One of Cleopatra's Nights (4 page)

He commenced at last to spend his life in wandering about the
neighborhood of the royal dwelling, that he might at least breathe the
same air as Cleopatra, that he might sometimes kiss the almost
imperceptible print of her foot upon the sand (a happiness, alas! rare
indeed). He attended the sacred festivals and
panegyreis
, striving to
obtain one beaming glance of her eyes, to catch in passing one stealthy
glimpse of her loveliness in some of its thousand varied aspects. At
other moments, filled with sudden shame of this mad life, he gave
himself up to the chase with redoubled ardor, and sought by fatigue to
tame the ardor of his blood and the impetuosity of his desires.

He had gone to the panegyris of Hermonthis, and, in the vague hope of
beholding the queen again for an instant as she disembarked at the
summer palace, had followed her cangia in his boat—little heeding the
sharp stings of the sun—through a heat intense enough to make the
panting sphinxes melt in lava-sweat upon their reddened pedestals.

And then he felt that the supreme moment was nigh, that the decisive
instant of his life was at hand, and that he could not die with his
secret in his breast.

It is a strange situation truly to find one-self enamoured of a queen.
It is as though one loved a star; yet she, the star, comes forth nightly
to sparkle in her place in heaven. It is a kind of mysterious
rendezvous. You may find her again, you may see her; she is not offended
at your gaze. Oh, misery! to be poor, unknown, obscure, seated at the
very foot of the ladder, and to feel one's heart breaking with love for
something glittering, solemn, and magnificent—for a woman whose meanest
female attendant would scorn you!—to gaze fixedly and fatefully upon
one who never sees you, who never will see you; one to whom you are
no more than a ripple on the sea of humanity, in nowise differing
from the other ripples, and who might a hundred times encounter you
without once recognizing you; to have no reason to offer should an
opportunity for addressing her present itself in excuse for such mad
audacity—neither poetical talent, nor great genius, nor any superhuman
qualification—nothing but love; and to be able to offer in exchange
for beauty, nobility, power, and all imaginable splendor only one's
passion and one's youth—rare offerings, forsooth!

Such were the thoughts which overwhelmed Meïamoun. Lying upon the sand,
supporting his chin on his palms, he permitted himself to be lifted and
borne away by the inexhaustible current of reverie; he sketched out a
thousand projects, each madder than the last. He felt convinced that he
was seeking after the unattainable, but he lacked the courage to frankly
renounce his undertaking, and a perfidious hope came to whisper some
lying promises in his ear.

"Athor, mighty goddess," he murmured in a deep voice, "what evil have I
done against thee that I should be made thus miserable? Art thou
avenging thyself for my disdain of Nephthe, daughter of the priest
Afomouthis? Hast thou afflicted me thus for having rejected the love of
Lamia, the Athenian hetaira, or of Flora, the Roman courtesan? Is it my
fault that my heart should be sensible only to the matchless beauty of
thy rival, Cleopatra? Why hast thou wounded my soul with the envenomed
arrow of unattainable love? What sacrifice, what offerings dost thou
desire? Must I erect to thee a chapel of the rosy marble of Syene with
columns crowned by gilded capitals, a ceiling all of one block, and
hieroglyphics deeply sculptured by the best workmen of Memphis and of
Thebes? Answer me."

Like all gods or goddesses thus invoked, Athor answered not a word, and
Meïamoun resolved upon a desperate expedient.

Cleopatra, on her part, likewise invoked the goddess Athor. She prayed
for a new pleasure, for some fresh sensation. As she languidly reclined
upon her couch she thought to herself that the number of the senses was
sadly limited, that the most exquisite refinements of delight soon
yielded to satiety, and that it was really no small task for a queen to
find means of occupying her time. To test new poisons upon slaves; to
make men fight with tigers, or gladiators with each other; to drink
pearls dissolved; to swallow the wealth of a whole province all these
things had become commonplace! and insipid.

Charmion was fairly at her wit's end, and knew not what to do for her
mistress.

Suddenly a whistling sound was heard, and an arrow buried itself,
quivering, in the cedar wainscoting of the wall.

Cleopatra well-nigh fainted with terror. Charmion ran to the window,
leaned out, and beheld only a flake of foam on the surface of the river.
A scroll of papyrus encircled the wood of the arrow. It bore only these
words, written in Phoenician characters, "I love you!"

"I love you," repeated Cleopatra, making the serpent-coiling strip of
papyrus writhe between her delicate white fingers. "Those, are the words
I longed for. What intelligent spirit, what invisible genius has thus so
fully comprehended my desire?"

And thoroughly aroused from her languid torpor, she sprang out of bed
with the agility of a cat which has scented a mouse, placed her little
ivory feet in her embroidered
tatbebs
, threw a byssus tunic over her
shoulders, and ran to the window from which Charmion was still gazing.

The night was clear and calm. The risen moon outlined with huge angles
of light and shadow the architectural masses of the palace, which stood
out in strong relief against a background of bluish transparency; and
the waters of the river, wherein her reflection lengthened into a
shining column, were frosted with silvery ripples. A gentle breeze, such
as might have been mistaken for the respiration of the slumbering
sphinxes, quivered among the reeds and shook the azure bells of the
lotus flowers; the cables of the vessels moored to the Nile's banks
groaned feebly, and the rippling tide moaned upon the shore like a dove
lamenting for its mate. A vague perfume of vegetation, sweeter than that
of the aromatics burned in the
anschir
of the priests of Anubis,
floated into the chamber. It was one of those enchanted nights of the
Orient, which are more splendid than our fairest days; for our sun can
ill compare with that Oriental moon.

"Do you not see far over there, almost in the middle of the river, the
head of a man swimming? See, he crosses that track of light, and passes
into the shadow beyond! He is already out of sight!" And, supporting
herself upon Charmion's shoulder, she leaned out, with half of her fair
body beyond the sill of the window, in the effort to catch another
glimpse of the mysterious swimmer; but a grove of Nile acacias,
dhoum-palms, and sayals flung its deep shadow upon the river in that
direction, and protected the flight of the daring fugitive. If Meïamoun
had but had the courtesy to look back, he might have beheld Cleopatra,
the sidereal queen, eagerly seeking him through the night gloom—he, the
poor obscure Egyptian, the miserable lion-hunter.

"Charmion, Charmion, send hither Phrehipephbour, the chief of the
rowers, and have two boats despatched in pursuit of that man!" cried
Cleopatra, whose curiosity was excited to the highest pitch.

Phrehipephbour appeared, a man of the race of Nahasi, with large hands
and muscular arms, wearing a red cap not unlike a Phrygian helmet in
form, and clad only in a pair of narrow drawers diagonally striped with
white and blue. His huge torso, entirely nude, black and polished like a
globe of jet, shone under the lamplight. He received the commands of the
queen and instantly retired to execute them.

Two long, narrow boats, so light that the least inattention to
equilibrium would capsize them, were soon cleaving the waters of the
Nile with hissing rapidity under the efforts of the twenty vigorous
rowers, but the pursuit was all in vain. After searching the river banks
in every direction, and carefully exploring every patch of reeds,
Phrehipephbour returned to the palace, having only succeeded in putting
to flight some solitary heron which had been sleeping on one leg, or in
troubling the digestion of some terrified crocodile.

So intense was the vexation of Cleopatra at being thus foiled, that she
felt a strong inclination to condemn Phrehipephbour either to the wild
beasts or to the hardest labor at the grindstone. Happily, Charmion
interceded for the trembling unfortunate, who turned pale with fear,
despite his black skin. It was the first time in Cleopatra's life that
one of her desires had not been gratified as soon as expressed, and she
experienced, in consequence, a kind of uneasy surprise; a first doubt,
as it were, of her own omnipotence.

She, Cleopatra, wife and sister of Ptolemy—she who had been proclaimed
goddess Evergetes, living queen of the regions Above and Below, Eye of
Light, Chosen of the Sun (as may still be read within the cartouches
sculptured on the walls of the temples)—she to find an obstacle in her
path, to have wished aught that failed of accomplishment, to have spoken
and not been obeyed! As well be the wife of some wretched Paraschistes,
some corpse-cutter, and melt natron in a caldron! It was monstrous,
preposterous! and none but the most gentle and clement of queens could
have refrained from crucifying that miserable Phrehipephbour.

You wished for some adventure, something strange and unexpected. Your
wish has been gratified. You find that your kingdom is not so dead as
you deemed it. It was not the stony arm of a statue which shot that
arrow; it was not from a mummy's heart that came those three words which
have moved even you—you who smilingly watched your poisoned slaves
dashing their heads and beating their feet upon your beautiful mosaic
and porphyry pavements in the convulsions of death-agony; you who even
applauded the tiger which boldly buried its muzzle in the flank of some
vanquished gladiator.

You could obtain all else you might wish for—chariots of silver,
starred with emeralds; griffin-quadrigeræ; tunics of purple
thrice-dyed; mirrors of molten steel, so clear that you might find the
charms of your loveliness faithfully copied in them; robes from the land
of Serica, so fine and subtly light that they could be drawn through the
ring worn upon your little finger; Orient pearls of wondrous color; cups
wrought by Myron or Lysippus; Indian paroquets that speak like
poets—all things else you could obtain, even should you ask for the
Cestus of Venus or the
pshent
of Isis, but most certainly you cannot
this night capture the man who shot the arrow which still quivers in
the cedar wood of your couch.

The task of the slaves who must dress you to-morrow will not be a
grateful one. They will hardly escape with blows. The bosom of the
unskilful waiting-maid will be apt to prove a cushion for the golden
pins of the toilette, and the poor hairdresser will run great risk of
being suspended by her feet from the ceiling.

"Who could have had the audacity to send me this avowal upon the shaft
of an arrow? Could it have been the Nomarch Amoun-Ra who fancies himself
handsomer than the Apollo of the Greeks? What think you, Charmion? Or
perhaps Cheâpsiro, commander of Hermothybia, who is so boastful of his
conquests in the land of Kush? Or is it not more likely to have been
young Sextus, that Roman debauchee who paints his face, lisps in
speaking, and wears sleeves in the fashion of the Persians?"

"Queen, it was none of those. Though you are indeed the fairest of
women, those men only natter you; they do not love you. The Nomarch
Amoun-Ra has chosen himself an idol to which he will be forever
faithful, and that is his own person. The warrior Cheâpsiro thinks of
nothing save the pleasure of recounting his victories. As for Sextus, he
is so seriously occupied with the preparation of a new cosmetic that he
cannot dream of anything else. Besides, he had just purchased some
Laconian dresses, a number of yellow tunics embroidered with gold, and
some Asiatic children which absorb all his time. Not one of those fine
lords would risk his head in so daring and dangerous an undertaking;
they do not love you well enough for that.

"Yesterday, in your cangia, you said that men dared not fix their
dazzled eyes upon you; that they knew only how to turn pale in your
presence, to fall at your feet and supplicate your mercy; and that your
sole remaining resource would be to awake some ancient, bitumen-perfumed
Pharaoh from his gilded coffin. Now here is an ardent and youthful heart
that loves you. What will you do with it?"

Cleopatra that night sought slumber in vain. She tossed feverishly upon
her couch, and long and vainly invoked Morpheus, the brother of Death.
She incessantly repeated that she was the most unhappy of queens, that
every one sought to persecute her, and that her life had become
insupportable; woeful lamentations which had little effect upon
Charmion, although she pretended to sympathize with them.

Let us for a while leave Cleopatra to seek fugitive sleep, and direct
her suspicions successively upon each noble of the court. Let us return
to Meïamoun, and as we are much more sagacious than Phrehipephbour,
chief of the rowers, we shall have no difficulty in finding him.

Terrified at his own hardihood, Meïamoun had thrown himself into the
Nile, and had succeeded in swimming the current and gaining the little
grove of dhoum-palms before Phrehipephbour had even launched the two
boats in pursuit of him.

When he had recovered breath, and brushed back his long black locks, all
damp with river foam, behind his ears, he began to feel more at ease,
more inwardly calm. Cleopatra possessed something which had come from
him; some sort of communication was now established between them.
Cleopatra was thinking of him, Meïamoun. Perhaps that thought might be
one of wrath; but then he had at least been able to awake some feeling
within her, whether of fear, anger, or pity. He had forced her to the
consciousness of his existence. It was true that he had forgotten to
inscribe his name upon the papyrus scroll, but what more of him could
the queen have learned from the inscription,
Meïamoun, Son of
Mandouschopsh
? In her eyes the slave and the monarch were equal. A
goddess in choosing a peasant for her lover stoops no lower than in
choosing a patrician or a king. The Immortals from a height so lofty can
behold only love in the man of their choice.