Читать книгу The Tour - Louis Couperus - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Next morning, the soft, even light of a tea-rose dawn spread over a magic spectacle, beautiful as a marvellous dream, flimsy as a vision, compelling as an enchantment. The ship had glided past the monumental, marble, nine-storeyed Pharos into the Great Harbour; and Alexandria lay before the eyes of the delighted travellers, Lucius, Thrasyllus, Catullus, shining pink through diaphanous, mother-o’-pearl gleams and a slowly-lifting silvery mist, like a city of magic and fairy-tale. A long, long row of white palaces, with irregular gables, loomed through the mist and the gleam.

On the left, on the rocks of Lochias, the pillars of the former royal palace shone magical and fairylike in the silvery mist. Thrasyllus knew that, since Egypt had become a Roman province, the legate resided there, surrounded with royal honours. Under the palace the little square basin of the palace-harbour showed, gay with the purple sails of the legate’s triremes; with the little island of Antirrhodos, behind which pillars and yet more pillars outlined more and more clearly the white theatre; with the bight of the Posidium, where stood the Temple of Poseidon and the great Emporium, the great market of the merchant shippers, while a pier ran into the harbour on which, dainty as a marble ornament, stood the villa of the Timoneum, built by Mark Antony. A riot of luxuriant green gardens, with the stately crowns of palm-trees and the dreamy-delicate crests of tamarisks, flung cool, dark nosegays between all those gleaming white buildings, which began to blink in the ever fiercer sunshine....

Thrasyllus pointed with his finger, along the harbour, the long row of palaces of the Cæsareum, the huge docks and yards teeming all motley with people and industry, to the Heptastadium, the promenade-jetty which stretched out to unite the city with the island of Pharos, whence the light-house took its name. On the one side of this pier, with rostra and statues on the marble balustrade and gates, lay the harbour of Eunostus and the naval docks of Cibotus.

The water on every side was crowded and swarming with vessels: biremes and triremes, battle-ships and merchant-ships; the masts rose like a forest of poplars and the sails glowed like the many-coloured wings of one bird against another; and, as soon as the quadrireme glided in, she was surrounded by a host of sloops, filled with traders, with yelling Arabs and Nubians. The Aphrodite heaved to; a pilot came on board; then she glided on again through the press of the sloops, the yelling of the traders and with swanlike elegance turned and lay to beside the great quay, at the place where she was expected, the place kept open for her.

The quay, between the obelisks, was alive with a maddening concourse of people: sailors and merchants, vendors of fruit and water and vegetables, chattering women, screaming children, Ethiopian beggars, Greek students, priests of Serapis and Isis, Roman soldiers; and all pointed at the ship and streamed in unison to gaze at her in wide-eyed and open-mouthed admiration. For, though numbers of vessels entered the Great Harbour of Alexandria daily, it was not every day that the quay was visited by so impressive a quadrireme as this; and the beautiful ship aroused curiosity.

The three travellers stood on the prow, beside the silver figure of Aphrodite, and Catullus said, in an appreciative tone:

“It’s not half bad. Just look at that row of palaces! It is as though Alexandria were one great palace, opening on its harbour! And what people, white, dark and black, all mixed! And what a noise they make, what a noise! We are much calmer in Italy!... Do look, Lucius, at all those ibises walking about on the quay, quiet and tame, pecking here and there, upon my word as though they were at home! Do you see the ibises, Thrasyllus? I thought that they just stood and dreamed on one leg, beside the Nile, like poetic birds ... and, the moment I arrive, I see great flocks of them actually walking on the quay of Alexandria’s harbour! White ibises, black ibises, piebald ibises! What a crowd of ibises! What a crowd of them! And so dignified, much more dignified than the people! Ye gods, what a noisy crew the Alexandrians are!”

The gangway was slung from the ship to the quay; and the master was receiving the port-authorities, to whom he had to show his papers, when two men came hurrying across the gangway, which was hedged in by a guard of sailors to protect it against any intrusion of the gaping populace. One of them was an obvious Latin, the other a dark-skinned Sabæan.

“Well, Vettius!” said Lucius, welcoming the Latin, who was his steward. “I am glad to see you again and I hope that your voyage was as prosperous as ours!”

Vettius the steward bowed low before his young master, bowed ceremoniously before fat Uncle Catullus. He had travelled ahead of his master to seek suitable lodgings at Alexandria and he seemed very well pleased with what he had found, for he pointed joyfully to the dark-skinned Sabæan, who had kept behind and now bobbed down with many salaams and respectful assurances, uttered in a language that fluctuated between Latin, Greek, Phœnician and Arabic.

“This is Master Ghizla, a native of Saba, my lord,” said Vettius, presenting him, “the owner of the largest guest-house in Alexandria; and he has at your disposal a row of three suites, standing in their own gardens, with spacious annexes, near the guest-house proper; and I am convinced that, when we have put in our own furniture, they will afford a fit residence for you and the honourable Catullus. Of course, when travelling, all conveniences are but temporary and not to be compared with your insula at Rome or your villa at Baiæ, now the property of our gracious Emperor Tiberius.”

“It is well, it is well, Vettius,” said Lucius. “We shall not be too hard to please. Are there baths attached to them?”

“There are most comfortable baths attached to them, my lord,” declared Master Ghizla, bobbing down twice and thrice in salaams. “And there are taps with very cold water and taps with very hot water. They are suites which I let only to princely nobles like your lordship; and I have had the honour of lodging in them the Persian Prince Kardusi, whom you surely know, and Baabab, Satrap of Mesopotamia, whom you also surely know, my lords, as princely nobles.”

“Certainly, certainly,” replied Lucius, trying to jest. “Kardusi and Baabab, I know them well.”

“We are even related to them and call them by their names,” Uncle Catullus broke in, airily, with a bow and puffing out his stomach. “But there is something that I want to ask you, Master Ghizla, something that neither his lordship nor Master Vettius will care so much about: are there kitchens to the suites, kitchens where our trusty cook can prepare us this or that simple fare?”

“There are most comfortable kitchens to these princely suites, my lord,” Master Ghizla assured him. “His Highness the Satrap Baabab often gave very sumptuous banquets and would invite his excellency the legate to his table every other day; and near the kitchens there is a well of water clear as crystal.”

“I don’t drink much water,” said Uncle Catullus.

“We have old Mareotis wine in our cellars, my lord, wine thick as ink, dark-purple as molten princely sealing-wax and fragrant as the own lotus of our Lady Isis, blessed be her name! We have also the rose-coloured date-wine of Meroe and the fine topaz-yellow liqueur of Napata: we have all the Ethiopian liqueurs....”

“That’s better than water,” said Uncle Catullus, smacking his lips. “What say you, my dear Lucius?”

Lucius had made a great effort that morning to control his grief; together with his uncle and the tutor, he had stared with interest at the splendid panorama that unrolled itself before their eyes as they entered the Great Harbour; he had welcomed his steward Vettius with a kind word; he had interested himself in the apartments which he was to occupy. Now, however, tired and listless, he had sunk into a seat, beside the silver image of the goddess, and sat looking disconsolately in front of him. He was a tall, comely fellow, with an athletic frame developed by wrestling exercise; and his dark eyes, though now veiled with melancholy and longing, gleamed with a deep spark of intelligence. Immensely rich, the sole heir of various relatives who had died childless, he had joined for but a short time in the mad orgies of the young Romans of his own rank and had soon devoted himself to many branches of science, to astronomy in particular, philosophy, magic, the favourite passion of that period; he amused himself with modelling and sculpture; as a collector, he loved everything that was beautiful: pictures and statues, old coins and old glass; and his Etruscan antiquities were famous all over Rome. Certainly, he had always desired to see Egypt, to travel through Egypt; and the sight of the marble palaces of Alexandria had already charmed him for a moment. But his grief and longing returned to him immediately after; red anger awoke in him once more and impotent fury that Ilia, his best-beloved slave, had vanished, one inauspicious morning, from his villa at Baiæ, without leaving a trace behind her.

“Come, Lucius,” said Catullus, “we’re going on shore now, my dear fellow. There are our litters waiting for us, prepared by Master Ghizla’s care....”

“With excellent, powerful Libyan bearers, my lord, bearers whom I reserve exclusively for princely nobles like you....”

“And, if you care first to take a turn through the city, sir,” Vettius proffered, “I will see to it that the furniture and baggage are conveyed from the ships to your apartments, so that you will find everything arranged in time for luncheon.”

Although Lucius of course travelled with his own litters and his own bearers, Ghizla and Vettius had judged that two Alexandrian litters, with twelve Libyan bearers, would serve his purpose better at Alexandria, especially because here they were accustomed to move quicker, at a trot, than in Rome, where the pace was statelier and slower. Master Ghizla, therefore, who would not fail to charge the litters and bearers in his bill at double the price and more, had quickly and slyly set out his litters in front of the gangway, before Rufus, the under-steward, had even thought of preparing his master’s own litter.

“Very well, Vettius,” said Lucius, making an effort and rising. “I see two litters: those are for Uncle Catullus and me. And how is our good Thrasyllus to accompany us? For he knows the city already from the writings of Eratosthenes and Strabo; he can tell us much that is interesting on the way; and the tour would not afford us half the same pleasure without him.”

“I have had a good donkey saddled for Master Thrasyllus,” said Master Ghizla, with a salaam.

In fact, an ass, held by a boy on a leading-rein, stood waiting behind the litters, among the open-mouthed populace.

“And if,” the Sabæan hinted, suavely, “if I might entrust the noble lords to the conduct of my younger brother Caleb, he will go in front of the noble lords and act as a guide with whom they will doubtless be no less satisfied than were the Prince of Persia and the Satrap of Mesopotamia....”

“Kardusi and Baabab,” Uncle Catullus completed, mischievously. “Two pleasant, simple fellows: I’m sorry they’re gone.”

But Ghizla pointed to Caleb, who now came up with a flourish of salaams and bowed. As against Ghizla, who was tall, lean and dignified, Caleb, the younger man, was vivacious and sparkling, with dark eyes, flashing teeth and a gay, smiling mouth. He wore wide striped trousers of many colours, a white burnous, a red turban and large rings in his ears; and he spoke better Latin than his brother, with now and then a few sentences of Greek.

Lucius accepted Caleb as his guide; and they went on shore; and Lucius and Uncle Catullus took their seats in their litters. Thrasyllus mounted his quiet donkey; but Caleb flung himself with a swagger on to a jet-black, gaily-caparisoned Sabæan mare, who neighed when she felt the red heels of Caleb’s sandals in her flanks. So the procession started: first three ebon-black outrunners, with whips which they cracked right and left to make room, to drive barking dogs away and to keep beggars at a distance; then Caleb, proudly sitting his horse like a young conqueror, always smiling and sparkling with black eyes and white teeth; then the two litters, with Thrasyllus at the side on his donkey; and round the three travellers a number of guards, armed with whips and sticks.

They pressed through the crowd along the quay, where everybody looked and pointed at the distinguished foreigners; they went at a quick trot, for the outrunners went at a trot, cracking their whips; Caleb, on his Sabæan mare, showed off his equestrian powers and pranced elegantly along upon his steed; the litter-bearers followed at a short, steady quick-trot; even Thrasyllus’ donkey, as sober as a philosopher, trotted blithely on; and behind trotted the guards, shaking their sticks and flourishing their long whips. They trotted along the middle of the broad street, over the great stone flags; and it seemed as though everything were trotting in a quick rhythm, including all the other litters, the carts and horsemen, who with their outrunners and outriders also strove to make their way through the bustle.

So the cavalcade trotted on; and the street-boys scattered and the ibises scattered with outstretched necks and wide-flapping wings.

“What crowds of ibises!” Catullus cried. “Thrasyllus, isn’t it comical to see so many ibises walking and fluttering through the streets of Alexandria?”

“My lord,” cried Thrasyllus, from the back of his dancing donkey, “the ibises are Alexandria’s scavengers.”

“I dare say, but they are unclean birds themselves for all that! And they are counted among the sacred animals!” cried Uncle Catullus. “Whoosh! Whoosh!”

And he drove them away, with a flourish of his arm from the litter, for the whips of the runners trotting behind circled, it is true, around the street-boys but ever spared the sacred ibises, one of which would sometimes stray, fluttering wildly, among the bearers.

Meanwhile Caleb continued to give a graceful equestrian performance on his snorting mare beside Lucius’ litter:

“My lord!” cried Caleb. “Do you see the Heptastadium? The great bridge leading to the Pharos? Do you see that tall-masted ships are able to sail under it? It is an interesting walk there of an evening, my lord: all the beauties of Alexandria go there; and a great nobleman like yourself need but make his choice and any hetaira in Alexandria will fall at his feet! This is the Moon Gate, my lord! And this is the High Street: behind it lies the Rhacotis quarter, which is very interesting at night, my lord, most interesting for any one like your lordship to roam through in disguise. But now we are going through the High Street; and here, you see, is the Square, where the High Street crosses the Museum Street and the Avenue of Pillars.”

Lucius looked around him with enjoyment. They were still going at a trot, a trot of mare and runners and bearers and donkey, a noisy trotting between shouting and laughing voices and cracking whips, while in the streets and squares the hucksters also shouted and laughed and swore, while the street-boys cheered and screamed for an obolus and the ibises, flapping their wings, darted away, to alight again elsewhere and act as scavengers to Alexandria.

“It is very different from Rome in every way,” thought Lucius. “It is the east.”

Yes, it was the east. It was Egypt, it was Alexandria. Never in the Forum at Rome, lively and busy though it was, never in the basilicas had Lucius beheld this ever trotting, ever hurrying tumult. It was as though every one were pressed for time and hurrying feverishly. Processions of priests hurried; the Roman guards even, returning from the Palace after being relieved, marched with an accelerated step; and yet the numerous litters never struck against one another: they all glided at the trot of their bearers, to the right, to the left, beside one another; there was only a shouting, a din, a cursing, a cracking of whips loud enough to rouse the dead. Here was a quarrel, with violent gestures and shrill voices; there the noisy gaiety of squabbling vegetable-women and bawling vendors of water-melons; suddenly, in a rage, the women flung cabbages at the vendors’ heads and the vendors sent melons trundling between the women’s legs; the cabbages and melons rolled across the street and the crowd yelled with enjoyment, while distinguished but still trotting processions of notables in litters or on horseback made a way for themselves. The cabbages and melons rolled in front of the feet of Lucius’ bearers; and Caleb, rising in his stirrups with flapping burnous and uplifted arms, hardly holding the reins in his fingers while the mare reared on her hind-legs, poured forth a torrent of curses over the women and the hucksters ... and then turned to Lucius with a pleased smile, as though all this tumult were the most ordinary morning affair in the streets of Alexandria.... Yes, that was the Egyptian character: bustle, tumult, uproar, yelling and cursing for the least thing; quarrelling for the least thing; and then everything just ordinary again, as though nothing had happened. All this in a motley whirl of colours: Rome was monotonously white and colourless beside it, Lucius thought. Here the colours glared more fiercely: the citrons, oranges and melons lay yellow and gold over the markets; and there were exotic fruits too, scarlet and vermilion....

They came to the painters’ quarter. Troughs of used colouring-matter ran in gutters along the streets: there were rivulets of indigo, there were little waterfalls of ochre. The bearers splashed through purple and trotted on with purple-black feet. A golden whirl of dust in the morning sun powdered over these motley colours as with handfuls of the finest glittering sand. Tall buildings shot up their pillars in that glitter, seemed to shimmer, to move in that shimmer of light.

Caleb now pointed to the Acropolis, standing fortress-like, four-square and heavy, protecting and dominating the city. Next came the Sun Gate. Outside the city-wall was a canal; along the canal ran an avenue of tall sycamores, bringing a sudden blissful calm and coolness and silver-green shadows. And now Caleb pointed to the famous lake, Lake Mareotis: it lay spread out like a sea, but was divided by isthmuses into smaller inland lakes; there were islands often bearing some temple to Aphrodite; and along the margins of the lake rose villa after villa, in royal pomp of marble-coloured villas, casting their reflections into the limpid water.

“That is where the rich hetairæ live,” said Caleb, with a wink, “hetairæ for people like your lordship: a prince like you can take your choice.”

Tall papyrus shot up on the lake’s edge. There were papyrus-eyots: the stalks rustled at the least breeze; and on the eyots lived the basket-makers: there were families of basket-makers; the children weaving baskets and hampers looked up and cried out for an obolus. White lotus and pink water-lilies blossomed and small gilt barges passed across the lake, with coloured awnings to them. Ibises and cranes fluttered out of the reeds.

“You must come here again in the evening, my lord,” Caleb advised, winking eagerly. “This is the place for one like your lordship to enjoy himself: at Rhacotis there are only the common women and the houses where the sailors go. But many princely nobles like to see everything at Alexandria.”

The procession trotted back through the Gate of the Sun, which made a wide breach in the city-walls, a vaulted arch above Corinthian pillars; and Caleb said:

“We are now coming to the Avenue of Pillars and to the Museum.”

Here again were the bustle, the tumult, the uproar, the shouting and cheering and cursing, the multitude, litters, horsemen, pedestrians. The Avenue of Pillars also was swarming, mainly with students, philosophers and loose women. The sun blazed down in the middle of the street; there were golden patches of light and blue-purple islands of shadow. And there was always the golden glitter of dust, as of the finest sand whirling through the air. Here were the hair-dressers and barbers; here were the baths, here the tailors’-shops with their riot of colours and here the glittering jewellers’-shops and here, behind tables, stood the money-changers. There were stretches of green garden; and behind the gardens loomed the colonnades of the Museum. Close by were the Gymnasium and the Athletic School.

“Will your lordship visit the Museum?” asked Caleb, still parading his horsemanship on the Sabæan mare.

Thrasyllus thought that it would be interesting to visit the Museum; and the travellers alighted. There was a great rush to see them. Uncle Catullus threw oboli among the street-boys, who rolled over one another, fighting. Beggars approached, grey-bearded men like prophets and old women like sibyls; and Lucius flung a coin here and there.

The runners and guards drew themselves up around the two litters, the mare and the donkey; but Caleb walked in front of the travellers, mincing elegantly on the tips of his red riding-boots and holding the hem of his burnous in his swaying hand. It was as though he were always dancing, whether on horseback or on foot.

“The Museum,” Caleb explained, “is, as your lordships know, the Academy of Alexandria, founded by the beautiful Cleopatra.”

“That is not true,” Thrasyllus whispered to his young master. “It was founded by Ptolemy the First.”

“Here philosophers and scholars in every branch of science devote themselves to study; and they are surrounded by thousands of disciples from all countries. But both masters and pupils are as poor as rats and do not, all told, possess ... that!” said Caleb, with a flip of his finger and thumb.

“The Museum has produced great scholars,” Thrasyllus expounded, more appreciatively, “such as Euclid, Erasistratus and Diophantus; then there were the poets Theocritus, Aratus, Callimachus; and among critics Aristarchus; and among philosophers more than I could name.”

“And because they are so poor, all these learned gentry,” said Caleb, with a laugh, pointing, as they entered the gardens of the Museum through a portico, to stately white-cloaked figures walking to and fro, “because they are so poor, they live on a fund provided by the State: they’re no use for anything, these learned gentry; but they are certainly clever, my lords, they’re all that: you won’t find their equals for cleverness anywhere. And the books they collect! Their library is quite famous.... Look,” continued Caleb, pointing, “it is just the time when they have their mid-day meal: it seems to be philosophical to do so earlier than princely nobles are used to do. No doubt it will interest you, as strangers, to see so many very wise and poverty-stricken scholars and philosophers eating their black broth.”

The colonnades of the Museum loomed aloft; there were statues to commemorate famous men of learning; and there was an immense rounded exedra, from which lectures were delivered at frequent intervals. The travellers entered the cenaculum, the refectory, which was wide, lofty and very long; the scholars and philosophers sat eating at long tables; Lucius was struck by the fact that they were sitting, instead of reclining.

“They don’t know any better,” Caleb explained. “They just sit down for a moment and gobble up their broth; they are not epicures, they are only just clever, you see. They have more in their heads, my lords, than in their pockets. But they have plenty in their heads beyond a doubt.”

A philosopher moved towards the strangers. He was very old, frail and grey and looked like a long dry stalk, in his toga. He smiled and mumbled words which at first were incomprehensible. From the folds of his garment he stretched forth a clawlike hand. He was begging; and Lucius gave him some money.

“The highest philosophy is ... to be satisfied with little,” he then said, plainly, in pure Greek.

And he bowed, ironically, and turned away with the movement of a long dry stalk, in his dirty cloak.

“The shameless rascal!” cried Uncle Catullus, indignantly.

But Lucius laughed and looked down the long table at which the men of learning ate. Sometimes a beggar would come up to them; and they gave him their bread and fruit. Sometimes, too, dogs snuffled around; and the men of learning flung them their offal, over which the dogs choked greedily. Two ibises also walked in ludicrous high-legged state through the cenaculum, pecking here and there, and kept the floor clean, though they themselves were not so cleanly.

The travellers returned to their litters; and, amid much shouting and cursing and swearing at street-boys and cracking of whips at beggars, the procession started, while Caleb, for no reason, insisted on making his mare rear and curvet across the street with elegant movements of her fore-feet.

But now, smiling with his black eyes and white teeth, he bent to one side, low enough almost to slip from his mount, and asked Lucius:

“Would your lordship now like to see the Soma?”

And through the public gardens of Bruchium, along the Paneum—an artificial little rocky mountain built up in the shape of a top or pineapple—the procession trotted to the Soma, the burying-place of the Ptolemies, where it lay in the cool shade of sycamores and tamarisks. A long avenue of recumbent sphinxes, male—bearded—and female—high-breasted—led to the pyramid tombs. The travellers alighted and the old priests in charge appeared.

“These distinguished strangers wish to see the burial-places of the Ptolemies,” said Caleb. “They are princely nobles and no doubt will also be interested in the tomb of Alexander the Great.”

“Death is but a slumbering and a twilight transition to the halls of eternal sunshine,” replied the priest in charge. “Earthly greatness is the perishable step to the imperishable palace of Osiris, where our dead monarchs now sit enthroned around him, their heads circled with the pschent and their hands grasping the scarab sceptre. And great Isis has appeared to them as the splendour of truth, for she lifted her veil for their delight, so that they saw her. Life is but a dream, death is a bridge and eternity is life.”

Caleb walked mincingly in front, on the tips of his red riding-boots, and pointed out things, while the old priest went on reciting the eternal verities, as though to himself, The tombs of granite, porphyry and marble, inscribed with hieroglyphics, rose like temples, pyramid-shaped. The priest now went in front of the travellers and descended a few steps: inside, in the subterranean vault, invisible, the mummies rested in their painted sarcophagi; standing lamps burned on their tripods, perfumes rose in a cloud from vases and dishes; and daintily-coloured glass vessels, filled with oil, honey and fruit, stood on low bronze tables, while amphoræ of consecrated water awaited the hour of the resurrection, when the dead should rise and be baptized into the true new life, which was eternity. There was an overpowering scent of sickly-sweet aromatics; and in the mist of the perfumes the big, wide-open eyes of the painted images on the sarcophagus-lids stared, ghostly and superhuman, straight before them into the brightening future. They were images of bearded kings and ibis-crowned queens; sometimes they were images of children.

Through the mist of the aromatics the golden, winged suns gleamed in the embrace of the snakes coiled tail in mouth. Sacred Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, the radiant redeemer of mankind, who descended out of pity on a sinful world, bestrode Typhon, the grinning spirit of evil. There were images of the god Apis, of the god Râ, of Thoth and Anubis, with the heads of an ox, an ibis, a dog.

After this, the shade of the sycamores and tamarisks outside the tombs was silver-green and cool; and the pure air of the sunny morning seemed strange after the perfumed, sickly-sweet atmosphere of the sultry underground sepulchres. The priest in charge stopped before a gleaming marble pyramid. The narrow bronze door hung tapering upwards between pilasters carved with lotus-capitals.

“The tomb of Alexander of Macedon,” said the custodian, solemnly.

They went inside. Again, burning lamps shed their fragrance. There was a heavy mist of nard. Behind a bronze railing on a basalt pedestal stood a sarcophagus of transparent crystal, polished and engraved. And within this thick crystal, in a green watery light, where the flame of the lamps was mirrored in the glass, a mummy lay visible. It was like the chrysalis of a gigantic moth. The face was stained brown with balsam and salve and stared with eyes of beryl. The hair and short beard were painted gold. Many-coloured bandages wrapped the body in a close sheath; and the legs also were closely fastened together in a case of gold filagree.

The mummy lay on a mattress of striped byssus, the head on a byssus pillow. The scarlet lips seemed to grin in the crisp golden beard and the beryl eyes were full of amazement at what they saw in eternity.

“These are the sacred remains of the great Alexander,” said the priest in charge. “History teaches us that Ptolemy, son of Lagus, took the body of the hero and conqueror from Perdiccas, who was bringing it back from Babylon to Macedon, but was passing through Egypt in the hope of conquering our sacred country. Ptolemy marched against him; Perdiccas had hardly set foot in Egypt when he perished at the hands of his own soldiery on an island which had been surrounded by Ptolemy’s troops. With Perdiccas were the royal family: Alexander’s pregnant widow Roxana and her young children. They were allowed to embark for Macedon, but the body of Alexander the Great was carried to Alexandria and buried in state in a massive gold sarcophagus. This sarcophagus was stolen by Ptolemy Parisactus, a pretender to the Egyptian throne, who invaded the country from Syria with a host of troops. Alexander’s body, however, was rescued from his hands and laid in this crystal coffin. Here it lies.”

Lucius and his companions stared, greatly moved by the sight of this corpse nearly three centuries old, embalmed and bandaged, with its feet in a sheath of gold filagree and its beryl eyes staring with surprise. Was this chrysalis all that remained of the great Alexander, whom the oracle of Ammon had declared to be the son of Ammon-Râ son of the sun-god?

Only Caleb remained indifferent, with his mincing gait and an incredulous little laugh at the genuineness of Alexander’s body, to which he had already conducted so many “princely nobles,” including Kardusi of Persia and Baabab of Mesopotamia.

“Here lies Alexander the Great,” continued the priest in charge. “The warrior, the conqueror, the king of kings, the son of the sacred sun-god, Ammon-Râ, descended upon earth. He lived to be thirty-three in this terrestrial life. But this life is a dream and death is the bridge to the life that is the eternal reality. The soul has departed from this house embalmed with precious ointments....”

And he added, in a different voice:

“Even to your excellencies the charge is only one gold stater a head....”

“I will pay for you, my lord!” smiled Caleb, with an elegant bow to Lucius.

And he paid the priest, who went on speaking, with the gold coins shining in his uplifted hand:

“Generosity is a great virtue. He who gives more than he is asked to give earns the favour of Thoth, who sews the good chances of fortune upon the earth.”

Caleb grinned with flashing teeth to show that he understood and dropped another half-stater into the priest’s palm.

The travellers stepped out of the sepulchre. The sunny morning outside seemed strange, with silver-green shadows between waving tamarisks and rustling sycamore-leaves.

Lucius was pale. And he said to Thrasyllus and Uncle Catullus:

“Death!... Death!... She is perhaps dead.... She is drowned, perhaps, in the sea ... and we shall never recover her exquisite body, to embalm it....”

“In any case she has disappeared, my dear nephew,” said Uncle Catullus, trying to console him. “Let us think of her no more. By all the gods, try to forget her: she had thick ankles and large feet.... Lucius, do be sensible at last! Enjoy yourself during this interesting tour. We have had a morning more interesting than any that we ever had at Rome. We have seen an ideal system of scavenging, we have heard philosophical and religious truths and we have seen the mummy of Alexander! I’ve really received too many new impressions. My brains are soaked like an overfull sponge: they can contain no more this morning. That sated condition of the head makes my stomach feel empty, as empty as my pocket when your liberality has forgotten to line it for your old uncle. My dear Lucius, when travelling one must be sparing ... of one’s powers. I suggest to our indefatigable guide that we should go home and see if, in our absence, our trusty cook has remembered that, though life is a dream, even the dead and therefore all the more the living have to be fed. The dead are sustained with oil, honey and fruit: I am curious to see what our cook’s pious thoughts have prepared to-day for the living.”

The procession trotted home through the gardens of Bruchium, the palace quarter, and along the Hippodrome to Master Ghizla’s great diversorium, or guest-house. It stood near the Canopian gate in an oval garden, behind a hedge of tall cactuses; the door opened between two figures of Hermes. Here sat the janitor, or porter; and the travellers were struck by the fact that a winged head of Hermes, in marble, crowned the marble architrave of the door. Caducei, or Hermes’-wands, with winding snakes, were carved on the pilasters of the door; for the diversorium was dedicated to Hermes and known in the quarter as the Hermes House.

The janitor rose and bowed, with his hands stretched to the ground. Master Ghizla also, standing beside a statue of Hermes in the middle of his garden, bowed in this fashion, bending low, with his hands stretched groundwards.

The procession trotted in, the travellers alighted, but Caleb sat his mare, bowed gracefully and, stooping forward, whispered in Lucius’ ear:

“After you have rested, my lord, I will take you whither you please, I will procure you whatsoever you please ... for your lordship’s pleasure and gratification. Whithersoever you please and whatsoever you please.... I wish you good luck at your repast.”

With that he threw the mare on her haunches, stood up in the stirrups, waved his burnous, uttered a cry and rode away, in a cloud of graceful gestures.

The diversorium consisted of several low buildings. It harboured Arabian and Phœnician merchants, who looked out curiously, squatting on mats or lying at their meal, served by black slaves. But Master Ghizla led his “princely guests” to their own suites; and Vettius and Rufus received the travellers on the threshold. They had worked to good purpose, conveying furniture, boxes and packing-cases on camels and mules. A Babylonian carpet lay upon the floor; the travellers’ own beds were ready; in the corners of Lucius’ bedroom stood bronze and marble statues, for no important Roman with any pretension to taste travelled without carrying a few of his treasures with him; and perfumes burned before the statues. There were curtains hanging from rings; and garments lay ready, neatly folded and strewn with fragrant flowers, on long, low, sycamore-wood tables. There were metal mirrors on bronze pedestals; all the brushes, tweezers and unguent-sticks, in gold adorned with agates, lay spread on bronze tables; all the jars, pots and vases essential to the toilet stood filled with cosmetics, ointments and perfumes. All this furniture and upholstery, all these useful and artistic possessions had been brought over from the ship.

“My diversorium boasts every possible comfort, my lord, and all the latest conveniences,” bragged Ghizla, “which visitors like your lordship demand in these days.”

He lifted a curtain beside Lucius’ couch: there was in fact a marble basin with taps, under a canopy.

“And here,” said Master Ghizla, “is your triclinium.”

The dining-room which Master Ghizla described by this high-sounding name was a pleasant, spacious, airy apartment, with sun-blinds between pillars; and, as Lucius entered, he was greeted with the music of harps. For all the wealthy young Roman’s “family” were drawn up there in two rows, awaiting his arrival: Vettius and Rufus and Tarrar, the little black slave; all his slaves, male and female, all the great household without which no distinguished Roman thought it possible to live, even—indeed especially—when travelling. And, amid the female slaves, stood the Greek slave from Cos, Cora, with two other harpists; and they drew long, descending cords from their strings, while Cora sang a short song of welcome to the gracious master. Incense burned on dishes; two S-shaped couches coiled round a long, low table covered with a yellow-and-white cloth and already laid with yellow-and-white crockery and gleaming gold plate. A little fountain of verbena-water played in the middle of a bowl filled with blue lotus.

Lucius assured Vettius and Rufus that he was really pleased; indeed it was as though he were at home. Then, because Uncle Catullus said that he was starving, he invited his uncle and parasite, who had so often diverted him with a merry jest, to lie down, lay down himself and motioned Thrasyllus, his friend and tutor, to a stool by his side, for, though Thrasyllus shared his pupil’s meals, as a freedman he remained the inferior and ate seated. Tarrar and three girl-slaves waited, while Cora and the two harpists struck a soft melody from their strings or danced a little ballet.

Uncle Catullus was glad to have neither oysters nor roast peacock set before him: Lucius’ cook had surpassed himself, in this first exotic repast, with a first course of peppered water-melon in sugared wine-sauce, with which was served an Egyptian spiced bread, named caces; next, young tunnies, surrounded by savoury eggs, stuffed olives and finely chopped coxcombs; next, a sucking-pig served on bread-fruit and cucumbers; lastly, a honey-tart, covered with a cream custard containing stoned dates and cinnamon. They had the celebrated Mareotis wine, thick as ink and purple as molten wax, poured by Master Ghizla himself out of a jar still warm from the sun; and there was the topaz-yellow Ethiopian liqueur of Napata, which he dripped drop by drop into goblets filled with snow and which spread an aroma as of roses steeped in silphium.

Uncle Catullus ate his fill and Lucius too did honour to the meal, however much his heart still suffered and craved, while Thrasyllus was moderate as always. Then a legitimate drowsiness overcame the three travellers and they withdrew behind their curtains, to rest.