A Thorny Path | Page 4

stroked Alexander's hair.
Then he inquired for Philip, his eldest son and his favorite; and on
learning that he, the only person who, as he believed, could understand
him, would not come to see him this day above all others, he again

broke out in wrath, abusing the degeneracy of the age and the
ingratitude of the young.
"Is it a visit which detains him again?" he inquired, and when
Alexander thought not, he exclaimed contemptuously: "Then it is some
war of words at the Museum. And for such poor stuff as that a son can
forget his duty to his father and mother!"
"But you, too, used to enjoy these conflicts of intellect," his daughter
humbly remarked; but the old man broke in:
"Only because they help a miserable world to forget the torments of
existence, and the hideous certainty of having been born only to die
some horrible death. But what can you know of this?"
"By my mother's death-bed," replied the girl, "we, too, had a glimpse
into the terrible mystery." And Alexander gravely added, "And since
we last met, father, I may certainly account myself as one of the
initiated."
"You have painted a dead body?" asked his father.
"Yes, father," replied the lad with a deep breath. "I warned you," said
Heron, in a tone of superior experience.
And then, as Melissa rearranged the folds of his blue robe, he said he
should go for a walk. He sighed as he spoke, and his children knew
whither he would go. It was to the grave to which Melissa had
accompanied him that morning; and he would visit it alone, to meditate
undisturbed on the wife he had lost.
CHAPTER II.
The brother and sister were left together. Melissa sighed deeply; but her
brother went up to her, laid his arm round her shoulder, and said: "Poor
child! you have indeed a hard time of it. Eighteen years old, and as
pretty as you are, to be kept locked up as if in prison! No one would
envy you, even if your fellow-captive and keeper were younger and

less gloomy than your father is! But we know what it all means. His
grief eats into his soul, and it does him as much good to storm and
scold, as it does us to laugh."
"If only the world could know how kind his heart really is!" said the
girl.
"He is not the same to his friends as to us," said Alexander; but Melissa
shook her head, and said sadly: "He broke out yesterday against Apion,
the dealer, and it was dreadful. For the fiftieth time he had waited
supper for you two in vain, and in the twilight, when he had done work,
his grief overcame him, and to see him weep is quite heartbreaking!
The Syrian dealer came in and found him all tearful, and being so bold
as to jest about it in his flippant way--"
"The old man would give him his answer, I know!" cried her brother
with a hearty laugh. "He will not again be in a hurry to stir up a
wounded lion."
"That is the very word," said Melissa, and her large eyes sparkled. "At
the fight in the Circus, I could not help thinking of my father, when the
huge king of the desert lay with a broken spear in his loins, whining
loudly, and burying his maned head between his great paws. The gods
are pitiless!"
"Indeed they are," replied the youth, with deep conviction; but his sister
looked up at him in surprise.
"Do you say so, Alexander? Yes, indeed--you looked just now as I
never saw you before. Has misfortune overtaken you too?"
"Misfortune?" he repeated, and he gently stroked her hair. "No, not
exactly; and you know my woes sit lightly enough on me. The
immortals have indeed shown me very plainly that it is their will
sometimes to spoil the feast of life with a right bitter draught. But, like
the moon itself, all it shines on is doomed to change--happily! Many
things here below seem strangely ordered. Like ears and eyes, hands
and feet, many things are by nature double, and misfortunes, as they

say, commonly come in couples yoked like oxen."
"Then you have had some twofold blow?" asked Melissa, clasping her
hands over her anxiously throbbing bosom.
"I, child! No, indeed. Nothing has befallen your father's younger son;
and if I were a philosopher, like Philip, I should be moved to wonder
why a man can only be wet when the rain falls on him, and yet can be
so wretched when disaster falls on another. But do not look at me with
such terror in your great eyes. I swear to you that, as a man and an artist,
I never