A Thorny Path — Complete by Georg Ebers (i can read with my eyes shut .txt) 📕

The sun had risen an hour since. Heron had betaken himself to his workshop, whistling as he went, and in the kitchen his old slave Argutis was standing over the hearth preparing his master’s morning meal. He dropped a pinch of dill into the barley-porridge, and shook his gray head solemnly.

His companion Dido, a Syrian, whose wavy white hair contrasted strangely with her dark skin, presently came in, and, starting up, he hastily inquired, “Not in yet?”

“No,” said the other woman, whose eyes were full of tears. “And you know what my dream was. Some evil has come to her, I am certain; and when the master hears of it—” Here she sobbed aloud; but the slave reproved her for useless weeping.

“You never carried her in your arms,” whimpered the woman.

“But often enough on my shoulder,” retorted the Gaul, for Argutis was a native of Augusta Trevirorum, on the Moselle. “Assoon as the porridge is ready you must take it in and prepare the master.”

“That his first fury may fall on me!” said the old woman, peevishly. “I little thought when I was young!”

“That is a very old story,” said Argutis, “and we both know what the master’s temper is. I should have been off long ago if only you could make his porridge to his mind. As soon as I have dished it I will go to seek Alexander—there is nothing to prevent me—for it was with him that she left the house.”

At this the old woman dried her tears, and cried “Yes, only go, and make haste. I will do everything else. Great gods, if she should be brought home dead! I know how it is; she could bear the old man’s temper and this moping life no longer, and has thrown herself into the water.

“My dream, my dream! Here—here is the dish, and now go and find the boy. Still, Philip is the elder.”

“He!” exclaimed the slave in a scornful tone. “Yes, if you want to know what the flies are talking about! Alexander for me. He has his head screwed on the right way, and he will find her if any man in Egypt can, and bring her back, alive or dead.”

“Dead!” echoed Dido, with a fresh burst of sobs, and her tears fell in the porridge, which Argutis, indeed, in his distress of mind had forgotten to salt.

While this conversation was going on the gemcutter was feeding his birds. Can this man, who stands there like any girl, tempting his favorites to feed, with fond words and whistling, and the offer of attractive dainties, be the stormy blusterer of last night? There is not a coaxing name that he does not lavish on them, while he fills their cups with fresh seed and water; and how carefully he moves his big hand as he strews the little cages with clean sand! He would not for worlds scare the poor little prisoners who cheer his lonely hours, and who have long since ceased to fear him. A turtle-dove takes peas, and a hedge-sparrow picks ants’ eggs from his lips; a white-throat perches on his left hand to snatch a caterpillar from his right. The huge man was in his garden soon after sunrise gathering the dewy leaves for his feathered pets. But he talks and plays longest with the starling which his lost wife gave him. She had bought it in secret from the Bedouin who for many years had brought shells for sale from the Red Sea, to surprise her husband with the gift. The clever bird had first learned to call her name, Olympias; and then, without any teaching, had picked up his master’s favorite lament, “My strength, my strength!”

Heron regarded this bird as a friend who understood him, and, like him, remembered the never-to-be-forsaken dead. For three years had the gem cutter been a widower, and he still thought more constantly and fondly of his lost wife than of the children she had left him. Heron scratched the bird’s knowing little head, saying in a tone which betrayed his pity both for himself and his pet “Yes, old fellow, you would rather have a soft white finger to stroke you down. I can hear her now, when she would call you ‘sweet little pet,’ or ‘dear little creature.’ We shall neither of us ever hear such gentle, loving words again. Do you remember how she would look up with her dear sweet face—and was it not a lovely face?—when you called her by her name ‘Olympias’? How many a time have her rosy lips blown up your feathers, and cried, ‘Well done, little fellow! ‘—Ay, and she would say ‘Well done’ to me too, when I had finished a piece of work well. Ah, and what an eye she had, particularly for art! But now well, the children give me a good word too, now that her lips are silent!”

“Olympias!” cried the bird loudly and articulately, and the clouds that shadowed the gem-cutter’s brow lifted a little, as with an affectionate smile he went on:

“Yes, yes; you would be glad, too, to have her back again. You call her now, as I did yesterday, standing by her grave—and she sends you her love.

“Do you hear, little one? Peck away at the old man’s finger; he knows you mean it kindly, and it does not hurt. I was all alone out there, and Selene looked down on us in silence. There was rioting and shouting all round, but I could hear the voice of our dead. She was very near me, and her sad soul showed me that she still cared for me. I had taken a jar of our best wine of Byblos under my cloak; as soon as I had poured oil on her gravestone and shed some of the noble liquor, the earth drank it up as though it were thirsty. Not a drop was left. Yes, little fellow, she accepted the gift; and when I fell on my knees to meditate on her, she vouchsafed replies to many of my questions.