The Emperor — Complete. Georg Ebers
And he each time answered with the same threatening gesture and the same glare in his black eyes:
“The little brutes!”
The singer had been diligently practising his musical exercises for about an hour, when the dogs rushed into the court-yard, not barking this time, but yelping loudly with joy. The old woman laid aside the washing and listened, but the tall man said:
“As many birds come flying before the Emperor as gulls before a storm. If only they would leave us in peace—”
“Hark, that is Pollux; I know by the dogs,” said the woman, hastening as fast as she could over the threshold and out to meet him. But the expected visitor was already at the door. He picked up the three four-footed Graces who leaped round him, one after the other by the skin of the neck, and gave each a tap on its nose. Then, seeing the old woman, he took her head between his hands, and kissed her forehead, saying, “Good-evening, little Mother,” and shook hands with the singer, adding, “How are you, great, big Father?”
“You are as big as I am,” replied the man thus addressed, and he drew the younger man towards him, and laid one of his broad hands on his own grey head and the other on that of his first-born, with its wealth of brown hair.
“As if we were cast in the same mould,” cried the youth; and in fact he was very like his father—like, no doubt, as a noble hunter is like a worn-out hack—as marble is like limestone—as a cedar is like a fir-tree. Both were remarkably tall, had thick hair, dark eyes, and strongly aquiline noses, exactly of the same shape; but the cheerful brightness which irradiated the countenance of the youth had certainly not been inherited from the lute-player, but from the little woman who looked up into his face and patted his arm.
But whence did he derive the powerful, but indescribable something which gave nobility to his head, and of which it was impossible to say whether it lay in his eye, or in the lofty brow, arched so differently to that of either parent?
“I knew you would come,” cried his mother. “This afternoon I dreamed it, and I can prove that I expected you, for there, on the brazier, stands the stewed cabbage and sausage waiting for you.”
“I cannot stay now,” replied Pollux. “Really, I cannot, though your kind looks would persuade me, and the sausage winks at me out of the cabbage-pan. My master, Papias, is gone on ahead, and in the palace there we are to work wonders in less time than it generally takes to consider which end the work should be begun at.”
“Then I will carry the cabbage into the palace for you,” said Doris, standing on tip-toe to hold a sausage to the lips of her tall son. Pollux bit off a large mouthful and said, as he munched it:
“Excellent! I only wish that the thing I am to construct up there may turn out as good a statue as this savory cylinder—now fast disappearing—was a superior and admirable sausage.”
“Have another?” said Doris.
“No mother; and you must not bring the cabbage either. Up to midnight not a minute must be lost, and if I then leave off for a little while you must by that time be dreaming of all sorts of pleasant things.”
“I will carry you the cabbage then,” said his father, “for I shall not be in bed so early at any rate. The hymn to Sabina, composed by Mesomedes, is to be performed with the chorus, as soon as the Empress visits the theatre, and I am to lead the upper part of the old men, who grow young again at the sight of her. The rehearsal is fixed for to-morrow, and I know nothing about it yet. Old music, note for note, is ready and safe in my throat, but new things—new things!”
“It is according to circumstances,” said Pollux, laughing.
“If only they would perform your father’s Satyr-play, or his Theseus!” cried Doris.
“Only wait a little, I will recommend him to Caesar as soon as he is proud to call me his friend, as the Phidias of the age. Then, when he asks me ‘Who is the happy man who begot you?’ I will answer: It is Euphorion, the divine poet and singer; and my mother, too, is a worthy matron, the gate-keeper of your palace, Doris, the enchantress, who turns dingy clothes into snow-white linen.”
These last words the young artist sang in a fine and powerful voice to a mode invented by his father.
“If only you had been a singer!” exclaimed Euphorion.
“Then I should have enjoyed the prospect,” retorted Pollux, “of spending the evening of my life as your successor in this little abode.”
“And now for wretched pay, you plant the laurels with which Papias crowns himself!” answered the old man shrugging his shoulders.
“His hour is coming, too,” cried Doris, “his merit will be recognized; I saw him in my dreams, with a great garland on his curly head!”
“Patience, father-patience,” said the young man, grasping his father’s hand. “I am young and strong, and do all I can. Here, behind this forehead, good ideas are seething; what I have succeeded in carrying out by myself, has at any rate brought credit and fame to others, although it is all far from resembling the ideal of beauty that here—here—I seem to see far away and behind a cloud; still I feel that if, in a moment of kindness, Fortune will but shed a few fresh drops of dew on it all I shall, at any rate, turn out something better than the mere ill-paid right-hand of Papias, who, without me does not know what he ought to do, or how to do it.”
“Only keep your eyes open and work hard,” cried Doris.
“It is of no use without luck,” muttered the singer, shrugging his shoulders.
The young artist bid his parents good-night, and was about to leave, but his mother detained him to show him the young goldfinches, hatched only the day before. Pollux obeyed her wish, not merely to please her, but because he liked to watch the gay little bird that sat warming and sheltering her nestlings. Close to the cage stood the huge wine-jar and his mother’s cup, decorated by his own hand. His eye fell on these, and he pushed them aside in silence. Then, taking courage, he said, laughing: “The Emperor will often pass by here, mother; give up celebrating your Dionysiac festival. How would it do if you filled the jar with one-fourth wine and three-fourths water? It does not taste badly.”
“Spoiling good gifts,” replied his mother.
“One-fourth wine-to please me,” Pollux entreated, taking his mother by the shoulders and kissing her forehead.
“To please you, you great boy!” said Doris, as her eyes filled with tears. “Why for you, if I must, I would drink nothing but wretched water. Euphorion you may finish what is left in the jar presently.”
… … … … … … … . …
Pontius had already begun his labors, at first with aid only of his assistants who had followed him on foot. Measuring, estimating, sending short notes and writing figures, names and suggestions on the plan, and on his folding wax-tablets, he was not idle for an instant, though frequently interrupted by the appointed superintendents of the workshops and manufactures in Lochias, whose co-operation he required. They only came at this late hour because they were called upon by the prefect’s orders.
Papias, the sculptor, introduced himself among the latest, though Pontius had written to him with his own hand that he had to communicate to him a very remunerative and particularly pressing commission for the Emperor, which might, perhaps, be taken in hand that very night. The matter in question was a statue of Urania, which must be completed in eight days by the same method which Papias had introduced at the last festival of Adonis, and to the scale which he, Pontius, indicated, in the palace of Lochias itself. With regard to several works of restoration which had to be carried out with equal rapidity, and as to the price to be paid, they could agree at the same time and place.
The sculptor was a man of foresight and did not appear on the scene alone but with his best assistant, Pollux, the son of the worthy couple at the gate, and several slaves who dragged after him sundry trunks and carts