The Last Days of Pompeii Read online

  Chapter II

  THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL, AND THE BEAUTY OF FASHION. THE ATHENIAN'SCONFESSION. THE READER'S INTRODUCTION TO ARBACES OF EGYPT.

  TALKING lightly on a thousand matters, the two young men saunteredthrough the streets; they were now in that quarter which was filled withthe gayest shops, their open interiors all and each radiant with thegaudy yet harmonious colors of frescoes, inconceivably varied in fancyand design. The sparkling fountains, that at every vista threw upwardstheir grateful spray in the summer air; the crowd of passengers, orrather loiterers, mostly clad in robes of the Tyrian dye; the gay groupscollected round each more attractive shop; the slaves passing to and frowith buckets of bronze, cast in the most graceful shapes, and borne upontheir heads; the country girls stationed at frequent intervals withbaskets of blushing fruit, and flowers more alluring to the ancientItalians than to their descendants (with whom, indeed, "latet anguis inherba," a disease seems lurking in every violet and rose); the numeroushaunts which fulfilled with that idle people the office of cafes andclubs at this day; the shops, where on shelves of marble were ranged thevases of wine and oil, and before whose thresholds, seats, protectedfrom the sun by a purple awning, invited the weary to rest and theindolent to lounge--made a scene of such glowing and vivaciousexcitement, as might well give the Athenian spirit of Glaucus an excusefor its susceptibility to joy.

  'Talk to me no more of Rome,' said he to Clodius. 'Pleasure is toostately and ponderous in those mighty walls: even in the precincts ofthe court--even in the Golden House of Nero, and the incipient gloriesof the palace of Titus, there is a certain dulness of magnificence--theeye aches--the spirit is wearied; besides, my Clodius, we arediscontented when we compare the enormous luxury and wealth of otherswith the mediocrity of our own state. But here we surrender ourselveseasily to pleasure, and we have the brilliancy of luxury without thelassitude of its pomp.'

  'It was from that feeling that you chose your summer retreat atPompeii?'

  'It was. I prefer it to Baiae: I grant the charms of the latter, but Ilove not the pedants who resort there, and who seem to weigh out theirpleasures by the drachm.'

  'Yet you are fond of the learned, too; and as for poetry, why, yourhouse is literally eloquent with AEschylus and Homer, the epic and thedrama.'

  'Yes, but those Romans who mimic my Athenian ancestors do everything soheavily. Even in the chase they make their slaves carry Plato withthem; and whenever the boar is lost, out they take their books and theirpapyrus, in order not to lose their time too. When the dancing-girlsswim before them in all the blandishment of Persian manners, some droneof a freedman, with a face of stone, reads them a section of Cicero "DeOfficiis". Unskilful pharmacists! pleasure and study are not elementsto be thus mixed together, they must be enjoyed separately: the Romanslose both by this pragmatical affectation of refinement, and prove thatthey have no souls for either. Oh, my Clodius, how little yourcountrymen know of the true versatility of a Pericles, of the truewitcheries of an Aspasia! It was but the other day that I paid a visitto Pliny: he was sitting in his summer-house writing, while anunfortunate slave played on the tibia. His nephew (oh! whip me suchphilosophical coxcombs!) was reading Thucydides' description of theplague, and nodding his conceited little head in time to the music,while his lips were repeating all the loathsome details of that terribledelineation. The puppy saw nothing incongruous in learning at the sametime a ditty of love and a description of the plague.'

  'Why, they are much the same thing,' said Clodius.

  'So I told him, in excuse for his coxcombry--but my youth stared merebukingly in the face, without taking the jest, and answered, that itwas only the insensate ear that the music pleased, whereas the book (thedescription of the plague, mind you!) elevated the heart. "Ah!" quoththe fat uncle, wheezing, "my boy is quite an Athenian, always mixing theutile with the dulce." O Minerva, how I laughed in my sleeve! While Iwas there, they came to tell the boy-sophist that his favorite freedmanwas just dead of a fever. "Inexorable death!" cried he; "get me myHorace. How beautifully the sweet poet consoles us for thesemisfortunes!" Oh, can these men love, my Clodius? Scarcely even withthe senses. How rarely a Roman has a heart! He is but the mechanism ofgenius--he wants its bones and flesh.'

  Though Clodius was secretly a little sore at these remarks on hiscountrymen, he affected to sympathize with his friend, partly because hewas by nature a parasite, and partly because it was the fashion amongthe dissolute young Romans to affect a little contempt for the verybirth which, in reality, made them so arrogant; it was the mode toimitate the Greeks, and yet to laugh at their own clumsy imitation.

  Thus conversing, their steps were arrested by a crowd gathered round anopen space where three streets met; and, just where the porticoes of alight and graceful temple threw their shade, there stood a young girl,with a flower-basket on her right arm, and a small three-stringedinstrument of music in the left hand, to whose low and soft tones shewas modulating a wild and half-barbaric air. At every pause in themusic she gracefully waved her flower-basket round, inviting theloiterers to buy; and many a sesterce was showered into the basket,either in compliment to the music or in compassion to thesongstress--for she was blind.

  'It is my poor Thessalian,' said Glaucus, stopping; 'I have not seen hersince my return to Pompeii. Hush! her voice is sweet; let us listen.'

  THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL'S SONG

  I.

  Buy my flowers--O buy--I pray! The blind girl comes from afar; If the earth be as fair as I hear them say, These flowers her children are! Do they her beauty keep? They are fresh from her lap, I know; For I caught them fast asleep In her arms an hour ago. With the air which is her breath-- Her soft and delicate breath-- Over them murmuring low!

  On their lips her sweet kiss lingers yet, And their cheeks with her tender tears are wet. For she weeps--that gentle mother weeps-- (As morn and night her watch she keeps, With a yearning heart and a passionate care) To see the young things grow so fair; She weeps--for love she weeps; And the dews are the tears she weeps From the well of a mother's love!

  II.

  Ye have a world of light, Where love in the loved rejoices; But the blind girl's home is the House of Night, And its beings are empty voices.

  As one in the realm below, I stand by the streams of woe! I hear the vain shadows glide, I feel their soft breath at my side. And I thirst the loved forms to see, And I stretch my fond arms around, And I catch but a shapeless sound, For the living are ghosts to me.

  Come buy--come buy?-- (Hark! how the sweet things sigh For they have a voice like ours), `The breath of the blind girl closes The leaves of the saddening roses-- We are tender, we sons of light, We shrink from this child of night; From the grasp of the blind girl free us-- We yearn for the eyes that see us-- We are for night too gay, In your eyes we behold the day-- O buy--O buy the flowers!'

  'I must have yon bunch of violets, sweet Nydia,' said Glaucus, pressingthrough the crowd, and dropping a handful of small coins into thebasket; 'your voice is more charming than ever.'

  The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian's voice; thenas suddenly paused, while the blood rushed violently over neck, cheek,and temples.

  'So you are returned!' said she, in a low voice; and then repeated halfto herself, 'Glaucus is returned!'

  'Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days. My gardenwants your care, as before; you will visit it, I trust, to-morrow. Andmind, no garlands at my house shall be woven by any hands but those ofthe pretty Nydia.'

  Nydia smiled joyously, but did not answer; and Glaucus, placing in his
breast the violets he had selected, turned gaily and carelessly from thecrowd.

  'So she is a sort of client of yours, this child?' said Clodius.

  'Ay--does she not sing prettily? She interests me, the poor slave!Besides, she is from the land of the Gods' hill--Olympus frowned uponher cradle--she is of Thessaly.'

  'The witches' country.'

  'True: but for my part I find every woman a witch; and at Pompeii, byVenus! the very air seems to have taken a love-philtre, so handsome doesevery face without a beard seem in my eyes.'

  'And lo! one of the handsomest in Pompeii, old Diomed's daughter, therich Julia!' said Clodius, as a young lady, her face covered by herveil, and attended by two female slaves, approached them, in her way tothe baths.

  'Fair Julia, we salute thee!' said Clodius.

  Julia partly raised her veil, so as with some coquetry to display a boldRoman profile, a full dark bright eye, and a cheek over whose naturalolive art shed a fairer and softer rose.

  'And Glaucus, too, is returned!' said she, glancing meaningly at theAthenian. 'Has he forgotten,' she added, in a half-whisper, 'hisfriends of the last year?'

  'Beautiful Julia! even Lethe itself, if it disappear in one part of theearth, rises again in another. Jupiter does not allow us ever to forgetfor more than a moment: but Venus, more harsh still, vouchsafes not evena moment's oblivion.'

  'Glaucus is never at a loss for fair words.'

  'Who is, when the object of them is so fair?'

  'We shall see you both at my father's villa soon,' said Julia, turningto Clodius.

  'We will mark the day in which we visit you with a white stone,'answered the gamester.

  Julia dropped her veil, but slowly, so that her last glance rested onthe Athenian with affected timidity and real boldness; the glancebespoke tenderness and reproach.

  The friends passed on.

  'Julia is certainly handsome,' said Glaucus.

  'And last year you would have made that confession in a warmer tone.'

  'True; I was dazzled at the first sight, and mistook for a gem thatwhich was but an artful imitation.'

  'Nay,' returned Clodius, 'all women are the same at heart. Happy he whoweds a handsome face and a large dower. What more can he desire?'

  Glaucus sighed.

  They were now in a street less crowded than the rest, at the end ofwhich they beheld that broad and most lovely sea, which upon thosedelicious coasts seems to have renounced its prerogative of terror--sosoft are the crisping winds that hover around its bosom, so glowing andso various are the hues which it takes from the rosy clouds, so fragrantare the perfumes which the breezes from the land scatter over itsdepths. From such a sea might you well believe that Aphrodite rose totake the empire of the earth.

  'It is still early for the bath,' said the Greek, who was the creatureof every poetical impulse; 'let us wander from the crowded city, andlook upon the sea while the noon yet laughs along its billows.'

  'With all my heart,' said Clodius; 'and the bay, too, is always the mostanimated part of the city.'

  Pompeii was the miniature of the civilization of that age. Within thenarrow compass of its walls was contained, as it were, a specimen ofevery gift which luxury offered to power. In its minute but glitteringshops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theatre, itscircus--in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice, ofits people, you beheld a model of the whole empire. It was a toy, aplaything, a showbox, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep therepresentation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwardshid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity--the moral of themaxim, that under the sun there is nothing new.

  Crowded in the glassy bay were the vessels of commerce and the gildedgalleys for the pleasures of the rich citizens. The boats of thefishermen glided rapidly to and fro; and afar off you saw the tall mastsof the fleet under the command of Pliny. Upon the shore sat a Sicilianwho, with vehement gestures and flexile features, was narrating to agroup of fishermen and peasants a strange tale of shipwrecked marinersand friendly dolphins--just as at this day, in the modern neighborhood,you may hear upon the Mole of Naples.

  Drawing his comrade from the crowd, the Greek bent his steps towards asolitary part of the beach, and the two friends, seated on a small cragwhich rose amidst the smooth pebbles, inhaled the voluptuous and coolingbreeze, which dancing over the waters, kept music with its invisiblefeet. There was, perhaps, something in the scene that invited them tosilence and reverie. Clodius, shading his eyes from the burning sky,was calculating the gains of the last week; and the Greek, leaning uponhis hand, and shrinking not from that sun--his nation's tutelarydeity--with whose fluent light of poesy, and joy, and love, his ownveins were filled, gazed upon the broad expanse, and envied, perhaps,every wind that bent its pinions towards the shores of Greece.

  'Tell me, Clodius,' said the Greek at last, 'hast thou ever been inlove?'

  'Yes, very often.'

  'He who has loved often,' answered Glaucus, 'has loved never. There isbut one Eros, though there are many counterfeits of him.'

  'The counterfeits are not bad little gods, upon the whole,' answeredClodius.

  'I agree with you,' returned the Greek. 'I adore even the shadow ofLove; but I adore himself yet more.'

  'Art thou, then, soberly and honestly in love? Hast thou that feelingwhich the poets describe--a feeling that makes us neglect our suppers,forswear the theatre, and write elegies? I should never have thoughtit. You dissemble well.'

  'I am not far gone enough for that,' returned Glaucus, smiling, 'orrather I say with Tibullus--

  He whom love rules, where'er his path may be, Walks safe and sacred.

  In fact, I am not in love; but I could be if there were but occasion tosee the object. Eros would light his torch, but the priests have givenhim no oil.'

  'Shall I guess the object?--Is it not Diomed's daughter? She adoresyou, and does not affect to conceal it; and, by Hercules, I say againand again, she is both handsome and rich. She will bind the door-postsof her husband with golden fillets.'

  'No, I do not desire to sell myself. Diomed's daughter is handsome, Igrant: and at one time, had she not been the grandchild of a freedman, Imight have... Yet no--she carries all her beauty in her face; hermanners are not maiden-like, and her mind knows no culture save that ofpleasure.'

  'You are ungrateful. Tell me, then, who is the fortunate virgin?'

  'You shall hear, my Clodius. Several months ago I was sojourning atNeapolis, a city utterly to my own heart, for it still retains themanners and stamp of its Grecian origin--and it yet merits the name ofParthenope, from its delicious air and its beautiful shores. One day Ientered the temple of Minerva, to offer up my prayers, not for myselfmore than for the city on which Pallas smiles no longer. The temple wasempty and deserted. The recollections of Athens crowded fast andmeltingly upon me: imagining myself still alone in the temple, andabsorbed in the earnestness of my devotion, my prayer gushed from myheart to my lips, and I wept as I prayed. I was startled in the midst ofmy devotions, however, by a deep sigh; I turned suddenly round, and justbehind me was a female. She had raised her veil also in prayer: andwhen our eyes met, methought a celestial ray shot from those dark andsmiling orbs at once into my soul. Never, my Clodius, have I seenmortal face more exquisitely molded: a certain melancholy softened andyet elevated its expression: that unutterable something, which springsfrom the soul, and which our sculptors have imparted to the aspect ofPsyche, gave her beauty I know not what of divine and noble; tears wererolling down her eyes. I guessed at once that she was also of Athenianlineage; and that in my prayer for Athens her heart had responded tomine. I spoke to her, though with a faltering voice--"Art thou not, too,Athenian?" said I, "O beautiful virgin!" At the sound of my voice sheblushed, and half drew her veil across her face.--"My forefathers'ashes," said she, "repose by the waters of Ilissus: my birth is ofNeapolis; but my heart, as my lineage, is Athenian."--"Let us, then,"said I, "make our offerings together":
and, as the priest now appeared,we stood side by side, while we followed the priest in his ceremonialprayer; together we touched the knees of the goddess--together we laidour olive garlands on the altar. I felt a strange emotion of almostsacred tenderness at this companionship. We, strangers from a far andfallen land, stood together and alone in that temple of our country'sdeity: was it not natural that my heart should yearn to my countrywoman,for so I might surely call her? I felt as if I had known her for years;and that simple rite seemed, as by a miracle, to operate on thesympathies and ties of time. Silently we left the temple, and I wasabout to ask her where she dwelt, and if I might be permitted to visither, when a youth, in whose features there was some kindred resemblanceto her own, and who stood upon the steps of the fane, took her by thehand. She turned round and bade me farewell. The crowd separated us: Isaw her no more. On reaching my home I found letters, which obliged meto set out for Athens, for my relations threatened me with litigationconcerning my inheritance. When that suit was happily over, I repairedonce more to Neapolis; I instituted inquiries throughout the whole city,I could discover no clue of my lost countrywoman, and, hoping to lose ingaiety all remembrance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened toplunge myself amidst the luxuries of Pompeii. This is all my history.I do not love; but I remember and regret.'

  As Clodius was about to reply, a slow and stately step approached them,and at the sound it made amongst the pebbles, each turned, and eachrecognized the new-comer.

  It was a man who had scarcely reached his fortieth year, of tallstature, and of a thin but nervous and sinewy frame. His skin, dark andbronzed, betrayed his Eastern origin; and his features had somethingGreek in their outline (especially in the chin, the lip, and the brow),save that the nose was somewhat raised and aquiline; and the bones, hardand visible, forbade that fleshy and waving contour which on the Grecianphysiognomy preserved even in manhood the round and beautiful curves ofyouth. His eyes, large and black as the deepest night, shone with novarying and uncertain lustre. A deep, thoughtful, and half-melancholycalm seemed unalterably fixed in their majestic and commanding gaze.His step and mien were peculiarly sedate and lofty, and somethingforeign in the fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments addedto the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately form.Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, andwith care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with theirfingers; for Arbaces, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatalgift of the evil eye.

  'The scene must, indeed, be beautiful,' said Arbaces, with a cold thoughcourteous smile, 'which draws the gay Clodius, and Glaucus the alladmired, from the crowded thoroughfares of the city.'

  'Is Nature ordinarily so unattractive?' asked the Greek.

  'To the dissipated--yes.'

  'An austere reply, but scarcely a wise one. Pleasure delights incontrasts; it is from dissipation that we learn to enjoy solitude, andfrom solitude dissipation.'

  'So think the young philosophers of the Garden,' replied the Egyptian;'they mistake lassitude for meditation, and imagine that, because theyare sated with others, they know the delight of loneliness. But not insuch jaded bosoms can Nature awaken that enthusiasm which alone drawsfrom her chaste reserve all her unspeakable beauty: she demands fromyou, not the exhaustion of passion, but all that fervor, from which youonly seek, in adoring her, a release. When, young Athenian, the moonrevealed herself in visions of light to Endymion, it was after a daypassed, not amongst the feverish haunts of men, but on the stillmountains and in the solitary valleys of the hunter.'

  'Beautiful simile!' cried Glaucus; 'most unjust application! Exhaustion!that word is for age, not youth. By me, at least, one moment of satietyhas never been known!'

  Again the Egyptian smiled, but his smile was cold and blighting, andeven the unimaginative Clodius froze beneath its light. He did not,however, reply to the passionate exclamation of Glaucus; but, after apause, he said, in a soft and melancholy voice:

  'After all, you do right to enjoy the hour while it smiles for you; therose soon withers, the perfume soon exhales. And we, O Glaucus!strangers in the land and far from our fathers' ashes, what is thereleft for us but pleasure or regret!--for you the first, perhaps for methe last.'

  The bright eyes of the Greek were suddenly suffused with tears. 'Ah,speak not, Arbaces,' he cried--'speak not of our ancestors. Let usforget that there were ever other liberties than those of Rome! AndGlory!--oh, vainly would we call her ghost from the fields of Marathonand Thermopylae!'

  'Thy heart rebukes thee while thou speakest,' said the Egyptian; 'and inthy gaieties this night, thou wilt be more mindful of Leoena than ofLais. Vale!'

  Thus saying, he gathered his robe around him, and slowly swept away.

  'I breathe more freely,' said Clodius. 'Imitating the Egyptians, wesometimes introduce a skeleton at our feasts. In truth, the presence ofsuch an Egyptian as yon gliding shadow were spectre enough to sour therichest grape of the Falernian.'

  'Strange man! said Glaucus, musingly; 'yet dead though he seem topleasure, and cold to the objects of the world, scandal belies him, orhis house and his heart could tell a different tale.'

  'Ah! there are whispers of other orgies than those of Osiris in hisgloomy mansion. He is rich, too, they say. Can we not get him amongstus, and teach him the charms of dice? Pleasure of pleasures! hot feverof hope and fear! inexpressible unjaded passion! how fiercely beautifulthou art, O Gaming!'

  'Inspired--inspired!' cried Glaucus, laughing; 'the oracle speaks poetryin Clodius. What miracle next!'