The Emperor (Historical Novel). Georg Ebers
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till after the sun had risen.”
“Ah! before that you did not notice it, for till then you were busy thinking of the stars.”
“And you only of yourself—very true.”
“I was thinking of your health too when that cold wind rose before Helios appeared.”
“I was obliged to await his rising.”
“And can you discern future events by the way and manner of the rising of the sun?”
Hadrian looked in surprise at the speaker, shook his head in negation, looked up at the top of the tent, and after a long pause said, in abrupt sentences, with frequent interruptions:
“Day is the present merely, and the future is evolved out of darkness; the corn grows from the clods of the field; the rain falls from the darkest clouds; a new generation is born of the mother’s womb; the limbs recover their vigor in sleep. And what is begotten of the darkness of death—who can tell?”
When, after saying this, the Emperor had remained for some time silent, the youth asked him:
“But if the sunrise teaches you nothing concerning the future why should you so often break your night’s rest and climb the mountain to see it?”
“Why? Why?” repeated Hadrian, slowly and meditatively, stroking his grizzled beard; then he went on as if speaking to himself:
“That is a question which reason fails to answer, before which my lips find no words; and, if I had them at my command, who among the rabble would understand me? Such questions can best be answered by means of parables. Those who take part in life are actors, and the world is their stage. He who wants to look tall on it wears the cothurnus, and is not a mountain the highest vantage ground that a man can find for the sole of his foot? Kasius there is but a hill, but I have stood on greater giants than he, and seen the clouds rise below me, like Jupiter on Olympus.”
“But you need climb no mountains to feel yourself a god,” cried Antinous; “the godlike is your title—you command and the world must obey. With a mountain beneath his feet a man is nearer to heaven no doubt than he is on the plain.”
“Well?”
“I dare not say what came into my mind.”
“Speak out.”
“I knew a little girl who when I took her on my shoulder would stretch out her arms and exclaim, ‘I am so tall!’ She fancied that she was taller than I then, and yet was only little Panthea.”
“But in her own conception of herself, it was she who was tall, and that decides the issue, for to each of us a thing is only that which it seems to us. It is true they call me godlike, but I feel every day, and a hundred times a day, the limitations of the power and nature of man, and I cannot get beyond them. On the top of a mountain I cease to feel them; there I feel as if I were great, for nothing is higher than my head, far or near. And when, as I stand there, the night vanishes before my eyes, when the splendor of the young sun brings the world into new life for me, by restoring to my consciousness all that just before had been engulfed in gloom, then a deeper breath swells my breast, and my lungs fill with the purer and lighter air of the heights. Up there, alone and in silence, no hint can reach me of the turmoil below, and I feel myself one with the great aspect of nature spread before me. The surges of the sea come and go, the tree-tops in the forest bow and rise, fog and mist roll away and part asunder hither and thither, and up there I feel myself so merged with the creation that surrounds me that often it even seems as though it were my own breath that gives it life. Like the storks and the swallows, I yearn for the distant land, and where should the human eye be more likely to be permitted, at least in fancy, to discern the remote goal than from the summit of a mountain?
“The limitless distance which the spirit craves for seems there to assume a form tangible to the senses, and the eye detects its border line. My whole being feels not merely elevated, but expanded, and that vague longing which comes over me as soon as I mix once more in the turmoil of life, and when the cares of state demand my strength, vanishes. But you cannot understand it, boy. These are things which no other mortal can share with me.”
“And it is only to me that you do not scorn to reveal them!” cried Antinous, who had turned round to face the Emperor, and who with wide eyes had not lost one word.
“You?” said Hadrian, and a smile, not absolutely free from mockery, parted his lips. “From you I should no more have a secret than from the Cupid by Praxiteles, in my study at Rome.”
The blood mounted to the lad’s cheeks and dyed them flaming crimson. The Emperor observed this and said kindly:
“You are more to me than the statue, for the marble cannot blush. In the time of the Athenians Beauty governed life, but in you I can see that the gods are pleased to give it a bodily existence, even in our own days, and to look at you reconciles me to the discords of existence. It does me good. But how should I expect to find that you understand me; your brow was never made to be furrowed by thought; or did you really understand one word of all I said?”
Antinous propped himself on his left arm, and lifting his right hand, he said emphatically:
“Yes.”
“And which,” asked Hadrian.
“I know what longing is.”
“For what?”
“For many things.”
“Tell me one.”
“Some enjoyment that is not followed by depression. I do not know of one.”
“That is a desire you share with all the youth of Rome, only they are apt to postpone the reaction. Well, and what next?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“What prevents your speaking openly to me?”
“You, yourself did.” “I?”
“Yes, you; for you forbid me to speak of my home, my mother, and my people.”
The Emperor’s brow darkened, and he answered sternly:
“I am your father and your whole soul should be given to me.”
“It is all yours,” answered the youth, falling back on to the bear-skin, and drawing the pallima closely over his shoulders, for a gust blew coldly in at the side of the tent, through which Phlegon, the Emperor’s private secretary, now entered and approached his master. He was followed by a slave with several sealed rolls under his arms.
“Will it be agreeable to you, Caesar, to consider the despatches and letters that have just arrived?” asked the official, whose carefully-arranged hair had been tossed by the sea-breeze.
“Yes, and then we can make a note of what I was able to observe in the heavens last night. Have you the tablets ready?”
“I left them in the tent set up especially for the work, Caesar.”
“The storm has become very violent.”
“It seems to blow from the north and east both at once, and the sea is very rough. The Empress will have a bad voyage.”
“When did she set out?”
“The anchor was weighed towards midnight. The vessel which is to fetch her to Alexandria is a fine ship, but rolls from side to side in a very unpleasant manner.”
Hadrian laughed loudly and sharply at this, and said:
“That will turn her heart and her stomach upside down. I wish I were there to see—but no, by all the gods, no! for she will certainly forget to paint this morning; and who will construct that edifice of hair if all her ladies share her fate. We will stay here to-day, for if I meet her soon after she has reached Alexandria she will be undiluted gall and vinegar.”
With these words Hadrian rose from his couch, and waving his hand to Antinous, went out of the tent