One of Cleopatra's Nights (15 page)

The Frenchman and the citizen of Pompeii proceeded along the Street of
the Fountains of Abundance and the Street of the Theatres, passing by
the College, the Temple of Isis, and the Studio of the Sculptor, and
entered the Odeon or Comic Theatre by a lateral vomitory. Through the
recommendations of Holconius, Octavian obtained a seat near the
proscenium in a part of the theatre corresponding to our private boxes
which front upon the stage. All eyes were immediately turned upon him
with good-natured curiosity, and a low whispering arose all through the
amphitheatre.

The play had not yet commenced, and Octavian profited by the interval to
examine the building. The semicircular seats, terminated at either end
by a magnificent lion's paw sculptured in Vesuvian lava, receded,
broadening as they rose, from an empty space corresponding to our
parterre
, but much narrower and paved in mosaic with Greek marble.
The rows of seats widened above one another in regular gradation
according to distance, and four stairways, corresponding with the
vomitories, and sloping from the base to the summit of the amphitheatre,
divided it into five
cunei
or wedge-shaped compartments, with the
broad end uppermost. The spectators, all furnished with tickets
consisting of little slips of ivory, upon which were indicated in
numerical order the row, division, and seat, together with the name of
the play and its author, took their places without confusion. The
magistrates, nobility, married men, young folks, and the soldiers—who
attracted attention by the gleaming of their bronze helmets—all
occupied different rows of seats.

It was an admirable spectacle. Those beautiful togas and great white
mantles displayed in the first row of seats, contrasting with the
vari-colored garments of the women seated in the circle above, and the
gray capes of the populace who were assigned to the upper benches near
the columns which supported the roof, and between which were visible
glimpses of a sky intensely blue as the azure background of the
Panathenæa.

A fine spray aromatized with saffron fell from the friezes above in
imperceptible mist, at once cooling and purifying the air. Octavian
thought of the fetid emanations which vitiate the atmosphere of our
modern theatres—theatres so uncomfortable that they may justly be
considered places of torture rather than places of amusement, and he
found that modern civilization had not, after all, made much progress.

The curtain, sustained by a transverse beam, sank into the depths of the
orchestra; the musicians took their seats, and the Prologue appeared in
grotesque attire, his face concealed by a frightful mask which fitted
the head like a helmet.

Having saluted the audience and demanded applause, the Prologue
commenced a merry argumentation. Old plays, he said, were like old wine
which improves with age; and
Casina
, so dear to the old, should not be
less so to the young: all could take pleasure in it, some because they
were familiar with it, others because they were not. Moreover, the play
had been carefully remounted, and should be heard with a cheerful mind,
without thinking about one's debts or one's creditors, for people were
not liable to be arrested at the theatre. It was a happy day, the
weather was fair, and the halcyons hovered over the Forum.

Then he gave an analysis of the comedy about to be performed by the
actors, with that minuteness of detail which shows how little the
element of surprise entered into the theatrical pleasures of the
ancient. He told how the aged Stalino, being enamored of his beautiful
slave Casina, desired to marry her to his farmer Olympio, a complaisant
spouse whose place he himself would fill on the nuptial night; and how
Lycostrata, wife of Stalino, in order to thwart the luxury of her
vicious husband, sought to unite Casina in marriage to the groom
Chalinus with the further idea of favoring the amours of her son—in
fine, how the deceived Stalino mistook a young slave in disguise for
Casina, who, being discovered to be free, and of free birth, espouses
the young master whom she loves and by whom she is beloved.

As in a reverie, the young Frenchman watched the actors with their
bronze-mouthed masks, exerting themselves upon the stage; the slaves ran
hither and thither, feigning great haste; the old man wagged his head
and extended his trembling hand; the matron with high words and scornful
mien strutted in her importance and quarrelled with her husband, to the
great delight of the audience. All these personages made their entrances
and exits through three doors contrived in the foundation-wall and
communicating with the green-room of the actors. The house of Stalino
occupied one corner of the stage, and that of his old friend Alcesimus
faced it on the opposite side. These decorations, although very well
painted, represented the idea of a place rather than the place itself,
like most of the vague scenery of the classic theatres.

When the nuptial procession, pompously escorting the false Casina,
entered upon the stage, a mighty burst of laughter, such as Homer
attributes to the gods, rang through all the amphitheatre, and thunders
of applause evoked the vibrating echoes of the enclosure, but Octavian
heard no more and saw no more of the play.

In the circle of seats occupied by the women, he had just beheld a
creature of marvellous beauty. From that moment all the other charming
faces which had attracted his attention became eclipsed as the stars
before the face of Phoebus—all vanished, all disappeared as in a dream;
a mist clouded the circles of seats with their swarming multitudes, and
the high-pitched voices of the actors seemed lost in infinite distance.

His heart received a sudden shock as of electricity, and it seemed to
him that sparks flew from his breast when the eyes of that woman turned
upon him.

She was dark and pale. Her locks, crisp-flowing and black as the tresses
of Night, streamed backward over her temples after the fashion of the
Greeks, and in her pallid face beamed soft, melancholy eyes, heavy with
an indefinable expression of voluptuous sadness and passionate
ennui
.
Her mouth, with its disdainful curves, protested by the living warmth of
its burning crimson against the tranquil pallor of her cheeks, and the
curves of her neck presented those pure and beautiful outlines now to be
found only in statues. Her arms were naked to the shoulder, and from the
peaks of her splendid bosom, which betrayed its superb curves beneath a
mauve-rose tunic, fell two graceful folds of drapery that seemed to have
been sculptured in marble by Phidias or Cleomenes.

The sight of that bosom, so faultless in contour, so pure in its
outlines, magnetically affected Octavian. It seemed to him that those
rich curves corresponded perfectly to that hollow mould in the museum at
Naples which had thrown him into so ardent a reverie, and from the
depths of his heart a voice cried out to him that this woman was indeed
the same who had been suffocated in the villa of Arrius Diomedes by the
cinders of Vesuvius. What prodigy, then, enabled him to behold her
living, and witnessing the performance of the
Casina
of Plautus? But
he forbore to seek an explanation of the problem. For that matter, how
did he himself happen to be there? He accepted the fact of his presence
as in dreams we never question the intervention of persons actually
long dead, but who seem to act nevertheless like living people; besides,
his emotion forbade him to reason. For him the Wheel of Time had left
its track, and his all-conquering love had chosen its place among the
ages passed away. He found himself face to face with his chimera, one of
the most unattainable of all, a retrospective chimera. The cup of his
whole life had in a single instant been filled to overflowing.

While gazing upon that face, at once so calm and passionate, so cold and
yet so replete with warmth, so dead, yet so radiant with life, he felt
that he beheld before him his first and last love, his cup of supreme
intoxication; he felt all the memories of all the women whom he ever
believed that he had loved, vanish like impalpable shadows, and his
heart became once more virginally pure of all anterior passion. The past
was dead within him.

Meanwhile the fair Pompeiian, resting her chin upon the palm of her
hand, turned upon Octavian, though feigning the while to be absorbed in
the performance, the velvet gaze of her nocturnal eyes, and that look
fell upon him heavy and burning as a jet of molten lead. Then she turned
to whisper some words in the ear of a maid seated at her side.

The performance closed. The crowd poured out of the theatre through the
vomitories, and Octavian, disdaining the kindly offices of his friend
Holconius, rushed to the nearest door-way. He had scarcely reached the
entrance when a hand was lightly laid upon his arm, and a feminine voice
exclaimed in tones at once low yet so distinct that not a syllable
escaped him:

"I am Tyche Novaleia, entrusted with the pleasures of Arria Marcella,
daughter of Arrius Diomedes. My mistress loves you. Follow me."

Arria Marcella had just entered her litter, borne by four strong Syrian
slaves, naked to the waist, whose bronze torsos shone under the
sunlight. The curtain of the litter was drawn aside, and a pale hand,
starred with brilliant rings, waved a friendly signal to Octavian, as
though in confirmation of the attendant's words. Then the purple folds
of the curtain fell again, and the litter was borne away to the
rhythmical sound of the footsteps of the slaves.

Tyche conducted Octavian along winding byways, tripping lightly across
the streets over the stepping-stones which connected the foot-paths, and
between which the wheels of the chariots rolled, wending her way through
the labyrinth with that certainty which bears witness to thorough
familiarity with a city. Octavian noticed that he was traversing
portions of Pompeii which had never been excavated, and which were in
consequence totally unknown to him. Among so many other equally strange
circumstances, this caused him no astonishment. He had made up his mind
to be astonished at nothing. Amid all this archaic phantasmagory, which
would have driven an antiquarian mad with joy, he no longer saw anything
save the dark, deep eyes of Arria Marcella, and that superb bosom which
had vanquished even Time, and which Destruction itself had sought to
preserve.

They arrived at last before a private gate which opened to admit them,
and closed again as soon as they had entered, and Octavian found
himself in a court surrounded by Ionic columns of Greek marble, painted
bright yellow for half their height and crowned with capitals relieved
with blue and red ornaments. A wreath of aristolochia suspended its
great green heart-shaped leaves from the projections of the architecture
like a natural arabesque, and near a marble basin framed in plants one
flaming rose towered on a single stalk—a plume-flower in the midst of
natural flowers. The walls were adorned with panelled fresco-work,
representing fanciful architecture or imaginary landscape views.

Octavian obtained only a hurried glance at all these details, for Tyche
immediately placed him in the hands of the slaves who had charge of the
bath, and who subjected him, notwithstanding his impatience, to all the
refinements of the antique
thermæ.
After having submitted to the
several necessary degrees of vapor-heat, endured the scraper of the
strigillarius
, and felt cosmetics and perfumed oils poured over him in
streams, he was reclothed with a white tunic, and again met Tyche at the
opposite door, who took him by the hand and conducted him into another
apartment gorgeously decorated.

Upon the ceiling were painted, with a purity of design, brilliancy of
color, and freedom of touch which bespoke the hand of a great master
rather than of the mere ordinary decorator, Mars, Venus, and Love. A
frieze composed of deer, hares, and birds, disporting themselves amid
rich foliage, ran around the apartment above a wainscoting of cipollino
marble; the mosaic pavement, a marvellous work from the hand, perhaps,
of Sosimus of Pergamos, represented banquet-scenes in relief, with a
perfection of art which deluded the eye.

At the further end of the hall, upon a biclinium, or double couch,
reclined Arria Marcella in an attitude which recalled the reclining
woman of Phidias, upon the pediment of the Parthenon. Her
pearl-embroidered shoes lay at the foot of the couch, and her beautiful
bare foot, purer and whiter than marble, extended from beneath the light
covering of byssus which had been thrown over her.

Two earrings, fashioned in the form of balance-scales, and bearing
pearls in either scale, trembled in the light against her pale cheeks. A
necklace of golden balls, with pear-shaped pendants attached, hung down
upon her bosom, which the negligent folds of a straw-colored peplum,
with a Greek border in black lines, had left half uncovered; a gold and
black fillet passed and glittered here and there through her ebon
tresses, for she had changed her dress upon returning from the theatre,
and around her arm, like the asp about the arm of Cleopatra, a golden
serpent with jewelled eyes entwined itself in many folds and sought to
bite its own tail.

Close by the double couch had been placed a little table, supported upon
griffins' paws, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and freighted with
different viands served upon dishes of silver and gold, or of
earthenware enamelled with costly paintings. A Phasian bird, cooked in
its plumage, was visible, and also various fruits which are seldom seen
together in any one season.

Everything seemed to indicate that a guest was expected. The floor had
been strewn with fresh flowers, and the amphoræ of wine were plunged
into urns filled with snow.

Arria Marcella made a sign to Octavian to lie down upon the biclinium
beside her and share her repast. Half-maddened with astonishment and
love, the young man took at random a few mouthfuls from the plates
extended to him by little curly-haired Asiatic slaves, who wore short
tunics. Arria did not eat, but she frequently raised to her lips an
opal-tinted myrrhine vase filled with a wine darkly purple like
thickened blood. As she drank an imperceptible rosy vapor mounted to her
cheeks from her heart, the heart that had never throbbed for so many
centuries; nevertheless, her bare arm, which Octavian lightly touched in
the act of raising his cup, was cold as the skin of a serpent or the
marble of a tomb.