Book 1, Chapter 1 of the Last Days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton. Book 1, Chapter 1. The Two Gentlemen of Pompeii. Oh, Diomed, well met. Do you sup with Glockus tonight? Said a young man of small stature, who wore his tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to be a gentleman and a coxcomb. Alas, no, dear Claudius. He has not invited me, replied Diomed, a man of portly frame and of middle age. By Pollux a scurvy trick, for they say his suppers are the best in Pompeii. Pretty well, though there is never enough wine for me, it is not the old Greek blood that flows in his veins, for he pretends that wine makes him dull the next morning. There may be another reason for that thrift, said Diomed, raising his brows. With all his conceit and extravagance he is not so rich, I fancy, as he affects to be, and perhaps loves to save his amphorae better than his wit. An additional reason for supping with him while the sisters he's last. Next year, Diomed, we must find another Glockus. He is fond of the dice, too, I hear. He is fond of every pleasure, and while he likes the pleasure of giving suppers, we are all fond of him. Ha ha, Claudius, that is well said. Have you ever seen my wine cellars, by the by? I think not, my good Diomed. Well, you must sup with me some evening. I have tolerable Murini in my reservoir, and I ask Ponsa the Edal to meet you. Oh, no state with me, Persecos Ode Aparatus, I am easily contented. Well, the day wanes, I am for the baths, and you? To the Quistor, business of state, afterwards to the Temple of Isis, Valle, an ostentatious bustling ill-bred fellow muttered Claudius to himself, as he sauntered slowly away. He thinks with his feasts and his wine cellars to make us forget that he is the son of a freedman, and so we will, when we do him the honor of winning his money.  Thus, soliloquizing, Claudius arrived at the Via Domitiana, which was crowded with passengers and chariots, and exhibited all that gay and animated exuberance of life and motion which we find this day in the streets of Naples. The bells of the cars as they rapidly glided by each other jingled merrily on the ear, and Claudius with smiles or nods claimed familiar acquaintance with whatever equipage was the most elegant or fantastic. In fact, no idler was better known in Pompeii. What, Claudius, and how have you slept on your good fortune? cried in a pleasant and musical voice a young man in a chariot of the most fastidious and graceful fashion. Upon its surface of bronze were elaborately wrought, in the still exquisite workmanship of Greece, reliefs of the Olympian games. The two horses that drew the car were of the rarest breed of Parthia. Their slender limbs seemed to disdain the ground and court the air, and yet at the slightest touch of the charioteer who stood behind the young owner of the equipage, they paused motionless, as if suddenly transformed into stone, lifeless but lifelike, as one of the breathing wonders of praxiteles. The owner himself was of that slender and beautiful symmetry from which the sculptors of Athens drew their models. His Grecian origin betrayed itself in his light but clustering locks, and the perfect harmony of his features. He wore no toga, which in the time of the emperors had indeed ceased to be the general distinction of the Romans, and was especially ridiculed by the pretenders to fashion. But his tunic glowed in the richest hues of the Tyrian dye, and the fibulae, or buckles, by which it was fastened, sparkled with emeralds. Around his neck was a chain of gold, which in the middle of his breast twisted itself into the form of a serpent's head, from the mouth of which hung pendant a large signet ring of elaborate and most exquisite workmanship. The sleeves of the tunic were loose, and fringed at the hand with gold, and across the waist a girdle wrought in arabesque designs and of the same material as the fringe, served in lieu of pockets for the receptacle of the handkerchief and the purse, the stylus, and the tablets. My dear Glockus, said Claudius, I rejoice to see that your losses have so little affected your mane.   And what is there in the loss or gain of those dull pieces of metal that should change our spirit, my Claudius? By Venus, while yet young we can cover our full locks with chaplets, while yet the Scythora sounds on unsated ears, while yet the smile of Lydia or of Chloe flashes over our veins, in which the blood runs so swiftly, so long shall we find delight in the sunny air, and make bald time itself but the treasurer of our joys.  Whoever forgets the invitation of Glockus. But which way go you now? Why, I thought of visiting the baths, but at once yet an hour to the usual time. Well, I will dismiss my chariot and go with you. So, so, my Phileus, stroking the horse nearest to him, which, by a low neigh and with backward ears, playfully acknowledged the courtesy, a holiday for you today. Is he not handsome, Claudius? Worthy of Phoebus, returned the noble parasite, or of Glockus. End of Book One, Chapter One. Book One, Chapter Two of the Last Days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, Book One, Chapter Two. The Blind Flower Girl, In the Beauty of Fashion, The Athenian's Confession, The Reader's Introduction to Arbises of Egypt. Talking lightly on a thousand matters, the two young men sauntered through the streets.  Their open interiors, all in each radiant with the gaudy, harmonious colors of frescoes, inconceivably varied in fancy and design. The sparkling fountains, that at every vista through upwards their grateful spray in the summer air. The crowd of passengers, or rather loiterers, mostly clad in robes of teary and dye. The gay groups collected round each more attractive shop. The slaves passing to and fro with buckets of bronze cast in the most graceful shapes and borne upon their heads. The country girls stationed at frequent intervals with baskets of blushing fruit and flowers more alluring to the ancient Italians than to their descendants. With whom, indeed, Latte anguis in Herba. A disease seems lurking in every violet and rose. The numerous haunts which fulfilled with that idle people the office of cafes and clubs at this day. The shops, where on shelves of marble were ranged the vases of wine and oil. And before those thresholds, seats protected from the sun by a purple awning, invited the weary to rest and the indolent to lounge. Made a scene of such glowing and vivacious excitement as might well give the Athenian spirit of Glockus an excuse for its susceptibility to joy. Talk to me no more of Rome, said he to Claudius. Pleasure is too stately and ponderous in those mighty walls, even in the precincts of the court, even in the golden house of Nero, and the insipid glories of the palace of Titus. There is a certain dullness of magnificence. The eye aches. The spirit is wearied. Besides, my Claudius, we are discontented when we compare the enormous luxury and wealth of others with the mediocrity of our own state. But here, we surrender ourselves easily to pleasure, and we have the brilliancy of luxury without the lassitude of its pomp. It was from that feeling that you chose your summer retreat at Pompeii. It was. I prefer it to Ba'ai. I grant the charms of the latter, but I love not the pendants who resort there, and who seem to weigh out their pleasures by the drachma. Yet you are fond of the learned, too, and as for poetry, why, your house is literally eloquent with the skyless and Homer, the epic and the drama. Yes, but those Romans who mimic my Athenian ancestors do everything so heavily. Even in the chase, they make their slaves carry Plato with them, and whenever the bore is lost, out they take their books and their papyrus in order not to lose their time, too. When the dancing girls swim before them in all the blandishment of Persian manners, some drone of a freedman with a face of stone reads them a section of Cicero de Aficias. Unskillful pharmacists, pleasure and study, are not elements to be thus mixed together. They must be enjoyed separately. The Romans lose both by this pragmatical effectation of refinement and prove that they have no souls for either. Oh, my Claudius, how little your countrymen know of the true versatility of a pericles, of the true witcheries of an aspasia. It was but the other day that I paid a visit to Pliny. He was sitting in his summer house writing, while an unfortunate slave played on the tibia. His nephew, oh, whip me such philosophical coxcomes, was reading Thucydides' description of the plague, and nodding his conceited little head in time to the music, while his lips were repeating all the loathsome details of that terrible delineation. The puppy saw nothing incongruous in learning at the same time a ditty of love and a description of the plague. Why, they are much the same thing, said Claudius. So I told him an excuse for his coxcomery, but my youth stared me rebukingly in the face without taking the jest and answered that it was only the insensitive ear that the music pleased, whereas the book, the description of the plague, mind you, elevated the heart. Ah, quote the fat uncle, wheezing, my boy is quite an Athenian, always mixing the utile with the dulcy. Oh, Minerva, how I laughed in my sleeve. While I was there they came to tell the boy's office that his favorite freedman was just dead of a fever. In exonerable death, cry he, get me my horus. How beautifully the sweet poet consoles us for these misfortunes. Oh, how can these men love, my Claudius, scarcely even with the senses, how rarely a Roman has a heart. He is but the mechanism of genius, he wants its bones and flesh. Though Claudius was secretly a little sore at these remarks on his countrymen, he affected to sympathize with his friend, partly because he was by nature a parasite, and partly because it was the fashion among the disillusioned young Romans to affect a little contempt for the very birth which, in reality, made them so arrogant. It was the mode to imitate the Greeks, and yet to laugh at their own clumsy imitation. Thus conversing, their steps were arrested by a crowd gathered round an open space where three streets met, and just where the porticoes of a light and graceful temple through their shade, there stood a young girl with a flower basket on her right arm and a small three-stringed instrument of music in the left hand, to whose low and soft tones she was modulating a wild and half-barbaric air. At every pause in the music, she gracefully waved her flower basket round, inviting the loiterers to buy, and many a sistercy was showered into the basket, either in compliment to the music or in compassion to the songstress, for she was blind. It is my poor Thessalion, said Glockus, stopping. I have not seen her since my return to Pompeii. Hush! Her voice is sweet. Let us listen. The Blind Flower Girl's Song 1. Buy my flowers. Oh, 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.  She weeps, for love she weeps, and the do's are the tears she weeps, from the well of a mother's love. 2. You 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 fund arms around, and I catch but a shapeless sound, for the living are ghosts to me.  I must have you on bunch of violets, sweet Nydia, said Glockus, pressing through the crowd and dropping a handful of small coins into the basket, your voice is more charming than ever. The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian's voice, then as suddenly paused, while the blood rushed violently over her neck, cheek, and temples. So you were returned, said she, in a low voice, and then repeated half to herself, Glockus is returned. Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days. My garden wants your care, as before. You will visit it, I trust, tomorrow? And mind, no garlands at my house shall be woven by any hands but those of the pretty Nydia. Nydia smiled joyously, but did not answer, and Glockus, placing in his breast the violets he had selected, turned gaily and carelessly from the crowd. She is a sort of client of yours, this child, said Claudius. I, does she not sing prettily? She interests me, the poor slave. Besides, she is from the land of the God's hill, Olympus frowned upon her cradle. She is of Thessaly, the witch's country. True, but for my part, I find every woman a witch, and at Pompeii, by Venus, the very air seems to have taken a love filter, so handsome does every face without a beard seem in my eyes. And lo, one of the handsomest in Pompeii, Odiomed's daughter, the rich Julia, said Claudius, as a young lady, her face covered by her veil, and attended by two female slaves, approached them, in her way to the baths. Fair Julia, we salute thee, said Claudius. Julia partly raised her veil, so as with some coquetry to display a bold Roman profile, a full, dark, bright eye, and a cheek over whose natural olive arch shed a fairer and softer rose. And Glockus, too, is returned, said she, glancing meaningly at the Athenian. Has he forgotten, she added, in a half-whisper, his friends of last year? Beautiful Julia, even let they itself, if it disappear in one part of the earth, rises again in another. Jupiter does not allow us ever to forget for more than a moment, but Venus, more harsh still, vouchsafes not even a moment's oblivion. Glockus is never at a loss for fair words. Who is, when the object of them is so fair? We shall see both of you at my father's villa soon, said Julia, turning to Claudius. 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 on the Athenian, with affected timidity and real boldness. The glance bespoke tenderness and reproach. The friends passed on. Julia is certainly handsome, said Glockus, 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 that which is but an artful imitation. Nay, returned Claudius, all women are the same at heart. Happy he who weds a handsome face and a large dower, what more can he desire? Glockus sighed. They were now in a street less crowded than the rest, at the end of which they beheld that broad and most lovely sea, which upon those delicious coasts seems to have renounced its prerogative of terror. So soft are the crisping winds that hover around its bosom, so glowing and so various are the hues which it takes from the rosy clouds, so fragrant are the perfumes which the breezes from the land scatter over its depths. From such a sea might you well believe that Aphrodite rose to take the empire of the earth. It is still early for the bath, said the Greek, who was the creature of every poetical impulse. Let us wander from the crowded city and look upon the sea while the noon yet laughs along its billows. With all my heart, said Claudius, and the bay, too, is always the most animated part of the city. Pompey was the miniature of the civilization of that age. Within the narrow compass of its walls was contained, as it were, a specimen of every gift which luxury offered to power, in its minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its forum, its theater, its circus, in the energy yet corruption, in the refinement yet the vice, of its people. You beheld a model of the whole empire. It was a toy, a plaything, a show box, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid from time to give to the wonder of posterity the moral of the maxim that under the sun there is nothing new. Crowded in the glassy bay were the vessels of commerce and the gilded galleys for the pleasures of the rich citizens. The boats of the fishermen glided rapidly to and fro, and to far off you saw the tall masts of the fleet under the command of Pliny. Upon the shore sat a Sicilian who, with vehement gestures and flexile features, was narrating to a group of fishermen and peasants a strange tale of shipwreck mariners and 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 a solitary part of the beach, and the two friends, seated on a small crag which roads amidst the smooth pebbles, inhaled the voluptuous and cooling breeze, which dancing over the waters kept music with its invisible feet. There was, perhaps, something in the scene that invited them to silence and reverie. Claudius, shading his eyes from the burning sky, was calculating the gains of the last week, and the Greek, leaning upon his hand, and shrinking not from that sun, his nation's tutelary deity, with whose fluent light of posy and joy and love, his own veins were filled, gazed upon the broad expanse and envied, perhaps, every wind that bent its pinions towards the shores of Greece. Tell me, Claudius, said the Greek at last, has thou ever been in love? Yes, very often. He who has loved often, answered Glockus, has loved never. There is but one aeros, though there are many counterfeits of him. The counterfeits are not bad little gods upon the whole, answered Claudius. I agree with you, returned the Greek. I adore even the shadow of love, but I adore himself yet more. Art thou, then, soberly and honestly in love, has thou that feeling which the poets describe, a feeling that makes us neglect our suppers, forswear the theater, and write elegies? I should never have thought it. You dissemble well. I am not far gone enough for that, returned Glockus, smiling, or rather I say with tibolus. He whom love rules, where ere his path may be, walk safe and sacred. In fact, I am not in love, but I could be if there were occasion to see the object. Arrows would light his torch, but the priests have given him no oil. Shall I guess the object? Is it not Diomed's daughter? She adores you, and does not effect conceal it. And, by Hercules, I say again and again, she is both handsome and rich. She will bind the doorposts of her husband with golden fillets. No, I do not desire to sell myself. Diomed's daughter is handsome, I grant, and at one time, had she not been the grandchild of a freedman, I might have. Yet, no, she carries all her beauty in her face. Her manners are not maiden-like, her mind knows no culture save that of pleasure. You are ungrateful. Tell me, then, who is the fortunate virgin? You shall hear, my Claudius, several months ago I was so journeying at Neopolis, a city utterly to my own heart, for it still retains the manners and the stamp of its Grecian origin. And yet it merits the name of Parthenope, from its delicious air in its beautiful shores. One day I entered the temple of Minerva, to offer up my prayers, not for myself more than for the city on which Pallas smiles no longer. The temple was empty and deserted. The recollections of Athens crowded fast and meltingly upon me, imagining myself still alone in the temple, and absorbed in the earnestness of my devotion, my prayer gushed from my heart to my lips, and I wept as I prayed. I was startled in the midst of my devotions, however, by a deep sigh. I turned suddenly round and just behind me was a female. She had raised her veil also in prayer, and when our eyes met, me thought a celestial ray shot from those dark and smiling orbs at once into my soul. Never, my Claudius, have I seen a mortal face more exquisitely molded. A certain melancholy softened and yet elevated its expression, that unutterable something which springs from the soul, and which our sculptors have imparted to the aspect of Psyche, gave her beauty I know not what of divine and noble. Tears were rolling down her eyes. I guessed at once that she was also of Athenian lineage, and that in my prayer for Athens her heart had responded to mine. 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 she blushed, and half drew her veil across her face. My forefather's ashes, said she, reposed by the waters of Elisis. My birth is of Neopolis, 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 ceremonial prayer. Together we touched the knees of the goddess, together we laid our olive garlands on the altar. I felt a strange emotion of almost sacred tenderness at this companionship. We, strangers from a far and fallen land, stood together and alone in that temple of our country's deity. Was it not natural that my heart should yearn to my country woman, for so I might surely call her? I felt as if I had known her for years, and that simple right seemed, as by a miracle, to operate on the sympathies and ties of time. Silently we left the temple, and I was about to ask her where she dwelt, and if I might be permitted to visit her, when a youth, in whose features there was some kindred resemblance to her own, and who stood upon the steps of the fame, took her by the hand. She turned round and bade me farewell. The crowd separated us. I saw her no more. On reaching my home I found letters, which obliged me to set out for Athens, for my relations threatened me with litigation concerning my inheritance. When that suit was happily over, I repaired once more to Neopolis. I instituted inquiries throughout the whole city. I could discover no clue of my lost country woman, and, hoping to lose in the deity all remembrance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened to plunge myself amidst the luxuries of Pompeii. This is all my history. I do not love, but I remember and regret. As Claudius was about to reply, a slow and stately step approached them, and at the sound it made amongst the pebbles, each turned, and each recognized the newcomer. It was a man who had scarcely reached his 40th year of tall stature, and of a thin but nervous and sinewy frame. His skin, dark and bronze, betrayed his eastern origin, and his features had something of Greek in their outline, especially in the chin, the lip, and the brow, saved that the nose was somewhat raised in aquiline, and the bones, hard invisible, forbade that fleshy and waving contour on which the Grecian physiognomy preserved even in manhood the round and beautiful curves of youth. His eyes, large and black as the deepest night, shone with no varying and uncertain luster. A deep, thoughtful, and half melancholy calm seemed unalterably fixed on their majestic and commanding gaze. His step and mane were particularly sedate and lofty, and something foreign in the fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments added to the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately form. Each of the young men, in saluting the newcomer, made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their fingers. For Arbyses, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal gift of the evil eye. The scene must, indeed, be beautiful, said Arbyses, with a cold, though courteous smile, which draws the gay Claudius and Glocus the All-Admired 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 in contrasts. It is from dissipation that we learn to enjoy solitude, and from solitude dissipation. So think the young philosophers of the garden, replied the Egyptian. They mistake lassitude for meditation, and imagine that, because they are sated with others, they know the delight of loneliness. But not in such jaded bosoms can nature awaken that enthusiasm which alone draws from her chaste reserve all her unspeakable beauty. She demands from you not the exhaustion of passion, but all that fervor, from which you only seek in adoring her a release. When, young Athenian, the moon revealed herself in visions of light to Endymion, it was after a day past, not amongst the feverish haunts of men, but on the still mountains, and in the solitary valleys of the hunter. Beautiful simile, cried Glocus, most unjust application, exhaustion, that word is for age, not youth. By me, at least, one moment of seity has never been known. Again the Egyptian smiled, but his smile was cold and blighting, and even the unimaginative Claudius froze beneath its light. He did not, however, reply to the passionate exclamation of Glocus. But after a pause, he said, in a soft and melancholy voice, After all, you do right to enjoy the hour while it smiles for you. The rose soon withers, the perfume soon exhales. And we, O Glocus, strangers in the land, and far from our father's ashes, what is there left for us but pleasure or regret? For you the first, perhaps for me the last. The bright eyes of the Greek were suddenly suffused with tears. Ha, speak not, Arbisces, he cried, speak not of our ancestors. Let us forget that there were ever other liberties than those of Rome, and glory, oh, vainly would we call her ghost from the fields of Marathon and Thermopylae. Thy heart rebukes thee while thou speakest, said the Egyptian, and in thy gayities this night thou would be more mindful of Leina than of Laos. Vale! Thus saying, he gathered his robe around him and slowly swept away. I breathe more freely, said Claudius. Imitating the Egyptians, we sometimes introduce a skeleton at our feasts. In truth, the presence of such an Egyptian as Yon Gliding's shadow were specter enough to sour the richest grape of the Fallernean. Strange man, said Glocus musingly, yet dead though he seems to pleasure and cold to the objects of the world, scandal belies him, or his house and his heart could tell a different tale. Ah, there are whispers of other orgies than those of Osiris in his gloomy mansion. He is rich, too, they say. Can we not get him amongst us and teach him the charms of dice? Pleasure of pleasures, hot fever of hope and fear, inexpressible, unjaded passion. How fiercely beautiful thou art, oh gaming. Inspired, inspired, cried Glocus, laughing, the oracle speaks poetry in Claudius. What miracle next? End of Book 1, Chapter 2. Book 1, Chapter 3 of The Last Days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, Book 1, Chapter 3. Parentage of Glocus, Description of the Houses of Pompeii, Classic Revel. Heaven had given to Glocus every blessing but one. It had given him beauty, health, fortune, genius, illustrious descent, a heart of fire, a mind of poetry, but it had denied him the heritage of freedom. He was born in Athens, the subject of Rome. Succeeding early to an ample inheritance, he had indulged in that inclination for travel so natural to the young, and had drunk deep of the intoxicating draught of pleasure amidst the gorgeous luxuries of the imperial court. He was an Elcibiades without ambition. He was what a man of imagination, youth, fortune, and talents readily becomes when you deprive him of the inspiration of glory. His house at Rome was the theme of debauchies, but also of the lovers of art, and the sculptors of Greece delighted to task their skill in adorning the porticoes and extendery of an Athenian. His retreat in Pompeii, alas, the colors are faded now, the walls stripped of their paintings, its main beauty, its elaborate finish of grace and ornament is gone, yet when given once more to the day, what eulogies, what wonder did its minute and glowing decorations create, its paintings, its mosaics. Passionately enamored of poetry and the drama, which recall to Glaucus the wit and the heroism of his race, that fairy mention was adorned with representations of his skyless and Homer. The antiquaries who resolved taste to a trait have turned the patron to the professor, and still, though the error is now acknowledged, they style in custom, as they first named in mistake the disburied house of the Athenian Glaucus the house of the dramatic poet. Previous to our description of this house, it may be as well to convey to the reader a general notion of the houses of Pompeii, which he will find to resemble strongly the plans of Atruvius, but with all those differences in detail of caprice and taste, which being natural to mankind have always puzzled antiquaries, we shall endeavor to make this description as clear and unpendantic as possible. You enter then, usually, by a small entrance passage called Cestubulum into a hall, sometimes with, but more frequently without, the ornament of columns. Around three sides of this hall are doors communicating with several bed chambers, among which is the porters, the best of these being usually appropriated to country visitors. At the extremity of the hall, on either side to the right and left, if the house is large, there are two small recesses, rather than chambers, generally devoted to the ladies of the mansion. And in the center of the tessellated pavement of the hall is invariably a square, shallow reservoir for rainwater, classically termed Impluvium, which was admitted by an aperture in the roof above, the said aperture being covered at will by an awning. Near this Impluvium, which had a particular sanctity in the eyes of the ancients, were sometimes, but at Pompeii more rarely than at Rome, placed images of the household gods. The hospitable hearth, often mentioned by the Roman poets, and consecrated to the lorries, was at Pompeii almost invariably formed by a movable brazier, while in some corner, often the most ostentious place, was deposited a huge wooden chest, ornamented and strengthened by bands of bronze or iron, and secured by strong hooks upon a stone pedestal so firmly as to defy the attempts of any robber to detach it from its position. It is supposed that this chest was the money box, or coffer, of the master of the house. Though as no money has been found in any of the chests discovered at Pompeii, it is probable that it was sometimes, rather, designed for ornament than use. In this hall, or atrium, to speak classically, the clients and visitors of inferior rank were usually received. In the houses of the more respectable, and atreensis, where slave particularly devoted to the service of the hall was invariably retained, and his rank among his fellow slaves was high and important. The reservoir in the center must have been rather a dangerous ornament, but the center of the hall was like the grass plot of a college, and interdicted to the passers to and fro, who found ample space in the margin. Right opposite the entrance, at the other end of the hall, was an apartment, tablinum, in which the pavement was usually adorned with rich mosaics, and the walls covered with elaborate paintings. Here were usually kept the records of the family, or those of any public office that had been filled by the owner. On one side of this saloon, if we may so call it, was often a dining room, or triclinium. On the other side, perhaps, what we should now term a cabinet of gems, containing whatever curiosities were deemed most rare and costly, and invariably a small passage for the slaves to cross to the further parts of the house, without passing the apartments thus mentioned. These rooms all opened on a square or oblong colonnade, technically termed peristyle. If the house was small, its boundaries ceased with this colonnade, and in that case its center, however diminutive, was ordinarily appropriated to the purpose of a garden, and adorned with vases of flowers placed upon pedestals, while, under the colonnade, to the right and left were doors admitting two bedrooms, to a second triclinium, or eating room, for the ancients generally appropriated two rooms at least to that purpose, one for summer and one for winter, or, perhaps, one for ordinary, the other for festive occasions. And if the owner affected letters, a cabinet, dignified by the name of library, for a small room was sufficient to contain the few rolls of papyrus which the ancients deemed a notable collection of books. At the end of the peristyle was generally the kitchen. Supposing the house was large, it did not end with the peristyle, and the center thereof was not in that case a garden, but it might be, perhaps, adorned with a fountain, or basin for fish, and at its end, exactly opposite to the tablinum, was generally another eating room, on either side of which were bedrooms, and, perhaps, a picture saloon, or Pina Cotheca. These apartments communicated again with a square or oblong space, usually adorned on three sides with a colonnade like the peristyle, and very much resembling the peristyle, only usually longer. This was the proper viridarium, or garden, being commonly adorned with a fountain, or statues, and a profusion of gay flowers. At its extreme end was the gardener's house, on either side, beneath the colonnade, were sometimes, if the size of the family required it, additional rooms. At Pompeii, a second or third story was rarely of importance, being built only above a small part of the house, and containing rooms for the slaves, differing in this respect from the more magnificent edifices of Rome, which generally contained the principal eating room, or cuneiculum, on the second floor. The apartments themselves were ordinarily of small size, for in those delightful climbs, they received an extraordinary number of visitors in the peristyle, or portico. The hall, or the garden, and even their banquet rooms, however elaborately adorned and carefully selected in point of aspect, were of diminutive proportions, for the intellectual ancients, being fond of society, not of crowds, rarely feasted more than nine at a time, so that large dinner rooms were not so necessary with them as with us. But the suite of rooms seen at once from the entrance must have had a very imposing effect. You beheld at once the hall richly paved and painted the tablinum, the graceful peristyle, and, if the house extended farther, the opposite banquet room and the garden, which closed the view with some gushing font or marble statue. The reader will now have a tolerable notion of the Pompeian houses, which resembled in some respects the Grecian, but mostly the Roman fashion of domestic architecture. In almost every house there is some difference in detail from the rest, but the principal outline is the same in all. In all you find a hall, the tablinum, and the peristyle, communicating with each other. In all you find the walls richly painted, and all the evidence of a people fond of the refining elegancies of life. The purity of the taste of the Pompeians in decoration is, however, questionable. They were fond of the gaudiest colors of fantastic designs. They often painted the lower half of their columns a bright red, leaving the rest uncolored. And where the garden was small, its wall was frequently tinted to deceive the eye as to its extent, imitating trees, birds, temples, etc. In perspective, a meritricious delusion which the grateful pendentry of Pliny himself adopted with a complacent pride in its ingenuity. But the house of Glaucas was at once one of the smallest, and yet one of the most adorned and finished of all the private mansions of Pompey. It would be a model at this day for the house of a single man in Mayfair. The envy and despair of the Silibian purchasers of buule and marquetry. You enter by a long, narrow vestibule, on the floor of which is the image of a dog in Mosaic with the well-known Kave Canem, or Beware the Dog. On either side is a chamber of some size, for the interior part of the house not being large enough to contain the two great divisions of private and public apartments. These two rooms were set apart for the reception of visitors who, neither by rank nor familiarity, were entitled to admission into the penetralia of the mansion. Advancing up the vestibule, you enter an atrium, that, when first discovered, was rich in paintings, which, in point of expression, would scarcely disgrace a Raphael. You may see them now transplanted to the Neapolitan Museum. They are still the admiration of connoisseurs. They depict the parting of Achilles and Bresius. Who does not acknowledge the force, the vigor, the beauty, employed in delineating the forms and faces of Achilles and the immortal slave? On one side, the atrium, a small staircase admitted to the apartments for the slaves on the second floor. There also were two or three small bedrooms, the walls of which portrayed the rape of Europa, the battle of the Amazons, etc. You now enter the Tablinum, across which, at either end, hung rich draperies of Tyrian purple, half withdrawn. On the walls was depicted a poet reading his verses to his friends, and in the pavement was inserted a small and most exquisite mosaic, typical of the instructions given by the director of the stage to his comedians. You pass through the saloon and enter to the peristyle, and here, as I have said before, was usually the case with the smaller houses of Pompeii, the mansion ended. From each of the seven columns that adorned this court hung festoons of garlands. The center, supplying the place of a garden, loomed with the rarest flowers placed in vases of white marble that were supported on pedestals. At the left hand of this small garden was a diminutive fame, resembling one of those small chapels placed at the side of the roads in Catholic countries and dedicated to the Panatis. Before it stood a bronzed tripod. To the left of the colonnade were two small cubicula or bedrooms. To the right was the triclinium, in which the guests were now assembled. This room is usually turned by the antiquaries of Naples, the chamber of Lita, and in the beautiful work of Sir William Gow, the reader will find an engraving from the most delicate and graceful painting of Lita presenting her newborn to her husband, from which the room derives its name. This charming apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citry and wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semicircular seat which had grown lately into fashion at Rome. And on these couches of bronze, studded with richer metals were laid thick quiltings covered with elaborate broitery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure. Well, I must own, said the Idao Panza, that your house, though scarcely larger than the case for one's fibulae, is a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted is that parting of Achilles and Bresias. What a style. What heads. What a hem. Praise from Panza is indeed valuable in such subjects, said Claudius, gravely. Why, the paintings on his walls. Ah, there is indeed the hand of Azucsis. You flatter me, my Claudius. Indeed you do, quote the Idao, who was celebrated through Pompeii for having the worst paintings in the world, for he was patriotic and patronized none but Pompeians. You flatter me. But there is something pretty, Idapole, yes, in the colors, to say nothing of the design, and then for the kitchen, my friends. Ah, that was all my fancy. What is the design, said Claudius? I have not yet seen your kitchen, though I have often witnessed the excellence of its cheer. A cook, my Athenian, a cook sacrificing the trophies of his skill on the altar of Vesta. With a beautiful marina, taken from the life, on a spit at a distance, there is some invention there. At that instant, the slaves appeared, burying a tray covered with the first preparative initiate of the feast. Amidst delicious figs, fresh herbs strewed with snow, anchovies, and eggs, were ranged small cups of diluted wine sparingly mixed with honey. As these were placed on the table, young slaves bore round to each of the five guests, for there were no more, the silver basin of perfumed water, and napkins edged with a purple fringe. But the Idao ostentatiously drew forth his own napkin, which was not, indeed, of sofina linen, but in which the fringe was twice as broad, and wiped his hands with the parade of a man who felt he was calling for admiration. A splendid nappa, that of yours, said Claudius. Why, the fringe is as broad as a girdle. A trifle, my Claudius, a trifle. They tell me this stripe is the latest fashion at Rome, but Glacus attends to these things more than I. Be propitious, O Bacus, said Glacus, inclining reverentially to a beautiful image of the God placed in the center of the table, at the corners of which stood the lairies and the salt holders. The guests followed the prayer, and then, sprinkling the wine on the table, they performed the wanted libation. This over, the convivialists reclined themselves on the couches and the business of the hour commenced. May this cup be my last, said the young solist, as the table, cleared of its first stimulants, was now loaded with the substantial part of the entertainment, and the ministering slave poured forth to him a brimming sciatis. May this cup be my last, but it is the best wine I have drunk at Pompeii. Bring hither the amphora, said Glacus, and read its date and its character. The slave hastened to inform the party that the scroll fastened to the court betokens its birth from Chios and its age a ripe fifty years. How deliciously the snow has cooled it, said Panza. It is just enough. It is like the experience of a man who has cooled his pleasures sufficiently to give them a double zest, exclaimed Salus. It is like a woman's no, added Glacus. It cools, but to inflame the more. When is our next wild beast fight? said Claudius to Panza. It stands fixed for the ninth-eyed of August, answered Panza. On the day after the Volcanalia, we have a most lovely young lion for the occasion. Whom shall we get for him to eat? asked Claudius. Alas, there is a great scarcity of criminals. You must positively find some innocent or some other to condemn to the lion, Panza. Indeed, I have thought very seriously about it of late, replied the Edile gravely. It was a most infamous law that which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. Not to let us do what we like with our own, that's what I call an infringement on property itself. Not so in the good old days of the Republic, said Salus. And then this pretended mercy to the slaves is such a disappointment to the poor people. How they do love to see a good tough battle between a man and a lion, and all this innocent pleasure they may lose, if the gods don't send us a good criminal soon, from this cursed law. What can be worse policy? said Claudius, sententiously, than to interfere with the manly amusements of the people. Well, thank Jupiter and the fates, we have no nearer at present, said Salus. He was, indeed, a tyrant.  I wonder it did not create a rebellion, said Salus.  Here the conversation was interrupted for a moment by a flourish of flutes, and two slaves entered with a single dish. Ah, what delicacy has thou in store for us now, my Glacus? cried the young Salist, with sparkling eyes. Salist was only twenty-four, but he had no pleasure in life like eating. Perhaps he had exhausted all the others, yet he had some talent and an excellent heart, as far as it went. I know its face, by Pollux, cried Panza. It is an embracing kid. Oh, snapping his fingers, a usual signal to the slaves, we must prepare a new libation in honor of the newcomer. I had hoped, said Glacus, in a melancholy tone, to have procured you some oysters from Britain, but the winds that were so cruel to Caesar have forbid us the oysters. Are they, in truth, so delicious? asked Lepidus, loosening to a yet more luxurious ease his ungirdled tunic. Why, in truth, I suspect it is the distance that gives the flavor. They want the richness of the Brindisium oyster, but at Rome no supper is complete without them. The poor Britons, there is some good in them after all, said Salist. They produce an oyster. I wish they would produce us a gladiator, said the Edile, whose provident mind was musing over the wants of the amphitheater. By Pallas, cried Glacus, as his favorite slave crowned his streaming locks with a new chaplet, I love these wild spectacles well enough when beast fights beast. But when a man, one with bones and blood like ours, is coldly put on the arena and torn limb from limb, the interest is too horrid. I sicken, I gasp for breath. I long to rush and defend him. The yells of the populace seem to me more dire than the voices of the furies chasing arrestees.  The Edile shrugged his shoulders. The young Salist, who was thought the best-natured man in Pompeii, stared in surprise. The graceful Lepidus, who rarely spoke for fear of disturbing his features, ejaculated hercly. The parasite Claudius muttered Edipol, and the sixth banqueter, who was the umbra of Claudius and whose duty it was to echo his richer friend, when he could not praise him, the parasite of a parasite also muttered Edipol. Well, you Italians are used to these spectacles. We Greeks are more merciful. Ah, shade of Pindar, the rapture of a true Grecian game, the emulation of man against man, the generous strife, the half-mournful triumph, so proud to contend with a noble foe, so sad to see him overcome. But ye understand me not. The kid is excellent, said Salist, the slave whose duty it was to carve and who valued himself on his science had just performed that office on the kid to the sound of music, his knife keeping time, beginning with a low tenor and accomplishing the arduous feet amidst a magnificent diapassan. Your cook is, of course, from Sicily, said Pansa. Yes, of Syracuse. I will play you for him, said Claudius. We will have a game between the courses. Better that sort of game certainly than a beast fight, but I cannot stake my Sicilian. You have nothing so precious to stake me in return. My Filida, my beautiful dancing girl. I never buy women, said the Greek, carelessly rearranging his chaplet. The musicians, who were stationed in the portico without, had commenced their office with the kid. They now directed the melody to a more soft, a more gay, yet it may be a more intellectual strain. And they chanted that song of chorus beginning, Persecos, Odie, etc., so impossible to translate, and which they imagined applicable to a feast that, effeminate as it seems to us, was simple enough for the gorgeous revelry of the time. We are witnessing the domestic and not the princely feast, the entertainment of a gentleman, not of an emperor or a senator. Ah, good ol' Horus, said Salist, compassionately, he sang well of feasts and girls, but not like our modern poets. The immortal Fulvius, for instance, said Claudius. Ah, Fulvius, the immortal, said the Umbra. And Spirina, and Caius Mudeus, who wrote three epics in a year, could Horus do that, or Virgil either, said Lepidus? Those old poets all fell into the mistake of copying sculpture instead of painting. Simplicity and repose, that was their notion, but we moderns have fire and passion and energy. We never sleep, we imitate the colors of painting, its life and its action. Immortal Fulvius. By the way, said Salist, have you seen the new ode by Spirina, in honor of our Egyptian Isis? It is magnificent, the true religious fervor. Isis seems a favorite divinity at Pompeii, said Glockus. Yes, said Panza, she is exceedingly in repute just at this moment. Her statue has been uttering the most remarkable oracles. I am not superstitious, but I must confess that she has more than once assisted me materially in my magistracy with her advice.  They walk barefoot, eat no meat, and pass the greater part of the night in solitary devotion. An example to our other priesthoods, indeed, Jupiter's temple wants reforming sadly, said Lepidus, who was a great reformer for all but himself. They say that Arbus sees the Egyptian has imparted some most solemn mysteries to the priests of Isis, observed Salist. He boasts his descent from the race of Ramses, and declares that in his family the secrets of the remotest antiquity are treasured. He certainly possesses the gift of the evil eye, said Claudius. If I ever come upon that Medusa front without the previous charm, I am sure to lose a favorite horse, or throw the canes nine times running. The last would be indeed a miracle, said Salist gravely. How mean you, Salist, return the game-ster with a flushed brow. I mean what you would leave me if I played often with you, and that is nothing. Claudius answered only with a smile of disdain. If Arbus sees we're not so rich, said Pansa, with a stately air, I should stretch my authority a little and inquire into the truth of the report which calls him an astrologer and a sorcerer. Agrippa, when Edile of Rome, banished all such terrible citizens. But a rich man, it is the duty of the Edile to protect the rich. What think you of this new sect, which I am told has even a few proselytes in Pompeii, these followers of the Hebrew God, Christus? Oh, mere speculative visionaries, said Claudius. They have not a single gentleman amongst them.  Who ought, however, to be crucified for their blasphemy, said Pansa, with vehemence? They deny Venus and Jove. Nazarene is but another name for Atheist. Let me catch them. That's all. The second course was gone. The feasters fell back on their couches. There was a pause while they listened to the soft voices of the South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucas was the most rapt and the least inclined to break the silence. But Claudius began already to think that they wasted time. Benenvobus, your health, my Glaucas, said he, quaffing a cup to each letter of the Greek's name with the ease of a practiced drinker. Will you not be avenged on your ill fortune of yesterday? See, the dice caught us. As you will, said Glaucas. The dice in summer, and I and Eda, said Pansa, magisterially, it is against all law. Not in your presence, grave Pansa, returned Claudius, rattling the dice in a long box. Your presence restrains all license. It is not the thing, but the excess of the thing that hurts. What wisdom, muttered the Umbra. Well, I will look another way, said the Edael. Not yet, good Pansa, let us wait till we have sucked, said Glaucas. Claudius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with the yawn. He gapes to devour the gold, whispered Lepidus to Salus, in a quotation from the Undularia of Plautus. Ah, how well I know these Polypi, who hold all they touch, answered Salus, in the same tone, and out of the same play. The third course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio nuts, sweet meats, tarts, and confectionery tortured into a thousand fantastic and airy shapes, was now placed upon the table, and the ministry, or attendance, also set there the wine, which had hitherto been handed round to the guests, in large jugs of glass, each bearing upon it the schedule of its age and quality. Taste this lesbian, my Pansa, said Salus, it is excellent. It is not very old, said Glaucas, but it has been made precocious, like ourselves, by being put to the fire, the wine to the flames of Vulcan, we to those of his wife, to whose honor I pour this cup. It is delicate, said Pansa, but there is perhaps the least particle too much of rosin in its flavor. What a beautiful cup, cried Plautius, taking up one of the transparent crystal, the handles of which were wrought with gems and twisted in the shape of serpents, the favorite fashion at Pompeii. This ring, said Glaucas, taking a costly jewel from the first joint of his finger and hanging it on the handle, gives it a richer show, and renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, my Claudius, on whom may the gods bestow health and fortune, long and oft to crown it to the brim. You are too generous, Glaucas, said the gamester, handing the cup to his slave, but your love gives it a double value. This cup to the graces, said Pansa, and he thrice emptied his calyx. The guests followed his example. We have appointed no director to the feast, cried Salus. Let us throw for him, then, said Claudius, rattling the dice box. Nae, cried Glaucas, no cold and trite director for us, no dictator of the banquet, no Rex convivii, have not the Romans sworn never to obey a king? Shall we be less free than your ancestors? Ho, musicians, let us have the song I composed the other night. It has a verse on this subject, to back-rick him of the hours. The musicians struck their instruments to a wild ionic air, while the youngest voice in the band chanted forth, in Greek words, as numbers, the following strain. The evening hymn of the hours. One. Through the summer day, through the weary day, we have glided long. Air we speed to the night through her portals gray, hail us with song, with song, with song, with a bright and joyous song. Such as the Cretan maid, while the twilight made her bolder, woke, high through the ivy shade, when the wine-god first consoled her.  And all around, with a loving sound, the Aegean waves were creeping. On her lap lay the lynx's head, while time was her bridal bed. And eye through each tiny space, in the green vines green embrace, the fawns were slightly peeping, the fawns the prying fawns. The arch, the laughing fawns, the fawns were slightly peeping. Two. Flagging and faint are we, with our ceaseless flight, and dull shall our journey be through the realm of night. Bathe us, obeyth our weary wings, in the purple wave as it freshly springs, to your cups from the font of light, from the font of light, from the font of light. For there, when the sun has gone down in night, there in the bowl we find him. The grape is the well of the summer sun, or rather the stream that he gazed upon, till he left in truth, like the thespian youth, his soul, as he gazed behind him. Three. A cup to jove and a cup to love, and a cup to the sun of maya, and honor with three, the band zone free, the band of the bright aglia. But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure, you owe to the sister ours. No stinted cups in a formal measure, the bromian law makes ours. He honors us most who gives us most, and boasts, with a bacchanal's honest boast, he will never count the treasure. Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings, and plunge us deep in the sparkling springs. And I, as we rise with a dripping plume, will scatter the spray around the garland's bloom. We glow, we glow. Behold, as the girls of the eastern wave bore once with a shout to the crystal cave, they prized the missian hilus, even so, even so. We have caught the young god in our warm embrace. We hurry him on in our laughing race. We hurry him on with a whoop and song, the cloudy rivers of night along. Ho, ho, we have caught thee, Silas. The guests applauded loudly. When the poet is your host, his verses are sure to charm. Thoroughly Greek, said Lepidus, the wildness, force, and energy of that tongue, it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry. It is, indeed, a great contrast, said Claudius, ironically at heart, though not in appearance, to the old-fashioned and tame simplicity of that ode of Horus which we heard before. The air is beautifully ionic. The word puts me in mind of a toast. Companions, I give you the beautiful Ioni. Ioni, the name is Greek, said Glockus, in a soft voice. I drink the health with delight. But who is Ioni? Ah, you have just come to Pompeii, where you would deserve ostracism for your ignorance. Said Lepidus concededly, not to know Ioni is not to know the chief charm of our city. She is the most rare beauty, said Pansa, and what a voice. She can feed only on Nightingale's tongues, said Claudius. Nightingale's tongues? Beautiful thought, sighed the umbra. Enlighten me, I beseech you, said Glockus. No, then, began Lepidus.  And you speak stones, muttered the coxcomb to himself as he fell back disdainfully on his couch. No, then, my Glockus, said Claudius, but Ioni is a stranger who has but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like Sappho, and her songs are her own composing. And as for the tibia, and the cithara, and the lyre, I know not in which she most outdoes the muses. Her beauty is the most dazzling. Her house is perfect, such taste, such gems, such bronzes. She is rich, and generous as she is rich. Her lovers, of course, said Glockus. Take care that she does not starve, and money lightly won is always lavishly spent. Her lovers, ah, there is the enigma. Ioni has but one vice. She is chaste. She has all Pompeii at her feet, and she has no lovers. She will not even marry. No lovers, echoed Glockus? No, she has the soul of Vestal with the girdle of Venus. What refined expressions, said the Umbra. A miracle, cried Glockus. Can we not see her? I will take you there this evening, said Claudius. Meanwhile, added he, once more rattling the dice. I am yours, said the complacent Glockus. Pansa, turn your face. Lepidus and Salus played at odd and even, and the Umbra looked on, while Glockus and Claudius became gradually absorbed in the chances of the dice. By Pollux, cried Glockus, this is the second time I have thrown the canicule, the lowest throw. Now Venus, befriend me, said Claudius, rattling the box for several moments. O Alma Venus, it is Venus herself, as he threw the highest cast, named from that goddess, whom he who wins money indeed usually propitiates. Venus is ungrateful to me, said Glockus, gaily. I have always sacrificed on her altar. He who plays with Claudius, whispered Lepidus, will soon, like Plautus's curculeo, put his pallium for the stakes. Poor Glockus, he is as blind as fortune herself, replied Salus, in the same tone. I will play no more, said Glockus. I have lost thirty Cestertia. I am sorry, began Claudius. Amiable man, grown the Umbra. Not at all, exclaimed Glockus. The pleasure I take in your gain compensates the pain of my loss. The conversation now grew general and animated. The wine circulated more freely, and Ioni, once more, became the subject of eulogy to the guests of Glockus. Instead of out watching the stars, let us visit one at whose beauty the stars grow pale, said Lepidus. Claudius, who saw no chance of renewing the dice, seconded the proposal, and Glockus, though he civilly pressed his guests to continue the banquet, could not but let them see that his curiosity had been excited by the praises of Ioni. They therefore resolved to adjourn. All, at least, but Ponsa and the Umbra, to the house of the Fair Greek. They drank, therefore, to the health of Glockus and of Titus. They performed their last libation, they resumed their slippers, they descended the stairs, passed the illumined atrium, and walking unbitten over the fierce dog painted on the threshold, found themselves beneath the light of the moon just risen, in the lively and still crowded streets of Pompeii. They passed the jeweler's quarter, sparkling with lights, caught and reflected by the gems displayed in the shops, and arrived at last at the door of Ioni. The vestibule blazed with rows of lamps, curtains of embroidered purple hung on either aperture of the tablinum, whose walls and mosaic pavement glowed with the richest colors of the artist, and under the portico which surrounded the odorous viridarium they found Ioni, already surrounded by adoring and applauding guests. Did you say she was Athenian, whispered Glockus, ere he passed into the peristal? No, she is from Neopolis. Neopolis, echoed Glockus, and at that moment the group, dividing on either side of Ioni, gave to his view that bright and nymph-like beauty, which for months had shown upon the waters of his memory. End of Book 1, Chapter 3. Book 1, Chapter 4 of the last days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton. Book 1, Chapter 4. The Temple of Isis. Its Priest. The Character of Arbyses Develops Itself. The story returns to the Egyptian. We left Arbyses upon the shores of the Noonday Sea after he had parted from Glockus and his companion. As he approached to the more crowded part of the bay, he paused and gazed upon that animated scene with folded arms and a bitter smile upon his dark features. Gulls, dupes, fools, that ye are, muttered he to himself, whether business or pleasure, trade or religion, be your pursuit, you are equally cheated by the passions that ye should rule. How I could loathe you if I did not hate. Yes, hate.  Your knowledge, your posy, your laws, your arts, your barbarous mastery of war, all how tame and mutilated when compared with a vast original. Ye have filched, as the slave filches the fragments of the feast from us. And now ye mimics of a mimic. Romans, forsooth. The mushroom herd of robbers. Ye are our masters. The pyramids look down no more on the race of Ramses. The eagle cowers over the serpent of the Nile. Our masters? No, not mine. My soul, by the power of its wisdom, controls and chains you, though the fetters are unseen. So long as craft can master force, so long as religion has a cave from which oracles can dupe mankind, the wise hold an empire over earth. Even from your vices, Arbyses distills his pleasures. Pleasures unprofamed by vulgar eyes. Pleasures vast, wealthy, inexhaustible, of which your innervated minds, in their unimaginative sensuality, cannot conceive or dream. Plod on, plod on, fools of ambition and of avarice, your petty thirst for facies and questerships, and all the memory of servile power provokes my laughter and my scorn. My power can extend wherever man believes. I ride over the souls that the purple veils. Thebes may fall, Egypt be a name. The world itself furnishes the subjects of Arbyses. Thus saying, the Egyptian moved slowly on, and, entering the town, his tall figure towered above the crowded throng of the Forum and swept towards the small but graceful temple consecrated to Isis. That edifice was then but of recent erection. The ancient temple had been thrown down in the earthquake 16 years before, and the new building had become as much in vogue with the versatile Pompeians as a new church or a new preacher may be with us. The oracles of the goddess at Pompeii were indeed remarkable, not more for the mysterious language in which they were clothed than for the credit which was attached to their mandates and predictions. If they were not dictated by divinity, they were framed at least by a profound knowledge of mankind. They applied themselves exactly to the circumstances of individuals, and made a notable contrast to the vague and loose generalities of their rival temples. As Arbyses now arrived at the rails which separated the profane from the sacred place, a crowd composed of all classes, but especially of the commercial, collected, breathless and reverential, before the many altars which rose in the open court. In the walls of the cellar, elevated on seven steps of parry and marble, various statues stood in niches, and those walls were ornamented with the pomegranate consecrated to Isis. An oblong pedestal occupied the interior of the building, on which stood two statues, one of Isis and its companion represented the silent and mystic Oris. The building contained many other deities to grace the court of the Egyptian deity, her kindred and many titled Bacchus, and the Cyprian Venus, a Grecian disguise for herself, rising from her bath, and the dog-headed Anubis, and the ox Apis, and various Egyptian idols of uncouth form and unknown appellations. But we must not suppose that among the cities of Magna Grecia, Isis was worshipped with those forms and ceremonies which were of right her own, the mongrel and modern nations of the South, with a mingled arrogance and ignorance, confounded the worships of all climes and ages, and the profound mysteries of the Nile were degraded by a hundred meritritious and frivolous admixtures from the creeds of Cephasus and of Tiber. The temple of Isis in Pompeii was served by Roman and Greek priests, ignorant alike of the language and the customs of our ancient votaries, and the descendant of the dread Egyptian kings beneath the appearance of reverential awe, secretly laughed to scorn the puny mummies which imitated the solemn and typical worship of his burning clime. Ranged now on either side the steps was the sacrificial crowd, a raid in white garments, while at the summit stood two of the inferior priests, one holding a palm branch, the other a slender sheaf of corn, in the narrow passage in front throng the bystanders. And what, whispered Arbyses to one of the bystanders, who was a merchant engaged in the Alexandrian trade, which trade had probably first introduced in Pompeii the worship of the Egyptian goddess, what occasion now assembles you before the altars of the venerable Isis? It seems, by the white robes of the group before me, that a sacrifice is to be rendered, and by the assembly of the priests that you are prepared for some oracle. To what question is it to vouchsafe a reply? We are merchants, replied the bystander, who was no other than Diomed, in the same voice, who seek to know the fate of our vessels, which sail for Alexandria tomorrow. We are about to offer up a sacrifice and implore an answer from the goddess. I am not one of those who have petitioned the priests to sacrifice, as you may see by my dress, but I have some interest in the success of the fleet. By Jupiter, yes, I have a pretty trade, else how can I live in these hard times? The Egyptian replied gravely, that though Isis was properly the goddess of agriculture, she was no less the patron of commerce. Then turning his head towards the east, Arbyses seemed absorbed in silent prayer. And now in the center of the steps appeared a priest robed in white from head to foot, the veil parting over the crown. Two new priests relieved those hitherto stationed at either corner, being naked halfway down to the breast and covered for the rest in white and loose robes. At the same time, seated at the bottom of the steps, a priest commenced a solemn air upon a long wind instrument of music. Halfway down the steps stood another flamen, holding in one hand the votive wreath in the other a white wand. While adding to the picturesque scene of that eastern ceremony, the stately ibis, bird sacred to the Egyptian worship, looked mutely down from the wall upon the right, or stalked beside the altar at the base of the steps. At that altar now stood the sacrificial flamen. The countenance of Arbyses seemed to lose all its rigid calm while the Arbyses inspected the entrails, and to be intent in pious anxiety, to rejoice and brighten as the signs were declared favorable, and the fire began bright and clearly to consume the sacred portion of the victim amidst odorous of myrrh and frankincense. It was then that a dead silence fell over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering round the cellar, another priest, naked saved by a sincture around the middle, rushed forward, and dancing with wild gestures implored an answer from the goddess. He ceased at last in exhaustion, and a low murmuring voice was heard within the body of the statue, thrice the head moved, and the lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic words. There are waves like chargers that meet and glow. There are graves ready wrought in the rocks below, on the brow of the future the dangers lower, but blessed are your barks in the fearful hour. The voice ceased, the crowd breathed more freely, the merchants looked at each other. Nothing can be more plain, murmured Diomed. There is to be a storm at sea, as there very often is at the beginning of autumn, but our vessels are to be saved. O beneficent Isis! Lauded eternally be the goddess, said the merchants. What can be less equivocal than her prediction? Raising one hand in sign of silence to the people, for the rites of Isis enjoined what to the lively Pompeians was an impossible suspense from the use of the vocal organs, the chief priest poured his libation on the altar, and after a short concluding prayer the ceremony was over, and the congregation dismissed. Still, however, as the crowd dispersed themselves here and there, the Egyptian lingered by the railing, and when the space became tolerably cleared, one of the priests, approaching it, saluted him with great appearance of friendly familiarity. The countenance of the priest was remarkably unprepossessing. His shaven skull was so low and narrow in the front, as nearly to approach to the conformation of that of an African savage, save only towards the temples, where, in that organ-stout acquisitiveness by the pupils of a science modern in name, but best practically known, as their sculpture teaches us, amongst the ancients, two huge and almost preternatural protubenses, yet more distorted the unshapely head. Around the brows the skin was puckered into a web of deep and intricate wrinkles. The eyes, dark and small, rolled in a muddy yellow orbit. The nose, short yet course, was distended at the nostrils like a satyr's. And the thick but paddled lips, the high cheekbones, the livid and motley hues that struggled through the parchment skin, completed a countenance which none could behold without repugnance, and few without terror and distrust. Whatever the wishes of the mind, the animal frame was well fitted to execute them. The wiry muscles of the throat, the broad chest, the nervous hands and lean, gaunt arms, which were bared above the elbow, but tokened to form capable alike of great active exertion and passive endurance. Kalinus, said the Egyptian to this fascinating flamen, you have improved the voice of the statue much by attending to my suggestion, and your verses are excellent. Always prophecy good fortune, unless there is an absolute impossibility of its fulfillment. Besides, added Kalinus, if the storm does come, and if it does overwhelm the accursed ships, have we not prophesied it, and are the barks not blessed to be at rest? For rest praise the mariner in the Aegean Sea, where at least so says Horus. Can a mariner be more at rest in the sea than when he is at the bottom of it? Right, my Kalinus, I wish appeasities would take a lesson from your wisdom, but I desire to confer with you relative to him and to other matters. You can admit me into one of your less sacred apartments? Assuredly, replied the priest, leading the way to one of the small chambers which surrounded the open gate. Here they seated themselves before a small table spread with dishes containing fruit and eggs, and various cold meats, with vases of excellent wine, of which while the companion's partook, a curtain, drawn across the entrance opening to the court, concealed them from view, but admonished them by the thinness of the partition to speak low, or to speak no secrets. They chose the former alternative. Thou knowest, said Arbyses, and a voice that scarcely stirred the air, so soft and inward was its sound, that it has ever been my maxim to attach myself to the young. From their flexible and unformed minds I can carve out my fittest tools. I weave, I warp, I mold them at my will. Of the men I make merely followers or servants, of the women? Mistresses, said Kalinus, as a livid grin distorted his ungainly features. Yes, I do not disguise it. Woman is the main object, the great appetite of my soul. As you feed the victim for the slaughter, I love to rear the votaries of my pleasure. I love to train, to ripen their minds, to unfold the sweet blossom of their hidden passions, in order to prepare the fruit to my taste. I loathe your ready-made and ripened courtesans. It is in the soft and unconscious progress of innocence to desire that I find a true charm of love. It is thus that I defy seity, and by contemplating the freshness of others, I sustain the freshness of my own sensations. From the young hearts of my victims I draw the ingredients of the cauldron in which I re-youth myself. But enough of this, to the subject before us. You know, then, that in Neopolis some time since I encountered irony and appeasities, brother and sister, the children of Athenians who had settled at Neopolis, the death of their parents, who knew and esteemed me, constituted me their guardian. I was not unmindful of the trust. The youth, docile and mild, yielded readily to the impression I sought to stamp upon him. Next to woman, I love the old recollections of my ancestral land. I love to keep alive, to propagate on distant shores, which are colonies per chance yet people, her dark and mystic creeds. It may be that it pleases me to delude mankind, while I thus serve the deities. To appeasities, I taught the solemn faith of Isis. I unfolded to him something of those sublime allegories which are couched beneath her worship. I excited in a soul particularly alive to religious fervor, that enthusiasm which imagination begets on faith. I have placed him amongst you. He is one of you. He is so, said Calanus. But in thus stimulating his faith, you have robbed him of wisdom. He is horrorstruck that he is no longer duped. Our sage delusions, our speaking statues and secret staircases dismay and revolt him. He pines. He wastes away. He mutters to himself. He refuses to share our ceremonies. He has been known to frequent the company of men suspected of adherence to that new and atheistical creed which denies all our gods, and terms our oracles the inspirations of that malevolent spirit of which Eastern tradition speaks. Our oracles, alas, we know well those inspirations they are. This is what I feared, said Arbyses musingly, from various reproaches he made me when I last saw him. Of late he hath shunned my steps. I must find him. I must continue my lessons. I must lead him into the aditum of wisdom. I must teach him that there are two stages of sanctity, the first faith, the next delusion, the one for the vulgar, the second for the sage. I never pass through the first. I, said Calanus, nor you either, I think, my Arbyses. You ere, replied the Egyptian gravely, I believe that this day, not indeed that which I teach, but that which I teach not, nature has a sanctity against which I cannot, nor would I, steal conviction. I believe in my own knowledge, and that has revealed to me, but no matter. Now to earthlier and more inviting themes. If I thus fulfilled my object with appeasities, what was my desire for irony? Thou knowest already that I intend her for my queen, my bride, my heart's ices. Never till I saw her knew I all the love of which my nature is capable. I hear from a thousand lips that she is a second Helen, said Calanus, and he smacked his own lips, but whether at the wine or at the notion, it was not easy to decide. Yes, she has a beauty that grease itself never excelled, resumed Arbyses, but that is not all. She has a soul worthy to match with mine. She has a genius beyond that of woman, keen, dazzling, bold. Poetry flows spontaneously from her lips. Utter but a truth, and, however intricate and profound, her mind ceases and commands it. Her imagination and her reason are not at war with each other. They harmonize and direct her course as the winds and the waves direct some lofty bark. With this, she unites a daring independence of thought. She can stand alone in the world. She can be as brave as she is gentle. This is the nature I have sought all my life in woman, and never found till now. I only must be mine. In her I have a double passion. I wish to enjoy a beauty of spirit as a form. She is not yours yet? Then, said the priest. No, she loves me, but as a friend. She loves me with her mind only. She fancies me in the poetry virtues which I have only the profounder virtue to disdain. But you must pursue with me her history. The brother and sister were young and rich. Ioni is proud and ambitious, proud of her genius, the magic of her poetry, the charm of her conversation. When her brother left me and entered your temple, in order to be near him, she moved also to Pompeii. She has suffered her talents to be known. She summons crowds to her feasts. Her voice enchants them. Her poetry subdues. She delights in being thought the successor of Orina. Or of Sappho? But Sappho without love. I encourage her in this boldness of career, in this indulgence of vanity and of pleasure. I loved to steep her amidst the dissipations and luxury of this abandoned city. Mark me, Calenus. I desire to innervate her mind. It has been too pure to receive yet the breath which I wish not to pass, but burningly to eat into the mirror. I wish her to be surrounded by lovers, hollow, vain, and frivolous, lovers that her nature must despise, in order to feel the want of love. Then, in those soft intervals of lassitude that succeed to excitement, I can weave my spells, excite her interest, attract her passions, possess myself of her heart. For it is not the young, nor the beautiful, nor the gay, that should fascinate Ioni. Her imagination must be one, and the life of Arbyses has been one scene of triumph over the imaginations of his kind. And hast thou no fear, then, of thy rivals? The gallants of Italy are skilled in the art to please? None. Her Greek soul despises the barbarian Romans, and would scorn itself if it admitted a thought of love for one of that upstart race. But thou art an Egyptian, not a Greek. Egypt, replied Arbyses, is the mother of Athens. Her tutelary Minerva is our deity. Her founder, Seacrops, was the fugitive of Egyptian Seas. This I have already taught her, and in my blood she venerates the eldest dynasties of the earth. But yet I will own that of late some uneasy suspicions have crossed my mind. She is more silent than she used to be. She loves melancholy and subduing music. She sighs without an outward cause. This may be the beginning of love. It may be the want of love. In either case, it is time for me to begin my operations on her fancies and her heart. In one case, to divert the source of love to me. In the other, in me to awaken it. It is for this that I have sought you. And how can I assist you? I am about to invite her to a feast in my house. I wish to dazzle, to bewoder, to inflame her senses. Our arts, the arts by which Egypt trained her young novitiates, must be employed. And under veil of the mysteries of religion, I will open to her the secrets of love. Ah, now I understand. One of those voluptuous banquets that, despite our dull vows of mortified coldness, we, the priests of Isis, have shared at thy house. No, no, thinkest thou her chaste eyes are ripe for such scenes? No, but first we must ensnare the brother, an easier task. Listen to me, while I give you my instructions. End of Book One, Chapter Four Chapter Five 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 Lida. The morning rays entered through rows of small casements at the higher part of the room, and through the door which opened on the garden, that answer to the inhabitants of the southern cities the same purpose that a greenhouse or conservatory does to us. The size of the garden did not adapt it for exercise, but the various infragrant plants with which it was filled gave a luxury to that indolence so dear to the dwellers in a sunny climb. And now the odorous, fanned by a gentle wind creeping from the adjacent sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose walls vied with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers. Besides the gem of the room, the painting of Lida and Tenderis, in the center of each compartment of the walls were set other pictures of exquisite beauty, in one Yuzac cupid leaning on the knees of Venus, in another Ariadne sleeping on the beach, unconscious of the privity of Theseus. Merrily the sunbeams played to and fro on the tussillated floor and the brilliant walls, far more happily came the rays of joy to the heart of the young Glaucus. I have seen her then, said he, as he paced that narrow chamber. I have heard her. Nay, I have spoken to her again. I have listened to the music of her song, and she sang of the glory of Greece. I have discovered the long-sought idol of my dreams, and like the Cyprian sculptor, I have breathed life into my own imaginings. Longer, perhaps, had been the enamored soliloquy of Glaucus, but at that moment a shadow darkened the threshold of the chamber, and a young female, still half in child years, broke upon his solitude. She dressed simply in a white tunic, which reached from the neck to the ankles. Under her arm she bore a basket of flowers, and in the other hand she held a bronze water vase. Her features were more formed than exactly became her years, yet they were soft and feminine in their outline, and without being beautiful in themselves, they were almost made so by their beauty of expression. They were something ineffably gentle, and you would say patient in her aspect. A look of resigned sorrow, of tranquil endurance, had banished the smile, but not the sweetness from her lips. Something timid and cautious in her step, something wandering in her eyes, led you to suspect the affliction which she had suffered from her birth. She was blind. But in the orbs themselves there was no visible defect, though melancholy and subdued light was clear, cloudless and serene. They tell me that Glaucus is here? said she. May I come in? Ah, my Nydia! said the Greek. Is that you I knew you would not neglect my invitation? Glaucus did but justice to himself, answered Nydia with a blush, for he has always been kind to the poor blind girl. Who could be otherwise? said Glaucus tenderly and in the voice of a compassionate brother. Nydia sighed and paused before she resumed, without replying to his remark. You have but lately returned? This is the sixth son that has shown upon me at Pompey. Are you 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 be thinking what answer to make your lovers. A second blush passed over the cheeks of Nydia, but this time she frowned as she blushed. I have brought you some flowers, said she, without replying to her remark that she seemed to resent, and feeling about the room till she found the table that stood by Glaucus, she laid the basket upon it. They are poor, but they are fresh gathered. They might come from floor herself, said he kindly, and I renew again my vow to the graces, that I will wear no other garlands while thy hands can weave me such as these. And how find you the flowers in your veridarium? Are they thriving? Wonderfully so. The lairs themselves must have tended them. Ah, now you give me pleasure, for I came as often as I could steal the leisure to water and tend them in your absence. How shall I thank thee, fair Nydia? said the Greek. Glaucus little dreamed that he left one memory so watchful over his favourites at Pompey. The hand of the child trembled, and her breast heaved beneath her tunic. She turned round in embarrassment. The sun is hot for poor flowers, said she. Today, then they will miss me, for I have been ill lately, and it is nine days since I have visited them. Ill, Nydia, let your cheek has more colour than it had last year. I am often ailing, said the blind girl, touchingly, and as I grow up I grieve more that I am blind. But now to the flowers. So saying, she made a slight reverence with her head, and passing into the veridarium busied herself with watering the flowers. Poor Nydia, that Glaucus gazing on her. Thine is a hard doom. Thou sees not the earth, nor the sun, nor the ocean, nor the stars. Above all, thou canst not behold Ione. At that last thought his mind flew back to the past evening, and was a second time disturbed in its reveries by the entrance of Clodius. It was a proof how much a single evening had sufficed to increase, and to refine the love of the Athenian for Ione, that whereas he had confided to Clodius the secret of his first interview with her, and the effect it had produced on him, he now felt an invincible aversion even to mention to him her name. He had seen Ione, bright, pure, unsolid, in the midst of the gayest and most profligate gallons of Pompeii, charming rather than awing the boldest into respect, and changing the very nature of the most sensual and the least ideal, as by her intellectual and refining spells she reversed the fable of Circe and had converted the animals into men. They who could not understand her soul were made spiritual, as it were, by the magic of her beauty. They who had no heart for poetry and ears, at least, for the melody of her voice. Seeing her thus surrounded, purifying and brightening all things with their presence, Glaucus almost for the first time felt the nobleness of his own nature. He felt how unworthy of the goddess of his dreams had it been his companions and his pursuits. A veil seemed lifted from his eyes. He saw that immeasurable distance between himself and his associates, which the deceiving miss of pleasure had hitherto concealed. He was refined by a sense of his courage in aspiring to Ione. He felt that henceforth it was his destiny to look upward and to soar. He could no longer breathe that name, which sounded to the sense of his ardent fancy as something sacred and divine, to lewd in vulgar ears. She was no longer the beautiful girl once seen and passionately remembered. She was already the mistress, the divinity of his soul. This feeling who has not experienced, if thou hast not, then thou hast never loved. When Clodius therefore spoke to him in an infected transport of the beauty of Ione, Glaucus felt only resentment and disgust that such lips should dare to praise her. He instilled coldly, and the Roman imagined that his passion was cured instead of heightened. Clodius scarcely regretted it, for he was anxious that Glaucus should marry an heiress yet more richly endowed, Julia, the daughter of wealthy Diomed, whose gold the gamester imagined he could readily divert into his own coffers. This conversation did not flow with its usual ease, and no sooner had Clodius left him than Glaucus spent his way to the house of Ione. In passing by the threshold he again encountered Nidia, who had finished her graceful task. She knew his step on the instant. You are early abroad, said she. Yes, for the skies of Campania rebuked the sluggard who'd neglects them. Ah, what I could see them! murmured the blind girl, but so low that Glaucus did not overhear the complaint. The Thessalian lingered on the threshold a few moments, and then guiding her steps by a long staff which she used with great dexterity. She took her way homeward. She soon turned from the morgotti streets and entered a quarter of the town but little loved by the decorous and the sober. But from the low enroute evidences of vice around her she was saved by her misfortune, and at that hour the streets were quiet and silent. Nor was her youthful ear shocked by the sounds which too often broke along the obscene and obscure haunts she patiently and sladdly traversed. She knocked at the back door of a sort of tavern. It opened, and a rude voice bade her given account of the cesterces. Air she could reply, another voice, less vulgarly accented, said. Never mind those pretty prophets, my burbo, the girl's voice will be wanted again soon at our rich friend's revels, and he pays, as thou knowest, pretty high for his nightingale's tongues. Oh, I hope not.  I will beg from sunrise to sunset, but send me not there. And why? asked the same voice. Because I am young and delicately born, and the female companions I meet there are not fit associates for one who, who, is a slave in the house of burbo, returned the voice ironically, and with a coarse laugh. The Thessalian put down the flowers and, leaning her face on her hands, whipped silently. Meanwhile Glaucas sought the house as the beautiful Neapolitan. He found Yone sitting amidst her tendons, who were at work around her. Her harp stood at her side, for Yone herself was unusually idle, perhaps unusually thoughtful that day. He thought her even more beautiful by the morning light and in her simple robe than amidst the blazing lamps and decorated with the costly jewels of the previous night. Not the less so from a certain paleness that overspread her transparent hues. Not the less so from the blush that mounted over them when he approached. A custom to flatter, flattery died upon his lips when he addressed Yone. He felt it beneath her to utter the homage which every look conveyed. They spoke of Greece. This was a theme on which Yone loved rather to listen than to converse. It was a theme on which the Greek could have been eloquent forever. He described to her the silver olive groves that yet clad the bark of Elysis, and the temples already despoiled of half their glories, but how beautiful and decay. He looked back on the melancholy city of Hermodius the Free, and Pericles the Magnificent, from the height of that distant memory, which mellowed into one hazy light all the rudor and darker shades. He had seen the land of poetry chiefly in the poetical age of early youth, and the associations of patriotism were blended with those of the flesh and spring of life, and Yone listened to him. Absorbed and mute, dearer were those accents and those descriptions than all the prodigal adulation of her numberless doors. Was it a sin to love her countryman? She loved Athens in him. The gods of her race, the land of her dreams, spoke to her in his voice. From that time they daily saw each other. At the cool of the evening they made excursions on the placid sea. By night they met again in Yone'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 mutual traction they met, and united at once, their wonder was that they had lived separate so long, and it was natural that they should so love. Young, beautiful, and gifted, of the same birth and the same soul, there was poetry in their very union. They imagined the heavens smiled upon their affections, as the persecuted seek refuge at the shrine, so they recognized in the altar of their love and asylum from the saws of earth. They covered it with flowers. They knew not of the serpents that lay coiled behind. One evening, the fifth after their first meeting at Pompey, Glaucas and Yone with a small party of chosen friends were returning from an excursion round the bay. Their vessel skimmed lightly over the twilight waters whose lucid mirror was only broken by the dripping oars. As the rest of the party conversed gaily with each other, Glaucas lay at the feet of Yone, and he would have looked up in her face, but he did not dare. Yone broke the pause between them. My poor brother, said she, sighing, how once he would have enjoyed this hour. Your brother, said Glaucas, I have not seen him. Occupied with you, I have thought of nothing else, or I should have asked if that was not your brother for whose companionship you left me at the temple of Minerva in Neapolis. It was, and is he here? He is. At Pompey and not constantly with you? Impossible. He has other duties, answered Yone, 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, what could have been his inducement. He was always enthusiastic and fervent in religious devotion, and the eloquence of an Egyptian, our friend and guardian, kindled him in the pious desire to consecrate his life to the most mystic of our deities. Perhaps in the intenseness of his ill, he found in the severity of that peculiar priesthood its peculiar attraction. And he does not repent his choice, I trust he is happy. Yone sighed deeply, and lowered her veil over her eyes. I wish, said she, after her 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 a priest himself? Was he interested in recruits to the sacred band? No, his main interest was in our happiness. He thought he promoted that of my brother. We were left orphans. Like myself, said Glaucas, with a deep meaning in his voice. Yone cast down her eyes as she resumed. And our Basis sought to supply the place of our parent. You must know him. He loves genius. Our Basis. I know him already. At least we speak when we meet. But for your praise I would not seek to know more of him. My heart inclines readily to most of my kind. But that dark Egyptian, with his gloomy brow and icy smiles, seems to me to sadden the very sun. One would think that, 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 Yone. O happy that he has thy praise, he needs no other virtues to make him dear to me. His calm, his coldness, said Yone, evasively pursuing the subject, are perhaps but the exhaustion of past sufferings as Jaundre Mountain, and she pointed to Vesuvius, which we see dark and tranquil in the distance, once nursed the fires for ever quenched. They both gazed on the mountain as Yone said these words. The rest of the sky was bathed in rosy and tender hues, but over that gray summit, rising amidst the woods and vineyards, that then clome half way up the scent, there hung a black and ominous cloud. The single frown of the landscape. A sudden and unaccountable gloom came over each as they thus gazed, and in that sympathy which Love had already taught them, and which bathed them in the slightest shadows of emotion, the faintest presentiment of evil turned for refuge to each other, their gaze at the same moment left the mountain, and full of unimaginable tenderness met. What need had they of words to say they loved? End of Chapter 5 Book the First