Die Schwestern. English Read online

  CHAPTER I.

  On the wide, desert plain of the Necropolis of Memphis stands theextensive and stately pile of masonry which constitutes the Greek templeof Serapis; by its side are the smaller sanctuaries of Asclepios, ofAnubis and of Astarte, and a row of long, low houses, built of unburntbricks, stretches away behind them as a troop of beggar children mightfollow in the train of some splendidly attired king.

  The more dazzlingly brilliant the smooth, yellow sandstone walls of thetemple appear in the light of the morning sun, the more squalid and meando the dingy houses look as they crouch in the outskirts. When the windsblow round them and the hot sunbeams fall upon them, the dust risesfrom them in clouds as from a dry path swept by the gale. Even the roomsinside are never plastered, and as the bricks are of dried Nile-mudmixed with chopped straw, of which the sharp little ends stick out fromthe wall in every direction, the surface is as disagreeable to touch asit is unpleasing to look at. When they were first built on the groundbetween the temple itself and the wall which encloses the precincts, andwhich, on the eastern side, divides the acacia-grove of Serapis in half,they were concealed from the votaries visiting the temple by the backwall of a colonnade on the eastern side of the great forecourt; but aportion of this colonnade has now fallen down, and through the breach,part of these modest structures are plainly visible with their doorsand windows opening towards the sanctuary--or, to speak more accurately,certain rudely constructed openings for looking out of or for enteringby. Where there is a door there is no window, and where a gap inthe wall serves for a window, a door is dispensed with; none of thechambers, however, of this long row of low one-storied buildingscommunicate with each other.

  A narrow and well-trodden path leads through the breach in the wall; thepebbles are thickly strewn with brown dust, and the footway leads pastquantities of blocks of stone and portions of columns destined for theconstruction of a new building which seems only to have been intermittedthe night before, for mallets and levers lie on and near the variousmaterials. This path leads directly to the little brick houses, and endsat a small closed wooden door so roughly joined and so ill-hung thatbetween it and the threshold, which is only raised a few inches abovethe ground, a fine gray cat contrives to squeeze herself through byputting down her head and rubbing through the dust. As soon as shefinds herself once more erect on her four legs she proceeds to clean andsmooth her ruffled fur, putting up her back, and glancing with gleamingeyes at the house she has just left, behind which at this moment the sunis rising; blinded by its bright rays she turns away and goes on withcautious and silent tread into the court of the temple.

  The hovel out of which pussy has crept is small and barely furnished; itwould be perfectly dark too, but that the holes in the roof and the riftin the door admit light into this most squalid room. There is nothingstanding against its rough gray walls but a wooden chest, near this afew earthen bowls stand on the ground with a wooden cup and a gracefullywrought jug of pure and shining gold, which looks strangely out of placeamong such humble accessories. Quite in the background lie two mats ofwoven bast, each covered with a sheepskin. These are the beds of the twogirls who inhabit the room, one of whom is now sitting on a low stoolmade of palm-branches, and she yawns as she begins to arrange her longand shining brown hair. She is not particularly skilful and even lesspatient over this not very easy task, and presently, when a fresh tanglechecks the horn comb with which she is dressing it, she tosses the combon to the couch. She has not pulled it through her hair with any hastenor with much force, but she shuts her eyes so tightly and sets herwhite teeth so firmly in her red dewy lip that it might be supposed thatshe had hurt herself very much.

  A shuffling step is now audible outside the door; she opens wide hertawny-hazel eyes, that have a look of gazing on the world in surprise,a smile parts her lips and her whole aspect is as completely changed asthat of a butterfly which escapes from the shade into the sunshine wherethe bright beams are reflected in the metallic lustre of its wings.

  A hasty hand knocks at the ill-hung door, so roughly that it trembles onits hinges, and the instant after a wooden trencher is shoved in throughthe wide chink by which the cat made her escape; on it are a thinround cake of bread and a shallow earthen saucer containing a littleolive-oil; there is no more than might perhaps be contained in half anordinary egg-shell, but it looks fresh and sweet, and shines in clear,golden purity. The girl goes to the door, pulls in the platter, and, asshe measures the allowance with a glance, exclaims half in lament andhalf in reproach:

  "So little! and is that for both of us?"

  As she speaks her expressive features have changed again and herflashing eyes are directed towards the door with a glance of as muchdismay as though the sun and stars had been suddenly extinguished; andyet her only grief is the smallness of the loaf, which certainly ishardly large enough to stay the hunger of one young creature--and twomust share it; what is a mere nothing in one man's life, to another maybe of great consequence and of terrible significance.

  The reproachful complaint is heard by the messenger outside the door,for the old woman who shoved in the trencher over the threshold answersquickly but not crossly.

  "Nothing more to-day, Irene."

  "It is disgraceful," cries the girl, her eyes filling with tears, "everyday the loaf grows smaller, and if we were sparrows we should not haveenough to satisfy us. You know what is due to us and I will never ceaseto complain and petition. Serapion shall draw up a fresh address for us,and when the king knows how shamefully we are treated--"

  "Aye! when he knows," interrupted the old woman. "But the cry of thepoor is tossed about by many winds before it reaches the king's ear. Imight find a shorter way than that for you and your sister if fastingcomes so much amiss to you. Girls with faces like hers and yours, mylittle Irene, need never come to want."

  "And pray what is my face like?" asked the girl, and her pretty featuresonce more seemed to catch a gleam of sunshine.

  "Why, so handsome that you may always venture to show it beside yoursister's; and yesterday, in the procession, the great Roman sitting bythe queen looked as often at her as at Cleopatra herself. If you hadbeen there too he would not have had a glance for the queen, for you area pretty thing, as I can tell you. And there are many girls would soonerhear those words then have a whole loaf--besides you have a mirror Isuppose, look in that next time you are hungry."

  The old woman's shuffling steps retreated again and the girl snatched upthe golden jar, opened the door a little way to let in the daylight andlooked at herself in the bright surface; but the curve of the costlyvase showed her features all distorted, and she gaily breathed on thehideous travestie that met her eyes, so that it was all blurred out bythe moisture. Then she smilingly put down the jar, and opening the chesttook from it a small metal mirror into which she looked again and yetagain, arranging her shining hair first in one way and then in another;and she only laid it down when she remembered a certain bunch of violetswhich had attracted her attention when she first woke, and which musthave been placed in their saucer of water by her sister some time theday before. Without pausing to consider she took up the softly scentedblossoms, dried their green stems on her dress, took up the mirror againand stuck the flowers in her hair.

  How bright her eyes were now, and how contentedly she put out her handfor the loaf. And how fair were the visions that rose before her youngfancy as she broke off one piece after another and hastily eat themafter slightly moistening them with the fresh oil. Once, at the festivalof the New Year, she had had a glimpse into the king's tent, and thereshe had seen men and women feasting as they reclined on purple cushions.Now she dreamed of tables covered with costly vessels, was served infancy by boys crowned with flowers, heard the music of flutes and harpsand--for she was no more than a child and had such a vigorous youngappetite--pictured herself as selecting the daintiest and sweetestmorsels out of dishes of solid gold and eating till she was satisfied,aye so perfectly satisfied that the very last mouthful of bread and thevery l
ast drop of oil had disappeared.

  But so soon as her hand found nothing more on the empty trencher thebright illusion vanished, and she looked with dismay into the emptyoil-cup and at the place where just now the bread had been.

  "Ah!" she sighed from the bottom of her heart; then she turned theplatter over as though it might be possible to find some more breadand oil on the other side of it, but finally shaking her head she satlooking thoughtfully into her lap; only for a few minutes however,for the door opened and the slim form of her sister Klea appeared, thesister whose meagre rations she had dreamily eaten up, and Klea had beensitting up half the night sewing for her, and then had gone outbefore sunrise to fetch water from the Well of the Sun for the morningsacrifice at the altar of Serapis.

  Klea greeted her sister with a loving glance but without speaking; sheseemed too exhausted for words and she wiped the drops from her foreheadwith the linen veil that covered the back of her head as she seatedherself on the lid of the chest. Irene immediately glanced at the emptytrencher, considering whether she had best confess her guilt to thewearied girl and beg for forgiveness, or divert the scolding she haddeserved by some jest, as she had often succeeded in doing before. Thisseemed the easier course and she adopted it at once; she went up to hersister quickly, but not quite unconcernedly, and said with mock gravity:

  "Look here, Klea, don't you notice anything in me? I must look likea crocodile that has eaten a whole hippopotamus, or one of the sacredsnakes after it has swallowed a rabbit. Only think when I had eaten myown bread I found yours between my teeth--quite unexpectedly--but now--"

  Klea, thus addressed, glanced at the empty platter and interrupted hersister with a low-toned exclamation. "Oh! I was so hungry."

  The words expressed no reproof, only utter exhaustion, and as the youngcriminal looked at her sister and saw her sitting there, tired and wornout but submitting to the injury that had been done her without a wordof complaint, her heart, easily touched, was filled with compunction andregret. She burst into tears and threw herself on the ground before her,clasping her knees and crying, in a voice broken with sobs:

  "Oh Klea! poor, dear Klea, what have I done! but indeed I did not meanany harm. I don't know how it happened. Whatever I feel prompted to do Ido, I can't help doing it, and it is not till it is done that I begin toknow whether it was right or wrong. You sat up and worried yourself forme, and this is how I repay you--I am a bad girl! But you shall not gohungry--no, you shall not."

  "Never mind; never mind," said the elder, and she stroked her sister'sbrown hair with a loving hand.

  But as she did so she came upon the violets fastened among the shiningtresses. Her lips quivered and her weary expression changed as shetouched the flowers and glanced at the empty saucer in which she hadcarefully placed them the clay before. Irene at once perceived thechange in her sister's face, and thinking only that she was surprised ather pretty adornment, she said gaily: "Do you think the flowers becomingto me?"

  Klea's hand was already extended to take the violets out of the brownplaits, for her sister was still kneeling before her, but at thisquestion her arm dropped, and she said more positively and distinctlythan she had yet spoken and in a voice, whose sonorous but musical toneswere almost masculine and certainly remarkable in a girl:

  "The bunch of flowers belongs to me; but keep it till it is faded, bymid-day, and then return it to me."

  "It belongs to you?" repeated the younger girl, raising her eyes insurprise to her sister, for to this hour what had been Klea's had beenhers also. "But I always used to take the flowers you brought home; whatis there special in these?"

  "They are only violets like any other violets," replied Klea coloringdeeply. "But the queen has worn them."

  "The queen!" cried her sister springing to her feet and clasping herhands in astonishment. "She gave you the flowers? And you never told metill now? To be sure when you came home from the procession yesterdayyou only asked me how my foot was and whether my clothes were whole andthen not another mortal word did you utter. Did Cleopatra herself giveyou this bunch?"

  "How should she?" retorted Klea. "One of her escort threw them tome; but drop the subject pray! Give me the water, please, my mouth isparched and I can hardly speak for thirst."

  The bright color dyed her cheeks again as she spoke, but Irene did notobserve it, for--delighted to make up for her evil doings by performingsome little service--she ran to fetch the water-jar; while Klea filledand emptied her wooden bowl she said, gracefully lifting a small foot,to show to her sister:

  "Look, the cut is almost healed and I can wear my sandal again. NowI shall tie it on and go and ask Serapion for some bread for you andperhaps he will give us a few dates. Please loosen the straps for mea little, here, round the ankle, my skin is so thin and tender that alittle thing hurts me which you would hardly feel. At mid-day I will gowith you and help fill the jars for the altar, and later in the day Ican accompany you in the procession which was postponed from yesterday.If only the queen and the great foreigner should come again to lookon at it! That would be splendid! Now, I am going, and before you havedrunk the last bowl of water you shall have some bread, for I will coaxthe old man so prettily that he can't say 'no.'"

  Irene opened the door, and as the broad sunlight fell in it lighted uptints of gold in her chestnut hair, and her sister looking after hercould almost fancy that the sunbeams had got entangled with the wavingglory round her head. The bunch of violets was the last thing she tooknote of as Irene went out into the open air; then she was alone and sheshook her head gently as she said to herself: "I give up everything toher and what I have left she takes from me. Three times have I met theRoman, yesterday he gave me the violets, and I did want to keep thosefor myself--and now--" As she spoke she clasped the bowl she still heldin her hand closely to her and her lips trembled pitifully, but only foran instant; she drew herself up and said firmly: "But it is all as itshould be."

  Then she was silent; she set down the water-jar on the chest by herside, passed the back of her hand across her forehead as if her headwere aching, then, as she sat gazing down dreamily into her lap, herweary head presently fell on her shoulder and she was asleep.