Читать книгу The Beauty of the Purple - William Stearns Davis - Страница 8

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THE HOUSE OF PEACE

So Leo, the peasant’s son, became Commandant of Thrace and War Minister; but although he accepted all the formal honours of his new station, to the marvel of all the gossips of Constantinople, he still dwelt in the little house by the War Department. His mother went about her wonted charities, although at length with a modest escort, and her now “Serene” son remained unwedded, despite constant small talk connecting him with several eligible patricianesses.

He seemed lost in the infinite problems connected with reorganizing an army whose morale and efficiency had been nigh ruined by twenty years of tyranny and civil war. He promoted officers without fear or favour. Veteran subalterns suddenly found their merits recognized. Comfortable sinecures were abolished. The soldiers, who knew a true man, grumbled not when he restored strict discipline. In the barracks leathern-throated centurions and decarchs shouted his praise over their flagons, and drilled their recruits with new ardour. Thus through the winter and into the spring Leo was happy—for he saw his work prospering.

While Leo worked, Fergal, his new retainer, somewhat idled. The Armorican speedily ceased to be a slave, for Kasia declared, “she did not care to own the fellow who saved her life,” and had him to the prefecture for the formalities of emancipation. Fergal therefore became his patroness’ guard of honour, marching now in resplendent livery ahead of her sedan chair, and learning soon to swing a white baton and cry, “Way for her Serenity!” When not thus convoying Kasia to hospitals, almshouses, churches, or to personal acquaintances of less prosperous days, his time was his own, and he soon rambled the length of Constantinople.

The more Fergal beheld of the city the more his wonder grew. All that was best, all that was worst in the world was converged in New Rome. Within a pebble’s toss of the marble Mesē were vile lanes and hovels, the haunts of vice unspeakable. Yet there were in Constantinople at least four hundred churches, and as many monasteries, with full two thousand lesser chapels and sanctuaries. There were legions of monks, nuns and less regularly consecrated ascetics of both sexes. The bulk of the population spoke Greek, yet called themselves proudly “Romans,” mingling their speech with many uncouth terms of Latin; nevertheless there were whole precincts of outlandish people of every skin and tongue: Gepids and Goths, Lombards and Slavs, Huns and Bulgars, Syrians and Turkomans. There were numerous Italians, a small colony of Franks and even a very few exiles from rock-bound Armorica, from whom Fergal could hear his own Celtic speech and renew dear memories of his irretrievably lost home-land.

Often he turned in disgust from the flaunting evil, the pretentious luxury, the vicious artificiality seen everywhere. Then in an hour he would be delighted with the displays of elegant munificence and the elaborate philanthropies, by the orderly police control, by the scientific administration of justice, by the splendour of dress and architecture, by the heavenly music in the churches, by the colourful processions from the imperial palace, and finally by beholding the hosts of cultivated men and women, each in his or her own way actively bent on doing good.

Presently, too, he became increasingly intent on walks to a certain house near the Forum of Theodosius, and his visits began in this manner:

A few days after the ferry disaster and Leo’s promotion, Kallinikos and his daughters called upon Kasia. The girls were not a little shy of the newly acclaimed “Strategissa,” but the old woman laughed in Anthusa’s face when she attempted to use the title, and put them immediately at their ease. Leo of course was preoccupied, but Kasia was delighted at the visit. Anthusa and Sophia neither patronized her ignorance nor fawned upon her new dignity. They spoke the purest Attic Greek, and in fact had evidently been educated in an atmosphere where “Excellencies” and “Serenities” counted for little, and honest courtesy and kindliness for much.

Kallinikos indeed was lost when attempting to converse with the old woman. When he alluded to a phrase in “Plato’s ‘Apology,’ ” Kasia interrupted to say that Plato’s boat, she was sure, was not the Apology but the Holy Elias. This was too much for the younger women. They dissolved in gales of melodious laughter, but so inoffensively that Kasia’s little body promptly swayed with them, and she had to wipe her eyes for very glee. After that they were the best of friends, and when they parted, Kasia promised to return their visit speedily.

She kept her word. Escorted by Fergal, she found Kallinikos’ house in a decent, quiet street on the “Third Hill,” near the Forum of Theodosius whereon faced the University buildings and the Public Record Office. The mighty aqueduct of Valens ran its lofty ivy-covered arches close to the rear of the dwelling and from the upper casements in front there was an enrapturing view of the Marmora, the Isles of the Princes and the dim shores of Bithynia. Like many good houses away from the Mesē, this residence was of wood, painted a dark red and rising to three stories with iron-grated balconies and windows.

Once inside, Kasia’s domestic eyes were delighted by every sign of excellent housekeeping. Kallinikos’ wealth was moderate, but his normal wants were simple. Soft-footed Syrian servants waged truceless war upon dust and cobwebs. The courtyard pool was full of rare plants, “From Arabia and India,” Sophia explained, “for our father’s studies.” The marble Artemis by the ever-bubbling fountain was an original from the chisel of Lysippos. In a large cage screamed three bright tropical birds, while a pair of enormous cats (“Lethe and Tobias,” informed Anthusa) which climbed purring into Kasia’s broad lap claimed lineal descent from the famous felines of old Egypt sacred to the dreadful goddess Pasht.

The visitors’ marvelling, however, grew especially at the profusion of books scattered everywhere. Unclerkly as both Kasia and Fergal were, they knew that no palace of a Dukas or a Bardas could boast any such library. The house seemed over-running with manuscripts. Old-style papyrus rolls set in round leathern cases were intermixed with the newer parchment codexes in opening covers of red or purple vellum. With no consideration of his guest’s untutored state, Kallinikos boasted of a few of his treasures—a copy of Homer annotated by the master-critic Didymos, a recension of Herodotus older and more accurate than any other in Constantinople, a sermon of St. Basil’s in the holy man’s own hand, and many others—until Anthusa tactfully induced her father to display his improved timepiece, not yet quite perfected, to be sure, but in which by a wheel, weight and pulley, he hoped to revolve an arrow around a dial, and thus mark the hours far more closely than was possible by sun-staff or water clock.[18]

All this made Kasia’s little eyes veritably start from her head, yet she was not dismayed. The learning of Kallinikos was never patronizing, and his daughters treated his jargon with a playful humour which put their visitors wholly at ease. Kasia loved direct questioning, and soon she had all the family history. Her host was from Northern Syria. To escape Saracen domination he had removed to Constantinople before Sophia was born. When Anthusa was an infant her mother had died of the great plague. The father had lectured awhile at Salonica, but a few years since had returned to his old chair at the University. The girls had an aunt in Pera, but in the main their father had been their official tutor with the sedate Marsa, their nurse, as domestic mentor.

As a result, explained Kallinikos gravely, “Although Sophia, I grieve to say, has profited little, being too much like that Martha of Holy Writ, ‘cumbered with much serving,’ I have found Anthusa Maria not unlike her sister Mary who ‘chose that good part’; for I have been able to teach her not a little of the epic, lyric and tragic poets, yes, and of the lighter and more apprehensible dialogues and theories of Plato, although, to my great sorrow, her grasp upon Aristotle and Kleanthes leaves much to be desired.”[19]

“St. Theodore preserve us!” cried Kasia, gazing in astonishment at Anthusa. “To imagine that you carry fearful things like those under your thick hair and inside your cunning little head!”

“But really, dear lady,” confided Anthusa demurely, “I’ve no need to remember all the wise lore my father pours into me. Since Sophia must order the house and keep the maids from quarrelling, haven’t I task enough,” she playfully wrung her hands, “to keep returning incessantly to their cases and cupboards all my father’s multitudinous books?”

“Verily, you have, makaira!” assented the admiring Kasia, who could spell only with the greatest difficulty. And so, accepting two or three tropical roots to put in her garden boxes, the old lady went home, assuring Fergal and Peter that “Here were the first people who smelled of parchment, yet didn’t let that smell turn her stomach.”

This was the first of many visits. The motherless sisters under Kallinikos’ abstracted tutelage were wont to go about Constantinople with a freedom unusual for the run of genteel unmarried women, but Kasia soon found that no neighbour was peevish enough to breathe a word against their characters. Michael reported that the priests at St. Mary the Deaconess, their parish church, praised their piety and charity, although their father came rather seldom to mass and was suspected of the Nestorian heresy. So Kasia visited them often, and Fergal never grudged attendance, especially after his mistress explained bluntly to the sisters, “He’s not a slave, this red head. In his own land his father was some kind of a ‘Serenity,’ I suppose, and no doubt he’s got bluer blood than a certain old Strategissa, shaped like an oil-vat, whose name I might mention.”

Therefore on pretext of trifling errands Fergal went often to the house of the Lecturer. Anthusa seemed always assisting her father with his crucibles or bookish researches, but Sophia was more accessible. With Marsa of course bestowing discreet countenance, Fergal was thus favoured with many interviews. The native wit and gift of speech of the Celt kindled with each opportunity. His long captivity at Damascus supplied him endless anecdotes, which, artful rascal, he could expand to the best of advantage. Soon he found himself incessantly calculating how soon he might decently repeat his visits. In this way Hormisdas’ quondam chattel found the days beginning to glide by in a decidedly pleasant fashion.

Matters had thus been ripening steadily, when one evening Leo returned from the War Ministry in a state of unwonted petulance. Accustomed to talk freely to Kasia, he poured out his wrath against a certain self-confident engineer who had proposed a new type of catapult, and had constructed a costly mechanism, only to have it fail ludicrously. When the Strategos’ passion had subsided, Fergal, serving the modest supper, fell on one knee before Leo:

“Would the despotes suffer him to speak?”

“Certainly,” cried the general testily, “did you learn among the Saracens how to make better war engines?”

“Not so, despotes; but I know one who can. I have seen the models of a marvellous catapult at the house of Kallinikos.”

“Kallinikos? That most peaceful of dotards?”

“Yes, truly. His daughters tell me that he has been hiring in a skillful wood-worker and a smith to aid him to prepare imitations of all the machines described by a certain wise Archimedes—somebody long departed.”

“Archimedes? I think I’ve seen his name in the military books,” confessed Leo. “Tell me more. Perhaps the queer old pedant has hit on something useful, after all.”

Possibly for his own devious ends Fergal exerted his Celtic eloquence. As a result, the next day Leo returned early from his bureau, wrapped himself in a plain chlamys to avoid frequent recognitions, and with Kasia in her sedan, its bearers and Fergal and Peter as sole attendants, he set forth for the Forum of Theodosius.

The appearance of the mighty war-minister, even in Kasia’s friendly company, put all the household of Syrians in a wondrous flutter. Old Ephraim almost broke his back salaaming when he took the message, “Leo the Strategos requests an interview with the most learned Kallinikos.”

The menial, however, returned only after a long interval, and not with his master, but with Anthusa. She was red and obviously embarrassed.

“My father, most Illustrious Serenity,” she courtesied, “says he is in the midst of a vital experiment. His crucibles are at precisely the right heat. He cannot leave them. He prays to be excused.”

“Tell him, gracious kyria,” replied Leo smiling, “that for once I have plenty of that rare thing—time. We will wait.”

“Show my son your father’s books, girl,” commanded Kasia, bustling about; “he can make much more out of gilt initials and black hen’s tracks than I can.”

Anthusa threw open the chests and presses, and brought out the best treasures. After a little she forgot she conversed with the Strategos of Thrace. Her words came naturally. Her explanations of rare volumes lost nothing with Leo, because they were uttered with an exquisite diction and accent which the greatest patricianesses might have envied. Possibly the interval was long for Anthusa. It was far shorter to her guest. At last, to the maiden’s great relief, Ephraim appeared bowing and doubling again.

“May it please your extraordinarily Magnificent Lordship,” he announced, “my master says that while the crucibles are cooling he will see you.”

Ephraim was closely followed by Kallinikos in person. The savant wore an astonishingly dirty robe, burned through in several places. His hands were smutty with charcoal; even his beard was slightly singed. Leo, not without amusement, caught the glances of mortified dismay exchanged between Sophia and Anthusa. Upon his chief guest Kallinikos gazed somewhat blankly, then began mumbling his wonder that his antiquarian researches should interest busy men of affairs.

The strategos explained with soldierly directness what Fergal had told him, and described his own disappointment with the unsuccessful catapult. Kallinikos’ eye kindled directly: “I need not be told wherefore it failed. The levers were arranged on the fallacious principles proposed by Zenodotos. Not that he was a feeble mathematician; indeed, his treatise on the ‘Equal Periphery’ is worthy of profound reverence; but in mechanics—what a child!—Now if your engineer had but sat at the feet of Archimedes——”

But here the sage ran off into a long discourse as to how, while turning over ill-arranged manuscripts in the public library at the Octagon by the Augustæum, he had lighted upon a unique document, giving the very specifications and drawings of those incomparable military engines wherewith “the diving Archimedes” had so long baffled the Roman Marcellus at the siege of Syracuse. Forthwith Kallinikos had engaged craftsmen, and with much labour had prepared working models of all the machines described.

“Not that he, a man of peace, so hateful of bloodshed that he even shrank from ordering the extermination of superabundant kittens, desired the destruction of mankind by such siege engines, but he was anxious to test the accuracy of the manuscript, and also to vindicate to a certain misdoubting colleague the authority of the great Syracusan as a master of mechanics, statics, and hydrostatics, as well as in pure mathematics; for in such matters as quadrature of the circle——” Here mercifully he paused for lack of breath.

Leo could therefore interpose, “I pray you, learned father; I doubt not the fame of your great Archimedes, but since I do not share your erudite disputations, favour me with a sight of the models themselves.”

“Follow me,” commanded Kallinikos, plunging across his courtyard and swinging open a heavy door. Leo entered a spacious apartment the like whereof he had never seen. A broad table was strewn with parchments, calculating tablets, mathematical dividers and a bronze globe whereon were inscribed all the constellations. Around the room ran numerous shelves, some bearing a carefully arranged collection of curious stones, others covered with birds and small quadrupeds, artfully preserved and skillfully mounted. The soldier recoiled for an instant. A full-sized leopard seemed opening his fangs before him, but Anthusa’s smothered laugh proclaimed that the figure was harmless. Speedily his eye was caught by a broad copper plate mounted on a stand, and Kallinikos was explaining that here was a map of the world according to Strabo, and containing (he made bold to say) certain additions beyond the knowledge of the sage of Alexandria. Then at every turn Leo beheld models in wood and metal of strange mechanisms, some for military purposes, but others whereof the design baffled him completely. In one corner a fire was glowing under copper cauldrons, and the room reeked with the penetrating odour of some drug that just had been under experiment.

With courtesy but firmness Leo compelled the sage to omit a long lecture on poliorcetics, and to display his newest models. Small as these were, their faithful construction and proportions illustrated all their principles. The soldier laid aside as hopelessly impractical the attempt to prepare a series of mirrors powerful enough to converge the sun’s rays upon a hostile ship and burn it from a distance, but in the catapult he instantly perceived an adjustment of ropes, counterweights and levers surpassing the best in the arsenal. Not without boyish ardour he shot harmless missiles, while Kallinikos watched his enthusiasm with unconcealed delight. At length Leo set down the model.

“Venerable kyrios,” he declared, “a full-powered catapult like this should fling its bolts full fifty fathoms beyond the best range of any we possess. In a siege ten such engines might be worth a thousand men. Let Fergal take this model away, and to-morrow you shall receive such an order on the Count of the Treasury as will prove the imperial gratitude.”

The lecturer shook his head vehemently.

“Take it hence. I am gratified that a thing prepared out of pure love of science, even as men study the moon, should have so utilitarian an end—but nothing from the Treasury; let my wealth never grow by devising the slaughter even of Hagarines. Besides, the idea was not mine, but Archimedes’. My wants are simple. My girls are not penniless. Every solidus above sufficiency is a snare to divert me from the noble quest of undefiled truth.”

Leo whistled through his teeth. Pillar saints might possibly thus sweep gold aside, but not many other mortals, according to his experience. Then his wonder and withal his sense of humility grew as Kallinikos showed to him yet other things—the presses of dried plants and herbs which her father said Anthusa had mounted; the great living African bat that blinked grotesquely from an inverted cage on the ceiling; an elaborate combination of blocks and pulleys wherewith a child might lift a marble pillar, and finally a sizable bronze cylinder, pivoted upon a central axis and with bent pipes projecting at certain intervals from its surface.

The strategos gazed upon this last device with unconcealed bewilderment, whereat the delighted savant signalled to Ephraim. The domestic poured water into a tightly closed cauldron beneath the cylinder, laid charcoal under the cauldron, ignited the fuel, and presently, even as Kallinikos was explaining to his guest the different veinings of Parian, Pentelic and Proconnesian marbles, there was a hissing noise as of an hundred serpents. Lo! without human touch or other apparent agency, right under their mortal eyes the bronze cylinder was whirling around with lightning velocity, with hot jets of vapour leaping from all its tubes.

“Art magic,” screamed Kasia, clapping her hands over her ears; “the devil’s inside it!”

“It is merely Hero’s nigh forgotten ‘aeropile,’ ” explained Kallinikos benevolently, and told how the unseen power came neither from demons nor from wizard spells, but simply from the energy contained in the steam which arises from boiling water.

“But what’s the good of it all?” cried she.

“Every substance, every power which God has planted in this world is good,” responded the lecturer simply; “it is only for us patiently to search them out. Then in time He will reveal the purpose.”

“I would we found some solid use for this strange ‘vapour engine,’ ” remarked Leo, not a little awestruck; “it irks me to see the strength of men, horses or even of mere water flying all to waste.”

“Since the strength is there,” remarked Kallinikos unconcernedly, “some day, doubt it not, God will reveal its uses to men—though perhaps only after a thousand years.”

But now the shelves and the presses had all been explored, and the Strategos was seeking courteous words of thanks and farewell, when Kallinikos plucked at his mantle.

“Good youth,” the savant had long since cast official honorifics to the winds when addressing his visitor, “grant to an old man one small petition.”

“Anything, venerable father.”

“We are greatly in your debt. Payment is impossible, but as token our gratitude is not vain, do you and your good mother remain and break bread with us.”

The look of consternation stamped simultaneously upon the countenances of the two sisters assailed the soldier’s gravity, but he answered at once:

“My evening—thanked be the Saints—is free; we are greatly honoured.”

Sophia, with a despairing gesture towards her father, suddenly disappeared. There was an unwonted running to and fro among the Syrian servitors. Anthusa also glided away. Leo gave Kallinikos a rare happiness by listening to an exposition of Poseidonios’ theory of the tides—a matter whereof the soldier was in sheer and unabashed ignorance. When the girls reappeared, Leo was only vaguely conscious that both seemed more charming than ever, but Kasia more professionally noticed that they had slipped on silken gowns and had flowers in their hair. And then Ephraim announced that supper was ready.

Kallinikos took his guests to a modest dining-room, where two choice mosaics of Odysseus and the Sirens, and of Joseph uplifting Benjamin faced in friendly proximity. A large semi-circular table stood covered with viands. The lecturer apologized for having abandoned the still-frequent custom of reclining at meat, and ushered Leo to the seat of honour at his right hand, next which was placed his mother. The food was simple, but Kasia noticed with approval that the cooking was the best. When her father’s allusions seemed too recondite, Anthusa fell to boasting how the eggs and vegetables were from their own farm by his villa at Therapia. After a little, Leo forgot all about the intrigues of worthless officers and the knavery he had just unearthed in the quartermaster’s department. Completely at ease, his laugh was merry, his speech free, and his stories of bizarre adventures in the Caucasus lost nothing when recited to such an audience. With no pleasant surprise he presently realized that the board was cleared—that the innocent feast was at an end.

Kallinikos nodded to his daughters.

“Our guests will pardon our custom. We are simple people and show our simplicity by making every night the same.”

Then the lecturer and the two maidens stood together, and with downcast eyes chanted what Leo knew was the very old “Apostolic hymn” of thanksgiving after meat:

“Thou art blessed, O Lord, who nourishest me in my youth:

Who givest food to all flesh.

Fill now our hearts with joy and gladness,

That at all times, having all-sufficiency,

We may abound to every good work,

In Christ Jesus, our Lord!

With whom and to Thee be glory, honour and might,

Forever and ever! Amen!”

When the grace was ended, Kallinikos turned again to Anthusa: “And now, of course, the organ.”

Anthusa compressed her lips: “Not to-night, father, our guests grow weary.”

“Kyria,” cried Leo, hardly knowing what he said, “I am the least weary man in all the world.”

Anthusa sighed prettily, blushed again, but submitted. The servants tugged in and set before her a portable organ with three octaves of bronze pipes set over silver keys. Sophia stood beside it, gently working the lever for the bellows. Then Leo sat spellbound while Anthusa, after pressing down a few soft notes, let her calm eyes wander afar, then opened her lips—and from them rushed a melody clear and sweet as bells across the summer sea.

And for the first time in his life Leo heard the great choruses of the poets of Athens poured out as noble song. After her first embarrassment was over, Anthusa lost herself in the music. The Antigone, the Orestes, the Prometheus, the Ion—she knew them all. Now some winged ode of Theban Pindar would leap to her tongue, and now some high choral of Simonides. A new world as it were—a world of vocal, incarnate spirits, infinitely fair, seemed suddenly opening before the pragmatic soldier. He felt lifted out of self, with all the dross and dregs of life retreating. And almost he thought himself to be drifting veritably with the “Clouds” in empyrean, when at last Anthusa struck on some lilting chorus of Aristophanes, such as

“Cloud maidens who float on forever,

Dew-sprinkled, fleet-bodied and fair,

Let us rise from our Sire’s loud river,

Great Ocean, and soar through the air

To the peaks of the pine-covered mountains

Where the pines hang as tresses of hair!

Let us seek the watch-towers undaunted

Where the well-watered corn-fields abound,

And through murmurs of rivers nymph-haunted

The songs of the sea-waves resound:

And the sun in the sky never wearies

Of spreading his radiance around....”

At last the flow of song ended. Anthusa’s hands fell. She glanced at her father.

“Sufficient, child,” he nodded dreamily. “We are Christians, not pagans. So once again give us the evening hymn.”

Many a time had Leo heard the familiar stanzas of Patriarch Anatolios, but never as now carried by that voice:

“The day is past and over,

All thanks, O Lord, to Thee!

I pray Thee now that sinless

The hours of dark may be:

O Jesu, keep me in Thy sight

And save me through the coming night.

“Be Thou my soul’s preserver,

O God, for Thou dost know

How many are the perils

Through which I have to go.

Lover of men, oh, hear my call,

And guard and save me from them all....”

... Very low was Leo’s reverence when he took his leave of Kallinikos that night. His words were few, but his whole manner told how he had been stirred by a flood of hitherto unwonted emotions. He assured the lecturer that he would not fail to return and examine with greater care his other models. Out in the darkened streets, where link boys were running before the carriages and litters, Kasia spoke to him:

“Well, wasn’t Fergal right about the catapult?”

“Ei, the catapult?” said Leo, rousing himself from a deep reverie. “I had nigh forgotten all about the catapult, the other engines and the wars. We have been—what shall I say?—to the House of Peace.”