The Last Days of Pompeii Read online

  Chapter V

  MORE OF THE FLOWER-GIRL. THE PROGRESS OF LOVE.

  THE sun shone gaily into that beautiful chamber in the house of Glaucus,which I have before said is now called the 'Room of Leda'. The morningrays entered through rows of small casements at the higher part of theroom, and through the door which opened on the garden, that answered tothe inhabitants of the southern cities the same purpose that agreenhouse or conservatory does to us. The size of the garden did notadapt it for exercise, but the various and fragrant plants with which itwas filled gave a luxury to that indolence so dear to the dwellers in asunny clime. And now the odorous, fanned by a gentle wind creeping fromthe adjacent sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose wallsvied with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers. Besides thegem of the room--the painting of Leda and Tyndarus--in the centre ofeach compartment of the walls were set other pictures of exquisitebeauty. In one you saw Cupid leaning on the knees of Venus; in anotherAriadne sleeping on the beach, unconscious of the perfidy of Theseus.Merrily the sunbeams played to and fro on the tessellated floor and thebrilliant walls--far more happily came the rays of joy to the heart ofthe young Glaucus.

  'I have seen her, then,' said he, as he paced that narrow chamber--'Ihave heard her--nay, I have spoken to her again--I have listened to themusic of her song, and she sung of glory and of Greece. I havediscovered the long-sought idol of my dreams; and like the Cypriansculptor, I have breathed life into my own imaginings.'

  Longer, perhaps, had been the enamoured soliloquy of Glaucus, but atthat moment a shadow darkened the threshold of the chamber, and a youngfemale, still half a child in years, broke upon his solitude. She wasdressed simply in a white tunic, which reached from the neck to theankles; under her arm she bore a basket of flowers, and in the otherhand she held a bronze water-vase; her features were more formed thanexactly became her years, yet they were soft and feminine in theiroutline, and without being beautiful in themselves, they were almostmade so by their beauty of expression; there was something ineffablygentle, and you would say patient, in her aspect. A look of resignedsorrow, of tranquil endurance, had banished the smile, but not thesweetness, from her lips; something timid and cautious in herstep--something wandering in her eyes, led you to suspect the afflictionwhich she had suffered from her birth--she was blind; but in the orbsthemselves there was no visible defect--their melancholy and subduedlight was clear, cloudless, and serene. 'They tell me that Glaucus ishere,' said she; 'may I come in?'

  'Ah, my Nydia,' said the Greek, 'is that you I knew you would notneglect my invitation.'

  'Glaucus did but justice to himself,' answered Nydia, with a blush; 'forhe has always been kind to the poor blind girl.'

  'Who could be otherwise?' said Glaucus, tenderly, and in the voice of acompassionate brother.

  Nydia sighed and paused before she resumed, without replying to hisremark. 'You have but lately returned?'

  'This is the sixth sun that hath shone upon me at Pompeii.'

  'And you are well? Ah, I need not ask--for who that sees the earth,which they tell me is so beautiful, can be ill?'

  'I am well. And you, Nydia--how you have grown! Next year you will bethinking what answer to make your lovers.'

  A second blush passed over the cheek of Nydia, but this time she frownedas she blushed. 'I have brought you some flowers,' said she, withoutreplying to a remark that she seemed to resent; and feeling about theroom till she found the table that stood by Glaucus, she laid the basketupon it: 'they are poor, but they are fresh-gathered.'

  'They might come from Flora herself,' said he, kindly; 'and I renewagain my vow to the Graces, that I will wear no other garlands while thyhands can weave me such as these.'

  'And how find you the flowers in your viridarium?--are they thriving?'

  'Wonderfully so--the Lares themselves must have tended them.'

  'Ah, now you give me pleasure; for I came, as often as I could steal theleisure, to water and tend them in your absence.'

  'How shall I thank thee, fair Nydia?' said the Greek. 'Glaucus littledreamed that he left one memory so watchful over his favorites atPompeii.'

  The hand of the child trembled, and her breast heaved beneath her tunic.She turned round in embarrassment. 'The sun is hot for the poorflowers,' said she, 'to-day and they will miss me; for I have been illlately, and it is nine days since I visited them.'

  'Ill, Nydia!--yet your cheek has more color than it had last year.'

  'I am often ailing,' said the blind girl, touchingly; 'and as I grow upI grieve more that I am blind. But now to the flowers!' So saying, shemade a slight reverence with her head, and passing into the viridarium,busied herself with watering the flowers.

  'Poor Nydia,' thought Glaucus, gazing on her; 'thine is a hard doom!Thou seest not the earth--nor the sun--nor the ocean--nor thestars--above all, thou canst not behold Ione.'

  At that last thought his mind flew back to the past evening, and was asecond time disturbed in its reveries by the entrance of Clodius. Itwas a proof how much a single evening had sufficed to increase and torefine the love of the Athenian for Ione, that whereas he had confidedto Clodius the secret of his first interview with her, and the effect ithad produced on him, he now felt an invincible aversion even to mentionto him her name. He had seen Ione, bright, pure, unsullied, in themidst of the gayest and most profligate gallants of Pompeii, charmingrather than awing the boldest into respect, and changing the very natureof the most sensual and the least ideal--as by her intellectual andrefining spells she reversed the fable of Circe, and converted theanimals into men. They who could not understand her soul were madespiritual, as it were, by the magic of her beauty--they who had no heartfor poetry had ears, at least, for the melody of her voice. Seeing herthus surrounded, purifying and brightening all things with her presence,Glaucus almost for the first time felt the nobleness of his ownnature--he felt how unworthy of the goddess of his dreams had been hiscompanions and his pursuits. A veil seemed lifted from his eyes; he sawthat immeasurable distance between himself and his associates which thedeceiving mists of pleasure had hitherto concealed; he was refined by asense of his courage in aspiring to Ione. He felt that henceforth itwas his destiny to look upward and to soar. He could no longer breathethat name, which sounded to the sense of his ardent fancy as somethingsacred and divine, to lewd and vulgar ears. She was no longer thebeautiful girl once seen and passionately remembered--she was alreadythe mistress, the divinity of his soul. This feeling who has notexperienced?--If thou hast not, then thou hast never loved.

  When Clodius therefore spoke to him in affected transport of the beautyof Ione, Glaucus felt only resentment and disgust that such lips shoulddare to praise her; he answered coldly, and the Roman imagined that hispassion was cured instead of heightened. Clodius scarcely regretted it,for he was anxious that Glaucus should marry an heiress yet more richlyendowed--Julia, the daughter of the wealthy Diomed, whose gold thegamester imagined he could readily divert into his own coffers. Theirconversation did not flow with its usual ease; and no sooner had Clodiusleft him than Glaucus bent his way to the house of Ione. In passing bythe threshold he again encountered Nydia, who had finished her gracefultask. She knew his step on the instant.

  'You are early abroad?' said she.

  'Yes; for the skies of Campania rebuke the sluggard who neglects them.'

  'Ah, would I could see them!' murmured the blind girl, but so low thatGlaucus did not overhear the complaint.

  The Thessalian lingered on the threshold a few moments, and then guidingher steps by a long staff, which she used with great dexterity, she tookher way homeward. She soon turned from the more gaudy streets, andentered a quarter of the town but little loved by the decorous and thesober. But from the low and rude evidences of vice around her she wassaved by her misfortune. And at that hour the streets were quiet andsilent, nor was her youthful ear shocked by the sounds which too oftenbroke along the obscene and obscure haunts she patiently and sadlytraversed
.

  She knocked at the back-door of a sort of tavern; it opened, and a rudevoice bade her give an account of the sesterces. Ere she could reply,another voice, less vulgarly accented, said:

  'Never mind those petty profits, my Burbo. The girl's voice will bewanted again soon at our rich friend's revels; and he pays, as thouknowest, pretty high for his nightingales' tongues.

  'Oh, I hope not--I trust not,' cried Nydia, trembling. 'I will beg fromsunrise to sunset, but send me not there.'

  'And why?' asked the same voice.

  'Because--because I am young, and delicately born, and the femalecompanions I meet there are not fit associates for one who--who...'

  'Is a slave in the house of Burbo,' returned the voice ironically, andwith a coarse laugh.

  The Thessalian put down the flowers, and, leaning her face on her hands,wept silently.

  Meanwhile, Glaucus sought the house of the beautiful Neapolitan. Hefound Ione sitting amidst her attendants, who were at work around her.Her harp stood at her side, for Ione herself was unusually idle, perhapsunusually thoughtful, that day. He thought her even more beautiful bythe morning light and in her simple robe, than amidst the blazing lamps,and decorated with the costly jewels of the previous night: not the lessso from a certain paleness that overspread her transparent hues--not theless so from the blush that mounted over them when he approached.Accustomed to flatter, flattery died upon his lips when he addressedIone. He felt it beneath her to utter the homage which every lookconveyed. They spoke of Greece; this was a theme on which Ione lovedrather to listen than to converse: it was a theme on which the Greekcould have been eloquent for ever. He described to her the silver olivegroves that yet clad the banks of Ilyssus, and the temples, alreadydespoiled of half their glories--but how beautiful in decay! He lookedback on the melancholy city of Harmodius the free, and Pericles themagnificent, from the height of that distant memory, which mellowed intoone hazy light all the ruder and darker shades. He had seen the land ofpoetry chiefly in the poetical age of early youth; and the associationsof patriotism were blended with those of the flush and spring of life.And Ione listened to him, absorbed and mute; dearer were those accents,and those descriptions, than all the prodigal adulation of hernumberless adorers. Was it a sin to love her countryman? she lovedAthens in him--the gods of her race, the land of her dreams, spoke toher in his voice! From that time they daily saw each other. At thecool of the evening they made excursions on the placid sea. By nightthey met again in Ione's porticoes and halls. Their love was sudden,but it was strong; it filled all the sources of their life.Heart--brain--sense--imagination, all were its ministers and priests.As you take some obstacle from two objects that have a mutualattraction, they met, and united at once; their wonder was, that theyhad lived separate so long. And it was natural that they should solove. Young, beautiful, and gifted--of the same birth, and the samesoul--there was poetry in their very union. They imagined the heavenssmiled upon their affection. As the persecuted seek refuge at theshrine, so they recognized in the altar of their love an asylum from thesorrows of earth; they covered it with flowers--they knew not of theserpents that lay coiled behind.

  One evening, the fifth after their first meeting at Pompeii, Glaucus andIone, with a small party of chosen friends, were returning from anexcursion round the bay; their vessel skimmed lightly over the twilightwaters, whose lucid mirror was only broken by the dripping oars. As therest of the party conversed gaily with each other, Glaucus lay at thefeet of Ione, and he would have looked up in her face, but he did notdare. Ione broke the pause between them.

  'My poor brother,' said she, sighing, 'how once he would have enjoyedthis hour!'

  'Your brother!' said Glaucus; 'I have not seen him. Occupied with you,I have thought of nothing else, or I should have asked if that was notyour brother for whose companionship you left me at the Temple ofMinerva, in Neapolis?'

  'It was.'

  'And is he here?'

  'He is.

  'At Pompeii! and not constantly with you? Impossible!'

  'He has other duties,' answered Ione, sadly; 'he is a priest of Isis.'

  'So young, too; and that priesthood, in its laws at least, so severe!'said the warm and bright-hearted Greek, in surprise and pity. 'Whatcould have been his inducement?'

  'He was always enthusiastic and fervent in religious devotion: and theeloquence of an Egyptian--our friend and guardian--kindled in him thepious desire to consecrate his life to the most mystic of our deities.Perhaps in the intenseness of his zeal, he found in the severity of thatpeculiar priesthood its peculiar attraction.'

  'And he does not repent his choice?--I trust he is happy.'

  Ione sighed deeply, and lowered her veil over her eyes.

  'I wish,' said she, after a pause, 'that he had not been so hasty.Perhaps, like all who expect too much, he is revolted too easily!'

  'Then he is not happy in his new condition. And this Egyptian, was he apriest himself? was he interested in recruits to the sacred band?

  'No. His main interest was in our happiness. He thought he promotedthat of my brother. We were left orphans.'

  'Like myself,' said Glaucus, with a deep meaning in his voice.

  Ione cast down her eyes as she resumed:

  'And Arbaces sought to supply the place of our parent. You must knowhim. He loves genius.'

  'Arbaces! I know him already; at least, we speak when we meet. But foryour praise I would not seek to know more of him. My heart inclinesreadily to most of my kind. But that dark Egyptian, with his gloomybrow and icy smiles, seems to me to sadden the very sun. One would thinkthat, like Epimenides, the Cretan, he had spent forty years in a cave,and had found something unnatural in the daylight ever afterwards.'

  'Yet, like Epimenides, he is kind, and wise, and gentle,' answered Ione.

  'Oh, happy that he has thy praise! He needs no other virtues to makehim dear to me.'

  'His calm, his coldness,' said Ione, evasively pursuing the subject,'are perhaps but the exhaustion of past sufferings; as yonder mountain(and she pointed to Vesuvius), which we see dark and tranquil in thedistance, once nursed the fires for ever quenched.'

  They both gazed on the mountain as Ione said these words; the rest ofthe sky was bathed in rosy and tender hues, but over that grey summit,rising amidst the woods and vineyards that then clomb half-way up theascent, there hung a black and ominous cloud, the single frown of thelandscape. A sudden and unaccountable gloom came over each as they thusgazed; and in that sympathy which love had already taught them, andwhich bade them, in the slightest shadows of emotion, the faintestpresentiment of evil, turn for refuge to each other, their gaze at thesame moment left the mountain, and full of unimaginable tenderness, met.What need had they of words to say they loved?