A Thorny Path | Page 8

tempted a full
man to excess, but I could only swallow a few mouthfuls.
Berenike--the mother--did not even moisten her lips, but Seleukus did
duty for us both, and this I could see displeased his wife. During supper
the merchant made many inquiries about me and my father; for he had
heard Philip's praises from his brother Theophilus, the high-priest. I
learned from him that Korinna had caught her sickness from a slave girl
she had nursed, and had died of the fever in three days. But while I sat
listening to him, as he talked and ate, I could not keep my eyes off his
wife who reclined opposite to me silent and motionless, for the gods
had created Korinna in her very image. The lady Berenike's eyes indeed
sparkle with a lurid, I might almost say an alarming, fire, but they are

shaped like Korinna's. I said so, and asked whether they were of the
same color; I wanted to know for my portrait. On this Seleukus referred
me to a picture painted by old Sosibius, who has lately gone to Rome to
work in Caesar's new baths. He last year painted the wall of a room in
the mer chant's country house at Kanopus. In the center of the picture
stands Galatea, and I know it now to be a good and true likeness.
"The picture I finished that evening is to be placed at the head of the
young girl's sarcophagus; but I am to keep it two days longer, to
reproduce a second likeness more at my leisure, with the help of the
Galatea, which is to remain in Seleukus's town house.
"Then he left me alone with his wife.
"What a delightful commission! I set to work with renewed pleasure,
and more composure than at first. I had no need to hurry, for the first
picture is to be hidden in the tomb, and I could give all my care to the
second. Besides, Korinna's features were indelibly impressed on my
eye.
"I generally can not paint at all by lamp-light; but this time I found no
difficulty, and I soon recovered that blissful, solemn mood which I had
felt in the presence of the dead. Only now and then it was clouded by a
sigh, or a faint moan from Berenike: 'Gone, gone! There is no
comfort--none, none!'
"And what could I answer? When did Death ever give back what he has
snatched away?
"' I can not even picture her as she was,' she murmured sadly to
herself--but this I might remedy by the help of my art, so I painted on
with increasing zeal; and at last her lamentations ceased to trouble me,
for she fell asleep, and her handsome head sank on her breast. The
watchers, too, had dropped asleep, and only their deep breathing broke
the stillness.
"Suddenly it flashed upon me that I was alone with Korinna, and the
feeling grew stronger and stronger; I fancied her lovely lips had moved,

that a smile gently parted them, inviting me to kiss them. As often as I
looked at them--and they bewitched me--I saw and felt the same, and at
last every impulse within me drove me toward her, and I could no
longer resist: my lips pressed hers in a kiss!"
Melissa softly sighed, but the artist did not hear; he went on: "And in
that kiss I became hers; she took the heart and soul of me. I can no
longer escape from her; awake or asleep, her image is before my eyes,
and my spirit is in her power."
Again he drank, emptying the cup at one deep gulp. Then he went on:
"So be it! Who sees a god, they say, must die. And it is well, for he has
known something more glorious than other men. Our brother Philip,
too, lives with his heart in bonds to that one alone, unless a demon has
cheated his senses. I am troubled about him, and you must help me."
He sprang up, pacing the room again with long strides, but his sister
clung to his arm and besought him to shake off the bewitching vision.
How earnest was her prayer, what eager tenderness rang in her every
word, as she entreated him to tell her when and where her elder brother,
too, had met the daughter of Seleukus!
The artist's soft heart was easily moved. Stroking the hair of the loving
creature at his side--so helpful as a rule, but now bewildered--he tried
to calm her by affecting a lighter mood than he really felt, assuring her
that he should soon recover his usual good spirits. She knew full well,
he said, that his living loves changed in frequent succession, and it
would be strange indeed if a