose brain is imbecile, whose limbs are dead, and who pays in disease and weakness the penalty of transcending the natural proportions of health and vigour.
Thus thrown back upon themselves, the more ardent qualities of Glaucus found no vent, save in that overflowing imagination which gave grace to pleasure, and poetry to thought. Ease was less despicable than contention with parasites and slaves, and luxury could yet be refined though ambition could not be enn.o.bled. But all that was best and brightest in his soul woke at once when he knew Ione. Here was an empire, worthy of demiG.o.ds to attain; here was a glory, which the reeking smoke of a foul society could not soil or dim. Love, in every time, in every state, can thus find s.p.a.ce for its golden altars. And tell me if there ever, even in the ages most favorable to glory, could be a triumph more exalted and elating than the conquest of one n.o.ble heart?
And whether it was that this sentiment inspired him, his ideas glowed more brightly, his soul seemed more awake and more visible, in Ione"s presence. If natural to love her, it was natural that she should return the pa.s.sion. Young, brilliant, eloquent, enamoured, and Athenian, he was to her as the incarnation of the poetry of her father"s land. They were not like creatures of a world in which strife and sorrow are the elements; they were like things to be seen only in the holiday of nature, so glorious and so fresh were their youth, their beauty, and their love. They seemed out of place in the harsh and every-day earth; they belonged of right to the Saturnian age, and the dreams of demiG.o.d and nymph. It was as if the poetry of life gathered and fed itself in them, and in their hearts were concentrated the last rays of the sun of Delos and of Greece.
But if Ione was independent in her choice of life, so was her modest pride proportionably vigilant and easily alarmed. The falsehood of the Egyptian was invented by a deep knowledge of her nature. The story of coa.r.s.eness, of indelicacy, in Glaucus, stung her to the quick. She felt it a reproach upon her character and her career, a punishment above all to her love; she felt, for the first time, how suddenly she had yielded to that love; she blushed with shame at a weakness, the extent of which she was startled to perceive: she imagined it was that weakness which had incurred the contempt of Glaucus; she endured the bitterest curse of n.o.ble natures-humiliation! Yet her love, perhaps, was no less alarmed than her pride. If one moment she murmured reproaches upon Glaucus-if one moment she renounced, she almost hated him-at the next she burst into pa.s.sionate tears, her heart yielded to its softness, and she said in the bitterness of anguish, "He despises me-he does not love me."
From the hour the Egyptian had left her she had retired to her most secluded chamber, she had shut out her handmaids, she had denied herself to the crowds that besieged her door. Glaucus was excluded with the rest; he wondered, but he guessed not why! He never attributed to his Ione-his queen-his G.o.ddess-that woman-like caprice of which the love-poets of Italy so unceasingly complain. He imagined her, in the majesty of her candour, above all the arts that torture. He was troubled, but his hopes were not dimmed, for he knew already that he loved and was beloved; what more could he desire as an amulet against fear?
At deepest night, then, when the streets were hushed, and the high moon only beheld his devotions, he stole to that temple of his heart-her home; and wooed her after the beautiful fashion of his country. He covered her threshold with the richest garlands, in which every flower was a volume of sweet pa.s.sion; and he charmed the long summer night with the sound of the Lydian lute: and verses, which the inspiration of the moment sufficed to weave.
But the window above opened not; no smile made yet more holy the shining air of night. All was still and dark. He knew not if his verse was welcome and his suit was heard.
Yet Ione slept not, nor disdained to hear. Those soft strains ascended to her chamber; they soothed, they subdued her. While she listened, she believed nothing against her lover; but when they were stilled at last, and his step departed, the spell ceased; and, in the bitterness of her soul, she almost conceived in that delicate flattery a new affront.
I said she was denied to all; but there was one exception, there was one person who would not be denied, a.s.suming over her actions and her house something like the authority of a parent; Arbaces, for himself, claimed an exemption from all the ceremonies observed by others. He entered the threshold with the license of one who feels that he is privileged and at home. He made his way to her solitude and with that sort of quiet and unapologetic air which seemed to consider the right as a thing of course. With all the independence of Ione"s character, his heart had enabled him to obtain a secret and powerful control over her mind. She could not shake it off; sometimes she desired to do so; but she never actively struggled against it. She was fascinated by his serpent eye. He arrested, he commanded her, by the magic of a mind long accustomed to awe and to subdue. Utterly unaware of his real character or his hidden love, she felt for him the reverence which genius feels for wisdom, and virtue for sanct.i.ty. She regarded him as one of those mighty sages of old, who attained to the mysteries of knowledge by an exemption from the pa.s.sions of their kind. She scarcely considered him as a being, like herself, of the earth, but as an oracle at once dark and sacred. She did not love him, but she feared. His presence was unwelcome to her; it dimmed her spirit even in its brightest mood; he seemed, with his chilling and lofty aspect, like some eminence which casts a shadow over the sun. But she never thought of forbidding his visits. She was pa.s.sive under the influence which created in her breast, not the repugnance, but something of the stillness of terror.
Arbaces himself now resolved to exert all his arts to possess himself of that treasure he so burningly coveted. He was cheered and elated by his conquests over her brother. From the hour in which Apaecides fell beneath the voluptuous sorcery of that fete which we have described, he felt his empire over the young priest triumphant and insured. He knew that there is no victim so thoroughly subdued as a young and fervent man for the first time delivered to the thraldom of the senses.
When Apaecides recovered, with the morning light, from the profound sleep which succeeded to the delirium of wonder and of pleasure, he was, it is true, ashamed-terrified-appalled. His vows of austerity and celibacy echoed in his ear; his thirst after holiness-had it been quenched at so unhallowed a stream? But Arbaces knew well the means by which to confirm his conquest. From the arts of pleasure he led the young priest at once to those of his mysterious wisdom. He bared to his amazed eyes the initiatory secrets of the sombre philosophy of the Nile-those secrets plucked from the stars, and the wild chemistry, which, in those days, when Reason herself was but the creature of Imagination, might well pa.s.s for the lore of a diviner magic. He seemed to the young eyes of the priest as a being above mortality, and endowed with supernatural gifts. That yearning and intense desire for the knowledge which is not of earth-which had burned from his boyhood in the heart of the priest-was dazzled, until it confused and mastered his clearer sense. He gave himself to the art which thus addressed at once the two strongest of human pa.s.sions, that of pleasure and that of knowledge. He was loth to believe that one so wise could err, that one so lofty could stoop to deceive. Entangled in the dark web of metaphysical moralities, he caught at the excuse by which the Egyptian converted vice into a virtue. His pride was insensibly flattered that Arbaces had deigned to rank him with himself, to set him apart from the laws which bound the vulgar, to make him an august partic.i.p.ator, both in the mystic studies and the magic fascinations of the Egyptian"s solitude. The pure and stern lessons of that creed to which Olinthus had sought to make him convert, were swept away from his memory by the deluge of new pa.s.sions. And the Egyptian, who was versed in the articles of that true faith, and who soon learned from his pupil the effect which had been produced upon him by its believers, sought, not unskilfully, to undo that effect, by a tone of reasoning, half-sarcastic and half-earnest.
"This faith," said he, "is but a borrowed plagiarism from one of the many allegories invented by our priests of old. Observe," he added, pointing to a hieroglyphical scroll-"observe in these ancient figures the origin of the Christian"s Trinity. Here are also three G.o.ds-the Deity, the Spirit, and the Son. Observe, that the epithet of the Son is "Saviour"-observe, that the sign by which his human qualities are denoted is the cross." Note here, too, the mystic history of Osiris, how he put on death; how he lay in the grave; and how, thus fulfilling a solemn atonement, he rose again from the dead! In these stories we but design to paint an allegory from the operations of nature and the evolutions of the eternal heavens. But the allegory unknown, the types themselves have furnished to credulous nations the materials of many creeds. They have travelled to the vast plains of India; they have mixed themselves up in the visionary speculations of the Greek; becoming more and more gross and embodied, as they emerge farther from the shadows of their antique origin, they have a.s.sumed a human and palpable form in this novel faith; and the believers of Galilee are but the unconscious repeaters of one of the superst.i.tions of the Nile!"
This was the last argument which completely subdued the priest. It was necessary to him, as to all, to believe in something; and undivided and, at last, unreluctant, he surrendered himself to that belief which Arbaces inculcated, and which all that was human in pa.s.sion-all that was flattering in vanity-all that was alluring in pleasure, served to invite to, and contributed to confirm.
This conquest, thus easily made, the Egyptian could now give himself wholly up to the pursuit of a far dearer and mightier object; and he hailed, in his success with the brother, an omen of his triumph over the sister.
He had seen Ione on the day following the revel we have witnessed; and which was also the day after he had poisoned her mind against his rival. The next day, and the next, he saw her also: and each time he laid himself out with consummate art, partly to confirm her impression against Glaucus, and princ.i.p.ally to prepare her for the impressions he desired her to receive. The proud Ione took care to conceal the anguish she endured; and the pride of woman has an hypocrisy which can deceive the most penetrating, and shame the most astute. But Arbaces was no less cautious not to recur to a subject which he felt it was most politic to treat as of the lightest importance. He knew that by dwelling much upon the fault of a rival, you only give him dignity in the eyes of your mistress: the wisest plan is, neither loudly to hate, nor bitterly to contemn; the wisest plan is to lower him by an indifference of tone, as if you could not dream that he could be loved. Your safety is in concealing the wound to your own pride, and imperceptibly alarming that of the umpire, whose voice is fate! Such, in all times, will be the policy of one who knows the science of the s.e.x-it was now the Egyptian"s.
He recurred no more, then, to the presumption of Glaucus; he mentioned his name, but not more often than that of Clodius or of Lepidus. He affected to cla.s.s them together as things of a low and ephemeral species; as things wanting nothing of the b.u.t.terfly, save its innocence and its grace. Sometimes he slightly alluded to some invented debauch, in which he declared them companions; sometimes he adverted to them as the antipodes of those lofty and spiritual natures, to whose order that of Ione belonged. Blinded alike by the pride of Ione, and, perhaps, by his own, he dreamed not that she already loved; but he dreaded lest she might have formed for Glaucus the first fluttering prepossessions that lead to love. And, secretly, he ground his teeth in rage and jealousy, when he reflected on the youth, the fascinations, and the brilliancy of that formidable rival whom he pretended to undervalue.
It was on the fourth day from the date of the close of the previous book, that Arbaces and Ione sat together.
"You wear your veil at home," said the Egyptian; "that is not fair to those whom you honour with your friendship."
"But to Arbaces," answered Ione, who, indeed, had cast the veil over her features to conceal eyes red with weeping-"to Arbaces, who looks only to the mind, what matters it that the face is concealed?"
"I do look only to the mind," replied the Egyptian: "show me then your face-for there I shall see it."
"You grow gallant in the air of Pompeii," said Ione, with a forced tone of gaiety.
"Do you think, fair Ione, that it is only at Pompeii that I have learned to value you?" The Egyptian"s voice trembled-he paused for a moment, and then resumed.
"There is a love, beautiful Greek, which is not the love only of the thoughtless and the young-there is a love which sees not with the eyes, which hears not with the ears; but in which soul is enamoured of soul. The countryman of thy ancestors, the cave-nursed Plato, dreamed of such a love-his followers have sought to imitate it; but it is a love that is not for the herd to echo-it is a love that only high and n.o.ble natures can conceive-it hath nothing in common with the sympathies and ties of coa.r.s.e affection-wrinkles do not revolt it-homeliness of feature does not deter; it asks youth, it is true, but it asks it only in the freshness of the emotions; it asks beauty, it is true, but it is the beauty of the thought and of the spirit. Such is the love, O Ione, which is a worthy offering to thee from the cold and the austere. Austere and cold thou deemest me-such is the love that I venture to lay upon thy shrine-thou canst receive it without a blush."
"And its name is friendship!" replied Ione: her answer was innocent, yet it sounded like the reproof of one conscious of the design of the speaker.
"Friendship!" said Arbaces, vehemently. "No; that is a word too often profaned to apply to a sentiment so sacred. Friendship! it is a tie that binds fools and profligates! Friendship! it is the bond that unites the frivolous hearts of a Glaucus and a Clodius! Friendship! no, that is an affection of earth, of vulgar habits and sordid sympathies; the feeling of which I speak is borrowed from the stars"-it partakes of that mystic and ineffable yearning, which we feel when we gaze on them-it burns, yet it purifies-it is the lamp of naphtha in the alabaster vase, glowing with fragrant odorous, but shining only through the purest vessels. No; it is not love, and it is not friendship, that Arbaces feels for Ione. Give it no name-earth has no name for it-it is not of earth-why debase it with earthly epithets and earthly a.s.sociations?"
Never before had Arbaces ventured so far, yet he felt his ground step by step: he knew that he uttered a language which, if at this day of affected platonisms it would speak unequivocally to the ears of beauty, was at that time strange and unfamiliar, to which no precise idea could be attached, from which he could imperceptibly advance or recede, as occasion suited, as hope encouraged or fear deterred. Ione trembled, though she knew not why; her veil hid her features, and masked an expression, which, if seen by the Egyptian, would have at once damped and enraged him; in fact, he never was more displeasing to her-the harmonious modulation of the most suasive voice that ever disguised unhallowed thought fell discordantly on her ear. Her whole soul was still filled with the image of Glaucus; and the accent of tenderness from another only revolted and dismayed; yet she did not conceive that any pa.s.sion more ardent than that platonism which Arbaces expressed lurked beneath his words. She thought that he, in truth, spoke only of the affection and sympathy of the soul; but was it not precisely that affection and that sympathy which had made a part of those emotions she felt for Glaucus; and could any other footstep than his approach the haunted adytum of her heart?
Anxious at once to change the conversation, she replied, therefore, with a cold and indifferent voice, "Whomsoever Arbaces honors with the sentiment of esteem, it is natural that his elevated wisdom should color that sentiment with its own hues; it is natural that his friendship should be purer than that of others, whose pursuits and errors he does not deign to share. But tell me, Arbaces, hast thou seen my brother of late? He has not visited me for several days; and when I last saw him his manner disturbed and alarmed me much. I fear lest he was too precipitate in the severe choice that he has adopted, and that he repents an irrevocable step."
"Be cheered, Ione," replied the Egyptian. "It is true that, some little time since he was troubled and sad of spirit; those doubts beset him which were likely to haunt one of that fervent temperament, which ever ebbs and flows, and vibrates between excitement and exhaustion. But he, Ione, he came to me his anxieties and his distress; he sought one who pitied me and loved him; I have calmed his mind-I have removed his doubts-I have taken him from the threshold of Wisdom into its temple; and before the majesty of the G.o.ddess his soul is hushed and soothed. Fear not, he will repent no more; they who trust themselves to Arbaces never repent but for a moment."
"You rejoice me," answered Ione. "My dear brother! in his contentment I am happy."
The conversation then turned upon lighter subjects; the Egyptian exerted himself to please, he condescended even to entertain; the vast variety of his knowledge enabled him to adorn and light up every subject on which he touched; and Ione, forgetting the displeasing effect of his former words, was carried away, despite her sadness, by the magic of his intellect. Her manner became unrestrained and her language fluent; and Arbaces, who had waited his opportunity, now hastened to seize it.
"You have never seen," said he, "the interior of my home; it may amuse you to do so: it contains some rooms that may explain to you what you have often asked me to describe-the fashion of an Egyptian house; not indeed, that you will perceive in the poor and minute proportions of Roman architecture the ma.s.sive strength, the vast s.p.a.ce, the gigantic magnificence, or even the domestic construction of the palaces of Thebes and Memphis; but something there is, here and there, that may serve to express to you some notion of that antique civilization which has humanized the world. Devote, then, to the austere friend of your youth, one of these bright summer evenings, and let me boast that my gloomy mansion has been honored with the presence of the admired Ione."
Unconscious of the pollutions of the mansion, of the danger that awaited her, Ione readily a.s.sented to the proposal. The next evening was fixed for the visit; and the Egyptian, with a serene countenance, and a heart beating with fierce and unholy joy, departed. Scarce had he gone, when another visitor claimed admission.... But now we return to Glaucus.
Chapter V
THE POOR TORTOISE. NEW CHANGES FOR NYDIA.
THE morning sun shone over the small and odorous garden enclosed within the peristyle of the house of the Athenian. He lay reclined, sad and listlessly, on the smooth gra.s.s which intersected the viridarium; and a slight canopy stretched above, broke the fierce rays of the summer sun.
When that fairy mansion was first disinterred from the earth they found in the garden the sh.e.l.l of a tortoise that had been its inmate. That animal, so strange a link in the creation, to which Nature seems to have denied all the pleasure of life, save life"s pa.s.sive and dream-like perception, had been the guest of the place for years before Glaucus purchased it; for years, indeed which went beyond the memory of man, and to which tradition a.s.signed an almost incredible date. The house had been built and rebuilt-its possessors had changed and fluctuated-generations had flourished and decayed-and still the tortoise dragged on its slow and unsympathizing existence. In the earthquake, which sixteen years before had overthrown many of the public buildings of the city, and scared away the amazed inhabitants, the house now inhabited by Glaucus had been terribly shattered. The possessors deserted it for many days; on their return they cleared away the ruins which enc.u.mbered the viridarium, and found still the tortoise, unharmed and unconscious of the surrounding destruction. It seemed to bear a charmed life in its languid blood and imperceptible motions; yet it was not so inactive as it seemed: it held a regular and monotonous course; inch by inch it traversed the little orbit of its domain, taking months to accomplish the whole gyration. It was a restless voyager, that tortoise!-patiently, and with pain, did it perform its self-appointed journeys, evincing no interest in the things around it-a philosopher concentrated in itself. There was something grand in its solitary selfishness!-the sun in which it basked-the waters poured daily over it-the air, which it insensibly inhaled, were its sole and unfailing luxuries. The mild changes of the season, in that lovely clime, affected it not. It covered itself with its sh.e.l.l-as the saint in his piety-as the sage in his wisdom-as the lover in his hope.
It was impervious to the shocks and mutations of time-it was an emblem of time itself: slow, regular, perpetual; unwitting of the pa.s.sions that fret themselves around-of the wear and tear of mortality. The poor tortoise! nothing less than the bursting of volcanoes, the convulsions of the riven world, could have quenched its sluggish spark! The inexorable Death, that spared not pomp or beauty, pa.s.sed unheedingly by a thing to which death could bring so insignificant a change.
For this animal the mercurial and vivid Greek felt all the wonder and affection of contrast. He could spend hours in surveying its creeping progress, in moralizing over its mechanism. He despised it in joy-he envied it in sorrow.
Regarding it now as he lay along the sward-its dull ma.s.s moving while it seemed motionless, the Athenian murmured to himself: "The eagle dropped a stone from his talons, thinking to break thy sh.e.l.l: the stone crushed the head of a poet. This is the allegory of Fate! Dull thing! Thou hadst a father and a mother; perhaps, ages ago, thou thyself hadst a mate. Did thy parents love, or didst thou? Did thy slow blood circulate more gladly when thou didst creep to the side of thy wedded one? Wert thou capable of affection? Could it distress thee if she were away from thy side? Couldst thou feel when she was present? What would I not give to know the history of thy mailed breast-to gaze upon the mechanism of thy faint desires-to mark what hair-breadth difference separates thy sorrow from thy joy! Yet, methinks, thou wouldst know if Ione were present! Thou wouldst feel her coming like a happier air-like a gladder sun. I envy thee now, for thou knowest not that she is absent; and I-would I could be like thee-between the intervals of seeing her! What doubt, what presentiment, haunts me! why will she not admit me? Days have pa.s.sed since I heard her voice. For the first time, life grows flat to me. I am as one who is left alone at a banquet, the lights dead, and the flowers faded. Ah! Ione, couldst thou dream how I adore thee!"
From these enamoured reveries, Glaucus was interrupted by the entrance of Nydia. She came with her light, though cautious step, along the marble tablinum. She pa.s.sed the portico, and paused at the flowers which bordered the garden. She had her water-vase in her hand, and she sprinkled the thirsting plants, which seemed to brighten at her approach. She bent to inhale their odor. She touched them timidly and caressingly. She felt, along their stems, if any withered leaf or creeping insect marred their beauty. And as she hovered from flower to flower, with her earnest and youthful countenance and graceful motions, you could not have imagined a fitter handmaid for the G.o.ddess of the garden.
"Nydia, my child!" said Glaucus.
At the sound of his voice she paused at once-listening, blushing, breathless; with her lips parted, her face upturned to catch the direction of the sound, she laid down the vase-she hastened to him; and wonderful it was to see how unerringly she threaded her dark way through the flowers, and came by the shortest path to the side of her new lord.
"Nydia," said Glaucus, tenderly stroking back her long and beautiful hair, "it is now three days since thou hast been under the protection of my household G.o.ds. Have they smiled on thee? Art thou happy?"
"Ah! so happy!" sighed the slave.
"And now," continued Glaucus, "that thou hast recovered somewhat from the hateful recollections of thy former state,-and now that they have fitted thee (touching her broidered tunic) with garments more meet for thy delicate shape-and now, sweet child, that thou hast accustomed thyself to a happiness, which may the G.o.ds grant thee ever! I am about to pray at thy hands a boon."
"Oh! what can I do for thee?" said Nydia, clasping her hands.
"Listen," said Glaucus, "and young as thou art, thou shalt be my confidant. Hast thou ever heard the name of Ione?"
The blind girl gasped for breath, and turning pale as one of the statues which shone upon them from the peristyle, she answered with an effort, and after a moment"s pause: "Yes! I have heard that she is of Neapolis, and beautiful."
"Beautiful! her beauty is a thing to dazzle the day! Neapolis! nay, she is Greek by origin; Greece only could furnish forth such shapes. Nydia, I love her!"
"I thought so," replied Nydia, calmly.
"I love, and thou shalt tell her so. I am about to send thee to her. Happy Nydia, thou wilt be in her chamber-thou wilt drink the music of her voice-thou wilt bask in the sunny air of her presence!"
"What! what! wilt thou send me from thee?"
"Thou wilt go to Ione," answered Glaucus, in a tone that said, "What more canst thou desire?"
Nydia burst into tears.
Glaucus, raising himself, drew her towards him with the soothing caresses of a brother.
"My child, my Nydia, thou weepest in ignorance of the happiness I bestow on thee. She is gentle, and kind, and soft as the breeze of spring. She will be a sister to thy youth-she will appreciate thy winning talents-she will love thy simple graces as none other could, for they are like her own. Weepest thou still, fond fool? I will not force thee, sweet. Wilt thou not do for me this kindness?"
"Well, if I can serve thee, command. See, I weep no longer-I am calm."
"That is my own Nydia," continued Glaucus, kissing her hand. "Go, then, to her: if thou art disappointed in her kindness-if I have deceived thee, return when thou wilt. I do not give thee to another; I but lend. My home ever be thy refuge, sweet one. Ah! would it could shelter all the friendless and distressed! But if my heart whispers truly, I shall claim thee again soon, my child. My home and Ione"s will become the same, and thou shalt dwell with both."
A shiver pa.s.sed through the slight frame of the blind girl, but she wept no more-she was resigned.
"Go, then, my Nydia, to Ione"s house-they shall show thee the way. Take her the fairest flowers thou canst pluck; the vase which contains them I will give thee: thou must excuse its unworthiness. Thou shalt take, too, with thee the lute that I gave thee yesterday, and from which thou knowest so well to awaken the charming spirit. Thou shalt give her, also, this letter, in which, after a hundred efforts, I have embodied something of my thoughts. Let thy ear catch every accent, every modulation of her voice, and tell me, when we meet again, if its music should flatter me or discourage. It is now, Nydia, some days since I have been admitted to Ione; there is something mysterious in this exclusion. I am distracted with doubts and fears; learn-for thou art quick, and thy care for me will sharpen tenfold thy acuteness-learn the cause of this unkindness; speak of me as often as thou canst; let my name come ever to thy lips: insinuate how I love rather than proclaim it; watch if she sighs whilst thou speakest, if she answer thee; or, if she reproves, in what accents she reproves. Be my friend, plead for me: and oh! how vastly wilt thou overpay the little I have done for thee! Thou comprehendest, Nydia; thou art yet a child-have I said more than thou canst understand?"
"No."
"And thou wilt serve me?"
"Yes."
"Come to me when thou hast gathered the flowers, and I will give thee the vase I speak of; seek me in the chamber of Leda. Pretty one, thou dost not grieve now?"
"Glaucus, I am a slave; what business have I with grief or joy?"
"Sayest thou so? No, Nydia, be free. I give thee freedom; enjoy it as thou wilt, and pardon me that I reckoned on thy desire to serve me."
"You are offended. Oh! I would not, for that which no freedom can give, offend you, Glaucus. My guardian, my saviour, my protector, forgive the poor blind girl! She does not grieve even in leaving thee, if she can contribute to thy happiness."
"May the G.o.ds bless this grateful heart!" said Glaucus, greatly moved; and, unconscious of the fires he excited, he repeatedly kissed her forehead.
"Thou forgivest me," said she, "and thou wilt talk no more of freedom; my happiness is to be thy slave: thou hast promised thou wilt not give me to another..."
"I have promised."
"And now, then, I will gather the flowers."
Silently, Nydia took from the hand of Glaucus the costly and jewelled vase, in which the flowers vied with each other in hue and fragrance; tearlessly she received his parting admonition. She paused for a moment when his voice ceased-she did not trust herself to reply-she sought his hand-she raised it to her lips, dropped her veil over her face, and pa.s.sed at once from his presence. She paused again as she reached the threshold; she stretched her hands towards it, and murmured: "Three happy days-days of unspeakable delight, have I known since I pa.s.sed thee-blessed threshold! may peace dwell ever with thee when I am gone! And now, my heart tears itself from thee, and the only sound it utters bids me-die!"
Chapter VI
THE HAPPY BEAUTY AND THE BLIND SLAVE.
A SLAVE entered the chamber of Ione. A messenger from Glaucus desired to be admitted.
Ione hesitated an instant.
"She is blind, that messenger," said the slave; "she will do her commission to none but thee."
Base is that heart which does not respect affliction! The moment she heard the messenger was blind, Ione felt the impossibility of returning a chilling reply. Glaucus had chosen a herald that was indeed sacred-a herald that could not be denied.
"What can he want with me? what message can he send?" and the heart of Ione beat quick. The curtain across the door was withdrawn; a soft and echoless step fell upon the marble; and Nydia, led by one of the attendants, entered with her precious gift.
She stood still a moment, as if listening for some sound that might direct her.
"Will the n.o.ble Ione," said she, in a soft and low voice, "deign to speak, that I may know whither to steer these benighted steps, and that I may lay my offerings at her feet?"
"Fair child," said Ione, touched and soothingly, "give not thyself the pain to cross these slippery floors, my attendant will bring to me what thou hast to present"; and she motioned to the handmaid to take the vase.
"I may give these flowers to none but thee," answered Nydia; and, guided by her ear, she walked slowly to the place where Ione sat, and kneeling when she came before her, proffered the vase.
Ione took it from her hand, and placed it on the table at her side. She then raised her gently, and would have seated her on the couch, but the girl modestly resisted.
"I have not yet discharged my office," said she; and she drew the letter of Glaucus from her vest. "This will, perhaps, explain why he who sent me chose so unworthy a messenger to Ione."
The Neapolitan took the letter with a hand, the trembling of which Nydia at once felt and sighed to feel. With folded arms, and downcast looks, she stood before the proud and stately form of Ione-no less proud, perhaps, in her att.i.tude of submission. Ione waved her hand, and the attendants withdrew; she gazed again upon the form of the young slave in surprise and beautiful compa.s.sion; then, retiring a little from her, she opened and read the following letter: "Glaucus to Ione sends more than he dares to utter. Is Ione ill? thy slaves tell me "No", and that a.s.surance comforts me. Has Glaucus offended Ione?-ah! that question I may not ask from them. For five days I have been banished from thy presence. Has the sun shone?-I know it not. Has the sky smiled?-it has had no smile for me. My sun and my sky are Ione. Do I offend thee? Am I too bold? Do I say that on the tablet which my tongue has hesitated to breathe? Alas! it is in thine absence that I feel most the spells by which thou hast subdued me. And absence, that deprives me of joy, brings me courage. Thou wilt not see me; thou hast banished also the common flatterers that flock around thee. Canst thou confound me with them? It is not possible! Thou knowest too well that I am not of them-that their clay is not mine. For even were I of the humblest mould, the fragrance of the rose has penetrated me, and the spirit of thy nature hath pa.s.sed within me, to embalm, to sanctify, to inspire. Have they slandered me to thee, Ione? Thou wilt not believe them. Did the Delphic oracle itself tell me thou wert unworthy, I would not believe it; and am I less incredulous than thou I think of the last time we met-of the song which I sang to thee-of the look that thou gavest me in return. Disguise it as thou wilt, Ione, there is something kindred between us, and our eyes acknowledged it, though our lips were silent. Deign to see me, to listen to me, and after that exclude me if thou wilt. I meant not so soon to say I loved. But those words rush to my heart-they will have way. Accept, then, my homage and my vows. We met first at the shrine of Pallas; shall we not meet before a softer and a more ancient altar?
"Beautiful! adored Ione! If my hot youth and my Athenian blood have misguided and allured me, they have but taught my wanderings to appreciate the rest-the haven they have attained. I hang up my dripping robes on the Sea-G.o.d"s shrine. I have escaped shipwreck. I have found THEE. Ione, deign to see me; thou art gentle to strangers, wilt thou be less merciful to those of thine own land? I await thy reply. Accept the flowers which I send-their sweet breath has a language more eloquent than words. They take from the sun the odorous they return-they are the emblem of the love that receives and repays tenfold-the emblem of the heart that drunk thy rays, and owes to thee the germ of the treasures that it proffers to thy smile. I send these by one whom thou wilt receive for her own sake, if not for mine. She, like us, is a stranger; her fathers" ashes lie under brighter skies: but, less happy than we, she is blind and a slave. Poor Nydia! I seek as much as possible to repair to her the cruelties of Nature and of Fate, in asking permission to place her with thee. She is gentle, quick, and docile. She is skilled in music and the song; and she is a very Chloris to the flowers. She thinks, Ione, that thou wilt love her: if thou dost not, send her back to me.