Part 55 (2/2)
”_Eho!_” replied Drusus, pa.s.sing his hand over her hair. ”Do you want me to tell you something?”
”What is it?” said Cornelia, pressing closer.
”I can never write a cosmology. I shall never be able to evolve a new system of ethics. I cannot improve on Plato's ideal state. I know I am a very ignorant man, with only a few ideas worth uttering, with a hand that is very heavy, with a mind that works to little purpose save when it deals with politics and war. In short”--and Drusus's voice grew really pathetic--”all my learning carries me no farther than did the wisdom of Socrates, 'I know that I know nothing;' and I have no time to spend in advancing beyond that stage.”
”But Socrates,” said Cornelia, laughing, ”was the wisest man in Greece, and for that very reason.”
”Well,” said Drusus, ignoring the compliment, as a certain type of men will when the mood is on them, ”what do you wish me to make of myself?”
”I wish you to make nothing different,” was her reply, ”for you are precisely what I have always wanted you to be. When you have read as much as I have,” this with an air of utter weariness, ”you will realize the futility of philosophic study.”
”_Eho!_” remarked Drusus again. ”So you would have me feel that I am turning my back on nothing very great, after all?”
”And so I mean.”
”Seriously?”
”I am serious, Quintus.” And indeed Cornelia was. ”I can read Aristotle and Plato, and Zeno and Cleanthes, and Pyrrho, and a score of others. I can spin out of my own brain a hundred theories of the universe as good as theirs, but my heart will not be the happier, if things outside make me sad. I am sick of the learning that is no learning, that answers our questions by other questions that are more riddling.”
”Ah, scoffer at the wise,” laughed Drusus, ”what do you wish, then?”
He spoke in Greek.
”Speak in Latin, in Latin, Quintus,” was her retort. ”I am weary of this fine, sweet language that tinkles so delicately, every word of which hides a hundred meanings, every sentence attuned like the notes for a harp. Let us have our own language, blunt and to the point; the language, not of men who wonder what they ought to do, but who _do_.
We are Romans, not Greeks. We have to rule the world, not growl as to how Jupiter made it. When you came back from Athens I said, 'I love Quintus Drusus, but I would love him more if he were less a h.e.l.lene.'
And, now I see you wholly Roman, I love you wholly. And for myself, I wish neither to be a Sappho, nor an Aspasia, nor a Semiramis, but Cornelia the Roman matron, who obeys her husband, Quintus Drusus, who cares for his house, and whom, in turn, her household fears and obeys.”
”_O tempora! O mores!_” cried the young soldier, in delight. ”When had ever a woman such ambition in these degenerate days? _Eu!_ Then I will burn my books, if you can get no profit out of them.”
”I do not think books are bad,” said Cornelia, still soberly, ”but I know that they can never make me happy.”
”What can?” demanded her tormenter.
”_You!_”
So the hours of the afternoon ran on, and the lovers gave them little heed. But they were not too selfish to refuse to Fabia's sharing in their joy; and Drusus knew that he was dear no less, though differently, in the eyes of his aunt than of his betrothed. And there were duties to perform that not even the long-deferred delights of the afternoon could postpone. Chief of these were the arrangements for the immediate departure of the Roman ladies for Alexandria. Agias, who was called into the council, was invaluable in information and suggestion.
He said that Pothinus had acted at Pratinas's advice, when he took Fabia and Cornelia to the palace. The eunuch had expected to use them half as hostages, half as captives to be put to ransom. If Caesar had delayed a few days, Pothinus would not have lied when he made excuse that the ladies had been sent up the river. But now Agias believed that the regent was afraid, having overreached himself, and it was best to make a prompt demand for conveyance to Alexandria. This, indeed, proved advantageous policy. The eunuch made difficulties and suggested obstacles, but Drusus made his native Italian haughtiness stand him in good stead. It would largely depend, he said insinuatingly, on the way in which his demand was complied with, what sort of a report he made to Caesar touching the execution of Lucius Lentulus and Ahen.o.barbus. During his interview with Pothinus, the Roman came face to face with Pratinas. No words were exchanged, but Drusus noticed that the elegant h.e.l.lene flushed, and then turned pale, when he fastened upon him a gaze steady and half menacing. Pothinus ended by yielding everything--the use of the royal chariots and horses, the use of the Nile boats needed for swift transit across the Delta, and orders on the local garrisons and governors to provide entertainment and a.s.sistance.
As a result Cornelia speedily found herself again journeying, not this time in a slow barge following the main branches of the Nile, but by more rapid, if less luxurious, conveyance, now by land, now by water, hurrying westward. They pa.s.sed through Sethroe and Tanis, Mendes and Sebennytus, Xas and Sas, where were the tomb of Osiris and the great Egyptian university in this the capital of the mighty Pharaohs who had wrested the nation from the clutches of a.s.syria. Then they fared up the Nile to the old Milesian trading factory of Naucratis,--now dropping into decline beside the thriving Alexandria,--and then by boat they pressed on to the capital itself. Never more delightful journey for Cornelia or for Drusus; they saw the strange land through one another's eyes; they expressed their own thoughts through one another's lips; they were happy together, as if children at play; and Fabia was their never exacting, ever beneficent, guardian G.o.ddess.
Drusus and Cornelia were neither of them the same young persons who had met in the gardens of the villa of the Lentuli two short years before. They saw life with a soberer gaze; they had both the wisdom that experience teaches. Yet for the time not a cloud was drifting across their sky. Their pa.s.sions and hates had been too fierce, too pagan, to feel the death of even Cornelia's uncle very keenly. Lucius Ahen.o.barbus was dead--they had no more thought for him than for a dead viper. Lucius Domitius was dead. Gabinius and Dumnorix were dead.
Pompeius, the tool of guiltier men than himself, was dead. Pratinas alone of all those who had crossed their path remained; but the wily Greek was a mere creature of self-interest--what had he to gain by pressing his animosity, if he had any, against them? Caesar was triumphant. His enemies were barely lifting their heads in Africa.
Doubtless there was stern work awaiting the Imperator there, but what of it? Was he not invincible? Was he not about to commence a new order of things in the world, to tear down the old and decaying, to raise up a steadfast fabric? Therefore the little party took its pleasure, and enjoyed every ancient temple of the Amenhoteps, Thothmeses, and Ramesides that they hurriedly visited; won the favour of the wrinkled old priests by their plentiful votives of bright philippi; heard a hundred time-honoured tales that they knew not whether to believe or laugh at; speculated among themselves as to the sources of the Nile, the cause of the vocal Memnon, and fifty more darkened wonders, and resolved to solve every mystery during a second and more prolonged visit.
So they came to Alexandria, but on the way called at the Nile villa where was Artemisia, and, to the great satisfaction of that young lady and of Agias, carried her along with them to the house of Cleomenes, where that affable host and Berenice and Monime received them with open arms.
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