Last Days With Cleopatra

Jack Lindsay

© Jack Lindsay 1935

Jack Lindsay has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in 1935 by The Edinburgh Press

This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

A YEAR ENDS - OCTOBER – DECEMBER 31 B.C.

1 LOVERS MEETING LOVERS PARTING

2 ALONE

3 TELL ME THE TRUTH

4 THIS IS MY BODY

5 TEMPTATION

6 A CHILD IS BORN

ANOTHER YEAR COMES - MARCH-OCTOBER 30 B.C.

7 ON A HEIGHT

8 COMING OF AGE

9 FORLORN HOPE

10 BETRAYAL

11 A WORLD DIES

12 A CHILD IS BORN

FOREWORD

A foreword to a novel always seems rather portentous; but as there are a few things I wish to say on the three books which I have written about the period of Roman history 63-30 B.C., I am taking the risk, though well aware that the books cannot be made better (and I hope cannot be made worse) by anything I say about them.

I began the closer scrutiny of this period when working on the poems of Catullus; and being led to consider the general political background at a time when I was essaying novel-form, I felt certain narrative themes demand my attention. First, the revolutionary movement and the part played by Catilina; secondly, the religious impulse which resulted in Caesar-worship; thirdly, the balance of forces which out of the conflict produced the Roman Empire and (consequently) modern Europe. I felt the general drama of the period, its tangle of forces, its spiritual mass, long before any themes emerged; for I always, to use the pictorial analogy, work from mass towards outline, from character-impact towards structure or plot. But I had no particular intention. I felt all kinds of correspondences with the present day and, beyond any details, the abiding significance of a great revolutionary epoch. Since this epoch created Europe (for the Roman State and Christianity were alike its products), it seemed to me the most important epoch in history and some understanding of it to be essential to any understanding of the modern world.

From that general attitude I began on Catilina. The more I looked at the movement which he headed, the clearer did it seem to me that there lay the clue, the human dynamic. I could defend this thesis in detail, but there is no space for such argument here. I felt in Catilina the Roman race reasserting itself, striving incoherently for a reversal of values in order to rediscover the core of the old values. (For it seems to me that all history records the clash of two impulses—that of brotherhood and that of individual rights—and that each impulse has its peculiar righteousness and tyranny, because the need for individual self-perfection and purification has never yet been able to harmonise with the racial need for solidarity and social interdependence. Therefore history reveals a perpetual oscillation, since when one impulse develops its tyranny the other impulse gathers power and promises redemption. Thus, when “liberty” develops into commercialism, there is necessarily generated a need for “justice” which calls out for the totalitarian state; and so on.)

The devotion of “brotherhood” came to a head in Catilina, and left an irresistible revolutionary force at the disposal of Caesar, upon whom the loosened emotions and needs torrentially poured. Such a loosening must be short-lived by its very nature, and the man who attracts to himself the pouring must be a powerful individual who can dictate the terms on which the revulsion, the inevitable contraction and reconstruction, is to proceed.

Caesar became the “race-hero,” dictated his terms to the future, and then was torn to pieces by the storm of forces.

It is here that there intrudes the specifically religious emotion which needs a “divine king dying” to satisfy its terrors and to give life significance. And it is here that we see the relation between Christianity and the Caesar-cult; for the murder and deification of Caesar quickened and gave an immediacy of appeal to the passion-dramas of the Mysteries, turning the race-brotherhood emotion (which is simple in Catilina) into a recoil of individualism and the need of a Saviour historical in existence but more closely related to the moral problems of the suffering individual than the deified Caesar could ever be.

For, beyond the destructive terror-of-the-dead (still as potent an element in religion and the “psychopathology of everyday life” as under the Pharaohs), there is the positive side of religion which is clearer, I think, in these earlier days than now when art, sport, and politics usurp so much of the deeper elements of what would once have been “religious emotion.” The positive side of this old religion sought to give ritualistic expression to the great crises of life, birth and puberty, marriage and death; it thus still included, to a great extent, drama; it sought to be a mirror of experience. to reflect things, in Spinoza’s phrase, sub specie aternitatis: that is, in the fullness of their organic changes.

As I have said, I had no theses to work out in these books, I merely strove to find out what I really thought about the period by realising it, to the best of my ability, as human action, as symbolic action, as a story.

I find, however, as I review what I have written, that beside the various political threads, there is certainly the thesis of individual and race. In Catilina the race-call grows overpowering, smashing up all who come within its area of action; in Caesar the race-hero is finalised; but in the process a new stimulation to the individual is given (which is why, unconsciously, I gave the stress to Gallus and Cytheris, Amos and Karni, in Cesar is Dead).

The hero-image, achieved, splits into rivalry: Antonius and Octavianus. The mad side (unleashed energy) of Guar diverges into Antonius, for a moment serving its race-purpose; then the saner side (the wish to construct with a minimum of waste, to give the individual the chance to develop) asserts itself in Octavianus.

(It will be seen, by the way I use “mad” and “saner,” that I cannot but take, in the last resort, the side of the individual; yet sub specie eternitatis such terms allot no variation of praise or blame.)

The third book, this book, is the expression of the cleavage and its aftermath. The figure of unleashed energy, Antonius, after carrying all before him in glorious power, suddenly finds himself lost, for all his resistances have been dissipated. He fails, because he has no longer a fulcrum with which to shift the earth that he has apparently mastered; and his antagonist, embodying the revulsion, effortlessly triumphs.

That is why, I see, I have built this novel on the young lovers. They are the individuals struggling to realise their small lives as the universe, and they are. as important as any protagonists of the history which, after all, exists only in order to give them a foothold. In them life is beginning anew. Absorbed in their personal affairs, they are the counter-balance to Catilina absorbed in the outgoing brotherhood-call; yet the race is getting at them through Isis and the child.

But, I must repeat, this is all analysis after the event, and I make it as I might of somebody else’s work. I didn’t write to prove anything, since I can’t see how anything can be abstractly proved about life or needs to be so proved.

The trilogy might, it follows from what I have said, be named, A Prelude to Christianity, since it shows the stage of things from which Christianity necessarily resulted.

It might also be called Prelude to the Future written 1933-1934 a sketch of the forces at work at this moment when the human species is undergoing the shock and instability of another great “interbreeding”; for with the developed human organism the interbreeding of ideas is almost as violent in effects as the interbreeding of bodies which it precedes and accompanies: as witness the present changes taking place in the “unchanging East.”

I should like to say that I have spared no effort to make every historical and social detail as exact and correct as possible. Thus, it is not through a whim of mine that Antonius gives no speech at Caesar’s funeral in Caesar is Dead. I do not know how anyone who reads Cicero’s letters and speeches carefully can fail to see that Suetonius gives the true account of the funeral: which is the one I offer. In inventing domestic backgrounds for the historically known characters I have tried to build on the evidence. Thus, the character of Brutus and his relations with his wife and mother (Caesar is Dead) are based on the picture given in Cicero’s letters: written, we must remember, in the heat of the events and therefore doubly valuable as evidence.

JACK LINDSAY.

A YEAR ENDS - OCTOBER – DECEMBER 31 B.C.

1 LOVERS MEETING LOVERS PARTING

The fashionably dressed women were peering round to see if Queen Cleopatra would arrive after all. They whispered and nudged one another, smoothing down their embroidered blouse-fronts and settling the pleats of their skirts. The men, who accompanied them, tried to keep them quiet, and frowned at the eager whisperings which every now and then became audible, stimulated by a particular piece of malicious comment. What would the Queen wear? would the ladies in violet be able to sneer at the ladies in green, or would the ladies in scarlet be the lucky ones? and was it true that side-curls were to be worn?

The Chapel of Adonis was stuffy with heat and sweat discreetly sweetened with toilet-perfumes. Everyone had discussed to the verge of boredom the decorations and the works of art. There was hardly anything new or notable, except a statuette of Aphrodite with gilt hair, eyes of emerald, and mouth and nipples of ruby. That was worth seeing; perhaps it would set a new mode in evening-wear; the price of gilt wigs would increase, and the toilet-manufacturers would be busy experimenting for the right ruby dye. Every woman in the Chapel had asked her husband how he thought the colour-scheme would suit her; and most of the husbands .had stupidly replied that as yet, thank Zeus, beauty specialists hadn’t found a way of dyeing women’s eyes green, or any other colour. When that day came, it would be a clever man who knew his wife anywhere except in the dark.

The same old things. The tapestries depicting the passion of Adonis: the wooing by Aphrodite, the onslaught by the boar, Aphrodite’s lamentations, the resurrection of the son-beloved. Statues in fresh gowns, and votive tablets, and paintings. On two elaborately carved couches, piled with purple cushions, lay the images of the lovers, two wooden statues realistically tinted and dressed in fine clothes. Their gaudy eyes stared at the select gathering in the Chapel, over the heaps of apples and figs, cakes, roses and lilies in pots. Above the couches was twined a bower of myrtle and anise, and among the leaves were perched tame birds, one of which, a pigeon, had discoloured with a dropping the brown hair of Adonis.

The ladies, who had obtained all the front positions, whispered together, wondering (wide-eyed, loose-lipped) how it was that so-and-so dared to appear in public (in a new dress) when it was notorious that two nights ago she’d been discovered in adultery (without a dress at all, certainly not this dress hand-painted with a boar-pattern). But even the question of so-and-so’s impudence was trivial before the question whether the Queen would arrive, Marcus Antonius at her side.

Victor, a page, standing a few paces inside the door could have answered that question. He knew that the Queen would not be coming; and was sorry that he’d come himself. Let off duty, he’d been passing out of the palace-area and noticed the crowd pushing into the Chapel; joined out of curiosity and now wanted to get out again. Around the door were some poorer women, mostly Greeks, though with a sprinkling of inquisitive Egyptians and Syrians; but the attendants were roughly keeping this section of the worshippers in their place, while finding room for any better-dressed Greeks. The Adonia was a Greek rite, and the upper classes must be given the first chance of paying respects to the couched deities and of gushing over the prettiness of the decor.

What a waste of time. But then everything was waste of time. Victor wanted to waste his time elsewhere. The crush, the close heat, the quantity of women (so many and so much of them), irritated him.

Then he saw nearby a poorly clad woman with an earthen pot clasped to her bosom. The pot held some tiny flower, and the woman was clasping it with an agonised care as the attendant jostled her. With a start Victor realised that the ceremony was serious, or had been once. What did it mean to the woman with the flower-pot? He wanted to ask her, but had no intention of asking. One couldn’t ask such questions. Besides, she probably wouldn’t know. But certainly she hadn’t come for the same reasons as the women who were waiting for the highly paid singer who was to sing the Dirge.

The thought was somehow discomforting; the woman with the pot was worse than the others. Victor found the moral courage to start shoving his way out. He felt ashamed of what was going on, though he didn’t know why. The people shouldn’t be waiting for a trained virtuoso to sing for them; they ought to be singing themselves if they cared. What was Adonis to them? But the poor woman cared. She’d be ready to sing, in a cracked voice. Victor’s ears burned. He disliked sleek women chattering and bony women with religious eyes. However, the hymn of worship shouldn’t have become a concert performance.

As he struggled to get out, he saw that a singer had appeared beside the bower in which lay the lovers of painted wood. She was bowing before the rustling audience, clearing her throat. The two harpers were gravely testing their strings. Like the twittering women. A priest was fidgeting and blinking; trying to rebuke the talkative women in the front row. Then came the clear voice, beautiful indeed, though Victor hated it because everything seemed all wrong:

O pity the Mother, who cries in her loss.

O my child, she cries, my lover, my priest,

she cries for the herb that fails to grow in the earth,

she cries for the fields of the earth where no corn is growing,

she cries for the pool of fish, where no fish are found,

a weary woman, a weary child, undelivered.

Victor, struggling out, felt a sudden sweetness in his blood; the beautiful voice wrenched at his heart-strings; but it was a bought voice, and nobody cared, and those who did care were unpleasant. He refused to listen, and listened. He disliked the smell of the crowd; the veil of perfumes staling and wearing thin, stripping the pretence of difference from the lady; and the incense. No wonder the birds had ceased to hop about in the bower, and perched as if drugged. Why didn’t they cry out in scorn, all together?

As he passed the woman with the flower-pot, he saw again her rapt face. She at least was satisfied. (For her the death and resurrection of Adonis gave the meaning of life, penetrating her drab existence and sanctifying it. On the bed of marriage, conceiving or bearing, she was the stricken earth-woman; and she died with the gored lover, the child who was part of her body. And she came back to the light of warmth with the seasonal earth, and knew nothing about it at all except that she was made blessed by the wedding and the dying and the rebirth of the divine ones.) She beat her breast with the disengaged hand in time to the music; her heart pulsing in time with the heart of life.

“Old fool,” muttered Victor; and wrenched himself into the open, among the late-comers and the beggars, the children and the sellers of Aphrodite-plaques, a girl offering wreaths and two drunken soldiers arguing with an attendant. The world was still the same. Well-kept gravel-paths and noisy people; and nowhere to go. But not quite the same world.

*

Sometimes one hears a remark meant for the ears of another, and takes no heed of it; and then later it returns with abrupt insistence, as if it had been significantly aimed at oneself. That was how Victor felt. Marcus Antonius had been talking with his philosopher-friend Aristocrates, who had said: “Religion is the attempt to make the pattern of natural process self-conscious. It hasn’t anything to do with a belief.” Somehow the words seemed to explain things; to explain why Victor had been so uncomfortable and discontented in the Chapel. The words bothered Victor, repeated themselves in his mind, though he couldn’t understand them. They insisted on being understood; challenged him; had a meaning which told why he’d entered the Chapel and why he’d gone out again. Why he was wretched.

He’d never questioned his emotions in this way before, and now life had grown full of doubts. He was wretched. For he was a slave, and he loved his master Marcus Antonius, Autocrator. Today had been a bad day for Antonius. He had been so boisterously good-natured at rising, unexpectedly gay with hope after days of depression; he had wrestled and played with Victor and Eros, his favourite pages. Then had come news of a galley’s arrival from Greece. Antonius had tried not to show interest; he had talked of what he meant to do with the legions left behind in Greece at Actium. He’d garrison Asia with them; he’d create a great Eastern Empire. What was Rome, a malarious country-town? The West was barbarous. But perhaps he’d sail later on for Spain, where the tribes were still ready to rebel, and there he’d establish a branch of his empire.

“Halfway-house to the Blessed Isles of the West, my lads!”

Then had come the messenger with the tidings that the seven legions deserted at Actium had surrendered. For a week they’d refused to believe that Antonius had sailed away to Egypt after the sea-fight. Then in bewildered despair they had thrown down their arms.

Antonius said nothing when he heard. He opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. He sat down heavily in a chair and gripped the arm-rests, and Victor had seen two big tears well out from under his eyelids. He waved the pages away, said nothing, refused to see anyone. He seemed to be dazed. There was a blank suffering in his eyes. Several times he tried to speak, but failed.

Victor knew nothing of politics or the forces involved in the war. He merely knew that Antonius was crushed, and the knowledge made him wretched.

Eros, a handsome fair-haired lad, had tried to console Antonius; but Antonius turned on him one look of terrible appeal and anguish, and motioned him away. The pages left the room. Once outside, Eros abused Cleopatra in his slightly prim voice, and today the primness had grated on Victor. Perhaps Cleopatra was to blame; perhaps it was Fate. What did it matter? The blow had come. Victor tried to comprehend how Antonius could have hoped for different news. He had heard Cleopatra say once: “We can count those legions as lost.” She spoke tentatively, with a sidelong glance.

“Of course not,” said Antonius harshly. “They’ll obey the orders I sent from Cape Tainaros. They’ll march across to Bithynia. I’ll stake my life on it.”

His voice was thick, unpleasant with a dark hint of self-pity. Victor could see how much depended for him on what the legions did; but he had felt that Cleopatra was right. And now the message had come.

“She dyes her hair,” said Eros, somewhat shrilly. He was always making remarks about Cleopatra’s looks; Victor was annoyed, he’d never even noticed himself what colour Cleopatra’s hair was. Eros went on with a sneer, “Eiras told me that she has a special henna-wash with melted copper-filings in it. That’s where she gets her summery glow. Who wouldn’t?”

“O shut up,” replied Victor, roused to unwonted self-assertion; and walked away.

There was nothing to do, and never had he felt so lonely. But he was free for some hours; other pages were in attendance; and he wanted to lose himself in the bustling city of Alexandria.

Cleopatra would be with Antonius now, even though he had given orders that no one was to be admitted. They’d be quarrelling, of course; perhaps also embracing. At least one didn’t feel lonely while one quarrelled. Victor had nobody to quarrel with except Eros, and such a quarrel would bring no satisfaction; Eros was too conceited. Neither could Victor lose himself in mourning for Adonis, a pretty boy statue suggestive of Eros, or in watching the sleek-armed ladies who wondered why the Queen didn’t come.

The Queen was swearing at her lover; and she could swear foully when she felt that way. She was arguing, explaining, bringing out further plans, accusing, defending herself, refusing to be touched. She hadn’t any time to go ahead restoring confidence among the upper classes of Alexandria by a state appearance in the Chapel. For a moment Victor hated her like Eros, and then felt it foolish to hate her. He knew nothing about her at all. He’d only been with Antonius two years, moving about Syria, Asia, and Greece; and he accepted Cleopatra as a settled part of the new life into which he’d been plunged, taking no notice of all the political gossip that Eros loved. Once he’d seen Antonius and Cleopatra sleeping in one another’s arms (he’d seen them sleeping thus often, but had never really looked at them before), and they seemed old and tired, yet infinitely happy. And the happiness had wiped out their age and tiredness; at a second glance they’d seemed peaceably contented, neither old nor young; and Victor had been painfully envious. But not as Eros envied. Victor didn’t mind them having their happiness. He simply wanted to have the same thing for himself.

Today that emotion had returned, stronger. But how was a slave to find happiness? He could only share at second-hand the lot of his masters, their joys and their sorrows. It would be better to worship Adonis, since all experience was to be at second-hand; to see one’s life only in the life of the saviour-god, dying and resurrected.

The thought came suddenly; and Victor halted. He was beginning to understand, without knowing it. Else, where had the thought come from?

He walked on quickly, as if to escape from such thoughts, growing afraid of the Chapel and its gods of painted wood, who seemed to be claiming him. He wanted a different kind of life, arid didn’t know what kind he rejected, what kind he wanted.

*

The park was thick with people who wished to have a look at Adonis after the recital; nurse-maids and soldiers; gardeners guarding the flower-beds; and children. Victor disliked the children most of all. He never felt at ease in their presence, and was unable to play with them or to fondle them as other people did, without becoming painfully self-conscious. He passed out of one of the gates into the Avenue of the Tucheion. Still there were people everywhere, and what crowd so noisy and restless as an Alexandrian crowd? Shoppers and loungers filled the pavements and the porticoes; officers on horseback waved gaily to innumerable woman-friends; carriages, some small and trim with a single cropped glistening horse, others four-in-hand, drove past with stately speed. Despite the byelaws, men with barrows or panniered asses tried to sell their goods, to the rage of the shopkeepers. Roman legionaries and eastern auxiliaries bawled insults at one another, or joined voices to slander a group of the household troops. Slaves threaded their way in a slow ambling run. Swarthy Jews stalked past in slightly overstressed dignity, missing nothing. A woman in a litter with transparent curtains (to keep off the dust) a long-cloaked philosopher; merchants and shopkeepers with screwed-up eyes and purses at their sides; office-proud scribes and secretaries; sea-captains with swinging gait; a meditative priest; half-naked Egyptians grinning amiably; a girl with a large black cat on her shoulder; a hermit, travel-stained, come on some business from the settlement below the lake, averting his eyes and rushing to escape as soon as possible the scene of sin; proletarians leaning against the pillars, ready to laugh or to offer any assistance that might produce a tip, to carry luggage across the city or lead the way to a house of ill-fame...Everyone was busy, even the slow-eyed loungers.

Victor was oppressed by the insensate activity, in which he had no part. If he’d had something to do, he’d have enjoyed it all, unaware of his enjoyment, absorbed in the moment of noise and swarming colours, the glare of marble and the bright coolness of the shadows. But, having nothing to do, he felt that all the stirring people around were dull fools, not even intelligent enough to blush at the futility of the things that distracted them.

How could people get so worked-up over the questions of what they wore or what somebody else wore, what they ate or what somebody else ate, what they had to boast about as against somebody else’s boasts? There was nothing to get excited over at all. One wore clothes to keep warm, and ate to keep alive; and everything else was a lie.

Victor had never thought like this before. He grew worried at his own captiousness. It must be the result of having listened too much to the talk of Aristocrates. Antonius had been so depressed for weeks, and he’d spent the time talking with Aristocrates, debating whether life was worth living. Aristocrates maintained that to make the query was to be already frustrated; life was only worth living if it was lived—or something like that.

Victor’s head burned confusedly with the unusual effort of thought. First the despair of Antonius, and Eros so petty, and then all the dressed-up women in the Chapel, fat- checked with paint and heated. Worst of all, the woman clutching the flower-pot as if rapt to heaven. Because Adonis died for her. She seemed to know something, but so did everyone. Everyone seemed to know something except oneself. Why hadn’t Adonis died for Victor? Perhaps he had.

Aristocrates had explained that, or something like it. Victor wished he’d listened more carefully. At the time he hadn’t had the least interest in the arguments, except that he’d wanted Antonius to be pleased; but now they seemed the most important thing in the world. Aristocrates had said something about life being a dance, or a pattern like the stars in the sky. Self-sufficient. Not merely like the animals, though they were rather better than most human beings. Man was the only animal who could dance, ritually dance; his life could become a divine pattern, was divine already if one could only see into it. Into what?

Victor gave up trying to think the problem out. What was the use? Antonius talked for weeks about the divine dance of the stars and ended by sitting dumb in his chair, waving his hand helplessly like a child.

But Cleopatra would be with him now. Victor knew how she would stare at the frightened door-slave who’d say he had orders to admit no one. She wouldn’t answer; she’d walk straight into the room. And Antonius would return to life, even if only to abuse and weep, to beseech and curse.

Victor looked at the women in the street. The more mature women he didn’t care for. They scared him somewhat; they seemed too sure of themselves, too well fed, too weighty and loose—except for the scraggy ones, but at those he didn’t look at all. The younger girls were better. But they were either too cheeky and bright-eyed, or too palely shy. The shy ones were beyond his hands and thoughts, respectable girls whom he dared not address. The cheeky ones were the common girls, who repelled him in his lonely mood. He wanted someone who would understand his loneliness and so be able to end it. Surely Antonius and Cleopatra understood one another, even if they exchanged insults and recriminations; they finished in each other’s arms and were peaceful for an hour or two, blissfully peaceful. That was why they still lived, still found life worth living. Aristocrates was a fool with all his reasons.

The woman with the flower-pot had Adonis, Antonius had Cleopatra. Was that all that Aristocrates had meant? Then why couldn’t he say so? One needed another person as a mirror. One needed to be glorified in somebody or something else. In the earth, as the woman whose body was the flower-pot of Adonis. In the beloved, as Antonius, who found his rage and his need of peace reflected in Cleopatra moving about the room near to him.

Dimly these ideas wavered across Victor’s brain, obscure miseries and desires, veiled images of agitated memory, given an indecisive shape by the rhetoric of Aristocrates. He knew only that he was lonely.

A girl passed, full-limbed, dressed in a single cotton shift. An Arab girl with an oval face. Her brown cheeks had a ruddy glow and her mouth was darkly red. She reminded Victor of a girl known two years ago; and he turned to follow her, to ask how she had come to Alexandria. But he stopped. It wasn’t the same girl, it couldn’t be. There were hundreds with the same kind of face; and as he thought, there seemed no resemblance after all. Not the tenderness at the corner of the eyes. O he mustn’t think. And he didn’t want this Arab girl, even if she’d been ready to speak with him. He didn’t know what he wanted, but it was nothing that offered itself in the crowded streets of Alexandria where a world was gathered. Everything in the world, and nothing.

It was best to watch the ladies in the carriages. They were so soon past, carried out of sight before one could pick flaws. They were impossibly out of reach, looking at no one, and sure that everyone else was looking at them. But their pride angered him at last, though the last thing he wished was that one of them should notice him and his admiration. He came out of the residential area into which he had strayed: where row after row of smart Greek houses, built with the regulation space of a foot between, stretched as far as the eye could see. Back into the main-street.

How closed were the lives of people. Victor gazed on the faces sullen or merry, and they were all equally closed. Equally they told him nothing, would refuse to tell him anything, however much he gazed, whatever words he said. And he knew that his own face was as closed against all the others; reluctantly, obstinately closed.

A blind beggar with a dog, and then a girl with a heavy parcel, her lips moving as she repeated to herself some message under her breath. Or she was witless. It wasn’t worth while looking at people; there was only this kind of thing to see.

Victor went off down a side-street westwards; but though there were less people, the crush was as great, since the street was narrower. Shops and shops, workshops and manufactories; shuttered and garlanded houses; and somewhere flutes playing. Alexandria pulsed with life; and Victor, hungry for life, loathed it all.

Then he was in the Street of the Sema, and set off southwards, passing the great Mausoleum building wherein lay the embalmed body of Alexandros the Macedonian, surrounded by the dead Ptolemaioi. But dead kings meant no more to him than living street-girls, and he passed by. The Museion opposite attracted him more, but only a little more; and then he forgot Muses and argumentative philosophers and the young god Adonis dying for an audience of well-dressed ladies critical of the lament-singer’s style. The wind was blowing from the sea, and he felt refreshed. He walked more briskly, and his mind responded to the body’s rhythm, growing easier and less troubled. Why did he want to own more than himself? All mirrors lied. Wasn’t it better to be alone than a wailing Antonius chastised into a weary peace, a snare of engulfing embraces?

He raised his chin and looked steadily around, no slave.

He wanted nothing but to enjoy the movement of his body down the street of the wind. To preserve his loneliness, never to be drawn into the whirlpool ceaselessly devouring, into the blindness and the craving, the world enslaved. Once a surrender was made, it couldn’t stop; and it was better to be alone, striding through the sea-wind, giving no one the right to possess or to judge one’s life. Something was lost in aloofness, but how much more was lost by surrender—answer, wailing Antonius, king of the world? There was only choice between two losses. Better the sharp renunciation of standing alone, like an escape of u arm music, than the honey-drugged anxieties of those who surrendered to the drama of mating Love and Anti-love. Wasn’t that the phrase of Aristocrates? What did it mean anyway? Nothing, probably. And yet words meant so much, while one listened to them.

He had reached the vast Canopic Way, a hundred feet wide and four miles long, traversing the city from west to east, lined with colonnades and public buildings, and filled with yet more hurrying or lazy people. Today was the Adonia, and even the Egyptians and Jews showed a restive sense of festival. A detachment of palace cavalry, bright in red uniforms, went cantering past, interrupting the other traffic; and people cheered, for no reason except that they liked bright colours. A Jew with broken teeth spat in the gutter. Victor waited for the commotion to subside, watching the Jew in preference to the promenading women; but he learned nothing of what was going on behind the dark deep-set eyes, with lids dropping slightly, the lean fingers combing the long wavy beard, the signet-ring flashing. That was the way. Show nothing. Spit in the gutter.

He crossed the paved roadway, and went on southwards. He knew now where he was going. To the Lake. Space and quiet. There were no such things in the city, its thronged parks and squares, its industrious harbour-side; but around the lake there would be a chance to rest. Walking fast, Victor soon covered the half-mile, and reached the end of the long street where the city wall ran across the Canal, the Dragon River. Passing over the bridge, he saw Lake Mareotis spread before him, glistening broadly and dotted with pleasure-craft.

His heart sank. Was he never to get away?

Turning to the right, he followed the roadway that led between rows of bungalows and food-shops, and gained the edge of the lake. There the papyrus-reeds grew thickly, and he felt more at ease. The clear afternoon drifted its blue over the scene, muffling sound pleasantly in the water-silence. Far ahead could be seen vineyards, stripped of their grape-clusters; and near at hand lotus-lilies opened their wide cups, bosomed in the lake. Men had trodden the grapes in the vats with yelling glee and lewdness, and the wine would be drunk; but no one drank from the lotus-cups offering sunlight, moulded from the breasts of Isis. They trembled in the straining eyes of the gazer, filling with milk of light, spilling their Isis-milk in the rippling waters. But there was no waste. The breasts of the earth did not run dry under the suckling sun, the renewing lover, son and husband.

Whose milk did I drink, O Isis?

Will my lips ever again touch the nipples of a woman?

Many-breasted goddess, the sun is milking the flowers, but I am thirsty. The bees of autumn are drowsy with fullness, but I am weak with dearth. The vines are stripped, but I have no wish for wine; for when my lips are wet, I shall have no one to kiss. Forgive me.

*

Once he thought he had found a retired spot, and almost stumbled over a pair of lovers. In another nook was a family of five children with a blowsy mother. Then there were more houses, mooring-piers and boatsheds; fences of split palings; and villas rustically quaint, with dovecotes, unexpected towers or windows, and sleeping-out places on the roof; villas painted with stripes and ringed with trees to which were attached gilt swings. And always somebody playing music.

The sounds pursued him, little tinkling bells hung in the wind. He couldn’t escape them, however he shook his head. Like a girl with earrings, he made the echoes jingle more loudly. He wanted quiet, to think, to find out what he was thinking, to stop thinking.

Wild duck rose and circled over the reeds. A barge came closer, with someone twanging a lyre. Always music. Blurred by the accompanying water-voices, it was more tolerable, more saddening. Victor wondered what he was seeking, what he was trying to shun. The blossom-eyes of Adonis, the shrill sneer of Eros, the little coarse-lipped Arab girl with eyes that might have grown tender. After all, he wanted to be somewhere on the waters, rocking gently, listening to lyre-music softened by the baby-lisp of the waves.

He passed a plot of beans. Someone poor with a tumble-down hut. Strange that the bean-grower hadn’t been bought out by someone who wanted a lakeside bungalow. Perhaps an obstinate old man who preferred poverty in his own way. Good luck to him. Beyond was a clump of acacia and myrtle, and Victor entered the shadows, pleased at finding his refuge at last, doubtful.

But it wasn’t quiet he found. It was more than leaf-murmur he heard. A girl’s voice, raised in a smothered scream; something crashing; a struggle.

His impulse was to run. He hated all physical conflict, a coward before violence, ashamed of it, feeling somehow that anyone who incurred violence must deserve it. As it was disgraceful to be ill, or to slip and hurt oneself. Suffer in silence. Hadn’t he bitten his wrist and wet his pillow, night after night, years ago?

Now he wanted to run. But a perverse curiosity drew him on, without any intention to help. He moistened his lips. He had the right to do nothing, having suffered in silence. But what of the others who cried out, this girl...He advanced further into the thicket, meaning to see what was happening, impelled by a wish to watch the struggle unseen, to discover why it was that people acted violently, to overlook the struggling girl, to learn something.

In a world of closed faces.

But in his agitation, flurried by the increasing cries, he hastened more than he realised; and before he had time to stop, he found himself in. a small clearing. A girl, half naked, was fighting with a man, pummelling him, her hair falling over her face. She was trying to call out, panting with her efforts.

The wrestling pair heard Victor. They turned and stared at him, pausing, the man’s arm round the girl’s waist. Victor felt foolish. Probably he’d interrupted a lovers’ quarrel, and they’d both turn on him. Served him right for wanting to help. He had wanted to help.

“Get out!” shouted the man, a heavy-jowled lout, an Egyptian half-breed with negroid hair. All that Victor could see was the yellowish whites of his eyes.

“No, no!” called the girl, finding that Victor was about to retreat. She recommenced struggling.

Victor didn’t know what to do. But he couldn’t run away now. He advanced into the clearing.

“Leave her alone,” he said, without firmness.

The man heard the weakness in his voice.

“I told you once to get out. The second time I shan’t speak. This is my girl here.”

That was the claim Victor had dreaded.

“I’m not,” cried the girl, half sobbing, twisting vainly. “I was bathing, and he stole my clothes.”

The man guffawed, gave the girl’s dress a final rip, and grasped her by the wrist. Tugging her along, he moved towards Victor, shaking his free fist.

“I tell you she’s my girl. I found her. Are you going to get out?”

“You’d better leave her alone,” said Victor, speaking more emphatically in his fear.

The man pushed him in the face. Victor staggered back. The blow enraged him, and he forgot his fear. Or rather, his fear possessed him, turning into fury and yet remaining fear. With tears in his dimmed eyes, he flung himself on the man and tumbled him to the ground with the unexpected onslaught, falling on him and freeing the girl. The man’s breath was knocked from him by the fall, and he lay motion-less. This collapse saved him, for it deprived Victor of his fury. Victor grew afraid; he couldn’t hit a knocked-out man. He wanted to hit him, to tear at his eyes, to grasp his throat; but he was frightened by the sense of death. He couldn’t hit a man down-and-out. At least not while someone else was looking on.

The man recovered his breath, squirmed, and almost threw Victor off. Victor grabbed at him. But the man was the stronger; and if the girl hadn’t joined the fight, Victor would soon have succumbed. His fury had left him, and only a distracting terror was left; he wanted to break away and run, careless of what anyone thought of him. But the girl had picked up a length of wood, a fallen bough; and seeing the man expose his head as he strove to rise, she struck him with all her might on the crown and then on the nape of the neck. Her action gave courage back to Victor. He punched the man in the face, tore at his throat, beat at him with frenzied fists.

Howling, the man writhed away from under Victor, leaped to his feet, and fled out of the thicket, through crackling boughs, blundering against young trees, wrenching through bushes.

Victor rose unsteadily and looked at the girl for the first time. She was quite young, round-faced and dimpled, with fair hair. The first impression was that she was fair like Eros; then he saw that there was a glow of gold about her fairness that Eros lacked; that she had a large smiling mouth unlike the daintily curved mouth of Eros; that her forehead was broader, her blue eyes more alive, gentler and keener. How plumply smooth were her sunburned shoulders.

She flushed. “I was bathing,” she repeated, “and I don’t know what he did with the rest of my clothes.”

Victor stared politely round the clearing, but could see no sign of clothes.

“It doesn’t matter.” She frowned and tossed her head, her slightly curling hair of pale gold. Hair goldenly pale, powdering a dust of light across the shadows, ghosting her body with reflections of its own contours. “I haven’t thanked you yet for saving me. I’ll never be able to thank you. I—I—”

She began crying, without any attempt to hide her tears.

He was distressed. If only she had covered up her face with her hands, he would have felt at ease. He would have gone close, and put his arm round her, and said: “Don’t cry now.” But she went on looking at him, shamelessly crying.

“Of course not,” he mumbled. “I only did what I had to do. I— I—” It was his turn now to stammer, but not to cry. Instead he stared back at her, forcing himself to meet her grey-blue eyes. They seemed to be blaming him for something.

If he didn’t keep looking into her eyes, he’d look at her breasts, and then what would he do? He was too worried to know more than that he was staring into her eyes, rudely watching her tears.

“Let’s find your clothes,” he continued with an effort.

She came up to him, holding out her hands. He took her hands and felt their soft strong pressure. He was growing flustered by the incessant staring, but didn’t like to look away first.

“Thank you,” she said in a low voice, alarmingly sweet and tender. She had spoken before in a clear, almost ringing voice.

He felt his cheeks burn and pulled his hands away.

“No. I didn’t do anything. Let’s find your clothes.”

He glanced covertly. She had only a thin shift on, torn down the front and one side, the left shoulder-piece all loose. He could see one breast entire, youthfully firm, her full supple thighs, her faintly golden flesh.

She was beautiful.

The knowledge was a blow between the eyes. Not as when Eros discussed the court girls and said “She’s lovely,” or “She’s a done-up thing.” Not as with side-looks and wandering comparisons. She was beautiful.

This girl, no other.

“I love swimming,” she said, as if she read his glance. “I’m sunburnt a little, but not much. Uncle said I’d freckle, but I don’t. I wouldn’t care if I did, but I don’t. The sun has hardly any effect on me. Most girls with fair hair can’t stand the sun.”

She seemed quite unconcerned in talking about herself.

Victor wanted to take her in his arms. So tremendously he wanted it that he felt he had never before even remotely wanted anything. But he was a slave, and she was clearly a free-born girl, probably from a villa nearby. Yet even that wouldn’t have mattered so much if she hadn’t been so unconcerned. And how could he make love to her after the way that the ruffian had been treating her?

“I shouldn’t have come alone,” she went on, as if excusing his silence. “But I don’t enjoy it unless I’m alone. I haven’t many friends—” She stopped, and then asked him, her head on one side, “Don’t you love swimming alone?”

“I would.” His voice was dry and toneless. He couldn’t bear the way she seemed to be trying to make things easy for him, though desperately he was glad. “I’m sure I would. I’ve never had a chance.” He had to say it, he couldn’t pretend any longer, be had to say the words that he wanted to say the least in the world. Slowly they came. “I’m a slave.”

As soon as he’d said it, he repented. There had been no need to hurry the disclosure. Now everything was ended. He hated the girl for making him say what he’d said. He was degraded, and she the cause; it wasn’t his servitude, but his admission of it, that had degraded him. O end it all.

“I saw that.” She looked at his braided tunic, the purple fringe. “But in the Palace...that’s different, isn’t it?”

He resented her consoling tones. “No. And I was an ordinary slave before that. With a merchant in Antioch.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she said it so quietly, so sincerely, that it robbed him of his self-pity.

He looked into her eyes again. “It’s all nonsense we’re talking. I’ve had a far better time than hundreds of thousands of free men. I don’t regret it.”

“Are you Greek?” she asked. He spoke the language so well; his accent might be no more than an effect of dialect; he was obviously well educated. It was education that mattered. And kind eyes, and nice mouth.

“I don’t know,” he answered angrily. “I don’t remember any parents. My mother came from Gaul, I was told.”

He detested her; he wished that he hadn’t come to her rescue. Nothing would have pleased him more than to watch the ruffian taking her, to be himself the ruffian. He raised half-clenched hands. He wouldn’t have her pity. What did she mean by asking questions? He wasn’t for sale at the moment. Was she rich enough to buy him up in the market if he were?

He tried to nerve himself to the act of catching her in his arms. It was the only way he could retort to her pity. Let her howl.

“I must find my clothes,” she said, abruptly cast into abject misery. “I won’t be able to go home till I do.” Her teeth chattered. “I’m so frightened.”

She dropped down on the grass and huddled herself under her torn shift, crying again, but this time in the hopeless way that Victor had wanted. But now he didn’t want it; he couldn’t put his arms round her. He felt antagonistic, withdrawn into self-commiseration. He’d like to take her by force, but her tears baffled him. Whatever she did baffled him; for he’d never take her by force. But that knowledge didn’t stop him from wanting.

“We’ll find your clothes,” he said half-heartedly.

Her hair was over her face, a tousled mass of pale gold. He saw only her quivering chin, smaller than he’d noticed, the tears running down it and dripping on to her uncovered breast, the nipple unsuckled. Salt tears, not milk of the lotus. Even in her huddled despair her body was proud and intact, virginal, free. He hated her.

He began searching among the bushes, but was halted by her voice, once more clear and ringing. A voice of command.

“I see something under that bush over there. Find what it is.”

His hatred grew intense, creeping hotly over his skin. She had ordered him to look, treated him as a slave indeed, considered him as the trash he was. That was unforgiveable. He’d find her clothes, throw them in her face, and walk off.

Without a word he went to the bush. Her clothes were there, a shawl and dress of patterned wool, some ribbons, and sandals.

“Everything’s here,” he said coldly, preparing himself. What words would be sufficiently insulting?

“O I’m so glad.” She rose and ran over. “I didn’t dare to go and look myself, for fear I’d be disappointed.” She leaned over him as he dragged the things out, her hand resting on his shoulder.

He straightened up, trying not to feel too happy.

“Look away,” she said nervously, taking the clothes. “I’d rather be quite naked than watched while I’m dressing. Can’t you understand?”

His face burned again, and he moved off. Her last words had been spoken sharply, meant to hurt; to tell him that he was a slave and would be a slave always. He stood brooding savagely, his back turned to the girl. But though he tried not to listen, tried only to think of her as a cold little fool, he could not help his pulse from stirring at the slight sounds that she made in dressing. The rustling. The quick breath taken in impatience. Something had gone wrong, what was it? what could it be? She ought to ask him to help her. It was ridiculous to hide now, when he had seen all that there was to see, without confusion on her part. Pale gold all over. Pale gold breasts and nipples of browned rose, hardly formed, yet tilted upwards. The soft crisp noises of her hair. Surely it was her hair, not the wind in the leaves. Always he would hear her hair when the wind sighed. Would see the strength of her young arched back in the shapes that the wind sought to make in resisting trees.

Perhaps she would vanish, slip away, cheating. He wanted to turn, but dared not. Isis, if he never saw her again. She was sealed on his eyes.

“Can I turn?”

“Almost...nearly...not quite...in a moment.”

She seemed to have something in her mouth, perhaps the end of a ribbon; a kiss. He warmed with pleasure. She was still there, not meditating flight. It would be best if she were there always, dressing behind the stir of his pricked senses. He wouldn’t be a slave for ever. Antonius was so good-natured, an appeal would almost certainly succeed. It all depended on choosing the right moment. But Victor felt that he couldn’t tell the girl this hope. Anger hardened his heart. (Besides, to speak of the hope would be to endanger it, to bring on it the evil-eye; to plead with the girl too obviously and ask for a rebuff.) She had treated him as a slave, the slave he was.

“You can turn now,” she said gaily, and he turned

He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t what he saw. Her hair was neatly parted in the middle and drawn back, looped behind with the fillet in a little bunching cascade of curls; a blue fillet with silver edge pressed on the glistening hair that hid her rounding skull, over the small ears. The blue dress fell lightly and gracefully to her feet, with slightly puffed sleeves; pulled out over the girdle to the faintly increased extent demanded by the fashion of the year. Her feet were enclosed in flat sandals of soft leather picked with silver thread; and there was a dark-blue design on the sleeves and the lower part of the blouse. The shawl was set loosely on her shoulders, lying forwards in equal halves.

But it wasn’t the clothes that surprised him; it was the girl inside them. A different girl. If he had felt separated before, he now felt himself cut off utterly into a different world from the modest young Greek girl standing before him with her fingers entwined. The clothes seemed a cage that had tamed her, a hiding-place from whatever part of her indulged in such impulses as that of bathing alone. He didn’t even know her name, would never know it, refused to know it.

She came up to him with short maidenly steps, and then, with a quick smile, took his face between her hands and kissed him on the mouth.

The next moment she had fled out of the thicket, and he, collecting his wits, ran after her.

*

He caught her up a few hundred yards further on, his face on flame. If they had been sheltered, he would have embraced her; but there was a house overlooking the track. And she diverted the conversation from personalities by pointing to a barge of revellers and then complaining that she was hungry. But she didn’t want to buy anything; she’d seen apples on a tree down the road and wanted to steal some; and Victor, delighted at the laughter in her eyes, ceased wondering if she thought he was penniless as well as a slave. They found the tree, and he held her up in his arms while she reached down half-a-dozen apples; and no one saw them, though Victor was too worried at the felony to enjoy properly the nearness of her body. He had grasped her round the knees and swung her up. She was heavier than he’d thought, but he didn’t mind that. He pressed his cheek against her hip, and kissed the cloth of her skirt without attracting her notice. At least she said nothing. She was too busy plucking at the apples, her supple body moving against him. Every time she reached up and pulled down an apple with a wrench, he held her tighter, pleased at the excuse, praying that the stalks would need a long wrench. But he was afraid all the while that someone would come, afraid because he was a slave and would show himself abashed and feeble, disgraced before the fearless girl, who wasn’t a slave. Everything she did proved the gap between them. But sweeter than the sweet of apples was her nearness.

Then they hurried on, the apples hidden under her shawl, and sat on a pier that seemed to belong to no one, their legs dangling over. They took off their sandals and splashed at the water, and ate the apples warm from her hands under the shawl. Sweetest of apples. He was still afraid that someone would come and order them off the pier, and ate hastily, to destroy the evidence of theft, and then feared that she’d think he had no manners. But after a while he forgot his fears, forgot everything, talking.

Daphne was her name. She was the daughter of a professor at the Museion, named Nicias; and she’d kept house for him ever since her aunt died, and her aunt had kept house before that ever since Daphne’s mother died, and her mother who was named Callirhoe had died five years ago, when Daphne was eleven. (So she was sixteen now, one year and a bit younger than Victor.) And she wasn’t at all rich and had only one old slave, Simon, to help her, though Simon did everything or she wouldn’t be able to go out on her own. (She wanted to show she wasn’t proud, but Victor was too happy to be hurt any more by attempts at sympathy.) And she had hardly any friends. She didn’t like girls much.

Then she dropped her last apple in the water, and was inclined to swim for it, and blushed. So Victor found a forked stick and reached for the apple, and the apple bobbed about and wouldn’t be caught; and Daphne was frightened he’d fall in, particularly after she learned that he couldn’t swim. But she held his hand while he reached out, and clung to one of the piles. So safety was assured, and the apple was retrieved at last—some water-nymph sending a little wave from heaven-knew-where: which made them both cry out with excitement. And Daphne was ever so pleased to get her apple back, though she’d been saying a moment before that she didn’t really want it; and she polished it on her shawl and admired the gloss and said she was dying to eat it; and they both laughed so long that she forgot about eating and made him promise to let her teach him how to swim.

Then they were silent for a while, and she began to munch the apple. Neither knew what arrangements could be made for meeting again, or how she was going to teach him to swim, especially after having kissed him. Neither could speak first. And they both remembered the kiss, and were shy.

He began tentatively to put his arm round behind her, hoping that she’d lean back and rest against it; but didn’t quite dare to place it round her waist. He tried to imagine embracing her, and then he had another fear: that he would fail as lover. Whenever he imagined the touch, he felt himself becoming numbed, his desire sinking back limply into his overwrought body. She leaned forward, away from his arm, her chin on her cupped hand, her elbow on her knee. A twig was floating past. She tried to hit it with the core of the apple, and missed; and he, drawing his arm back, threw a pebble and hit the twig.

“I bet it was only an accident,” she said in a voice that he couldn’t understand. “Anyway I didn’t take aim.”

“Neither did I,” he protested, and ended feebly. “I mean, it was only an accident.” So it was; he’d meant to hit the apple-core; but if he explained, she’d think he was only trying to ingratiate himself with lies, and he’d wanted to appear a clever shot. Something to make up for not being able to swim.

“Don’t tell lies.” She jumped up. “I’ll tell them myself if I want to. But I won’t have other people telling them for me. You’re like all men. You think you’re the only one who can do anything.”

He was pleased to see her angry, pleased that she, a free person, could be upset by the same things as upset him, a slave; but he feared her anger.

“I can hardly ever hit anything. Eros always beats me at throwing.”

“Then you ought to try harder,” she answered crossly. “Who’s Eros? I hate him.”

“He’s another page.”

“Who gave him his name?”

She spoke placidly once more, smoothing out her dress. Victor was overjoyed at her expression of hatred for Eros; nothing else ever said had given him such joy; there seemed so many meanings in her words.

They walked along the roadway towards the city, and Victor told Daphne about himself. Antonius had given him the name of Victor instead of Narcissos, the name given him by the merchant at Antioch. Antonius had said: “I’ve got a page called Love, now I’ll have one named after Victory in war. Love in Greek and Victory in Latin.” That was how the name Victor came about. In Italy, on the farm (before Antioch), he’d been called Gaipor; but the master went bankrupt, and Victor was sold at the age of ten to the merchant going east. The merchant had been very kind, and had had him taught to read Latin and Greek correctly, to recite poems at dinner-time, to play on the harp, and to do geometry. Then he’d been killed in an Arab riot, and Antonius had bought Victor while passing through from Armenia two years ago, or rather, the steward had bought him, but Antonius had liked the look of him and promoted him to the pages.

“I’m going to call you Narcissos,” said Daphne teasingly. “You’re a dear young flower-boy.”

“Don’t,” he pleaded. “ I like Victor better.”

“I won’t call you Victor. I’m named after a tree, so you must be a flower. It isn’t fair to be called Victor, as if you only had to ask, to get anything.”

“I’ve got nothing...” he said passionately, and paused. Then, without looking at her, tried to explain. “I hate having my name changed. You couldn’t know. You’ve only had one name all your life.”

But she wouldn’t relent, though she spoke lightly. “I shan’t like you if you’re called Victor.”

What did it matter? who cared for his feelings? “All right. Call me what you like—as long as I can go on seeing you.” He was frightened to have come so near a declaration. But she kept to the issue of names.

“Very well. I’ll call you Victor then. Because you gave in. Now you’re only Victor because I let you be. It’s different.”

Both were pleased. (She must be meaning to meet him, or why would she care what he was called?) They walked on, afraid of saying something that would destroy the friendliness of the moment.

*

It was dusk when they reached the Canopic Way. People were knotted about, discussing something in low heated voices. A raucous remark invaded the preoccupied contentment of Victor and made him realise that news of the lost legions was now common property despite the strict orders which would have been given. Cleopatra wasn’t popular, but no Alexandrian wanted Egypt to come under Roman rule. The people were puzzled, hostile, scared.

Every step nearer to the Museion made Victor more un-decided. With one part of his being Victor was enjoying the girl’s companionship with blessed absorption; with another part he was aware only of the remorseless lapse of time. The blood seemed draining out of him. He would never be able to suggest another meeting; he would be too concerned that she might laugh and sneer. “A slave!” And yet she was so easy-mannered now, with no touch of patronage. But was that because she was grateful and trained to dissemble courtesies, wanted to leave a good impression, knew that in a few moments she would successfully slip out of his life, a dream that evaded the fumbling fingers of dawn? A dream she was, growing stranger in the dusk, coming closer in the companionable approach of darkness, biding the pulse when she would fade back into his blood. He couldn’t believe her real, though she walked at his side, occasionally pressed against him. In a few moments she would have passed out of his life; condescendingly thankful, in order that she might forget him with the quieter conscience. He couldn’t bear it.

They were passing through a deserted colonnade. There were no lights near. Further along was a clearer space, and excited voices could be heard. A clatter of hooves. Shouts at the lower end of the street. But no one in the colonnade at this moment of dusk while lovers passed. Chance the dream. Between two shops an embrasure appeared, darkly inviting. A smell of crushed flowers, and the stones of evening. Decay and the night of freedom starry. Desperation flurried in the blood of Victor, tormenting his hands, lending him an irresolute courage.

He caught Daphne in his arms, forgetting all lesser fears before the one great fear of losing her for ever.

“I won’t let you go. I love you,” he whispered, himself the eavesdropper. His knees were giving way. “You mustn’t...mustn’t laugh at me.”

Her body tautened for a moment; she seemed about to say something. But he found her mouth, and kissed her; and she said nothing. She sighed and wilted inside his arms, as if by some mysterious chemistry her bones had dissolved into the honeyed blood of desire. He couldn’t believe what was happening, and yet it was happening. Isis, make it true. Space narrowed, with a swirl of stars. Someone had hung flowers across the shop-front, over the embrasure, where goods had been displayed. The lovers were resting in a niche of flowers. The earth was after all a small space, a tryst for two lovers. All other things were subordinate, dismissed now that their purpose had been fulfilled. The lovers had met. For this had his mother been torn from her peaceful village somewhere beside a reedy river-course in Gaul; for this an unknown man had put his hand over her mouth and laughed brutally. (It was all forgiven now, all was good.) For this the armies of Rome had swept over land and sea, burning, plundering, murdering. (All that is, is good, for out of it has come our meeting, fused in our blood of acceptance.) For this had Daphne waited in her secure home, coming out of a past equally clouded, equally meaningless, to touch the moment when all was explained, all was sanctified.

The stars thickened, the glitter on marble-ornamentations from the torch down the road, dimming the eyelashes with wetted radiance. He too was crying, gently, happily, sub-merged. The world flashed, trembled, subsided to flanks of warmth. He heard his heart, and then the low breathing of Daphne. The world of flowers had become a single flower, heavy with perfume, and he and Daphne were lying in it, in the heart of the lotus. Someone passed, lurching, unheard. Then two men arguing. The niche of dark flowers kept its secret. The stars dripped into the blood. Suddenly the starlight gushed through him, a crystal panic of surrender

*.

Daphne beat at him, pushed away, rose.

“I hate you.”

He was entirely lost. “What do you mean? Please...”

“You’re as bad as the other. I hate you.”

He tried to grasp what she was saying. “Then why did you...”

But she wouldn’t answer. She tore away from his half-hearted embrace, and ran up the road. He stood still for a moment of blind despair, unable to understand why life had given him so much, only to mock the next pulse by withdrawing the gift. Then he recovered himself enough to run after her.

He would have missed her if he hadn’t known the direction she would take. He ran into a crowd holding a political debate, with a fringe of mere drunkards; the police were issuing orders, and no one was obeying. But he thought he saw Daphne flitting away on the other side. She would be going home; she lived somewhere near the Museion, she had said, over a shop; her father had preferred to live out while his wife was alive, and then refused to move.

Victor managed to squeeze through the crowd, and thought he again saw Daphne dodging ahead. But it was only a tipsy woman, who tried to hang round his neck, saying: “Who cares about bugs?” Then he reached the Street of the Sema. Again the fading figure of flight. Surely Daphne. But he couldn’t tell which house the shape entered. He was defeated, unutterably miserable, and yet glowing with the memory of her responsive kisses in the niche of dark flowers.

She couldn’t take that back whatever she did. He would find her again. She couldn’t mean to shut him out of her life. What was her father’s name? Nicias.

A second time he felt his knees giving way under him, and steadied himself against a pillar. O night soaked in blue.

In his mind he had seen her again as she was, Daphne stained golden with the sun, Daphne and no other. Beauty was a form, a single form, a body without substitute, Daphne. She was beautiful. The thought sent a shock through his blood, a terrifying awareness, as if he, and he alone, were responsible for her beauty, her individual body. He had never really seen anything at all but her. Now she was everything. She was only herself. She was beautiful.

*

The guard grinned as he let Victor through, and made a joke about wenching. Victor reddened, joked back, and tipped the man twice as much as was expected; then went on his way to the pages’ quarters, worried that somehow Daphne would hear of the joke he’d made and would refuse to see him again. For she couldn’t have meant it this time; she had merely been overcome by emotion, by the strangeness of what had happened. She was naturally a modest young girl. She must have loved him. Her very flight proved it, by showing how much she had given. Despite all his anxieties Victor felt his heart growing lighter.

Eros was in the room that the two shared, sitting on the bed and looking at himself in a hand-mirror. Before him on a stool was placed a bowl bearing a yellow concoction.

“You’re late,” he said, without taking his eyes from the mirror. “Lucky for you that we haven’t been called. Things are in a dreadful state. Antonius said he was going to Spain; and she said that she hoped he’d sink on the way, if he hadn’t already drowned himself in wine. There’s a loving bitch for you. I’d like to paint her long nose with resin and set it alight.”

He laid his head on one side and then on the other, studying his face in the mirror.

“What’s that? a soup?” Victor pointed to the bowl, discovering how hungry he was. There’d been nothing to eat except the stolen apples.

“It’s a hair-wash,” Eros frowned. “Take care you don’t spill it. Eiras gave it to me. It’s the same stuff as the old lady uses.”

Victor saw that the head of Eros was wet.

“I’ve been with a girl,” he said maliciously. “The most beautiful girl in the world.” Eros sniffed. Victor threw himself at Eros, bowled him over on the bed, and rubbed his face on the coverlet.

“Take care,” groaned Eros, surprised at this unusual horseplay from Victor. “Don’t knock the bowl over.”

“Say that she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“I won’t. I’m surprised at you. I’m sure she’s a Jewess with hair growing out of her nose. I don’t believe she’s anyone at all. You’re jealous because Eiras gave me the henna-wash. You ought to know me better.”

Victor let him go, and himself lay back on the bed, deadly afraid. He couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to do what he’d done in the colonnade. He’d never be able to do it again. It would be best to let Daphne go. How hungry he was, and too wretched to go and bribe someone in the pantry; there was always someone there in case a midnight-supper was demanded.

Angrily he stretched out his foot, and, to the indignant despair of Eros, knocked over the bowl of henna-dye, sopping the carpet.

*

Daphne too lay in her bed, fully dressed. Fortunately her father had been detained in the mess-room of the Museion by some discussion. She sat up, her mouth open, and stared in front of her at the brown hangings on the wall. She plucked at her dress gingerly, shutting her mouth. Where was the body, elementally fresh, that has been hers as she slid out of the lake into the cosseting sunlight? Simon, the slave, had stared at her. She said that she’d lost her way down by the lake. Now she was trying to resume the will-power to order Simon to heat some water, so that she could bathe herself. She could say that she’d slipped in a puddle.

Her thoughts died as soon as born, little flickering thoughts struck from the flint. She felt strange to herself, and it hurt her to move. All her bones had suddenly become sore. She tried to think clearly, but couldn’t. All her energies were concentrated on gaining the will to call out to Simon. If she didn’t do it before her father came back, she wouldn’t be able to do it.

She was glad her aunt was dead; but wasn’t able to think as far back as her mother.

She heard her father’s footsteps below. Hastily, clumsily, she put out the lamp, burning her fingers on the tow-wick, for she couldn’t delay to use the snuffer. Then she lay back in the darkness. He would think her asleep, and not say anything. Fully dressed, she propped herself up on the pillow and sat open-eyed in the darkness. She heard her father going to bed, Simon going to bed, some late-passers shouting outside, the house settling down for the night like someone old, wheezing slowly and faintly. She couldn’t ask Simon till the morning now. She would have to wait all that while.

She was sure that she would never see Victor again.

2 ALONE

Before dawn Victor stirred with a sense of danger and distress. His brain was still drowsed with uncertain dream-fears, and he could not awaken fully. There was someone in the room looking at him, an escaped animal from the zoo on the further side of the Gardens, a woman with an animal-head like one of the Egyptian goddesses. Cat-headed Bast. The fever in his head was the hot breath of the cat. Then he threw off the weight of dreams, and felt Eros twitching, making grumbling noises in his sleep. The two pages slept in the one bed.

“Wake up,” said Victor, roughly. He kicked the coverlet away, and rolled from bed. Then, standing on the damp carpet, he rubbed his naked body vigorously and stared with distaste at Eros stretching himself.

“What a bully you’re getting,” said Eros, opening his pale blue eyes.

It was true, but Victor didn’t care. For the first time he was domineering over someone, and it pleased him to hear the complaints of Eros: “I’ll believe about that hairy-nostrilled girl of yours soon, your manners are so bad.” He dressed quickly, ate the breakfast of cakes and watered wine that an attendant had laid outside the door on a tray, and set off for the apartment of Antonius, followed by Eros protesting that he hadn’t had time to do up his shoelaces.

Antonius was awake, gulping wine from a silver flagon. He looked haggard. For months now his large, commandingly handsome face had been sagging; his eyes bloodshot; the streaks of grey increasing in his hair. But overnight he seemed to have grown older still. He was in his fifty-second year, and he looked far more, though only two years ago, Victor recalled, he had still seemed sinewed with youthful energy. His hand was shaky.

Victor and Eros exchanged glances. Cleopatra had slept elsewhere.

Slaves had laid out clothes for the day, a gown of purple with gold braid, and gilt slippers of papyrus.

“Take the muck away,” said Antonius, twisting his lips and giving a short hiccup of a laugh. “Bring me a cheap cloak and tunic, and a pair of soldiers-boots. Boots with three soles of leather, and hobnails.”

He turned to the boys, and his eyes lightened for a moment with a mock of his self-pity, the twist that accentuated the thinness of his lips disappeared.

“I’m clearing out. Will you go with me?”

His darkened eyes searched their faces, as if he was putting them to a real test. Victor’s heart pounded. They were going to be taken away from Alexandria. At the worst he hadn’t dreaded anything so bad.

“We’ll go with you, anywhere,” said Eros fervently, and Victor managed to nod his head in loyal accord, as if his emotion went beyond words.

“Not so very far,” replied Antonius, scratching his chest. “Out into the waters, my lads. Away from the world.” He gulped at the wine, and his face set. “And if that stuck-up whore tries to interfere, we’ll feed her to the fishes, a bit at a time. By the god.” He lay back and groaned. “All traitors. Blood-suckers. I ought to have known it. Caesar, Caesar...” His voice muttered away, and a blank look came into his eyes that terrified Victor.

No sound, save far away something cranking, in the Royal Docks.

The flagon fell to the floor, but neither page liked to run forward and pick it up.

Eyes of stone.

“Where did he say he was going?” whispered Victor to Eros, unable to bear the silence and the opaque suffering in the eyes.

But Antonius had heard, had seen the lips moving. He leaped from the bed, unclad, and strode across the room, still a sturdy hulk of a man. He gripped Victor by the shoulders.

“What was that you said? Speak up—”

His voice was stifled with fury, his eyes protruded, his grip hurt.

“I only...asked...where we were going.”

Antonius stared at Victor with wild roving eyes, and then released him.

“I believe you. But don’t whisper in front of me again. Don’t whisper anywhere. I can’t endure it. Do you hear?” He shook Victor without knowing what he was doing. “Hell, do you think I don’t know what everyone’s saying? If they’d only say it out in front of me, I wouldn’t mind. Treacherous swine that they are. Hercules, I’d like to sink the pack in mid-sea, the lousy mob of backbiting murderers...”

He stared at Victor again, let him go, and said in a beseeching voice. “Don’t whisper, I tell you. Now get me some more wine.”

*

After an hour of blighted misery, Victor learned that Antonius wasn’t leaving Alexandria, that he was merely moving from the Palace to a small summer-residence built on a rock in the harbour. The rock was joined to the mainland by a narrow causeway of some two hundred feet; and soon the household-slaves were scurrying in long lines backwards and forwards from the Palace to the rock-villa, carrying the necessary furniture, luggage, and stores. Eros and Victor were given some bundles of important papers to convey; and they hastened across to the tiny island, rather pleased at the removal, liking the house built lonely amid the waters, and pleased also to escape the presence of the master in his drunken mood.

As they passed along the beach lined with marble-promenades and granite-barriers, they saw a band of women who had come from the Chapel of Adonis, flocking round the priests who bore the image of the god, the life of the world gored by the tusks of winter. The hair of the women was undone, flung back over their shoulders and streaming in the sea-breeze, twining with the wind-snakes in ceaseless conflict; and the dresses had been torn amid lamentation, and the breasts of mourning bared. Lamenting went the women, crying the death of the saviour but knowing in the death of a saviour was contained a promise of new life. Did not the seed-grain, rotting useless for food in the harrowed earth produce the multiplied grain of the future’s food?

Victor wished that Daphne might be among the mourners of the god, and he eagerly gazed at the crowd. He would have liked to see her with breasts bared, lamenting the young beautiful god; but not thus, not on the corrupted soil of Alexandria. He would have been ashamed of her if she were among the women. He loved the abandonment of the worship, but despised the women wailing.

On clean earth, among my friends. But where are my friends, where is the adored earth?

Daphne wasn’t among the women. But Victor, in his increased interest for womankind, studied the women thronging, though he despised them; compared their breasts, their eyes; and wondered how so many of them could bear to expose such slack and disfigured bodies. There were a few young girls, but they hadn’t torn or pulled open their dresses half as much; indeed they didn’t show much more than they usually did, whereas the withered and the slack were shameless, offering useless breasts to the succour of the young god, the lost beloved.

Eros jeered, and Victor snapped back. Before yesterday he would have thoroughly agreed with the jeers of Eros, and even today he felt as repelled as Eros, but repelled in a different way. He felt somehow that he knew what the women were doing, and only shrank because they weren’t doing it well enough; they shouldn’t be old and ugly.

“I believe you about that Jewess now,” said Eros with haughty spitefulness. “But I don’t need to wish you bad luck. You’re deteriorating under my very eyes. I pity you.”

Victor swallowed his rage. He couldn’t bear to be near Eros now; he loathed his pretence of superiority, loathed his walk and his gracefully helpless hands, simply loathed him. One good thing about the removal was that it meant new quarters, and he was determined to see that he didn’t have to sleep with Eros henceforth.

The most richly clad priest called out something, and lifted his hand. The women wailed. The image of the bright-eyed god, wrapt in scarlet linen, was slowly raised amid an outcry of moans, prayers, and exhortations, and then dropped into the water. A splash, and Adonis was gone. The women burst into shrilling wails. Adonis had died for them. Then they called with anxious hope and faith.

“Come back to us next year, Adonis.”

What would happen if the resurrection failed, if the vampires of the dead blasted the seeds of the earth and spread a universal barrenness? The god who died for the world must come again, or there was no hope, nothing. Only a widening chill of winter. Barren stone.

Come back, Adonis. Be born again. Ascend out of harrowed hell and save the world.

“He won’t die,” screaming a woman nearby. “He can’t die.” She lurched round and addressed the pages in-coherently. “He’s gone down into the womb of the waters. Into Aphrodite the Foamborn.”

“Have it your own way, my good woman,” said Eros with sarcasm. “I trust you’ve brought some safety-pins, for your dress needs them.”

She turned wild uncomprehending eyes upon him, and Victor was startled by the resemblance to the eyes of Antonius in his stupefied violence. He hastened on, disquieted, while Eros followed with rearguard-jeers at the worshippers.

What was it all about, the fighting and the loving, the wailing and the laughing? It had broken Antonius, raised him on its crest and dropped him. What was this rite of Adonis, dying and coming again, that made the woman’s eyes as mad as the eyes of Antonius suffering? Yet the woman had been filled with joy, a kind of chuckling glee of faith; her voice had been as dreadful as her mad eyes.

Under his breath he prayed. Aphrodite, don’t make me mad. Let me understand. Can’t one become part of the loving and the dying, and yet remain unmaddened? I don’t want to die yet. Be kind to Daphne.

He was being drowned by unknown forces, the face and the loins of Daphne; dragged down under the waters of life, to die.

He prayed that Adonis would ransom him. Yet how could the gods save, since they were themselves the forces they represented? Love brought love, and Death brought death, but couldn’t save. That was what Aristocrates had said. Yes. “The pattern of their own necessity, the same and never the same.” Victor couldn’t understand the phrase, but it was menacing. He wanted to believe that Adonis could die for him and save. But wasn’t Adonis only the image of the lover dying in the arms of love, giving himself and finding himself, closed in the lap of his engirdling mistress, in the womb of the living sea? Adonis couldn’t save. The lover could only worship his own fate, glorifying himself in the god.

The effort of thought burned heavily in Victor’s blood, turning to sweat on his brow. He wanted to understand, to remember how he had felt last night in the niche of flowers, in triumph. But he couldn’t remember it, as one can’t remember lightning. It was too quick, neither day nor night, lamp nor star. A transfiguration. It split, yet lighted up, but one saw nothing. A storm of shapes, and the gash of light.

Save me, Aphrodite, and I’ll give you a statue of silver out of my savings.

But he didn’t know what he wanted to be saved from. Not from Daphne.

“At least the Queen won’t be able to come visiting us here,” said Eros, who, though hurt by Victor’s defection, could not restrain his tongue.

They had walked the length of the causeway and come before the door of the not-quite-finished summer-house. It was a house which was forever being altered, since the idea of the sea-surrounded villa attracted each Alexandrian ruler in turn. Each had fresh plans how to perfect the villa, but somehow never fully carried out the plans; and the villa had never been occupied. Only the foundations of granite, built to resist the winter-seas, had been unchanged; and the villa was a medley of rooms at different elevations, balconies, terraces and towers with one main tower on the sea-side. The astonished caretaker was excitedly lighting fires and sending braziers into all the rooms, to get rid of as much damp as possible, while slaves were pushing in with rolled-up carpets and bedding. One of the rolled carpets, swinging round, had knocked a man with a chest off the causeway. The man had been hauled up with a rope, and now he was noisily trying to find a dinghy so that he might fish for the chest with hooked poles.

“I’m not going to sleep with you any more,” said Victor to Eros.

He felt the need of being alone; and he wanted to hurt someone. And Eros was the only person whom it was in his power to hurt. Besides, he somehow blamed Eros for everything that had gone wrong. If he hadn’t been such a coward yesterday, he would have made love to Daphne down by the lake, not frightened her in the dark; and it was through spending too much time with Eros that he’d become a coward jeering at girls, dirtily self-sufficient...Anyway, he blamed Eros.

Eros shrugged his shoulders. “I shan’t fill the chamberpot with my tears. I’ll never forgive you for upsetting that bowl. As I said, you’ve lost all your manners. Down the sink, I suppose.”

He laughed away to himself with subdued titters, and Victor let him laugh.

*

Taking advantage of the bustle, he slid off down the Street of the Sema, the seaward end of which opened not far from the foot of the causeway. Reaching the Museion, he wandered about the street, leaned against a pillar, climbed the steps of the Sema opposite in order to inspect the university-building. Its stately aspect, the rows of slender Ionic columns and the broad expanse of worn steps, fascinated him. All knowledge must be cloistered within those walls. He kept thinking that Daphne lived there, though he knew that her home was a flat in the neighbourhood. A group of students, obstreperous and sure of themselves, came out; and he hated them. Some bearded men entered, and he was certain that each of them was Nicias; which was clearly an impossibility.

It ought to be an easy matter to inquire and learn where Nicias lived.

He slowly ascended the steps, imagining himself a student. As he ought to be. Then he could meet Daphne on equal terms. He would be the best student of Nicias, whatever Nicias taught.

But his thoughts scattered, as, on reaching the tall door-way, he was halted by a doorkeeper who seemed to rise out of the pavement, a burly man with long face and jutting jaw, and with thin eyes.

Victor was too disconcerted to ask about Nicias or to offer a bribe for a tour of inspection. He had plenty of pocket-money, Antonius being no miser; but he forgot all his plans and retreated down the steps. At the street-level he stopped and pretended to be waiting for someone by peering up and down the street. At last he saw an attendant emerge from a side-gate, probably the kitchen-quarters. There was no one else to ask. Waiting till the man had gone far enough down the road to be out of view of the doorway of the Museion, he accosted him.

The man eyed him suspiciously.

“I want to know where Nicias lives,” blurted Victor. “Don’t know.”

“I mean the professor Nicias who teaches in the Museion.”

The man, who had a round creased face and dull black eyes, thought for a long while, again eyed Victor, and then swung his arm round.

“Lives out. Somewhere round here. Only dines with us.” He went to pass on, but Victor caught his arm.

“Yes, I know. But where?”

The man shook his arm free and gave a snort when Victor produced some coins. He at once began talking furiously, working on himself, rolling his eyes. “I won’t be bribed. Marked coins, I’ll swear. I don’t know anything about the gold medals that master Nicolaos lost. I don’t care who hears me. I suppose you’re a sneakthief. You look like a spy to me. I’ve got my living to think of. I’ll call for help if you don’t leave me alone. I saw you following me yesterday. You make my life a misery...”

Victor hurriedly retreated. Some passers had already collected to hear what was going on, and he left the man gesticulating and talking to them. Slipping behind some pillars, he tried to ignore his failure and to bring himself to facing the ordeal of the doorkeeper again. Time was going. What excuse could he make? Then he recalled that Daphne had mentioned her slave’s name, Simon.

He ran up the steps and called to the doorkeeper, “Where does the professor Nicias live?”

The man came forward, furious.

“You’re the lad that I warned off—”

“His slave Simon ordered some food from my father’s shop, and didn’t say where to deliver it.”

The doorkeeper regarded him with distrust. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

Victor cowered before the lowering glance. “I want to know where he lives.”

“There’s something behind this.” The man thrust out his jaw even more prominently. “I’ll trouble you to step this way.”

“I only want to know where he lives.” Victor was terrified. He drew out some silver coins and pushed them into the man’s hands. Then, as the man still scrutinised him, he added, “I’ve got a letter for his daughter. That’s the truth.”

“O ho, is it?” said the man, fondling his jaw and charmed at the chance of showing his power. “I should hope so. You think you can buy me, do you? Who’s your master? You’ve got a palace-uniform on.”

“I can’t tell you,” answered Victor, feeling that his only hope lay in pretending to be an intermediary. “I’d be beaten.”

The doorkeeper scented an intrigue. His eyes narrowed till Victor could see no more than a thin streak under the reddened lids, and he breathed loudly through his nose.

“So someone in the Palace has cast eyes on the daughter of master Nicias,” he said ruminatively. “She’s a nice young thing, and a well-behaved girl, I should have thought.”

“So she is,” said Victor hotly, feeling that he had betrayed himself after all. “It’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it? If it’s anything else, it’s respectable.”

Victor in his terror decided on boldness. “If you don’t tell me where she lives, I’ll report you where it won’t do you any good.”

The doorkeeper had been shaking with slow silent laughter. At Victor’s threat he suddenly pushed his face close down against Victor, breathing objectionably through his nose.

“I don’t believe you, and I’ll tell you why. If what you say was true, you’d know where Nicias lived without coning to me about it. You’re doing all this on your own, and I’ve a good mind to call master Nicias.”

Victor dragged out all the coins he had left, and put them into the man’s ready palm.

“ Is that all you’ve got?” asked the man.

“Yes. Where does she—he live?”

“I’ll tell you then.” The man’s face wrinkled into a slow grin. He chuckled. “In Alexandria, my lad.” His chuckle deepened into a bellow of laughter, which he instantly cut short; and after a cautious look down the hall, he turned with an official scowl to Victor. “Out of here, before you’re thrown out, and learn to keep your eye off well-behaved young girls, getting them a bad name!”

“Please” began Victor; but seeing the inexorably shut mouth, he stumbled down the steps, glad to escape with nothing more than a loss of coins. The man wouldn’t suspect Daphne, because he’d think that if guilty she would have given her address away.

*

Cleopatra took no notice of the removal, and Antonius for the next few days recovered something of his old spirit in the excitement of settling the house. He had named it the Timonion, after Timon the legendary misanthrope of Athens. He was going to exclude the world, and females in particular. He threw a stray cat overboard, luckily unseen by any of the fanatical Egyptian populace, who reverenced all cats as manifestations of the goddess Bast. It was a tomcat, one of the slaves insisted, but Antonius merely laughed and said that he called every cat “she” because all women were cats. On the outside of the front door he nailed with his own hands a placard whereon he had written the epitaph which Timon was said to have composed on himself:

Timon, the misanthrope, I’m tombed below, Go and revile me, stranger—only go!”

He had left most of his servants in the Palace, keeping only those whom he most trusted; a freedman soldier-friend Lucilius, and the rhetorician Aristocrates. Victor and Eros alone of the pages were ordered to join him; and there in the damp island-villa, amid stained plaster and flaking frescoes, he took to drinking steadily.

Victor fumed for an opportunity to continue the search for Daphne, and at least had the satisfaction of obtaining a room apart from Eros, a small compartment in the sea-tower. There he slept alone, and at dawn climbed to the tower-top and looked south over the city of Alexandria. Behind him rose the great Lighthouse, smoking skywards by day and darting out its beams by night. To the left was another island, Antirhodos, with some defences; then the Royal Harbour, and the promentary, built with palaces and ending in the Temple of Isis Lochias. Before him spread the harbour-promenades of the palace-quarter with a background of colonnades and public buildings dominated by the curving Theatre. The Palaces were endless, for each Ptolemaios had reared his own, a mansion in the Greek style; masses of glittering marble, rambling halls and peristyles, surrounded by gardens and porticoes, galleries and summer-turrets, fountains and pergolas. Directly in front of the Timonion was the temple that Cleopatra was building for herself and Antonius as the divine rulers of Egypt and the world. Only the back was visible to Victor in his tower, a pile of scaffolding. Further to the right was the head of the Street of the Sema, and more temples, that of the sea-god Poseidon, that of Bendis (a Thracian deity, but acceptable to the Alexandrians because of bacchic festivals), and that of the Deified Arsinoe, the first woman of the Ptolemaioi to marry her brother.

Then there were the crowded docks, the lines of shipping, with the warehouses of the Emporion; the long mole running to the Pharos; and, beyond, another harbour filled with masts. Southwards, on the other side of the teeming city, rose the noble Temple of Sarapis, domed on its hill, and, to left of it, the shrine of Pan.

It was a sight that never wearied, in the light of dawn. Endless houses clustered together among forests of marble columns, cut into rectangles by the regularly laid-out streets; the beautiful huddled palaces; the glorious Sarapeion floating on blue mists of dawn over the city that it guarded; and, at one’s back, the towering Pharos. A city of infinite riches, of splendid and delicate forms, spread in the dawn as a gift for the gazer from the sea.

A million people slept there; but for the gazer there was only one, a young girl with pale gold hair, hair of the very dawn. The city had been built only to hide her from his seeking eyes.

The sea-gulls wheeled about the tower, diving for scraps along the quays and then swooping round the harbour. Victor stared into the cold faint light, taking deep breaths. He felt himself growing stronger, more able to stand alone. Even though every thought turned towards the lost Daphne, he felt a strength flooding freshly along his veins, steadying him. It gave him patience, and for the first time he knew serenity, a purpose in life. He was ready to wait for years; for in these moments of conviction, without thinking, he was sure that Daphne was also waiting, that she was bound to him as he to her.

He slept deeply, dreamlessly, living for the dawn in which the city gave up its secret and his body grew assured. Peace was in the dawn, and the certainty of finding what was sought. The body was poised, high over the unresting waters.

And the sea-gulls dipped and swung past, sometimes perching for a while on the parapet of the tower, near to the motionless lad.

*

Antonius found good reasons for cursing. News came that the four legions in Cyrene had revolted, and the three in Syria. Egypt was open to attack on both sides from land.

Victor grew to be profoundly scared of his master. To go into his presence was like entering the cage of a lion. Eros had come to feel otherwise. He hung about Antonius, trying to find something to do for him, at times infuriating him, at times earning a maudlin gratitude. He slept on a couch at the foot of the bed of Antonius, adoringly serving him. Lucilius had tried to stop Antonius from continuous drinking, and then retired to a corner of the house and himself drank. Aristocrates moped in a balcony-room over the waters. And no word came from Cleopatra.

It was difficult for Victor to find excuses for absence. Antonius had grown perversely exacting, at whiles he would leave Victor alone for almost the whole day; then would insist on his attendance, talking angrily of defaulting friends, drinking, or merely lying with his head in his hands, his eyes on the wall.

At last Victor managed to go ashore in control of the slaves deputed to do the shopping. All market-shopping was done in the morning; and immediately after breakfast he led the way to the market-place behind the dock-ware-houses. He strode impatiently ahead, trying to decide on the best method of using the brief time. He had no hopes of meeting Daphne in the market, for free women never did their shopping—unless extremely poor, and then they haunted the small lane-marts rather than the central Agora. The only women likely to be found in the Agora were peasantesses in charge of vegetables, slave-girls on errands, and an assortment of prostitutes. Shopping was usually done by male slaves.

Victor made up his mind that the best thing to do would be to put the slaves to their jobs, and then to go in search of the house into which he imagined he had seen Daphne disappear. Surely if he closed his eyes, he would be drawn straight thither. How could he then fail to find the door on which the image of Daphne was imprinted— despite the noisy world that hampered the clear instinct of desire?

The approach to the market was littered with cabbage-stalks and ass-dung, which enterprising children, at risk of their lives, were collecting in hand-harrows or baskets, intent on leaving as little as possible of such valuables for the sweepers of the afternoon. The market itself, presided over by loud-voiced officials at their work of keeping order and levying tolls official or otherwise, was divided into sections. On the side of the entrance which Victor passed there sat the money-changers, moving little piles of coins about with rapid dexterity, grimly silent in their determination not to be badgered into a false count, but voluble enough if they considered that they had detected a cheat. They sat crouched before wooden tables, but now and then rapped a coin on the stone pavement. In a corner were collected the specialists, experts with specular stones and various secret chemical means of testing the fake-gems that abounded.

The market was surrounded and crossed by columns. Long past the morning-bell had sounded, announcing that business was to begin; and the peasants, who had driven into the city from their allotments, had instantly started jabbering at the top of their voices and laying out more attractively their poultry, joints, or greens. In one section loaves, flat and round, were heaped on trays, attended by women-slaves skilled in abusive repartee; elsewhere was the myrtle-section where flowers, loose or wreathed, were sold by girls selected for their good looks and therefore detested by the bread-women who were ready to throw stale loaves at their heads if the wary police officials slackened in attention. The wine-section displayed large amphora, sticky with pitch and painted in red with the name of the producer. Some peasants were still filling amphora with wine that they had brought in skins in the waggons. Nearby congregated the unemployed cooks, each man jealously guarding his collection of utensils. In other parts were tables and stalls for garlic, nuts, apples, fresh cheeses, oils, perfumes, frankincense, spices, furniture, and new or old clothes; while fish, onion-ropes, wild fowl were draped from ropes slung between two pillars. The slave-market was held in another square, as also the gunakeia, the mart for more particular feminine luxuries.

After a glance round to make sure that his party were busy at their bargaining, Victor withdrew and hastened down the street towards the Museion. He passed the Museion without daring to look at its decorated door-way, and commenced his search for the house into which the wraith of Daphne had faded. He was sure that it was only a few doors before the Street of the Sema met the Canopic Way, and that she had said she lived over a shop, but what kind of a shop he couldn’t recall. After roaming up and down the Way he went into a shop at random and asked where Nicias of the Museion lived. This time he had prepared his story.

“I was sent with a gift for him, and I’ve forgotten the address.”

The shopkeeper was very obliging and kept Victor on tenterhooks while he explained that, though he didn’t know where Nicias lodged, it was a matter of no moment, since every professor had rooms in the Museion, whether or not he slept out.

Nobody knew. Victor tried several shops, and then gave up in despair, beginning to believe that Daphne had lied to him. Perhaps she was only a slave as he was, daring a lake-holiday. The thought kindled him, and then made things blanker still. Besides, his pride wanted her to be free, however the difference between their statuses depressed him.

Dejectedly he walked along the street, pleased that so many people were bumping into him. Let the body be as sore as the mind. If only he could do as he liked with his time. Everyone passed the Sema-corner of the Canopic Way some time or other. If he were able to stand for a few days, he’d certainly meet Daphne. But he wasn’t able to stand there. He could only regret.

Ah, the city of his dawn-vision, it seemed a city of the dead, smoking with the last exhalations of pallid life. The city was deserted, because Daphne had vanished. No matter how many people bumped into him.

He arrived back at the Market and found that the pantry-slaves had almost completed the purchases. He stood beside the wine-section, watching the wine drawn from the waggons into the amphorai, flowing through the narrow skin-pipe which had once been a bullock’s leg. The huge skin-tank, made from several skins sewn together with pitch on the seams, gradually subsided as the dark red juice flowed out; it flopped and it gasped like a monster in death-agonies.

A girl came sidling up, with ruddled face; but, seeing a market-official, she changed her mind, grimaced, and wandered off, swaying with a caricature of voluptuousness.

Victor turned back to watching the wine flow away.

The dark red wine. It was so like blood. He felt hopeless and hated the girl who fatly swayed her hips, bobbing like a buoy amid the waves, amid the smells and noise of the market-place where vermilioned girls and wild fowl rouged with blood on the soft breast-feathers were for sale. Take your choice.

I stand alone in a tower of the dawn, tingling alive, breathing deeply. My body is washed clean by the fresh light.

He tried to conjure up Daphne, to blot out the chaffering world. She was slim. He couldn’t remember how she walked, but was sure that it was with gentle grace, with a slow undulation, not a slipslop sway. She was slim, but not gawky. She was perfect. She was lost.

He had been watching, he realised, a girl whose back was turned. She was about Daphne’s height, and her hair was the same colour. Almost the same colour. Of course Daphne walked more gracefully; there was more of a glow about her, a richer sheen in the hair. But the girl wasn’t bad. She had scratched her left ankle.

She turned, and was Daphne.

They stared at one another, dubious for a moment. Then they were certain. They flushed and half turned away, then moved quickly together.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” said Victor, and then quailed, remembering how furiously she had left him and how he’d worked out numberless excuses, appeals, justifications. His heart leaped.

“I knew you’d find me,” she answered, with a quiet smile; and he was convinced. She spoke so simply, so sincerely. He was daunted by her depths of female confidence, himself clumsily unsure.

She smiled, and he asked nothing better than to die at her feet.

“I was frightened. I couldn’t help it...We’re living out in the harbour...I knew it too.”

She stood unmoving, proud-breasted, maintaining the benign smile of her silence. Seemed to be aloofly pitying, waiting. He didn’t know what to say. Neither did she. She hoped that there were no tear-stains on her cheeks.

“Can’t we go somewhere?”

He looked feebly round the market and caught the eye of one of his fellow-slaves (menials in comparison to himself), flinched, and threw back his shoulders, standing his full height.

“Yes...where?” She spoke nonchalantly.

They stood looking at one another, unable to think, drowned in the moment, only wanting to be drowned.

“I have to go back now.” He was terrified that she would refuse another tryst. “Can I see you some other time?”

She knitted her brows, pondering what time would be best for the meeting; and he waited in patient misery, thinking she was unsure whether she would meet him.

“Tomorrow night.”

“But I can’t,” he stammered. “We’re not in the Palace. We’re on that rock. He calls it the Timonion because no women are allowed.”

She made no answer, unable to think of another suitable occasion, happy at least that all women were excluded from the house where Victor lived; but he took her silence to express a contemptuous refusal to deal with such a coward.

“All right.” He gulped. “I’ll get ashore somehow. I’ll meet you behind the new temple they’re building.”

“Half an hour after sundown.”

“I’ll be there.”

He spoke with heroic calm, but she merely smiled, afraid that he would think her reluctant to meet him.

“I’m so glad. I’ll see you then.”

The other slaves were mustered at the street-entrance, beckoning to Victor. He waved to them masterfully, looked at Daphne, smiled, almost wept, envied and hated her unmoved benignity (her chilling heart, her love), hungrily stared at her, couldn’t leave her desired presence, wanted to go away quickly for fear that he’d do something wrong.

With a wrench he went, turned at the gate (a smile, a sad appeal, a promise, a gaze unending), and was gone.

Daphne looked after him with eyes already dimmed. If only he’d met her somewhere else. She shouldn’t have visited the Market, but there were so many things that she shouldn’t do, and she was alone all day. She visited the Market occasionally, in her shabbiest clothes, not to buy (Simon did all the shopping for the household), but to look on, to find out how people lived (and never to find it out), to feel disgusted at the coarse-voiced stall-women, the painted girls. Why hadn’t Victor asked her what she was doing there? He hadn’t seemed very surprised; he couldn’t respect her. She wouldn’t meet him.

Her saffron dress had luckily been washed yesterday.

She wouldn’t meet him; he took her for granted.

The girl with the swinging hips had edged up, curious about such an obvious intruder.

“ Come and have a drink, dearie,” she said in a cracked whisper.

Daphne gave her a startled glance and hurried across the market, colliding with a pillar and then almost falling under a donkey. The donkey bared its teeth viciously and snapped, grazing her arm. The farmer cursed. A bread-woman threw a mouldy biscuit, which struck Daphne behind. A decayed raddish, missed by the sweepers of yesterday, squashed under her foot. She felt degraded, her flesh crawling with obnoxious contacts; and it all served her right for speaking to a mere slave, allowing him to touch her, to presume. It all served her right.

She would wear her saffron dress.

*

Lucilius and Aristocrates assembled for dinner, unless Antonius gave orders that he wanted to be left alone; and when the three men dined together, Victor, in attendance with Eros to keep the cup of Antonius filled with wine, listened eagerly to whatever scraps of conversation arose. He wanted to hear more of the opinions of Aristocrates. But there was little general discussion. The two men seemed afraid of Antonius. They had tried consolation, and he had bellowed at them.

Tonight he turned on them with his usual cry, “Why don’t you go too?”

He had become submerged in wine, flabbily drunk, but without losing the apparent control of his wits. He seemed rotting away, like a body corrupted in water-depths, smeared with a growing vagueness of lineament. The lines of his face had grown more crudely scored; and at times he lay gasping, trying to spit up phlegm that had lodged in his throat.

Aristocrates, a thin man with aquiline nose and sensual mouth, looked up from his dish of spiced greens. He contracted his brows. “I am a seeker after knowledge.”

Lucilius said nothing. He lay heavily, his plain honest face clouded. Then he tossed off a goblet of wine.

“Because I won’t go. It doesn’t suit me. My life’s yours.”

“You’ll soon be your own master then,” said Antonius, dropping his head with a jerk. He pulled himself together again. “The chain’s snapping.” He cracked the joints of his fingers. “Listen to the skeleton. The immortal man.”

That was his despair, closing on him as he drowned deeper. Why had things so changed? All the soldiers of Rome had set him up as champion, and he had trodden the murderers of Caesar underfoot. The cities of Asia had hailed him as Dionusos the Deliverer. Still the shouts rang in his ears, the processions danced before him, the women naked in their fawn-skins, the lads in satyr-dress, brandishing ivy and pine-tipped thyrsus-rods by day, and swinging with torches through the night. “Giver of Joy!” they cried. “Preserver of the Earth” Where was the pageant now? Was it all a fancy of wine’s delirium? God, god...

“I won’t be taken alive,” he yelled, and threw his cup at the ceiling.

What had failed? why was he a dying man?

When Cleopatra visited him at Tarsos, the world had cried out, “Here is Aphrodite come from the sea to look upon her brother-god Dionusos!”

The world had lied.

But why had the virtue passed out of him? He must learn the reason.

He called for an image of Dionusos, a small terra-cotta statue, which he had borne about as a luck. Eros set it on the table.

“Hey, brother,” said Antonius, and belched. “Look at me now.” His two brothers were dead, good fellows, his only friends; ash and burnt bone. O god, what was a man given a brain for, to think such thoughts, to know himself damned? He laughed. “That was a fine joke. When the Athenians made me a god and married me to their Athena, I asked for a stiff dowry. In cash. How much was it?” He hammered on the table. “How much ?”

“I wasn’t there,” said Aristocrates, and drank quietly.

“I don’t take note of such things,” growled Lucilius.

“How much?” roared Antonius. He picked up the statue and flung it on the floor, shivering it.

“It was a million drachmai,” said Eros humbly.

“You’re right.” Antonius looked up, tearing his eyes from the shattered god. “Come here.” He made room for Eros at the end of his couch. “I’m the god now. The only god left. And a stinking god too.” He hooted with laughter. “Pity the earth. But it doesn’t deserve anything better. By God, I’d like to trample on it.”

Earth of his victory, earth of his love. He had meant to do so much for humankind, and now he was shattered on the floor. To make the world a dream of ecstasy and power; to drive to the uttermost end beyond which even an Alexandros died; to bless all women with beauty and the earth with unfailing harvests. In the name of Justice, of Caesar who had died in horror and shame, to prove that men wouldn’t stand for treachery. Fair play all round. There shouldn’t be any money.

He turned to Aristocrates. “You were saying something.”

“No.”

He raised his voice. “You were saying something. Tell me what a god is.”

Aristocrates nervously raised himself, but, seeing that Antonius was no longer listening, he remained silent.

Antonius was back in Athens again. Hardly six months ago. They had hailed him as Dionusos and set a statue of Cleopatra-Aphrodite on the Acropolis. On the day of festival a lattice-roof had been rigged all over the great Theatre on the hillside, entwined with green branches, vines, and garlands, as if the Theatre were one of the caverns sacred to the god. From this roof were hung hundreds of drums, fawn-skins, cymbals, pipes; and there in the middle of the Theatre had Antonius-Dionusos sat, splashed with the afternoon sun through the enormous lattice of greenery—he and his boozing friends. And the night had been a revelry of torches. O love, suddenly naked in the wild blaze.

He upset the table, anything to make a noise, back in the little room on the sea-bound rock. Stamp it out.

Why had he failed? giving too much, nothing. He had meant to govern the world with justice and comradeship, and he’d ended drunk in the enormous cavern of leaves and flowers on the hill of Athens, drunk in this dingy little room. There was no difference. Drunk. Where was the new order that had burned in splendour in his triumphing mind? He had ended by wanting it all for himself, greedy underneath Cleopatra’s milky breasts.

“Say something, you fool!” he shouted at Lucilius.

“I don’t know anything about gods and suchlike vermin,” said Lucilius, hunching up his shoulders. “I met a Jew once who was sure about God. So after that I had a drink and washed God out of my system. But you know I’d die for you, if that would do any good. That’s all. I’ve got to keep my conscience clear.”

“I saved your life once,” said Antonius with a spiteful laugh. “Fancy that. I said, ‘ Don’t be in such a hurry to die.’ And because of that you pester me like an unpaid debt. You’re the worst of the lot of them, you hyena. You’re only waiting for me to die so that you can feel free again. You pismire. You undernourished maggot.”

Lucilius did not stir, then, after slowly putting down his wine-cup on the floor, he rose and went out. Antonius sent jeering laughter to follow him.

“It’s your turn,” he said, stopping suddenly and turning to Aristocrates, who had sat up on the edge of his couch.

“You asked me what a god is,” said Aristocrates, in quick precise tones as if giving a lecture, to hide his agitation. Antonius nodded sagely.

“It is all a problem of words, of a break somewhere in our capacities,” went on Aristocrates, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “The divine is the natural. But because we cannot grasp that simple truth in its entirety, we have to isolate certain aspects and think of them as more divine than the others. Hence the errors and distortions. Yet there is no other way, we being as we are.”

“We are as we are,” assented Antonius, nodding heavily. “As we are.” He yawned, and Aristocrates spoke on more quickly still, but without raising his voice.

“There is only one blasphemy, to think of God as separate from the world—”

Antonius interrupted. “But what of me? What I want to know is the effects on God of being God, do you see?” He beat his chest. “She called me Ra-Amen—to explain away her bastards. The god came in the darkness....” He sniggered, and then fell silent again.

Victor had been leaning against a pillar in the gloom, trying to make out what was said; but the words perturbed him without revelation. He thought of the huge statues of Cleopatra and Antonius in the temple in the Eleusis district westward of the city, and was filled with contempt for his master sprawling on the couch. The dark chamber seemed to grow darker and around Antonius to thicken a miasma of evil, beating wings of vile night-presences. But perhaps there was more to understand.

“...Man may be a god to others, but never such to himself. The priest in the Mysteries may hold up a Cross, and it becomes man and woman mating and the whole universe; but if it were lost and later found by someone who didn’t know what it was, it would be only a cross, for use perhaps as a vine-support. The cross wouldn’t be divine in itself, but divine when looked at in a certain way. So a man might become a god, but he’d remain a man to himself, since he couldn’t look at himself as the others were looking. He’d be a god in the acclaiming voices, but a man in the silence which was his inner self. Yet, since all things are divine, his inner silence too would image a god, but never the God that the world saw...”

Antonius was listening intently. Aristocrates, blinking away to himself, went on.

“The inner-god is reality. But never a god. Life changes, and the changes are divine. You can understand me. There is no god in an image or a word as the people believe. The god is in the blood. Blood is everywhere.”

Antonius leaned forward ardently, and touched Aristocrates on the arm. “That’s what I dream.” His voice was hushed, cautious. “I see it flowing endlessly.”

Aristocrates did not look at him. He was staring into his wine-cup, speaking in strained tones like a man compelled to speak.

“It’s all in the blood. All the forms. Yet the change of forms is the god. But the god is in us, since we are in the stream of blood. The god is only the change, and yet the change never ceases. The god is the pattern.”

“I can understand that,” said Antonius, in a louder voice. “It’s all a battle, and the god’s the general. I know that. I’ve led an army. After the death of Caesar. I was part of it, and the men were all part of me. It must have been then that I became a god. But I’d rather die. I can’t die...”

Eros, who had been lying still all this while, stirred and clasped the feet of Antonius, looking up at him imploringly. Antonius took no notice, grinding his teeth. Aristocrates had fallen back on his couch, exhausted.

Lucilius re-entered and lay down on his couch without a word or a glance round.

“Drink up, man,” said Antonius jovially, roused from his stupor.

Lucilius lifted up slowly and stared at Antonius with sad eyes.

“Master, how is it all to end?”

Antonius stared back at him, and gradually his face lost its tensions, his eyelids drooped. He shuddered and passed his hand over his brow.

“How is it all to end?” he echoed gravely. He paused, and then screamed, “With my own dagger in my heart!”

He snatched at the dagger that lay sheathed beside him, tore the dagger out, and raised it on high to plunge into his heart. Eros cried and clasped the feet of Antonius in stricken fear; but Lucilius had been watching closely. He sprang across and knocked the dagger away. It clattered on the floor.

Antonius rolled over with a groan. “I can’t die.”

“O it breaks my heart,” said Lucilius in dull tones. He knelt beside Antonius. Antonius put an arm round his neck and sobbed.

“I know you love me, but I can’t help it. You should have let me die. But now I can’t do it again.” He began mumbling. “The world deserves no better. Murderers and gold-grubbers all. Traitors...”

He lay back at last with closed eyes, and called for more wine. Victor hastened forwards and found that in the painful absorption of the scene he’d neglected to keep a watch on the authepsa, the self-boiler, that provided the warm water for the wine; the charcoal-fuel had long burned away. But Antonius was in no state to tell whether the wine was cold or warm. He drank a cupful and then motioned that the others should go—all except Eros, on whose shoulder he laid his hand.

Victor noticed that Aristocrates staggered, and helped him to his room. The sweat was still damp on the man’s brow, and he could not speak coherently.

“What did I say ?” he asked Victor once, but did not seem to expect an answer. He shivered. “ I feared...in his eyes...unless I spoke the truth...not what I said...”

Victor saw him to bed and fetched him some more wine. Aristocrates drank, and seemed to feel better. He stroked Victor’s hand and arm, and seemed to want to say something. But be turned away with his face to the wall, and asked for the lamp to be left alight.

Victor returned to the corridor at the end of which lay the triclinium where Antonius had remained. There he loitered, waiting for Eros. Once he heard him cry piercingly. That was all. At last he could bear it no longer, drawn by a disquiet, a feeling of danger, a dim apprehensive jealousy; and he tiptoed down the corridor, glad of the carpets which had been strewn indiscriminately throughout the villa.

Reaching the door, he peeped through, and to his terror gazed straight into the eyes of Antonius.

Antonius was standing opposite the door, in a recess where had been painted an adicula or small shrine, the artist endeavouring to continue the lines of perspective and create an illusion of recess-within-recess. Antonius was stripped, and leaned back stiffly against the wall, his arms flat along his sides. Before him knelt Eros, also stripped, with head resting on the feet of Antonius. Antonius did not stir. His eyes, which stared at Victor, were glassily fixed, recording nothing. They hypnotised with their emptiness. There was a strange contorted smile on his face. On his head he wore a gilt wreath of bay, one of the banquet-wreaths that had been stacked in the sideboard. The leaves radiated with spikes of light in the flickering rays of the lamps.

With a violent wrench Victor succeeded in stepping back, away from the door, expecting to hear a shout of rage from Antonius for the intrusion. But Antonius had seen nothing.

Trembling, Victor stole back to his room in the tower and tossed awake through the night, a fugitive of faceless dreams.

3 TELL ME THE TRUTH

Long before dawn he had struggled out of the blanketing oppression of half-dream and climbed to the top of the tower, waiting for the sea-gulls and the mist of light over the great city—the city that at this hour became only a pictorial extension of his mood, an image that he had painted on the backcloth of dwindled space. Below him moaned and lapped the waters at their old uneasy work, as if the hunger of the world spoke in their fretting tongues, the suck and cluck at the wearing breasts of earth. Warning and token of the end, this insistence on the hunger of the present. Too long had humankind hungered through dark forest-years, too deep had the fear burrowed beneath all foundations of the sunlit cities of the mind. In the beginning were the waters, and if one paused to listen there was yet nothing else.

But beyond these, in the gloom, lay the marvellous city, a thing of pride and grace, housing the creatures of terror and lust. In the dawnlight it could be entirely wonder, uncontaminated by the unworthy hordes who built it.

Hard to make out, but clear enough in the wavering impulses of the blood, despair and hope, self-reliance and prayer. The curling edges of the sea became more distinct, frolicking rather than dying in forlorn submission against the bulwarks of beleaguered earth. The sky was thinning, the city more than a crouching shape of darkness. But the wind was still cold on the cheeks of the gazer, sliding cold fingers against his legs and arms. The causeway ran straight into the dispersing gloom, straight as his thoughts towards Daphne.

There was no colour in the dawn. It burst in white incandescence, came suddenly and tipped the dome of the Sarapeion with white flame and burned within on the lips and eyes of the god. The first ray of dawn touched the head of the god, who faced eastwards in his shrine, and the priests were kneeling before him with morning-praise; but the gazer from the sea saw only the dazzle on the dome, and that was enough. It was a flame of pure sacrifice sent from the earth, the troubled and stained earth, that yet desired purification.

And the sea-wind gave the cleansing, and the light of the dawn. Any stream on the mountainside gave it, or the salt holiness of the sea-waters. Yet men were unpurified.

With full light picking out the details of the landscape there returned awareness of actual problems. The awe of unknown space, the elemental hunger, died away; and the caverns from which they arose were closed in the blood. Instead was the world, and the need of breakfast, and pestering thoughts, false trails of memories, and the effort to forget last night.

The feeling of lovely strength which had come to Victor in his tower of the morning was no longer his. His rash promise to meet Daphne after dark appalled him, yet he would have to carry it out. But what if something made it quite impossible for him to get away, what if Daphne decided not to keep the tryst after all, what if he missed her and never saw her again (for he had once more forgotten in the stress of the moment to ask her where she lived), what if she forgot the place he had suggested? and what if he did the wrong thing if they did meet (O Sarapis, keep off the evil eye), if he drove her away by some crudity like last time, or if he felt himself drained and sinewless as he had felt on the lake-pier with his arm half round her?

He wanted to pray, but knew no god well enough. Even Sarapis was only a dome flaring with whiteness, a bit of the sun. Besides, words that Aristocrates had used bewildered him. God is many, God is a man, God is a change in the blood, God is one. How to reconcile such statements, and what had they to do with Sarapis? Probably the instruction and sacraments of the Mysteries would tell. It would be best to become initiated into Isis as soon as possible; Antonius would pay for any necessary clothes or sacrifices.

But not Antonius in his present condition. Victor waited to hear some tumult from the house below, some terrible awakening. But nothing happened. He heard the slaves going about their duties, and from the boy who brought him breakfast he learned that Antonius was sleeping peacefully.

The day passed for him in a daze of sick perturbation, with all his thoughts turned to the problem of leaving the villa. But as the hours went and Antonius did not summon him, he began to feel easier. He begged some meal-porridge from the cook, and the stale heaviness caused by the sleepless night left his stomach. There was only one door to the villa, the door leading on to the causeway, and any exit could not be concealed. At last he decided to tell the doorkeeper that he was sent by Antonius on a message; the man wouldn’t doubt his word; and Antonius, who, Victor heard, was drinking again, would be taking no interest in the household.

Victor ate some fried fish with the other slaves and then retired to his room on the excuse of illness. Dusk was already busy dematerialising the mainland, shutting the market of the day, and insisting that men and women stand for a moment before the mirrors of earthly silence—to which men and women, unless tired out successfully, retorted with the hide-and-seek of pleasure, the castanets of the dance, the draughts of wine that masqued the drinkers as god-beasts, the coming and the going of Venus through the streets and cul-de-sacs of flesh.

The canopy of Alexandrian night was spread, sagging with the star-spangles.

Victor crept downstairs to the door, whispered to the doorkeeper, who grumbled and let him out. He sped along the narrow causeway, pursued by the rumbling waves that mimicked the doorkeeper, calling “Come back.” In his haste he slipped and almost fell into the harbour. Then he recovered himself and made sure that the doorkeeper wasn’t calling out after him, that he was alone on the causeway, between the rock-refuge of despair and the murmuring city of pleasure-after-toil.

He moved on more slowly, and reached the land with a thrill of gratitude. Everything would come out all right.

After many fears, one found that there was nothing to fear. He was free, and Daphne was waiting somewhere ahead, across the quayside faced with broad paving-stones, beyond the terrace and the heaps of rubble. Straight in front loomed the rear-wall of the unfinished temple, outlined with dim starlight. (The temple of deified Antonius, never to be finished now, surely; upheld by scaffolding.) Alexandrians were moving about, mostly in couples; for they went late to bed, despite their industrial employments.

With a sob of relief he saw a girl’s form show up through the shadows.

“Daphne...”

“Yes, it’s me.” She sounded angry. “Why have you been so long? I almost went home. There was a man...” He hurried to her side.

“Tell me where you live.” He had determined to say this first. “I can’t bear losing you again.”

“I’ll tell you in a moment. But where are we going to go? We can’t stay here.”

He hadn’t thought of that, and hesitated. Somehow, now that they had met, he was disappointed. She wasn’t as nice as he imagined her, as he knew her to be; and he painfully felt that he himself was peevish, unlike his thought of himself. Now that they had met, he couldn’t understand why they had met, what was drawing them together in spite of all social prohibitions and all probabilities. He felt aloof from himself, critical, merely out of place; wanted to pick a quarrel over some minute point, such as the way a ribbon was tied, like a bored husband of years’ standing; felt that if the parting could only be done without any discussion whatever, with a complete assent on both sides, nothing would please him better than to go straight hack to his bedroom and fall quietly to sleep.

“You know Alexandria better than I do.”

She stamped her foot. “Not at this time of the night. What do you think of me?”

“Let’s walk along the sea-front then,” he answered, his brains turgidly active. If they went into the city, there would be nothing to do except go into some heated wine-bar. The palace-gardens would he shut, but the sea-front would be open as far as the Royal Docks, with only a few beacon-lights and sentries.

They set off walking, side by side; and he did not like to take her arm. Neither spoke. A stiff constraint settled down upon them, and they could think of nothing at all to say. Nothing. They were without interests, detached from past and future, two strangers who chanced inappropriately to be walking together, and who would never find anything to say to one another—not if they walked on and on till they met the Sunrise.

Other couples had also thought of the sea-front. They passed, closely linked, laughing secretly, secure in their little worlds of intimacy. Fathers and mothers, and the landlord-world with its miser-laws, were all excluded; the smell of the sea, the clusters of trellised stars, the open space for walking, made up a moment of bodily freedom: the sweetness of clear contact between desiring and desired, between the senses and the earth of their possession, which all freedoms of the mind so pathetically seek to mimic. Each passing couple was a world of unfathomable delight.

As each couple passed, Daphne and Victor felt driven ever further apart, as if the sea-breeze streaming between them was a blast of chilly dissension, their wasted lives flowing away. Victor tried to find something to say, but his brain was pressed down by hot unseen hands, the tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. There was nothing to say, except the thing he had wanted to say and could not say. I love you. It would be a mockery to speak such words, since he felt nothing save the meaninglessness of the situation. It’s a nice view, I love you, what’s the price of cabbages...Nothing had any emphasis, any meaning. His blood was wine gone flat, but not even tart enough for useful vinegar. Brackish water. Drink from the well of my tears. I saw a mosquito just then.

It was bad enough to see the happy lovers passing. It was worse at times to see them lying in spaces where the wall retreated, or on the landing-stages lower down. Victor knew that the stages would be wet and covered with patches of slimy seaweed, but he envied those who lay there, luxuriously lullabied by the waves and tissued in starlight, whatever they unbared. The longer he was silent, the more impossible it was for him to speak. Daphne said nothing. He had been sure that she would at least upbraid him, make a reference to his behaviour in the dark flower-niche; and he had spent all his ingenuity in thinking out pleas. Why didn’t she attack him? That would at worst rouse them, make them real to one another. The silence was her fault, because it was her place after her maidenly flight to abuse him. Her silence was worse than any anger or complaint. It was inexplicable. Why was she walking out with him?

Or was she a wanton? had she come out only to be given another excuse for maidenly horror? He’d be damned if he’d give her the excuse. That must be what she wanted, or she would have complained.

He wouldn’t touch her, not even if she offered herself. He’d wait till she offered herself, and then he’d walk off.

They passed a soldier beside a brazier of wrought iron. Three girls, arm in arm, were standing before the soldier, giggling and poking him with their fingers. Then, with a last joke, they turned away, one of them flouncing up her skirt backwards. Victor was looking at her, and knew that Daphne knew he was looking; and he blushed. It was so hard to walk straight in the darkness. He and Daphne kept bumping one another.

“Won’t you take my arm?” he said involuntarily, and added, “I’m frightened we might slip into the water.”

She took his arm without a word, and they went on.

Scents from the palace-gardens mingled with the cool keen sea-smell. Afar, a caged lion roared. The stars had thickened their embroideries on the encrusted sky. The crooning waters lulled the mind, and resentment faded. A dim phosphorescence, or was it flotsam of starlight, fluttered over the lazily turning waves.

“You haven’t told me where you live?” he asked at length, weakening into hope.

She still said nothing; and he, torn between anger and fear, tried to go on lightly:

“You haven’t lost your voice, have you?”

Self-pity flooded him, and he remembered the social gulf between them.

“You aren’t sorry you’ve come?”

She shook her head, afraid to speak lest she burst into tears. What was the use of having worn her best saffron dress? There was no light to show it, and things would have been worse if there had been light; she wouldn’t have been able to hide her face. Now Victor would never ask her to meet him again. Life wasn’t worth living. She had never been able to make friends, to find out how other people made them. She would have liked to follow the three girls who were teasing the soldier, to find out what they meant to do. How was it that people enjoyed themselves? She had almost forgotten Victor, except as vaguely focussing part of her irritation against life’s insufficiency, her own ignorance.

They reached the end of the walk. A palace-wall beetled up over them, with a drift of light over the top; but underneath it was pleasantly dim, sheltered from starlight and the distant beacon and the seaward-piercing beams of the Pharos. As they turned, he took her in his arms. The embrace came easily out of the movement of turning, and he did not have to think. She let him kiss her, then struggled away.

“Why do you want to spoil things?”

“I don’t.” He wanted scornfully to ask what it was he was spoiling—surely not their crabbed silence? But his panic was too great. He sought for the exculpatory phrase, knew what it was, yet couldn’t say it. “ Please...”

“Don’t try that stuff again,” she said in a cold harsh voice. “It got me once— -but not a second time.”

“What do you mean?” He truly was puzzled.

“O that whining. You said: Don’t laugh at me. You remember perfectly well. I suppose you thought it out beforehand. Thought you were clever.”

He felt stabbed to the heart, embittered, yet somehow sorry—for both her and himself. He hated her voice, felt himself hating her also, and fought to hide from the emotion.

“I love you.”

He had to say it, though it should burst the veins throbbing in his forehead, close for ever his constricting throat, let his galloping heart loose in his strangled breast.

She ceased her denunciations and stared at him through the shadows with widening eyes.

“Do you really?”

Her voice was sweet again, too sweet, childishly questioning. It offered more than he could take, asked more than he could give.

“I love you, I love you,” he answered, tearing the words out in bitter joy. “Now you know. You can go now. I won’t say ever again: Don’t laugh at me.” He parodied her parody of his appeal. “I don’t care.”

She clung to him, almost whispering, “I couldn’t laugh at you...whatever you did. Dear Victor...forgive me.”

But he wouldn’t leave his bitter advantage. “You said I was as bad as him. The man. You know.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Why did you let me...if you didn’t want me to?”

It was she who pleaded now, leaning against him, woman-breasted.

“I wanted to thank you...There wasn’t any other way...Only, afterwards I felt different. I thought you didn’t love me.”

“You still think it; and I love you so, it hurts.”

“I don’t. Would I be here with you if I did?”

That gave him the reassurance he wanted, and they clung together in a long kiss. He threw his cloak on the ground and drew her down. But she sat up against the wall, stubborn-backed.

“If you loved me, you’d only want to see me and talk with me. Why don’t you go with one of those other girls if you want something else? The one who kicked up her skirt. I saw you peeping.”

“I didn’t peep. I mean, I only looked before she did it, so how did I know she was going to do it? I looked away at once.”

“Go on after her.”

“I won’t. How can you say such things? You’re the only one I love.”

They wrangled on, not very pleased when another couple climbed up from some steps at the side, laughed, and called out obscene advice, having heard the whole conversation. After that they sat in aggrieved silence, feeling fools and growing angrier. At last Daphne rose.

“I must go home.”

Victor picked up his cloak, his best cloak, which was wet with sea-water and muddied. The dye would run. Daphne settled her saffron dress, wondering if the pleats were crumpled badly, and adjusted her shawl. She might as well have worn the shabby dress that he’d seen her wearing at the market.

Silent once more, they walked hack along the sea-front, each enclosed in an irritable confusion of ideas and fancies. Victor had decided not to ask Daphne where she lived; unless she told him of her own accord, he’d never see her again. He expected her to dismiss him at the head of the Street of the Sema, but she turned and walked on down the street, again taking his arm. He softened and pressed her hand against his side. Both of them felt easier now that they had entered a street where despite the night-hour there was a stream of people.

“You don’t love me now,” she said, a little sadly.

“Yes, I do,” he answered dully, and then, dismayed at his own voice, tumbled out words haphazardly. “Dearest. If you love me at all. Even the least bit. I don’t mind as long as I can still see you. That’s all I really want. And to know you love me, even the least bit. I can’t keep on living unless I see you sometimes. Please don’t be cruel. I love you.”

She hung warmly on his arm and raised softly-lighted eyes to his face.

“I’ll show you where I live.” Suddenly she too became talkative. “Father’s out. I knew he wouldn’t be back for hours, as there was someone special to meet at dinner at the Museion. So I told Simon to go and stay for the night with his brother who lives near the Necropolis. We’ve got the first-floor over a glass-shop. It’s the only place I can remember. He wouldn’t leave when mother died. And then there was my aunt. But I told you about her. She died too. One day when I was out. I didn’t like her much. She used to drink, though father never guessed it.”

A foolish gaiety seized them both. They had never felt so light-hearted before. They laughed at everything they said, and clasped hands, sweating slightly after the quick walk; clasped hands till they were afraid of hurting one another, and laughed again, and were a little self-conscious because of the sweat of their meeting palms, but liked it, liked everything; laughed and wanted to run and shout; said whatever came into their heads; made loud remarks about the people passing, then were lost in themselves once more, laughing for no reason, clasping hands.

There was nothing wrong with the world, nothing, except that the Street of the Sema didn’t stretch on for ever.

It had to end. They reached the glass-shop; but to delay the parting, Daphne took Victor two shops further down, and pointed to the perfume-shop, where he could leave notes if necessary; for she was good friends with the girl-attendant and could trust her. Then they walked back to the glass-shop, and Victor explained how he’d searched for the shop but had thought he’d seen Daphne slip into one further up the street. They couldn’t bear to part, and then grew scared at the same moment, thinking that a man coming towards them might be Nicias. She unlocked the door after some awful seconds when it seemed that the wards wouldn’t move; and then as he stood trying to drag himself away, she beckoned him into the passage, half-closed the door, and kissed him with lingering surrender, hanging with all her supple weight from his shoulders. Then she pushed him out with a low satisfied laugh, and closed the door.

Distracted with happiness, he stood looking at the door which had slid like a veil across his beloved, hiding her away in unimaginable sanctities, in a world where his thoughts could not follow her. It seemed to him that she was still standing behind the door, would be standing there till in the fullness of time the door opened and she emerged once more upon his senses, touched, heard, seen, smelt, tasted, adored.

He rushed away, then returned slowly, made a tiny scratch on the pillar facing the door in an unformulated fear that he wouldn’t be able to identify the place again, though it was indelibly impressed on his memory; walked up and down, trying to loiter casually. While he was passing the perfume-shop, wondering what the girl was like who was Daphne’s friend, he saw a bearded man appear, dressed in a long cloak, coming down the street from the other direction. The bearded man stopped before Daphne’s door, opened it, and entered. Nicias, her father.

With a start Victor realised that the night was growing late. There were hardly any people left in the street. Yet he seemed to have been only a few moments with Daphne. And it must have been hours.

The thought disturbed his overbrimming happiness, and, losing all wish to dawdle before the door enlairing the beloved, he hastened up the street.

*

At the head of the causeway stood a soldier, clearly on guard. Victor tried to walk airily past; but the soldier barred the way and demanded his business. On hearing that Victor belonged to the villa household, he said that he’d take him up to the door and inquire. Victor at once retreated into the shadows, acting on impulse; and when he stopped to consider the situation, he felt that he’d been unnecessarily fearful, though the soldier might have roused the whole villa by banging loudly on the door. The hour was certainly later than he’d realised. The soldier must be one of the quay-sentries, told by Cleopatra to keep an eye on the villa. But now, after once running away, Victor could hardly approach the soldier again. It would look too suspicious and the soldier would be sure to make a lot of noise.

There was only one course left. Victor went off along the quayside towards the dockyards, knowing that the boatmen had skiffs for hire and that on such a calm night many couples would have gone for a row. Most of the boatmen had gone home, but Victor found one man who was still there, tying up his boat and cursing to himself. A couple had hired his boat for an hour, and then stayed away over three hours; and he’d expected to discover his boat lost and two worthless corpses washed ashore somewhere for others to rob. But the couple hadn’t been drowned; they’d come back, the man with a swollen eye and a different girl.

Isis alone knew what had happened. Without a doubt the girl was different. Moreover the returning couple were both drunk, yet hadn’t taken any liquor with them. A most irregular proceeding. There was also a fresh leak in the boat; and the couple had had only enough money to pay for one and a half hours’ hiring.

After a while Victor made the man listen, and after an even longer while made him agree to row out to the villa. He had brought most of his money with him in case Daphne might want to be bought something, and the chinkle of the coins overcame the man’s hesitation. The skiff set off, skimming through the water with only a slight gurgle from the prow and the dipping oars, a slight creak from the seats. The boatman’s wheezing pants were louder than the noise of the sliding boat. Victor baled with a large oyster-shell. Taking a curve out and in, the boat approached the causeway a few paces down from the villa-door, and the man pushed Victor up the face of slippery stone. The boat rocked, threatening to sheer off and drop Victor into the dark waters; then he found himself stumbling on the causeway, with torn knuckles. He watched till the boatman had disappeared into the swaying gloom, and then walked on tiptoe to the door, knocking lightly with the bent little-finger of his right hand. To his joy he saw one side of the double-doors instantly open, and he stepped in, ready with excuses and a tip. He was as glad to be back safely in the island-house of slavery as he had been to step safely on the shores of freedom earlier in the evening.

The door shut again, and he was in darkness. Two powerful hairy hands closed round his throat and shook him violently. A voice hissed “Traitor!”

He gasped, but could not speak. His hands plucked vainly at the sinewy wrists of his attacker. Hopelessly he fought for breath. Daphne! Palely she floated before his eyes on the swirling dark, beseechingly, raising bare arms, and sucked into a turmoil of grotesque faces that darted menacingly down, like a rush of fishes underwater about some dropped bait. Tell Daphne.

Then the pressure slackened, and he was dragged along the hallway, flung through a curtained door, bringing the curtains down with him. Before he could rise, the curtains were wrenched away, turning him over, and again he was seized, pulled from the floor, throttled. But now he could see. Antonius was glaring at him with mad eyes.

“Tell me where you’ve been, before I kill you. Who’s paying you?”

He looked round cunningly, licked his lips, and went on in a low voice:

“Is it—she?”

Victor shook his head weakly and opened his mouth, lolling his tongue. Antonius understood and released him. “Speak first, you carrion, you spy.”

“I was seeing a girl,” moaned Victor, holding his bruised throat.

“A girl!” shouted Antonius. “A two-legged girl! Every-thing’s double about them!”

He leaned over and stared at Victor, shifting his glance from one eye to the other, as if to intercept a message between them. Victor could think of nothing except the necessity of not blinking. He stared back, unquivering.

“You poor lad.” Antonius shut his eyes and nodded his head meditatively. “Fancy a woman getting you down too. We’re comrades in misery.” He lurched nearer and breathed over Victor his stale drunken breath. “There’s only one thing to do. Shave them all. No man could lose his wits over a bald woman. You poor lad. Do you feel as if red-hot pincers were tearing at your navel? Of course you do. It’s lucky for you I saw that you were telling me the truth. I knew it by the fear in your eyes. I saw you’d come from a woman, as sure as if I’d been looking in a mirror. Come on, let’s make a night of it.”

He picked up a flagon and filled two glass-goblets with unmixed wine. Victor did not dare to refuse, though used only to wine much watered.

They drank, and warmth surged through the reluctant veins of Victor. Antonius blustered on, as if stating his case before a court; and gradually Victor listened, compelled by the brooding intensity of the rambling voice.

“Political entanglements. No love in it. S— to love, I say. It’s all lies that I ran off. Retreated for more strategic position. Empire of the East. Caesar’s plan. Alexander’s too. Merge East and West. Capital for commerce...”

He stopped, and his eyes wrinkled again with an insane cunning.

“She tried to poison me, but I let her see I knew. She carried it off finely. Say the worst about her, she’s got style. A wonderful woman, but a bitch. Poured out wine for us both from the same beaker, then dipped a rose-wreath into my cup. Handed me the cup. Knocked it out of my hand. You see how easily I could poison you,’ she said; the roses were poisoned. But she’d seen that I guessed. There was goose-flesh on her teats. Anyhow, she hoped to use me still. We’d have won if it hadn’t been for her. What’s this snake-eyed Queen of Egypt got to do with restoring the liberty of Rome?’ said Domitius. Liberty!’ said I. She’s Isis; thinks she is; and don’t you think otherwise.’ Domitius didn’t understand. A chap with a hatchet for a head. Deserted. Caught camp-fever. Died. Perhaps I struck him dead. Destroyer and Preserver. ‘Anyhow, she’s frightened of me. That’s the only reason why she didn’t poison me. Is she dead yet?”

He stared fiercely at Victor, accusingly.

“I don’t know,” Victor managed to say, not knowing what reply was wanted.

Antonius nodded.

“No. I thought not. You’ll see now why I had to make this place my home. Water all around. Too many cats in Alexandria, but they don’t like swimming. You’re a lad after my own heart. Have another drink.”

Victor felt drowsily excited by the wine, and as often as Antonius filled the cups he drank. The warmth of the wine had clouded fear away, and he knew only a tremendous wish to help Antonius, to talk with him until at last life’s flaw was discovered.

“I don’t believe in anything. That’s what’s wrong with me. As soon as they started making a god of me, I found it harder to go on believing. Till it all went. Like having a ghost for a wife. I thought I might as well have a good time. And everyone else. I had some fine times here with her, and she got in the family-way. Twins. The first for me and the second for my other-self. But it was always my ambition to leave bastards everywhere. I went off and married Octavia, for a quiet life. But it got too quiet, and Octavianus was always up to some dodge or other. He got on my nerves, and I kept on hearing the voice of Caesar. I’d got him into my bones when the people rose up and shouted for righteousness. I kept on feeling that I ought to be doing something. Tackle Parthia, the voice kept saying. East and West must be one. So I sent word to Cleopatra. After three years of married felicity. Fe-lic-ity! I thought I might as well have a good time as well. Then matters went bad in Armenia, and I took to drinking here. But things were worse than they used to be.”

He paused, went to the door, then came back.

“I thought I heard a cat miaowling.” He settled down again. “ I can’t make out why everything went wrong. We had the best army by far...”

He dropped his goblet and beat at his head.

“ Lad, keep your conscience clear. Stick to one woman. Stick to whatever you make your purpose. Don’t pull two ways. O god, god...”

He ground his teeth together. Victor felt that he would do anything to help him, but there was nothing...How awful to see a man in torment, and to be able to do nothing. Never had pain and death come so near, or uttered so sharply their meaning. Because now there was Daphne to lose. Victor realised with a start of remorse that all his old loyalty to Antonius had faded, that he cared only for Daphne. The sufferings of Antonius didn’t really touch him; they fluttered his brain with a passing enigma, a perplexity of pity; but they didn’t matter. No more than the buzz of a fly caught in a spider-web, the twitch of an ant half trodden on. One might stamp on the ant to finish it off, but that was all. Then one forgot.

How strange was this love, that made him feel infinitely more acutely the nature of pain and loss, but made him care nothing for others in the throes of pain and loss, made him care only lest Daphne should suffer. Yet he didn’t want to see the others suffer; he wanted everyone happy.

Antonius was talking again. “...Trying to compromise. Liberty one side, and Egypt on the other. But I can’t blame her. She was right too. It’s my fault for failing in Armenia. Hell, but you can’t guess what a Fury she is, you’d have to know first how sweet she can be. It was her fault that Fulvia died—before your time: my wife in those days. I was feeling defiant, I laughed in her face, and she just fell on the floor and died. And she was a brave woman, with a tongue like a meat-chopper. You might as well say I killed her. But I still can’t understand. The virtue went out of me. God, it’s like a stormy wind pressing in the middle of your shoulder-blades. The men trusting and looking for the coming of righteousness. But I couldn’t feel the wind behind me. Cats-meat for a woman, that’s what they all said. O how ashamed I’ve been...”

He looked up through his fingers and saw Victor’s scared eyes. At once he reached out and grasped Victor again, his mouth curling back in a snarl.

“You were grinning. What’s that you said? Tell me the truth. Did I desert my men? The truth, do you hear!”

The hands tightened. A thin slaver of foam flecked the parted lips. The eyes dilated, squinting with possessed rage. Victor felt that his life depended on the answer he gave.

But what was the right answer? His flustered wits refused to function. Hadn’t Antonius a while back repudiated the charge of desertion? Obviously then he wanted Victor to soothe him, to say that he hadn’t deserted.

Antonius shook him. “Tell me the truth. Did I desert them?”

The grip grew stronger. A film was spreading over the distraught eyes.

Victor opened his mouth to say “No”; but as his lips framed the word, Antonius seemed to know what he was about to say. His face darkened and writhed distortedly; his fingers pressed like iron into Victor’s flesh. And Victor heard only the cry “Truth!” and saw only the adored imploring face of Daphne. Courage and Truth. Something snapped inside him; a white glow consumed the world and his past.

Without thought he answered.

“You deserted them.”

At once he knew what he had said, and was stricken with terror.

But Antonius dropped him and lay back sobbing. The tears ran down his face, but he made no effort to hide or wipe them off. His body shook convulsively.

“Go away,” he said, and his voice was surprisingly meek and calm. “I’m afraid of what I might do. If you’d tried to humour me...” He beat at his head again. “O I know well enough what a beast I’ve been. God, god, I think I’m going mad.” He turned on Victor wildly. “ Go away before I ask you if I’m going mad. Quick. Quick.”

Victor ran from the room, falling over the loose carpet in the passage and ignoring Eros who lay wrapt on a couch at the corridor’s end. Not till he reached his room in the tower did he realise how badly he’d hurt his elbow when he fell. And his throat and arms were bruised. How sore he was.

He bolted the door and sat wearily on the bed, unable to summon the energy to undress and lie down. Downstairs was Antonius, sobbing, going mad; and outside was the world of deceit and greed and murder...All such things faded out of his brain, and he sat smiling, remembering how Daphne had hung around his neck, supple and strong and softly warm, as she kissed him behind the door. Daphne.

*

Next morning Antonius seemed to have forgotten everything; and Victor felt easier, believing that the night had been washed out of the brains of Antonius by drunkenness. But he feared that Antonius in his ignorance would inquire how Victor’s throat had become bruised. Antonius, however, evaded his eyes and addressed him without looking up, and Victor wondered how much of the night had really been washed out.

Fear returned, and the shadows of the house gripped his heart with icy fingers; the waving curtains hid an ambush of the enemy; the thud of his pulse was the enemy-tread upon the thick Milesian carpets. He bolted his door carefully each night, placed a stool against it, and yet woke in the darkness with a terrified sense of malign staring presences.

All his hopes turned towards Daphne for any release from the miseries of his servitude. She grew brighter in his enshrining fancies, mother-breasted Isis with open arms.

But she was beyond possession. The memory of his one night of unimpeded embrace receded, tantalised with its incredible fact, and slipped through the hands of thought. Instead of the hot-mouthed surrendering Daphne there remained only a Daphne controlled, sure of herself, inscrutable, well behaved, well dressed. The hopelessness of his desire recoiled upon him, breaking the last strands of his newly woven self-confidence, his dawn-consecration. The sense of balanced powers, of inhabiting contentedly the house of his flesh, left him, and with it his growing sense of internal freedom and self-mastery. He was more a slave than ever, weaker than in the days when he read poems in a somewhat overpitched voice to the merchant at Antioch, who gravely corrected any errors in pronunciation or expression, smiling with those indrawn glassy eyes of his, moving his restless flabbily overwashed hands, dribbling a little wine down his loose underlip as he grew drunker, beckoning...Weaker than in the days when he and Eros were intimates, sharing everything, competitors only in their wish to serve Antonius...Weaker, far weaker.

In the night he tossed and pitched in heated despair, drifting upon nightmares in which Antonius broke down the door and strangled him with serpents; then he awoke to torturing inchoate images of the one moment of possessing Daphne, and tore at his body, agonised by the wish to throw off the flesh of desire like the weighted sheets, bringing the fever to the surface of the skin for brief pulsations of fantasy-escape, then finding himself again coffined in swaddling layers of heat.

The dawns were clouded with shame. He looked out on the city emerging from the mists of night, smudged under the bile-humours of infected light. A corpse greening with decay, that resisted the magical power compelling it to resurrection.

Once Lucilius came upon him at dawn in the tower, and gave a new direction to his thoughts, bringing him back to the world and yet tantalising him with a glimpse of escape.

Aristocrates had gone, complaining that he could no longer keep down his food, blaming the sea-damp; but Antonius, instead of jeering, hardly noticed his going. Nothing, however, could shift Lucilius.

Though reeling, he had climbed the tower noiselessly and surprised Victor gazing shoreward in the dawn. He spat into the water.

“You’re a good lad. What are you looking at?”

“The city...”

“O yes, the city.” Lucilius stared across the waves, and snorted. “Pretty, isn’t it? Pretty putrid, eh?” He spat again. “When I was young, I thought everyone was noble and beautiful. I thought we only had to turn over in bed to make the world a perfect place. Now I think everyone’s filthy. I was certainly wrong in the past, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be wrong now. So I’m not trying to influence you. You’re a good lad.” He gripped the stone. “There I am again, jumping to conclusions. How do I know you’re a good lad? You’re probably a pismire of a fellow. Are you?”

“I don’t know,” said Victor dejectedly.

“There, I knew you were a good lad.” He looked again at the city. “It oughtn’t to be there. Or I oughtn’t to be here. It’s easier for me to move. I’ve got a wish for a cabbage-garden. I believe that cabbages can save the world. Anyhow, when I look at that paradise-on-earth yonder, I want at once to go to hell.” He rubbed his stubbled chin, and looked questioningly at Victor.

“I’d like to get away too,” agreed Victor, and then added, doubtful of how far he could trust Lucilius. “If everything was all right and I could go.”

Lucilius laughed, a mirthless but not unpleasant laugh. “You heard what he said to me—insults—I’d have killed anyone else...”

“He was drunk…!”

He frowned and tried to clarify his thoughts. “What’s happening. As if it’s all fixed, already happened, fated. I’ve never felt that before. Like being utterly becalmed in mid-sea, while the sky’s getting coppery. You see what’s coming, and feel helpless, like midges. But I’d never leave him till the end.”

He looked at Victor with a smile wrinkling the corners of his eyes.

“You wonder why I’m saying this, don’t you. Well, I like the look of you, and I wanted to talk. I always speak my mind. If I was younger, I’d dare you to dive with me over the parapet into those waves below there.”

“I can’t swim.” Victor shivered.

“Neither can I.” Lucilius whistled some notes of a marching-song. “I used to think it fine to take a risk, and I couldn’t live unless I thought life was a woman with her big eyes on me. But now—” He frowned and spat again over the tower-wall. Then he swung his arm round towards Alexandria. “ It would be fine to see a wave come out of the sea and wash it all away. There’s none of us but makes at least one stench daily.”

He slapped Victor on the shoulder, and went downstairs, reeling but sure-footed. Victor turned back to look anxiously at Alexandria and the racing wave-crests, fearful that the wish of Lucilius would come true and a wave sweep across the shining city of stone, drowning a million people who didn’t matter and one who was Daphne.

He met her. For quick unsatisfactory moments, rich with hope, crossed with misunderstandings. Always they talked, talked till they were weary of their own voices, but never wearied in the need to talk. Words came quickly enough now. Yet there were also intervals of silence, smiling armistices, when they looked into each other’s eyes with sweet acceptance of the moment for what it was, absorbed in nearness to one another. She kept on accusing him of being dissatisfied, and he argued endlessly that he wasn’t dissatisfied, he wanted only to be with her—terrified always that she would end their meetings. For neither dared speak of marriage; such an impossibility They did not even think of it, entirely taken up by the immediate issues, the doubts (as to whether one wanted the other), the fears of exposure. So they hurt each other with words, with suspicions and incriminations.

“I don’t start these discussions,” he protested.

“But I can see what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything of what you say.”

“Then you truly don’t want me—like that?”

“Of course I do. But I’d rather this than nothing.”

“What a miserable creature you must be.”

“I’m not. I’ve never been happier in my life.”

“Why don’t you weep to prove it?”

Then, goaded, he would attack her back:

“But why don’t you want the same as I do?”

“It isn’t the same for a girl.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“If things are the same for both of us, you’d want to be friends.”

“But I do.”

“Why can’t you be happy as things are?”

He wanted to say that she had wanted the same as himself on the evening in the niche of flowers, that she only put him off now because she looked on him as a slave. But under the stress of her cross-examination he grew tired and himself believed for that spasm of tiredness that he really didn’t want anything but friendly conversations.

“I don’t want things changed. I’m perfectly happy.”

“You’re not. Don’t lie to me or I’ll never see you again. You know you want me.”

She made him admit it and then told him she hated him, and he expected her to say that she wouldn’t meet him again. But she only made that threat when he refused to admit that he wanted her; and yet when he admitted it, she wept or was angry. But he didn’t mind tears or rage so much. He didn’t mind anything but the threat that she wouldn’t meet him again.

They met for brief moments of the morning, standing behind pillars or in the nooks between shops, under the wall of the Gardens or in the portico of a shrine, till they forgot and raised their voices and attracted everyone’s attention. Then they moved on, blaming one another, for a similar spot in which to linger. Once Simon almost saw them, but they hid from him by darting into a shop, where it took them some time to get away without buying a heap of cheap jewelry. Another time Daphne’s father passed nearby, and she only escaped by crushing up between Victor and a fluted column: so that he blessed the chance.

On the whole, despite his sufferings, he was glad that he couldn’t meet her at nights. He didn’t altogether lie when he despairingly said that he was satisfied to leave things as they were. For thus the responsibility was taken from his hands, and their relationship was not unduly tested. During the short meetings in the crowded streets there was nothing they could do but talk; and he was glad enough to talk about anything, even to quarrel and excite himself wretchedly.

Still, he couldn’t understand why she met him.

Neither could she. Again and again she had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t meet him again, but had turned up at the appointed place. Discontent and a wish for unpermitted wanderings had led her into revolt before she encountered Victor; but discontent alone wasn’t the force that drew her to him. Yet she wasn’t infatuated, she didn’t feel all the approved symptoms...except perhaps sometimes in bed...It must be love, however. For she couldn’t stop meeting him. Love. But the admission made her criticise him more, teased her into forcing him to show all his weaknesses. Surely love would act differently, love that came swooningly, a lightning in the stormy eyes, the noise of many waters in the ears. Sappho said so, and Sappho must have known.

Yet...

Dear Victor, she held his ghost in her arms in the darkness of her bed, lying on her back with raised knees. A ghost that was a doll, laid on her breasts, ordered to be good, patted and smacked, turned over and upside-down, whispered to confidentially, told all the funny little things that no one was ever told. Such an obedient doll of a ghost, and sometimes sweetly naughty. He didn’t mind what she did to him, and his eyes were nice.

But the Victor she met in the daylight wasn’t quite the same as his accommodating ghost. At times she liked him more, and at times she detested him. It was only when she thought of losing him that she felt how closely he had grown into the texture of her days and nights. He was a slave, and even if he were freed her father would never accept him as a son-in-law. But somehow those facts simply had nothing to do with the situation.

4 THIS IS MY BODY

Nicias sighed and wiped his eyes. They were beginning to water a lot nowadays. He ought to do less reading. Having admitted this fact, he returned to the book-roll before him, unwinding two more pages. It was the manuscript of Agamemnon in the original handwriting of Aischulos. Nicias was making a commentary; for years he had been labouring on it; he meant it to cover all the seventy-odd. plays. A big task, which never seemed any nearer completion. Lectures took up so much time, and arguments in the common-rooms, and walking to and from the Museion (but habits can’t be changed easily), and exchanging polite remarks to visitors or friends. Indeed everything took up so much time, pushing a life’s purpose into so constricted a corner. But Aischulos must have his commentary.

Nicias sighed again and fingered the short scrubby beard that covered his rather heavy jowls. He recalled the day when he’d first got the conviction that he and he alone was the man to do Aischulos justice. The blood had rushed in gay exaltation to his head, a dedicating fervour wilder and lighter in its effervescence than any drunkenness; and he had hastened into the next room to tell his wife Callirhoe (now dead), who had been sewing. She was frightened that he might make her lose the needle, run it into her arm or his own, and she tenderly evaded his embrace, scolding him; and then the needle was lost, and she’d been frightened for days to sit on any of the chairs; she said she’d known a girl who ran a needle right into herself and the needle worked through her till it punctured her heart. Old wives’ tales. Dear Callirhoe, fussy and always burning something on the stove and yet so insulted if she wasn’t praised for housewifery. She had been young on that day, seventeen years ago, a neat slip of a thing not at all like her daughter, except for the serious eyes; and in despite of all needles and food on the stove she’d had to listen to the plan of Nicias, to take his bubbling-over caresses. That was the day, surely, when Daphne had been conceived. The conception had seemed a blessing, and deepened his pride and sureness in his destiny; and now the commentary was almost as far from being finished as it had been ten years ago.

Callirhoe hadn’t liked towns. She had fretted for her home-farm on the Attic hills. A strong country-frame that yet ailed in Alexandria. And she had grown to resent all literature, had secretly torn up several manuscripts in the rather difficult years before she died. The only thing she’d liked about Egypt was the beer.

Nicias tired of unpicking the web of his dead wife’s character. Such efforts never explained; they only hid the person analysed. Better the forthright verdict of poetry.

He glanced at the quick graceful Greek script:

Since this is so, you Argive Elders here, laugh if you can, and I am glorying...

To glory amid a world of collapsing values: it was hard to be individually righteous in a commercialised society. For it wasn’t only the commentary. Everything else was failing. What would happen to Greek culture when Alexandria fell to Rome, as fall it must. Yet perhaps something would save it—an irruption from Parthia, something. Surely Rome would not swallow the last stronghold of Hellenism, the city of Alexandros the Macedonian? Nicias would gladly have given his life to avert such a fate; but he was an ageing man, whose wife was dead and whose work was getting more and more out of hand, and he had no illusion that his life could effect anything. He could only stand aside, and hope, and utter a prayer before he poured a libation at dinner, on the days that he dined at home; he had no gift for public professions of piety.

He turned over the roll till he found the passage, though he knew it by heart:

O wail, echo the wail. But let the good prevail.

I call on Zeus, whoever Zeus may be.

If thus he wishes to be known,

I call him Zeus obediently.

There is one Zeus who reigns alone.

I’ve searched all life from first to last

and Zeus remains my only stay

if from my mind I’m yet to cast

these shadowy crushing fears away.

Was the Hellenic voice to be silenced and the noble poet to have his vision of high purposes and overcome discords falsified? At least the exposition of discords was to be proved true, down to the innermost fibre of things. But where was the Reconciliation? The Furies were evident enough, rubbing shoulders with one in the street; but where could the driven sinner now find his peace?

Sinners all, Nicias murmured; and wondered wherein he had sinned. The Mother was slain; the Earth was desecrated, But though all the spectators died and the Theatre of the god fell into ruin, yet would the drama go on; and the end would be peaceful in beauty, though the god alone held the stage, dancing in his loneliness, beholding in himself the perfected ritual of his Tragedy.

Let the end come. Let the Romans take Alexandria.

But it would be pleasanter if the commentary were completed, though no one read it, though the flames curled it up before the ink was dry. It would be more fitting.

Nicias rose unhappily, twitching his heavy eyelids. His bushy brows contracted. He stood looking with a frown at the wall, on which a squashed mosquito, long dried, still stuck. Then he went out and knocked at the door of the next room. A drowsy uninterested voice replied.

“Come in.”

He entered. Daphne was seated at her toilet-table with her back turned, nervously shaking a perfume-bottle with narrow neck. Her light-hued hair hung down her back, tied with a red ribbon at the nape, then bunching out. She wore only a chemise picked out with blue florets.

“I thought I heard someone crying,” he said mildly, his eyes ranging around the room and then returning to Daphne without noticing anything. “I’ve thought so several times of late? Or is it the swan-song of the earth?” The measured wail of the choruses, the tragic undertone, the seas that moaned about contaminated shores...He quoted from the Homeric Hymn:

“On earth all the foliage lies, and out of the sunlight a tree and a spirit dies—”

adding beneath his breath “lines 71-72.” He knew that Daphne wouldn’t be able to follow what he was saying, but felt too sorrowful to explain, too pleased at his own secret acceptance of the fated end.

“I don’t know,” she said, and up-ended the bottle, letting the liquid perfume drop on the face of the bronze minor that lay before her on the maple table. The viscous liquid fell in tiny drops. One drop fell, and the liquid retreated, emerged again, welled into a new drop, lengthened tear-wise, fell. She was wasting an expensive perfume; when her father went, she’d rub the soles of her feet with it. Meanwhile she was blotting him out with violet-fumes, clouding herself away.

“Are you happy?” he asked after a while, feeling that perhaps he didn’t show his daughter enough love. She was so unlike her mother. But the young had nothing to think about.

“O yes,” she answered, vaguely, yawning; and patted her mouth. “Now, father dear, do shut the door. I want to change.”

Nicias went out, closing the door carefully, somewhat saddened, yet relieved—as if he’d offered Daphne an affection for which she had no use; his conscience need not fret him.

I may truly say

there came to Troy one day

a Spirit of calm summer seas,

a gentle shrine of luxuries...

he quoted to himself, and felt how entirely inept the quotation was. But that was the kind of daughter he’d like to have. Still, Daphne, for all her faults, was a good girl. Not very interested in literature, but an efficient cook. He was sure that she had many faults, but found himself unable to catalogue any. She’d been naughty a few years ago, with a rouge-pot and other things; but then she’d grown up and behaved herself ever since. Yes, she was a good girl. He forgot all about her again.

To his annoyance he heard someone on the stairs ex-postulating with Simon. Then his annoyance went in part as he recognised the voice.

“Come on up, Olympos,” he said, speaking in deeper tones and assuming the host. “Come on up. You know all the bumps of the stairs, all the danger-spots. Scylla creaking on the second step up from the landing, and the mouse-hole for Charybdis. Come on up.”

Olympos, his brother-in-law, smiled, only half-listening to the time-worn jests and leaning on the rail. He was an older man than Nicias, lean and thin-featured, frailer than his sister had been, though he, many years her senior, had outlived her.

The two men settled down on the couches in the room of Nicias. Olympos was panting slightly and pressed a linen napkin to his mouth, looking round with his quick pale observing eyes. The rafters were hung with cobwebs, stained with smoke; the floor hadn’t been swept for two days; some bread lay on a plate in a shelf let into the wall. Olympos, who was fastidious in his ways, decided that he must have a word apart with his niece, who was degenerating as a house-keeper.

“Any news?” asked Nicias, for whom there was no news in the world except the report of a new emendation in the text of Aischulos; but he knew from of old that Olympos liked to show his inside knowledge of court affairs—a harmless vanity. Nicias felt very tolerant. After all Olympos was much older than he, Nicias.

Olympos watched Nicias pour out some wine. Turpentine and pitch flavoured with wine it would be. Nicias had no palate, no finesse.

Nicias went on in his best bass voice. “Speak up. All friends present. Except Simon, who’s deaf. Now if you doctors were any use, you’d cure a little ailment like deafness...”

Olympos, the court-physician, smiled. But really, these stock family jokes took some stomaching.

“Thank you.” He took the wine. “No news in particular. Except that Cleopatra’s finished all her arrangements for the Red Sea fleet.”

“Does she really mean to set sail on such a mad adventure?” She could set sail in a bath-tub for all that Nicias cared, but he wished to be polite.

“Yes,” said Olympos, pressing the linen napkin to his lips to hide the shudder caused by the raw wine. “She’s a brave woman, you must admit. She’s in touch with Parthia already, and a man’s been sent to India.”

Nicias felt some interest awakening. The plan was a lunatic plagiarism from Alexandros, and Alexandros was the last character in history for whom he had a full reverence.

“But what will Parthia have to say? Do they want such an ally? and what Indian king will listen?”

He shook his head over the folly of the world. He had always applauded the Seleucid, Attalid and Ptolemaic kingdoms for their patronage of the arts, but they’d been rotted from the start by money-greeds, commercial organistions, slave-production—the forerunners of Rome.

“She says that she can go where Alexandros went.”

“She can’t...”

Words failed him. He was stricken with a sense of tumbling empires, headlong summers, an earth out of control; and it was all so beautiful while it so lasted, so astonishing in its impermanence, haunted by the cries of ravished children. Out of lust had come everything, out of lust and hatred the spine fighting skywards, the beast that refused to crawl. By denying his lust man built, and by the denial destroyed what he built. All passed. I call on Zeus, whoever Zeus may be.

Olympos spread out his thin manicured hands.

“Of course not. But would you hamper her from making a fine end?”

End. That was the word. The end was coming. Cleopatra was only seeking a fitting way out, to sail in a burning ship towards the sunrise, to be drowned among the pearls; as Nicias was seeking to finish his commentary in time. Before the end, when the world died with his breath. For the first time Nicias wished Cleopatra entirely well.

“However, I hope she pays our salaries in full before she goes.”

“It’s her son, Casarion—”

There was a tap at the door and Daphne entered, wearing a white linen dress loosely girt and sweeping the floor.

“I thought I heard who it was.”

She moved across to Olympos with a pretence of queenly gait, lifting her hand; then jumped towards him, and kissed him on the brow, the cheeks, the nose; laughed and stood back.

Nicias was panged with jealousy, then soothed the pang. Perhaps it was his own fault. He took his love for granted, and so she did the same with hers. He gave her so little of his time, having to finish the commentary which he would never finish. Perhaps he worked too hard and multiplied unnecessary difficulties. He would think more about Daphne.

Olympos chuckled and rubbed his thin bony hands together, as if before the fire that warmed his old blood. His eyes almost disappeared in the creases of his silent laughter.

“You’ve been a good girl, I hope?”

“Ever so good. So good that I deserve a present.”

“You’re too old for presents,” said Nicias, wishing that she would leave the room; he had been enjoying the conversation with Olympos more than he realised. Women spoiled conversation, especially young girls.

“There’s no such age,” chuckled Olympos. “You never did understand women, Nicias.”

Nicias coloured, feeling in the remark some obscure criticism of his behaviour as a husband; but Olympos seemed unaware of offence. He chuckled again, and Nicias watched Daphne sitting on his knee and teasing him to learn what present he had in mind. He was no longer jealous; he wanted the pair of them to go away, to leave him alone to his meditations and the priceless manuscript which had been stolen from Athens years ago by a trick. The original script. After all, why should history go on repeating itself? Everything was locked up in the tragic rite, the rhythmic knowledge of Aischulos. Why must people go on suffering instead of listening to the poet?

Yet he remembered again the day when he had rushed to speak to Callirhoe of his freshly imagined project, the day when Daphne had been conceived. Had he any thought that day of the right or wrong, the intelligence or madness, of handing on the family curse, the restless blood that refused to see all action as repetition? He looked at Daphne, so very much alive as she teased Olympos; and tried to think her back to that moment of conception, that moment when she was nothing but the transfigured contact of himself and the woman he loved. How had this stranger, conjured incredibly out of a private flux of warmth, come between him and his wife? Somebody he didn’t know and would never know...

That was something he couldn’t understand, something that not even the chorus of Aischulos could fathom. It was the quick body of his daughter, at which he seemed to be gazing for the first time, rather afraid that he would be noticed. He raised his hand to his brow.

*

As soon as Olympos had gone and her father left for the Museion, Daphne hurried out, careless of the questioning glance of Simon with his flat face and small turned-up nose. Today was the 20th of Athyr in the Egyptian calendar, and she wanted to see the Finding of Osiris. Last year a girl-friend had seen it, and talked of nothing else for weeks on finding that Daphne had stayed at home; but Daphne couldn’t have brought herself to the point of venturing out unless she had had Victor to take her.

She found him loitering at the corner of the Street of the Sema, watching the carriages that drove out for the open-air restaurants and dancing-shows of the outlying suburb, Eleusis. It was a clear day, and only the whiter tinge of the blue sky suggested autumn. With one clasp of hands, one effort to bring the soul of love up into the eyes (producing a yearning stomach-qualm), they started off for the eastern gate, beyond which lay the Cemetery and the poorer-class dwellings of the natives. The cloud of steam and smoke that usually, at this time of the day, hung over the workshop-quarters, belching from food-ovens, vat-dyes, pottery and glass-kilns, smelting-forges, was nowhere to be seen. The clatter and clang of tools, the tap-tap of the metal-beaters, the whirr and clash of the looms, were gone. The area of the embalmers, between the gate and the necropolis, was still heavy with stale spices and gums; but the workers were on holy-day.

For four days the Egyptians had been mourning for Osiris murdered by Set, his brother, the evil one; they had fasted, torn their clothes, and touched neither their own genitals nor those of another. The earth was dying and the sun slackening; the Nile had begun to sink and the winter was coming; the leaves were falling from the trees. The terror of loss was upon the world.

The motley Greek population of Alexandria might con-sider religion as a social function or as an occasional safe-guard of vow and offering; but the Egyptian section remained true to their national convictions, and for years now the rites of even the Greek temples had shown an Egyptianising tendency. Isis was absorbing Aphrodite, the sea-born version of her desirable mother-self vouchsafed to the Greeks

“I heard them wailing,” said Daphne with pride.

“I heard the lions roaring as I passed the Gardens,” replied Victor irreverently. He found himself unable to take much interest. It was all rather similar to the Adonia, one image after another for death and the hope of overcoming death. He felt the arguments of Aristocrates after all to be rather futile, of no relation to two young lovers in a dusty street of sunlight; and these public ceremonies were vaguely disgusting. But he was glad of the excuse of a long walk, and preferred to chat of how he’d managed to get away despite the hostility of Eros. Life was too full, too absorbingly vital in its interplay between him and Daphne, to leave much meaning over for the pageantry of the world, its business or its worships. Nothing was real but the curve of Daphne’s back as she walked, the endless ripples and changes of motion that she made. The variety of things was here, in a single body, not in the scattered tumult.

Even to walk was a subtle matter: so many muscles lifting and pulling, sinews and tendons; the milk-warm flesh fed by its network-river of blood; the knees rising, falling, shapely and bent, then padded with a soft intricacy of shadows; flat-sandalled feet raised, undecided as the weight of the body left them, then gracefully swinging in and on according to the laws of shifting balance, to take the weight of the body again. Beautiful poise of the legs swelling into the rounded strength of thighs, meeting to receive the rich mass of the upper-body so harmoniously imposed...She was beautiful; and in loving her body the lover revalued his own body, finding it strange and yet hauntingly familiar.

He noticed some expensively dressed women who were wearing Tyrrhenian shoes, bedizened things set on high rectangular wooden soles, the latchets plated with gold; and he thought how stiffly they walked, a kind of a strut, and how uglily their feet went, straight ahead, like dead weights, unlike the graceful swing of Daphne. Why did women dress up in such uglifying ways? It wasn’t to please men, not to please Victor anyway. A woman with high-heeled shoes could never get that reposeful curve of the back that Daphne showed. Although Victor couldn’t see it at the moment, he knew it was there; so often had he watched her walk down the street, coming to him or going away.

Who cared if Osiris was murdered and cut up in little bits? He was glad that Daphne used no paint of any kind. He told her so.

She was very serious on the subject.

“It isn’t good for the pores of the skin. I’ve an uncle who’s a doctor and he told me so.” She never mentioned Olympos by name, afraid somehow that, if she did, Victor, also a member of the court, would inadvertently give her away.

“It looks ugly,” said Victor. For some reason a painted woman didn’t remind him of a woman at all, but of a man: somebody like Eros, or the merchant at Antioch, who had painted himself, who had once had roses drawn in red and purple on Victor’s palms and soles...Why should a woman disguise herself to attract, unless she wasn’t a woman at all?

“I’d rather freckle all over.”

“Of course. I’d rather you were all freckled too. Any-thing.”

She stopped in alarm.

“Are there really freckles on my nose?”

“Of course there aren’t.”

She never did her hair up carefully enough, and it was always threatening to come loose. She had stopped so suddenly and thrown her head back as if trying to bring her nose up to the level of her eyes, that the back-knot slipped out of its fillet and she had to hide behind a pillar and arrange it again. Her hands were lifted behind her head, and her raised breasts showed clearly through the thin linen. Her feet were planted apart, firmly on the ground, the wind blowing the skirt tremblingly between, an end of the violet-fillet was caught in her mouth, pushing out the lower-lip.

He wanted to say how beautiful she was. But, as always, the thought She is beautiful came to him like the voice of his other-self, his daimon inhabiting the shadow of silence; a shock and a fragrance, leaving him tongue-tied.

He prayed to Osiris, “Make me hers,” and then knew what he had said, but didn’t like to correct the words into what he had meant, “Make her mine.” The prayer was useless; he was hers already.

She seemed content that he said nothing; for she smiled and pouted a kiss at him, then averted her head and finished fixing the fillet quickly, her palely gold-burnt cheeks tinged with a warmer rose.

What was she thinking?

He despaired of ever knowing, forgetful how little he knew his own thoughts, how in the failing moments before sleep he glimpsed the enormous silence of dream, wherein all the world’s words were only the frenzied life of a colony of insects from under a single turned-over stone, compared with the spaces of ocean and burning desert and windy mountain-crest and night of stars.

What were you thinking, Daphne? what is this lad to you?

Nothing, a face out of the myriad faces, a face that you imagine you know and that you know in your imagination, till he becomes real, detached from the myriad, vexing you with his fear. For you also are afraid. You are brave in your ignorance, but none the less brave. Your thought is the earth under your feet, and the warmth of your chafing inner-thighs; and your integrity is the honey-pallor of your cheeks. Your thoughts are nothing, and his thoughts are nothing: creatures that live in the decay of the nerves, swarming under a stone away from the light. But in you is the profundity of the well of light, and you have pressed your breasts against the breasts of the moon, yourself in the mirror of the elements, in the dream of purity that never leaves you; and you are a field of flowers where life pours its unavailing beauty. Yet in you it will avail, for the sweetness will be its own reward, though flowers die.

*

For four days in the temples of Egypt a gilded cow cere-wrapt in a black cloth had been shown. Isis in her mourning, the winter-earth where the seed lies ready to rot. For to rot is to be in hell, under the earth amid devouring worms and the heat of excrement; and the eyes of fear cannot tell the maggots of breeding decay from the quickened seed that spirts its lonely tendril of new-birth.

There was fear in the eyes of the Egyptians, but the lovers did not notice it; and it was all one to them whether they were walking along the marble-columned Street of Canopos or among the huts of sun-dried bricks beyond the walls. They went the way of the crowd, towards the seashore.

They had missed the earlier part of the ceremony, but were in time to see the Finding, after they had climbed some steps where a space was made by an opportune fainting-fit of a fat woman and by tips lavished by Victor. He held Daphne close, to save her from falling; and she nestled against him closer still. Today there was no tension between them, no discomfort of words; and he was satisfied only to feel her body close, glad that the crowd made it impossible for him to want more or for her to accuse him of wanting it.

Tonsured priests, clad in linen skirts that fell from under their armpits, were carrying a shrine of acacia-wood resting with miniature pillars on the holy ark. They were singing, on the water’s edge. The crowd moaned. Then the presiding priest held up his arm and drew from the shrine a large casket of gold. With a golden stoop he took up water from the lapping sea, and poured it into the casket. The pure impregnating water was poured into the deathless womb. There was a joyous cry.

“Osiris is found!”

The words were called in demotic Egyptian, in broken Greek and Syriac; but Victor knew what they meant. Despite his preoccupation with the closeness of Daphne he felt himself being carried away by the popular emotion. The scene was different from that in the Chapel of Adonis; there was no coloratura-singer from Athens. The defences of scorn, of refusal to feel in common with the unlettered herd, were crumbling. Perhaps the submissive closeness of Daphne drew the lover out of his sheaths of hiding, his sensitive scorn. Perhaps in this clear autumnal day he found faith in the babies of spring that would murmur in their earth-cradles despite the murdering winter-father. He is found. The lost child has come again.

The crowd was thrilling and swaying, a tumult of criss-crossing emotions like the varying ceaseless waves of the sea, but welded mightily into one like the sea in its rich depths. The priests were gathering soil and vegetable mould from the ground and from wicker-work baskets that they had fetched; they were moistening it with sea-water, mixing it with spices and incense from thuribles, and moulding a small image in the shape of a Moon.

Victor was passionately interested to see what was being made. His scepticism had left him, a chill forgotten in the warmth of Daphne’s closeness. His heart thumped, and he felt that his own fate was concerned. The Moon. He saw the crescent sweep through gliding skies of gauzy cloud, leaning back upon the war of elements; the hunchback moon-crone, the traitress; the moon with child showing through her womb; the perfect rondured moon, faintly orange with the glow of all-life. The changing moon was the life of earth, unlike the lordly and unswerving sun. Mother Moon. Osiris in the Moon.

A priest, wearing the dog-mask of Anubis, approached the image, dancing joyfully, and placed on it a scarlet robe. Others were adorning it with gems and paint. In the mother-image were seeds and spices, new powers and lives. The crowd howled and laughed, swayed and clutched one another.

Suddenly Victor drew back, astonished. What was happening to him? He realised that he had been feeling what the crowd was feeling, unconcerned to ask what it was and what it meant. How changed he was since the day of the Adonia.

Osiris was found.

That was the truth, not words about it. The crying and the laughing, the dancing and the kissing, the making and the sowing, the breaking and the eating. Isis had found her lover; the earth would be fertile. Isis and Osiris, the twins who had copulated in the womb of the mother, were come together again. Unreasonably, he felt that he and Daphne were twins, that they had always known one another, that their coming together was certain, predestined by its infinite repetitions in the darkened past, in all the summers and winters that had reeled across the wild earth. Twins, in the womb of the Moon.

The lovers clung together on the steps, feeling that the huge crowd had come out to witness their betrothal, to pledge their love for ever.

“Osiris is found!”

O the grace of heavenly light has blessed the body torn by its nerves and by the wounds of memory. There is mercy. The earth and the sun have mercy on their children. The image of the moon redeems. This is my body.

The lovers clung together, unable to look into one another’s eyes, wanting the moment to stay intact as long as possible. Need it ever end? Merciful as Osiris who dies for his love and is saved by his sister-lover, his true-self. I am Osiris and you are Isis. I am Isis and you are Osiris.

The clinging lovers swore in their hearts that never again would they speak a harsh word, never again be inconsiderate or overbearing, never again pass outside the precincts of this assured sympathetic peacefulness. Never again.

*

Autumn had come, but Alexandria had no wintry frosts. Its flower-gardens supplied Roman dinner-parties at midwinter with fresh roses for garlands as well as the hammered flowers of jewelled gold that the workshops delicately produced. The Royal Gardens were thick with flowers as Olympos passed through.

Gardeners were hard at work, superintended by the experts. Olympos paused to see how the special plot of balsamic trees and shrubs was getting on. Cleopatra had encouraged the experiment after gaining from Antonius the gift of the balsam-park of Jericho that Herodes coveted. Flowers from the east had been continuously transplanted—for hundreds of years—and many kinds of trees. Egypt had always suffered from a lack of trees. Olympos determined to have a word sometime with the head-gardener and find out which trees had acclimatised best; something ought to be done to supplement the sycamore and palms of the dusty Nile roads. But not today.

He wanted to idle. The very name of the Gardens provoked to mazy indifference. It was Meandros. He turned to lounge through the Surinx Galleries, but there were too many sightseers. He drew back and stood staring at a bank of yellow flowers surrounded by shrubs cut into queer shapes by the topiarist.

Men and women also tried to grow into his own shape, but a strange hand twisted and sheared their growth, insisting on a different pattern; and the result was hardly as restful as this garden. But let the topiarist once slacken with his clippers and hook, and the result would be chaos: neither the wild tree, nor the neat distortion. That was humankind, neither one thing nor the other. Fate the topiarist was too busy; there were too many lives darting out fresh tendrils, unmannerly leaves of effort, gnarled boughs and cankering fruit.

Only a few were palms or tamarisk-bushes, able to stand alone, asking only dry soil and cleanness, a little dew. Was he such?

Olympos did not care for his thoughts and looked away from flower and shrub to the passers-by; and the unrest of the passers-by made him feel more restful. The flowers made him think of pitiable humanity, but the people merely made him think of the classifications of disease and the marvellously enthralling system of nerves and veins, arteries and sinews, bones and tissue, that made up the organism. He watched two lovers, noting only the play of muscle, the admirable articulation of the bones, and calculating the anatomy. A large woman with a wailing child next attracted the scalpel of his glance, and he delved humourously in her surplus tissues, extracting the dwarfed skeleton. He smiled to himself. The child wept because a piece of cake had dropped in the mud, and Olympos meditated on the tear-ducts.

Never would he know enough about the body. He decided that after all he would remind Cleopatra of her promise. She had said that he could vivisect a condemned criminal. But he had put off the experiment because he couldn’t make up his mind what experiment would be most advisable.

Most of all he wanted to prove that Erasistratos was wrong in ruling that the arteries carried air. Herophilos had been right when he said that the arteries carried blood and pulsed of themselves from the heart. Why had Erasistratos contradicted him? Still, Erasistratos had a great name, and rightly so. His distinction between the motor and sensory nerves was undoubtedly correct, an essential addition to the discovery of Herophilos that the nerves ran from the brain and spinal cord. But he was wrong about the arteries. Olympos was set on finding the final proof of that wrongness.

The great days of the Alexandrian medical school were over, perhaps; but every year saw improvements in technique. The methods of cutting for the stone could hardly be made more effective.

Olympos mused. Was there no experiment that he could make through vivisection to prove that Erasistratos was wrong about the arteries? It wasn’t sufficient to show blood rushing from the arteries; for the obstinate air-theorists replied that there were canals of communication between the veins and the arteries and that the blood, at incision, being no longer compressed by the air, passed from vein to artery. Strabon’s theory of nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum!

How queerly men could use right reasoning for wrong purposes.

It frightened one, made one feel that perhaps all reason was based on equally irrational premises, made one’s brain giddy with doubts.

A group of ladies, dressed in light woollen frocks and attended by eunuchs with striped parasols, came walking down the path. Olympos stood aside respectfully, vaguely aware of genteel chatter and leaning on his ivory-knobbed staff. It was a wonder that women didn’t poison themselves with so much antimony in their plastered cosmetics. Was there a connection between cosmetical lead poisoning and the constipation from which most of the society women among his clients suffered? Doubtless all these chattering ladies were constipated: a complaint as indecent as unchastity.

Then he saw a man walking in the rear of the society group, and recognised him. It was Manethos, one of the few remaining Egyptian noblemen; though a priest at Sais, he had a house at Alexandria.

The men greeted one another courteously. Olympos, unlike his brother-in-law Nicias, had no race-prejudices, and was curious, if somewhat disdainful, about ancient Egyptian medicine. He respected Manethos, a worthy descendant of the high-priest who had written the history of Egypt in Greek.

“Is there any news from the Palace,” asked Manethos. “I have just arrived from Sais.”

He was a tall man with a slight stoop; his sanguine complexion showed up on his high cheek-bones despite the copper tinge of his skin; his eyes were dark brown, fringed with long lashes; his mouth lax and damply scarlet; his nose large and thin. He spoke with an air of extreme but not burdensome refinement; his Greek was as pure as the Greek of Olympos, but a little foreign-sounding in its meticulous enunciation. His clothes were rather Greek in cut, but woven of the finest Egyptian flax, and he wore papyrus sandals.

Olympos shook his head. “They are all in good health.”

He knew that Manethos had not referred to politics. No-body discussed politics openly; but every rumour flew about Alexandria as if proclaimed in the streets by the palace heralds.

The Egyptian priest and the Hellenic doctor looked sea-wards. The sea was not visible, but could be faintly heard behind the line of government buildings. Both men expected to see an horizon clouded with the sails of Roman war-galleys. But such matters were not discussed.

“I have come,” said Manethos with a frank smile, “to ask the Queen if she will lessen the requisition on the temples of our district.”

“All districts are equally affected,” began Olympos, then hurriedly went on, “I know nothing of such matters. I am a physician of the body, not the state, thanks be to Apollo.”

Manethos wanted to say more, but restrained himself. There had been no harm in the simple statement of his mission, but anything further would be dangerous, however friendly Olympos seemed. There were good men among the Greeks, but they had no tradition; they had the erratic tastes and emotions of the newly arrived. Meanwhile there was no use in talking. Many men had been thrown into prison during the last few months for talking too loudly. Egypt was doomed, caught between Greek and Romans; but had not strangers conquered her before ? Yet Egypt endured, and all would be well while her religion lived—the worship of the holy Trinity and the One unknowable, Ra supreme. The religion was Egypt, and the pyramids and temples mere chance memorials.

“Will you dine with us?” he asked. “ My wife is with me at our house in the street of Arsinoe Basileia; and she will join with me in requesting your presence. You recall the house?” Olympos nodded and Manethos continued. “And bring your brother Nicias, if he will come.”

“He isn’t very well,” said Olympos, anticipating a refusal from Nicias. “But I’d be pleased to accept.”

Manethos looked at the flower-beds. Very pretty. Prettier perhaps than anything the Pharaohs had; and the tiers on tiers of buildings were pleasanter, more habitable, than the City of Amen in the days of the ancient dynasties of the Sun. But the great lotus-pillars and the pylons would outlast the Alexandrian scene. Ra was eternal, and the depths of silence cool in the deserts of heat; the voice speaking on, the question, the ineffable answer. Let the sands take it all again. There was something they could not take. Osiris returning to his Father Ra, the plenitude of light, the beginning and the end. In the blood were the caverns of silence, hewn from quarries of distance. Light above, and light beneath, and a core of light, and light everywhere. And darkness.

Let the Romans come. There was time and space to engulf them also.

“I shall be honoured to receive you,” he said politely, a trifle mincingly. “And my wife echoes my sentiments. Good morning.”

Olympos nodded a farewell, but did not see him pass on; for his eyes were taken up by a festering sore on the knee of a small boy who was coming down the path, limping. The sore seemed badly infected. He wanted to stop the nurse and inspect the boy’s knee, perhaps save the boy’s life, learn something more. But no, it wasn’t really interesting; and he’d be snubbed, no doubt.

He too passed, belatedly giving another nod after the departed Manethos.

*

No sentries challenged him as he entered Cleopatra’s palace. The royal buildings stretched on indefinitely; colonnade mounting into colonnade, gallery opening into hall and reception-room; endless terraces and every kind of glass-cased summer-room; statues everywhere, bordering the steps and ushering the loiterer under each tree-shadow. Cleopatra had built her palace beyond the Theatre, raised so that it looked down over the Royal Harbour towards the Pharos and its moles, on to the open sea. On the Lochias Promontory she was rebuilding the Temple of Isis to complete the view, to finish off the perspective on the right.

Olympos knew that she would be in the largest summer-room, receiving her sons, her daughter, and her daughter-in-law. He entered and stood aside unnoticed. The two younger princes sat on chairs, attended by their tutors and nurses; and in the rear the two princesses waited, also seated on chairs, though the nurses had to watch the smaller princess, who had a habit of sliding off and bumping her head. The rear of the big room was filled with functionaries, for each prince had his retinue and quarters. Cleopatra, with her back to the light that streamed through the westward-facing windows, was clad in a long low-girdled gown of byssus, a fine linen; her only mark of state being the white ribbon tied round her head as diadem, with strings falling down her back. She seemed tired, peaked with. sleeplessness; and all the efforts of her girls, trained masseuses, had not been able to remove the heaviness from round her eyes. Her nose looked forbidding, as it always did when she showed weariness; but her eyes were darkly alive, and her lips had their unfaltering curve of wit and charm.

She’s getting old, thought Olympos, but age suits her better, I think, than youth, if only she’d stop furying. She’ll wear herself out.

Caesarion, now about sixteen years old, lounged at his mother’s side. He had the large head of his father Caesar, the same features in a weakened form. His head seemed too large for him, uneasily balanced; his shallow eyes were troubled; his lips were a petulant cupid’s bow. Olympos, mercilessly noting every detail, mouthed to himself the titles that burdened down the pleasant-faced weakling boy: King of Kings, Co-regent of Egypt, Caesar, Father-loving, Mother-loving God. The King of Kings was leaning against a cushioned window-seat, turning round and examining his signet-ring, and exchanging remarks with Antyllus, the son of Antonius by his former wife Fulvia, a sulky boy who plucked at the buckle of his belt and smiled maliciously every now and then.

Cleopatra was addressing the younger princes: Alexandros the Sun, the Great King of Armenia and Media and (yet unconquered) Parthia, a plump little boy of nine; and Ptolemaios Philadelphos, King of Phoinicia, Northern Syria and Cilicia, who was very inattentive, being about five years of age. Ptolemaios was dressed like Caesarion in the Macedonian royal costume, chlamys and military sandal-shoes, with a broad-brimmed hat dangling at his side and a white fillet round his head; but Alexandros was dressed in Median fashion, with long loose trousers of silk and embroidered cloak over a sleeved tunic, and in his hand he held the tall stiff tiara with its back-flap of cloth. Despite his hatred of the indignity of trousers he was dressed up thus daily to accustom him to the garb, for he was to go to Armenia as soon as things settled down.

Cleopatra was inquiring into the digestion, the lessons, and the manners of her sons.

But Cleopatra the Moon, the Queen of Cyrene and twin of Alexandros, caused a diversion by quarrelling with a nurse and weeping. Her mother hurried across to her, asked the cause of the outburst, and rebuked the Moon for her un-princess-like behaviour; for the highborn must learn to govern themselves before they govern others, and it is only by an austere certainty of justice in one’s attitudes that one can achieve the ruthless serenity of aristocratic decision. The Moon listened, large-eyed.

Iotapa, the Median princess who was married to Alexandros, looked on disdainfully. She was thirteen years old and therefore despised her husband, and also considered that to govern efficiently one only needed to know one’s own mind: a condition which she had already attained.

Alexandros, catching his wife’s cold eye, was annoyed. She put out her tongue at him behind Cleopatra’s back, and wrinkled up her nose.

Alexandros in indignation threw his tiara on the tiled floor and jumped on it.

“You mustn’t, dear,” said Cleopatra, turning to him patiently.

“She makes fun of me,” sobbed Alexandros. “She wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t dressed like this. Why ain’t I dressed like the others?”

“You don’t make fun of him, do you, Iotapa?” said Cleopatra to the girl.

Iotapa considered Cleopatra insolently. “If he doesn’t look funny, how could I?” she asked in innocent tones. “I think the clothes suit him.”

“They’re the clothes of your own country. You ought to like them. You mustn’t tease him.” She turned to Alexandros, “She admires you ever so much in your clothes That’s why she teases you about them.”

Alexandros looked utterly unconvinced, but Iotapa asked sharply, her dark eyes flashing with sudden tears:

“Where is my father? what have you done to him?” Her black hair, cut in a straight fringe, enclosed her face in a gleaming helmet.

“He’s gone home,” answered Cleopatra in a voice of dominating finality. Then she was drawn back to the Moon, who was weeping with vexation; and Iotapa took advantage of the diversion to sidle away to the window. Caesarion looked frightened and moved aside, tapping the lozenge-panes with his finger-tips and gazing out towards the western sun; but Antyllus uncrooked his lounging knee and awaited Iotapa. She talked fast in a low voice, biting her lips to stop the giggles. The attendants looked on in dismay, not liking to interrupt Cleopatra and draw her attention to his breach of etiquette. But Cleopatra, finishing with the Moon, noticed, and approached the window.

“We want to go fishing,” said Antyllus, half afraid, half boastful. “Us two, I mean.” He pointed to Caesarion.

“I’d like to go too,” said Iotapa.

“You shall all go fishing later on,” answered Cleopatra, intimidating Iotapa with a slightly blank glance. “When I’ve time to arrange it. But you mustn’t dare to do anything about it till then. You’ll all be drowned.”

“I can swim,” said Iotapa, recovering herself and swinging her arms.

“So can I,” said Antyllus.

Alexandros the Sun shouted, “Make her stop talking. She’s my wife.”

“Go and speak to him,” said Cleopatra with a sweet smile that made Iotapa feel her knees tremble.

But Iotapa was determined not to succumb. She moved across to the Sun, hunching her shoulders up provocatively, and then insulted the Sun by offering him her finger to suck and hissing “Cry-baby” in his ear. The Sun punched her, but she couldn’t complain after her taunt. Instead, she pulled his cloak back on the pretence of settling it and made him cough.

Olympos was watching Cleopatra. Weariness seemed to take her in mid-speech with Caesarion and Antyllus. She motioned to the tutors, nurses, pages, guards and other members of the retinues, to remove the children. Ptolemaios and the Moon were arguing, but gladly hastened from the room after kissing their mother’s hand. The Sun, however, bolted without that proper dismissal, lazily followed by Iotapa. Antyllus gave a glance round and also went. Cleopatra signed to a eunuch, whispered, and waved him away; he went out quickly. Caesarion dawdled at the window, pulling at the curtain-strings and startled by a dead fly that he dislodged from above. Nervously he dragged out a thread from the curtain-fringe and was dismayed to see that its absence showed; he tried ineffectively to push it back, to move the other threads to hide the gap.

“Is there anything I can do, mother?”

“No, darling.”

She kissed him on the brow, then on the mouth. He stared at her with big-eyed affection, tried to say something, and went out after the others. Cleopatra sank back in her chair, the smile hardening on her face. She sat thinking for a moment, then looked up and saw Olympos.

“Come here,” she said, without raising her voice.

He saw her lips move and knew that she was summoning him; and he crossed the wide floor. His foot crunched on a biscuit that one of the children had smuggled in and dropped. The shining blue floor was littered with the skins of tigers and panthers. In the centre stood a large table of citrus-wood, the leg and top cut solid from a single trunk: a table worth its weight in gold in the collectors-market. Across the polished top ran a dark streak which would give it in the trade the name of murena-table, from a resemblance fancied to the streak across the back of the murena-fish.

Olympos passed the table, the empty gilt chairs with legs ending in carved lions-paws, and slowly neared Cleopatra. It seemed to take him longer to cross the room than the city. The weariness of Cleopatra seemed to descend upon him, making desolate the room that was lately so noisy. Then he found himself bowing before Cleopatra, who said nothing. He took hold of Cleopatra’s wrist between his thumb and forefinger, counted the pulse for a while, then respectfully lowered the hand and looked into the worn face.

“You need a rest, Your Majesty. But I know it is no use suggesting such things.”

“No use at all.”

She answered in soft halting tones, twining and untwining her hands, not looking at him. Then she spoke in a matter-of fact way:

“He is drinking himself to death on that island.”

“You can do nothing.”

She waved her hand as if dismissing something unpleasant. “I wish he would end it. That’s all.” She knew that Antonius was waiting in the hope she would come to humble herself—to what purpose?

“I didn’t expect anything else.”

She looked up at Olympos and smiled. “You’re a good man, Olympos. I’d ask your advice, but nobody’s advice can help me.”

Olympos wondered if he would suggest that it was unwise to tax the Egyptian temples further, but decided that everything else was equally unwise and most unwise of all was political advice.

Cleopatra walked to the window and stared down on the rock-island and its Timonion. “I can’t think as things are. Something must happen.” She went on dully. “Thing’s have been worse before. But I was young then. And the world was different. I can’t understand. What is happening?”

Olympos lowered his head. She walked up to him and lifted his head again, her finger under his chin.

“You old hypocrite,” she said, smiling sadly. “You don’t care what happens to us.”

“Sometimes I don’t. I feel out of it all. You don’t want me to pity you.” She shook her head, and he went on, also sadly smiling, “I care more for my young niece than for the fate of Alexandria, with Egypt thrown in as makeweight.”

Cleopatra walked back to the window.

“If anyone else said that, I’d crush him. But you—when you said it, I merely liked you a little more.”

She turned and her face seemed very haggard. “I want some more sleeping-draughts.”

He inclined his head and made to go.

“Thank you, Olympos,” she said, resuming her quiet matter-of-fact voice.

She looked out into the harbour. Blueness of space, and birds winging, a world of freedom soft with petals. Spring water for the beggar’s brat, and apples from the roadside tree. Death for the queen. Death came nearer, yet the horizon was still as far, unclouded with sails. Why couldn’t it stay thus, a happy world relaxed between lunch and dinner-time? There was nowhere to hide. A queen was branded like a condemned slave; it was written on her eyes, between her breasts, in the small blue veins on the inner-side of her thighs. And yet she only wanted to watch the birds, to be free. All other ambitions faded garishly, a garland crushed in crude night-hours of the darkened senses. The horizon was closing in, beaked with war-galleys.

The cruel hunger-cry of a sea-gull reached the room. There lay the trap. Prepare to die, while the earth grew more precious, a tomb giving up miraculous objects of beauty from a forgotten past, a desecrated past: beautiful objects of which the use had become forgotten, and a body crumbling in the shock of sunlight, the hammers of the sun.

Quickly she went into the next room.

*

The secretaries were standing obsequiously round the low table on which the documents had been laid in sorted piles. She did not seat herself on the ebony stool or recline on the couch while they brought her the documents one by one. She leaned over the table, her single gold bracelet thudding on the wood.

The Chief Secretary of the Dikasterion bustled forwards, bowing three times and fingering his memoranda dealing with law-appeals. The clerks from the Treasury edged a little closer. Cleopatra glanced rapidly through a pile of papyrus sheets: mere details of executive, which needed her signature. One document looked suspicious and she placed it aside, for later investigation. Then all the petitions. A world crying for justice—many of the criers being people wronged by her orders, but those were merchants, tradesmen, who knew only too well how to look after their own; justice was a perilous cry for them to raise. She returned to the document that had aroused her suspicions. It was signed Hermias, head scribe of the third ward of the Emporion. Yes, that was a man whom she had already once detected in minor peculations, but he had excuses; this time he would be degraded and beaten with canes.

More petitions from the merchants. Let them take care. She had been forced to strong measures on her return. The wealth of Egypt had been poured out to furnish Antonius with his army; twice he had drained Egypt with promises to pay with the plunder of Parthia. Her teeth gritted. She wanted to throw all the petitions into a fire, into the harbour.

To Theon: Whereas those from the City who do agricultural work in the Prosopite and Bubastite Nomes have addressed a Petition to Us in Audience on the 16th Phaophi against the officials of the Ten Nomes, declaring how these, contrary to Our will and the orders repeatedly sent out in accordance with Our decisions, by those over the administration, to the effect that no one should demand of them anything above the correct Royal Dues, essay to act wrongfully and to include them among those of whom rural and provincial dues, which concern them not, are exacted, We, being exceedingly indignant and judging it well...

She looked up, pressing on the table with her spread fingertips.

“This has been going on for a long time. I remember the details.”

The clerk ducked down and answered. “Perhaps you are right, Your Majesty. You are always right.”

She took up a split reed-pen and ran a line through the writing.

“This is not strong enough. Dismiss Theon. Give these people permits to draw on the dioiketes for the money that they’ve been cheated out of.”

It couldn’t be afforded, but justice must be done. Better throw a few merchants and tradesmen into jail for spreading treasonous rumours, and fine them heavily. Put another tax on the resident Jews. Give them something to squeal about.

She went on reading through the appeals, The waiting clerk of the Royal monopolies fidgetted with a pile of papers that he had rested on a side-table. She felt the blood hammering behind her brow. Her eyes were hot with pain, weak with sleepless nights, and the letters twisted and ran into one another, skipped like tiny daimons, ravens of ill-omen perched on a line. She would never be able to go through all the documents. The Romans might arrive the day after tomorrow. Why not tell the departments to do as they liked? She looked at the chief clerk’s shifty eyes and returned to the documents, swiftly picking out the central point of each and settling it.

Queen Cleopatra Father-loving Goddess and King Ptolemaios who is also Caesar Father-loving Mother-loving God to the Strategos of the Tani te Nome Greeking: Let the subjoined Decree with the enclosed Royal Letters be transcribed in Greek and in Native script and let it be put up publicly in the metropolis and in the principal places of the Nome...

She signed in long scrawling letters. The pile was thinning. The ache left her eyes, and then came stabbing back.

The pile was ended.

“Now bring me the monopoly-accounts.”

The other treasury-clerks edged closer in. She leaned over the pile of papers with burning eyes and stiffly painful back. Sea-gulls were outside, crying with hunger, despite the plentiful refuse of the docks, crying with the fear of the sated belly. An unprotected driven world, attacking, attacked, and soft with petals, frank in the lucid bridal light.

“Where is the account of the state linen-factory,” she asked harshly.

A cowering clerk slid towards the table.

5 TEMPTATION

The look-out, who was stationed in the tower during the day, announced that a strange-looking ship had anchored in the wharf under the fort at the land-end of the Great Mole. She wasn’t a merchant-ship, nor an ordinary war-ship. Antonius, on hearing the report, climbed to the tower-top and inspected the new-comer for himself. She had a low-lying swift look, and from his height he could see the glint of shields along the bulwarks. The sails were dyed purple, and a Babylonian carpet hung over the stern.

His hand trembled as he gazed. Could the ship be bringing an envoy from Rome? It was a bad month for navigation. No action would be taken yet, surely. But the boat had come from somewhere.

He composed his countenance and climbed slowly down the steps with tightened lips.

Then the door-keeper reported a man in livery hastening along the causeway towards the Timonion. Antonius made no answer and lay still without moving. Then he leaped up, called for his sword, and placed it under the pillows of his couch.

The door-keeper, returning, declared that a messenger from King Herodes of Judaea had arrived. Antonius breathed deeply, nodded his head, and sat passing his hands over his chest, feeling it fill out and rise.

The man was admitted, a Syrian with a downy beard that ran along the line of his jaw in short flat curls. He doffed his braided cap and fell on his knees, saying that King Herodes desired to speak with his Lord and Master, the Autocrator.

“Let him come,” said Antonius, drawing himself up with dignity. Then he looked at the Syrian’s small sycophantic face, the out-turned ears, the fringe of square-cut curls damply stuck to the forehead; and he went on with a short laugh that left his face twitching. “But let him bring no woman. Not even a flea-bitch. Not even a mirror in which a woman’s looked. Not even...not even...”

His fingers went to his eyes and he scratched the itching lids, gesturing for the messenger to go.

The messenger had already gone. Antonius called for some red wine. The pale wine, he said, made him sick; it was the urine of female elephants bought cheap by wicked vintagers. But the red wine was blood of the god.

The door-keeper reported a procession on the causeway.

“Send them back,” said Antonius. “Only Herodes can enter. And search him to see that he hasn’t a woman hidden about him.” He roared with laughter, then spoke cautiously.

“Didn’t she slip in to catch Caesar first in a bundle of carpets? Tread on her.”

Herodes was announced. Eros and Victor received him and removed his sandals, brought him a ewer of warm water and washed his feet and hands. He submitted impatiently. Victor studied him during these ministrations. A tall spare man with piercing black eyes and hooked nose, a heavy mouth and thickly-unguented hair. Smelling of food and something else. Victor didn’t know what. A smell like crushed ants.

Herodes entered the reception-room. Antonius did not rise.

“You read the inscription on the door?”

“No. I came to see my Lord.”

He spoke roughly, without any wheedling tones and there was a clearness in his voice, a sinewy self-satisfaction, that shook Victor’s unpleasant impression but increased his fear of this Arab King of the Jews.

“I am no man’s lord,” said Antonius brusquely, something of his old authority coming back to his voice as he unconsciously pitched his accents in key with those of Herodes. “Take a seat, and drink, and go.”

“I have come to speak with you,” said Herodes, simply and doggedly.

“You waste your breath.” Antonius drew himself up. “I am of no account now. You might as well call one of these lads your lord as me. I trusted” He broke off, his nostrils quivered and his brows lifted and fell, his head sunk down into his shoulders, and he glanced sideways. Then he recovered. “ It doesn’t matter. Will you throw your crown into the harbour and stay here to drink with me? Or will you go?”

“ I’ll do neither.” Herodes took the goblet of wine that Eros handed him. He bent forward. “You like me, Marcus Antonius, and I like you.” The wine from the disregarded goblet in his hand spilled on the floor. He stared with intense eyes at Antonius.

Antonius said nothing, but sagged backward, and rolled his head heavily on his shoulders, as if sleepily feeling an itch. He seemed not to have heard what Herodes said, but to be stupefied by his eyes.

Herodes noticed that he was spilling the wine. He raised the goblet and drank steadily, swallowing with a gurgling noise, but holding the goblet daintily with little-finger outstretched. He put the cup down and signed that he wanted no more, then settled back comfortably and glanced round the room.

“I’ve never been the use to you that I might have been.”

Antonius nodded and looked up under his sinking eyelids. Energy came back to him, and he sat up to face Herodes, who continued.

“But not for the reasons you think. I’ve always given you loyal service, but nothing more. Now I’ve come to join with you altogether, body and soul. Do you hear? If you want me.”

“What’s the price?” asked Antonius sullenly. His obsession and his drunkenness seemed to have faded, and for the first time for weeks he spoke in a completely normal voice.

“My price?” said Herodes quietly. “Yes, I’ve got a price.” He paused and then burst out. “Your trust. Your heart. Your plans. All of you. You and I together.”

“Go to Octavianus,” said Antonius in a stifled voice. “He has plans to share. I have none. My heart’s dried in my breast. Go to Octavianus. He’s the man for bargaining. Not me. I have no friend.”

“Octavianus is not the man for this kind of bargain. Look at me as I sit here. You think I’m a half-barbarian, don’t you? I know you. Well, don’t you know that that’s what these fine-mannered Greek friends of yours say about you? Half-barbarian.” His voice fell to a hissing whisper that sent snakes of frigidity crawling through Victor’s veins towards the heart. “I heard someone...saying that about me...overheard...someone that I love...” He broke off and resumed his straightforward manner. “Is what they say of you so very different from what they say of me?”

Antonius smote himself on the thigh.

“By Hercules, I knew it.”

“My blood comes out of the desert. It’s still got the desert in it. Yet I’m breaking my Jews into Greek culture, cleaning up Jerusalem and making it a noble city instead of a slum of God. Let them talk about their ancient glories. They don’t wash themselves and they loathe good architecture. My blood comes out of the desert, but it’s breaking them with a state too fine for their rancorous hearts. Have I ever said that to you before, Marcus Antonius?”

“No.” Antonius had the appearance of a man awakening from deep sleep. “But I’ve always liked you. That’s why—” He stopped.

“Finish,” said Herodes. “I know what you meant to say. That’s why you wouldn’t let Cleopatra have her way. She’s always hated me. She wanted to see me flung out or stabbed in the dark. You had only to say the word, and I was dethroned or dead. And she was your woman.”

He halted and grew confused for the first time, but struck his hands vehemently over his head.

“You didn’t say the word. You left me King of my Jews still. That’s why I’ve come to you now. An Idumxan King of the Jews to a Roman King of nothing.”

“I’m glad I kept you on your throne,” said Antonius at last. “It was about the only good thing I did. Go and make your peace with Octavianus, and he’ll leave you there too. The Jews are a stiff-necked people, proud of their superior stink before God, and he’ll know that it’s hard to find the right man to grind them down, to give them baths and blasphemous architecture. So he won’t touch you—if you go to him now.”

“But I’ve come to you,” answered Herodes quickly. There was another silence. Antonius stirred uneasily, then he cried out in a voice of suffering passion:

“I wish you hadn’t come. I was peaceful, drinking myself to death. You’ve roused me with your cursed offer of loyalty when I was at peace in a world of traitors. I can’t bear your price, do you hear?”

Herodes said nothing but stared commandingly at him. Antonius wrung his hands.

“It tears the heart out of me, do you hear? It makes me want to weep again, and I thought I’d burned out my tears. It’s life you’re offering me. Madness, hope, friendship. Lies, lies. I can’t bear it.”

Herodes still said nothing. Antonius subsided, panting.

“Listen, Herodes,” he said after a while. “Here’s something you wouldn’t think of me, but perhaps you’ll know it from the desert that’s still in your own blood. I’ve found my desert. I’m lost in it. Nothing that you say makes any difference. I’m lost. I’m waiting to die. Everything else is a dream—part of the nightmare. I can’t wake up again. Let me wander in my desert.”

Herodes leaned forward with the stealthy grace that shaped all his movements, and took in his hands the hands of Antonius.

“I told you we were akin. We cannot give our hearts to these folk of the city and the ploughed lands. I’m a just ruler, by the One God. I’d flay the man that dared to say otherwise. I’ll put a naked Aphrodite of stone into my city of Jews and burn their eyes out with her beauty. But my heart’s not in it all. I’m a soldier, not a judge. It’s men like you and me that make the nations; and when the nation is made it’s time for the judge to do his work of appeasement and for the mason to build his marble houses. Join with me, and we will be brothers in everything. I swear it. I swear that I will have one soul and blood with you, and we will conquer the earth.”

Antonius reached out a protesting arm to wave Herodes away, and covered his eyes with the other arm.

“It’s dreadful,” he moaned. “How can you be so cruel?”

“Do you want what I offer?” asked Herodes, and there was a depth of menace and love in his words that made Victor shudder.

Antonius also shuddered, speaking from behind his raised arm.

“There’s something that you’re hiding. Why didn’t you come to me before?”

“Because you wouldn’t have listened.” Herodes lowered his voice and spoke with slow distinctness. “Because you wouldn’t have understood what I’ve said. Because you wouldn’t have listened to what I’m going to say...You had to be broken before you could meet me...in the desert.”

“Speak...what is it?”

There was a deep suppressed wail in the voice of Antonius. Victor saw two large tears roll down his cheeks, but the eyes were still covered, to ward off the blow—what blow? Antonius was like a man preparing for an attack which he was helpless to avert.

“You know what it is.”

“No, no,” cried Antonius wildly. “I only know that you’ve torn down the peace I had. I was dying in the one way that I can die. I’m a coward. I can’t cut my own throat. I can only drink myself to death. But now...”

“Now you have a different choice. There is but one thing standing between you and the empire of the world. Do you think that I’d come if I wasn’t sure? Together we can organise the East. You never had the chance to do it properly.”

“No,” said Antonius with set jaw, but still covering his face. “I didn’t.”

“I know my own worth. I can do nothing alone—except hold Judaea. But I know what I can do to supplement your part, if we really work together.”

“Yes...” Antonius swayed dizzily. His voice had grown thin. Victor stood ready to rush forward, sure that Antonius would fall from the couch in a faint.

“Then kill her!” said Herodes in deep throaty tones.

Antonius recoiled, sat quite still, dropped the hand from his eyes, and stared at Herodes. His eyes were darkly on flame; the pupils were so swollen that they filled almost the whole of the eye-space.

“That’s enough,” he muttered thickly. “I won’t do it.” He saw that Herodes was about to speak again, and hastily interrupted.

“Don’t talk. You’re right in all you say. It’s the only way out—with a man like you at my side. We could overrun the Empire. I’m as sure of it as I was when I led the legions out of Rome after Caesar was murdered and there was a hundred to one against me. I knew I’d win; and if I joined with you now, I’d win again. But I won’t do it.” His voice rose in a triumphant peal. “I won’t do it. Because we’d be a pack out of hell, smashing everything down. Get out of here.”

Herodes stared back at him, and Antonius sustained the stare unflinchingly. Then, without another word, Herodes rose, swung his chair away with a crash against the wall, without looking at it—not out of anger, but lumberingly as if he felt crushed in by the walls of the room—and backed towards the door, still staring at Antonius.

At the door he stopped and spoke in a constrained way.

“Marcus Antonius, I could have had her poisoned, and then you would have been ready to join me. But I don’t want a broken creature. You’d have been useless. If you’d been ready to do it yourself, things would have been different.”

“Yes, Herodes son of Antipatros, things would have been different. Now get out.”

*

As soon as the ante-door could be heard closing behind Herodes, Antonius sprang to his feet and rushed wildly about the room, uttering meaningless cries. Eros and Victor watched in paralysed weakness, afraid of attracting attention. At last Antonius grew exhausted and threw himself down on the couch. At once Eros was at his side, laying a wet napkin on his brow and laving his feet. Victor didn’t know what to do, and covered his ill-ease by tidying things, picking up the chair that Herodes had knocked aside, collecting the cups. He had wholly lost the instinct of devoted service which he had once shared with Eros, and merely felt revolted by his position.

Antonius opened his eyes, and asked feebly, “Is he gone?”

“Yes,” answered Eros tenderly.

“Are you sure?...Go and make sure.”

Eros obediently went away down the hall, and then returned, to soothe Antonius, with the news that Herodes could be seen making his way along the sea-front and that the door and all windows were shut.

Antonius closed his eyes, and seemed to sleep. Victor started to tiptoe from the room, but Antonius immediately struggled up. Eros quieted him again, with a reproving look at Victor; and Antonius lay back. Victor did not dare to make another movement. He stood rooted in the middle of the floor, envying Eros his absorption in the service of their afflicted master. Try as he might, he could only feel scared and sick.

After a while Antonius fell into an unmistakably deep sleep, and Victor crept out. He had promised to meet Daphne near the dock-gate, and he dashed from the Timonion, knowing that he was late. She was still waiting, very angry; but he hardly heard her taunts, so filled was he with the tale he had to tell. When she paused for a moment, he began telling her about Herodes and his effort to tempt Antonius.

“I don’t care about such things,” she said, but listened, and relented, gave him a piece of cloth on which she’d embroidered a rose, which she had brought out to make him admire and for which he had no possible use.

“I picked it up as I came out,” she explained.

Victor was torn between his wish to talk more about Herodes and his fear that he’d seem ungrateful if he changed the subject from the embroidery; but after she’d snatched the embroidery away from him, and he’d begged it back again and kissed it, and both had said several times everything there was to say about it, they managed to make the transition to the perfidy of Herodes, and Daphne asked him to tell her about it all over again.

They walked along, jostled by porters, wharf-officials, and bawdy sailors. A man was playing a flute of pierced ass-bone while a monkey danced. Daphne was enraptured, and stopped to watch, her hand on Victor’s shoulder. Her breath softly stirred his hair.

What was going to happen? For the first time Victor realised that Antonius was doomed, and the thought made him feel more important instead of merely depressing him as it would have done a while ago. Now he had Daphne to consider, to look after...even though he had no claim whatever upon her and her father did all the looking-after required.

Antonius was doomed. But nobody seemed to notice, nobody seemed to care. The world went on the same. And Daphne had pale gold hair glistening with little curls. Also her cheeks dimpled when she smiled.

Two sailors fought; and the monkey skipped up on to his master’s head where he sat gripping at the hair and chattering. A mule with a load of glassware refused to budge, and the muleteer was frightened to beat it with his staff lest it should lie down and roll. A crowd surrounded him with ribald advice. He bought some vegetables from a passing barrow-vendor and tried vainly to lure the mule on. Somebody pushed a painted girl forward and suggested that she could help, having had much experience with ass-colts: a slang-term for the kind that constituted her clients. She had no objection to being the centre of attention; and after kissing the mule on the nose with great applause, she fed him with a cabbage-leaf. But still the mule did not budge. A gate-official arrived and blamed the girl for the disturbance, then found that a pickpocket had rifled the purse of ox-skin that hung at his side. He screamed his rage at the smiling girl, and in the midst of the uproar the muleteer, unnoticed, led his mule onward.

“Go and tell that man that she didn’t have anything to do with it,” whispered Daphne fiercely. Victor wavered, but she insisted. “Go and do it, or I’ll never speak to you again.”

“They’ll laugh at me...” He saw her whitening face and stepped irresolutely forward. “The girl didn’t have anything to do with the disturbance,” he began.

“Then who are you?” shouted the official. He glared at Victor, his broad nostrils swelling. “If you’re the pimp of this piece, take her home and muzzle her.”

“He’s an honest man,” said the girl, who moved smiling across to Victor and took his hand. “No wonder you can’t recognise him.”

Daphne pushed into the front rank and pinched Victor vigorously.

“Leave her alone,” she whispered.

Victor stammered and tried to withdraw.

“No, you don’t,” said the official. “What do you know about this young woman or whatever she calls herself? What do you mean by interfering with officers in the course of their duty?”

“You shan’t hurt him,” cried the girl and threw her arm round Victor’s neck.

Daphne at once pulled her hair, and the girl shrieked. “Enough of this!” shouted the official. “I’ll have you all arrested.”

The two drunken sailors, who had given up trying to learn the cause of the trouble, started fighting again; and there was a general scrimmage. Victor succeeded in shoving away from the official, who was calling for reinforcements; but the painted girl stuck to him, still smiling and asking what the hurry was about.

“Where are we going next, sweetheart?”

“Get away, you beast,” said Daphne, who was holding Victor’s other arm.

“Speak when you’re spoken to,” replied the girl shrilly. “I’ve got as many fingers and toes as you have. Not to mention legs and all the rest of it. Let him choose for himself. He’s old enough. Unless of course you’re his mother.”

Victor felt helpless; and it was all Daphne’s fault.

“We’re going somewhere,” he said vaguely, and tried to take Daphne’s arm. But she shook him off.

“Tell this creature to behave herself.”

Victor wanted to run, but the girl was hanging on to him. He sought to tear his arm from her grasp.

“Let me go.”

The girl laughed mischievously. Another crowd was assembling.

“Can’t you do something?” said Daphne in disgust.

Victor hadn’t brought any money with him or he would have offered it to the girl despite Daphne’s scorn. “Please leave us alone,” he said in miserable appeal.

Daphne promptly gave the girl a savage push and sent her sprawling in the mud with kicking heels.

“Come on, let’s run,” she said cheerfully, and sped round the corner.

Victor followed, and found her laughing, to his surprise. “Kiss me, quickly,” she said.

And he kissed her, in the middle of the street. Most of the passers paid no heed, a man with a truck shouted “Make way,” and a drunk cheered. It was the first time that Victor had kissed Daphne since she called him into the doorway of her flat after their second meeting.

She disengaged herself and ran down the road.

*

Back in the Timonion, Victor heard the news about the ships of Herodes. Sails had been hoisted as soon as Herodes returned and the ship had sailed out into the harbour, presumably for the Royal Quay so that Herodes might offer homage to Cleopatra. But the ship had swung away through the harbour-mouth, clearing the moles and making northeast before the officer in the Pharosfort, worried also by lack of instructions, had time to train a catapult, to trumpet a command, or to run out the great chains that closed the harbour, linking the Pharos to the fort on the Lochias Point. Herodes was gone.

Antonius still slept.

He slept all that night, moaning at times for milk. Once, when wine was brought, he spat it out and called for milk, then for something bitter. “Wormwood,” he whimpered. He wanted wormwood-steeped water, but there was none in the house, though it was sold in the markets for keeping fleas away and for medicinal purposes. Then his cry changed.

“Vinegar.” He was given vinegar, and seem satisfied. Then he slept again.

Victor lay awake, trying to think of Daphne’s kiss but obscure fears harried him, though at the end of an hour he was unable to remember what he had been thinking. He drifted into a patchy sleep, awakening at dawn and falling back into a dream-daze of chases and involving terrors. He awoke again to hear water splashing. At first, in the disturbed images of half-dream, he thought that the rock was sinking under the waters and his ears deafened by the cataracts of drowning; then, climbing to the tower-top, he looked over the rampart and saw wine being emptied into the harbour, out of bottles, jars, and casks of every size. Each window was pouring with red wine, as if the house had somehow crushed its inhabitants and was now ejecting their blood.

Then by leaning further over Victor saw the bewildered slaves who were at work pouring the wine; and he heard the voice of Antonius booming, urging them on. One huge amphora, from which the pitch-seals had just been knocked, was too heavy for the two slaves who were striving to lift it half out of the window; and Antonius, lending over-zealous aid, threw the whole amphora out. It hit the water with a great splash, turned over, and sank foamily spouting a red coil, like a cuttlefish stored with grape-juice instead of sepia.

Antonius thrust out his head to watch the sinking amphora, and called for another, which he ordered to be similarly thrown out.

Running downstairs, Victor watched Antonius directing the destruction.

“Every vile drop,” he was saying earnestly, making the slaves work at full speed. A boatman, who had been fishing near, paddled up and sat back in his skiff watching the pouring liquid with perplexed anguish, licking his lips and scowling.

“Give us some, master,” he ventured to call.

“It’s poison,” shouted Antonius, and the boatman sat back once more, uncertain and thirsty, while other skiffs came racing up to learn what was happening. The first boatman spread the information he had received, and the boatmen all looked on at the empurpled waves, feeling equally angered whether they witnessed a wanton waste of good wine or whether some dastard had poisoned a whole cellar-stock.

At last the slaves reported that there wasn’t a drop left, except a flagon in the room of Lucilius, who refused to surrender it. Antonius strode to the room and entered without knocking. On the bed lay Lucilius with a wine-cup in his hand.

“Where’s the wine?” asked Antonius, in a hectoring anxious voice.

“What do you want it for?” replied Lucilius. “A mad slave came in here and said you were dumping all our wine in the harbour.”

“So I am,” said Antonius, moving up and down the room, touching something at one end with his right hand and then something at the other end with his left hand. “Every drop. Every vile drop. Give me all you’ve got, if you love me.”

“I won’t.” Lucilius swung his fist down on the bed and broke a leather thong. “I’ve let you insult me and trample on my feelings, because I love you more than anyone on earth. Not because you saved my life, but because you saved it in the right way. But you’re going too far when you snatch the wine from my lips.”

“Please give it up.” Antonius lost all his truculence and clasped his hands. “It’s my only hope. I can’t go on any longer. I’ve been beaten.”

But Lucilius, who had been drinking for weeks almost as much as Antonius himself, had turned obstinate.

“I’ll die for you, but I won’t stop drinking.” He tried to argue reasonably. “Think now. You’re not even asking for the wine because you want to drink it, but because you want to make the fishes drunk. What nonsense.”

Antonius saw the flagon at the foot of the bed, darted at it, and smashed it against the wall.

“Hell!” shouted Lucilius. “That’s too much!”

He leaped from the bed and threw himself at Antonius. They fell wrestling to the floor among the fragments of earthenware. Antonius lay weakly for a moment, encumbered by the handle of the flagon which was still in his hand. Recovering, he raised it and seemed looking for a chance to crash its jagged edges into the face of Lucilius. Then he dropped it, gripped Lucilius by the throat, and hurled him back against the plaster wall which was soaked and damaged from the broken flagon.

“Let me go,” gasped Lucilius.

But Antonius held on, his lips grimly shut, his eyes narrowed. Victor and Eros had followed him to the room and now stood watching in the door-way. Victor turned away, mumbling something about fetching help; but Eros ran into the room, fell on his knees beside Antonius, and caught his wrists.

“Let him go,” he pleaded.

Antonius at once ceased throttling Lucilius and looked up at Eros.

“How did you get here?”

Then, without waiting for an answer, he rose and looked round.

“All the wine’s gone?”

“Yes, yes,” replied Eros, unable to catch the wandering eye of Antonius. “ There’s none left now.”

“Good.” Antonius spoke undecidedly, trying to think of something. “Good. It had to be. People will understand some day and bless me. Good.”

With another vacant glance round he went out.

Lucilius raised himself with a groan from the floor and shook his head at Victor. Eros had gone after Antonius.

“He’s getting worse. I’ve a good mind to stab him in his sleep—to save him from disgracing his name—and then to end myself. But the older I get the less I want to die.”

He looked at the shattered flagon and the pool of wine on the floor.

“Here, lad, run ashore and buy me some more wine.”

“I’d be frightened to do it,” said Victor, turning to go.

“I don’t blame you. I don’t blame anybody.” He whistled. “So this is the end of the world, is it?” He paced up and down the room, and then stopped to look out of the window. “We’ve got a nice view, anyway. I’ll go and get drunk ashore.”

*

Antonius dozed fretfully all day. Eros and Victor took turns at watching him. As dusk was drably sifting out of the earth, Victor was at the door, hidden from the view of Antonius on the couch. He didn’t like to stand any closer and prayed that nothing would happen before the turn of Eros came. In the midst of a reverie, in which he dreamed of clasping Daphne all his own in a room of sunlight, he grew aware of furtive movements from the couch. Peeping through the curtains, he saw that Antonius was fumbling about under the couch, lifting the coverlet. He was about to rush forward, thinking that Antonius wanted the bed-pot to urinate or to vomit; but his fear made him hesitate.

After much clumsy search Antonius found what he was after, and drew it out. A small flagon of wine! He removed the plug with careful movements to and fro, and lifted the flagon-lip to his mouth. Victor heard the wine gurgling, distressed at the cunning leer that he had seen on the face of Antonius. The flagon was one of those known as besa-flasks, made locally after the shape of ancient Egyptian jars commemorating the god Bes. It was pot-bellied, ornamented with a grotesque flattened face with spreading pig-snout, flapping ears, cavernous mouth, and squinting eyes.

The ugly dwarf-shape out of which Antonius was drinking merged for the gazing Victor with the face and limbs of Antonius himself, producing a twin-monster, a bestial grotesque of deformation. Again the world became confusedly threatening, criss-crossed with madness. Victor tried to think of Daphne, to remember her face as an amulet-protection; but the chaos of general woe and discord broke down the fences of his private emotion, derided him, hid the amulet-face of Daphne behind hag-disguises and treacherous masks. No one was as he or she seemed. Everyone was a decoy, the blinded wild-fowl deceiving its free brethren into the net. Even Daphne.

Antonius lay back. The room became darker.

Victor put off the moment when he would call a house-slave to light the lamps. Then he heard Antonius stirring, sitting up.

“Eros...Victor...”

Victor entered the room after stepping back a few paces down the corridor, to hide the fact that he had been so near. “The lamps will be ready in a moment.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Victor heard Antonius feeling about—for the flagon, he thought in despair. But it was for his shoes. At length the shoes were found, for Victor in his guilty knowledge of the secret flagon did not join in the search. Then, to cover his remissness, he hurried forward.

“Let me lace them.”

Antonius sat stolidly till the shoes were laced. Then he rose.

“Eros too. No one else.”

Victor called Eros, and Antonius walked to the outer door, attended by his pages. Down the causeway he went, walking slowly but resolutely. At the foot of the causeway the sentry had taken his place; he challenged the oncomers, but stepped back in surprise when Antonius answered. Then Antonius and his pages went silently on.

Victor was too terrified to reply to the questioning glances of Eros. In the villa he had seen what Antonius was hugging under his tunic. As Eros lifted the curtain, a drift of light from the end of the corridor had thinned the gloom, and Victor had seen the dagger along the blade of which Antonius was running his finger.

At the palace-gates Antonius checked the guards and refused to allow them to send ahead to announce him. He did the same in the hall, sternly ordering that no one was to leave it, and signing to the officer in charge. Then on he went, with his pages. Victor knew what he was touching as his hand went every short while to his belt. It was the dagger, hidden against his skin.

*

As expected, Nicias refused to dine with an Egyptian. Besides, he had more interesting things to do. He had been engaged in cataloguing part of the Pergamene library of 200,000 book-rolls which Antonius had bestowed on Cleopatra to compensate for books burned in the riots during Caesar’s landing some seventeen years before; and he had found an anonymous and unknown commentary on the geography of Aischulos. At least the Roman had done one good thing in giving Alexandria that library for a library burned by a Roman. The last shipload from Pergamos had arrived only a month ago; and the Library of Alexandria, the biggest in the world with its half-million rolls, had been in a flutter. Most of the parchment-rolls, being duplicates of works already at the Museion, were to be housed at the Sarapeion; but the Museion had first pick.

What, dine with an Egyptian dilettante when one might die tomorrow with a possibly essential book unread?

Daphne heard the discussion, and intruded. She said she wanted to go with Olympos since the dinner was to be a family-party; and she was told to go back into the kitchen. But Olympos pleaded for her; and Nicias agreed at last, to settle the matter, which had taken up far too much time already. He was sorry to agree, but it was better to sin against one’s convictions than to waste time. He retired to his anonymous treatise on Aischulean place-names. He’d already found three errors and was sure from internal evidence that the author was a Milesian; a little more deduction would probably unearth his identity.

“Come back early.”

Daphne was dressed in her best dress, the one with the most pleats and with the most embroidery on the sleeves. A dress that made her feel grown-up, there were so many inhibitions attached to it. A moment’s forgetfulness would ruin the pleats; and if the top was pulled a fraction too much over the girdle, it looked blousy; and if it was let fall a fraction too much, it was trodden on; and the arm-holes were rather tight, so that they hurt quite a lot, having shrunk through much washing. The tightness was accentuated by the fact that she’d neglected for some time to depilate her armpits (or any other part) like the other girls of her age. What was there wrong with hair? She felt ashamed, hairless, like a little girl of six caught dressing in her mother’s clothes: which was a queer thing to feel, since it was the other way round really—trying to pretend to be a little girl of six, when she was, if not her own mother, at least old enough to be somebody’s mother, somebody very small, the tiniest of tiny babies...The thought was all too complicated and bothersome. She buried it, and didn’t depilate, running her fingers over the hair instead, and prizing its softness. But tonight she was gay.

The world was filled with people. At least the street was. People who seemed all to be going somewhere, and yet they weren’t going out to dine with—who was it? Manethos.

As she walked along the street with her arm held by Olympos, she felt very self-assured and wanted to show how much she knew of the world. She wanted to tell Olympos all about Herodes and Antonius, but couldn’t find a way of introducing the subject or of explaining how she knew. At last she found an explanation. She could say that one of the slaves of Antonius talked to Simon at the market. But that explanation somehow robbed her knowledge of its social stamp, its peculiarity. Anyone might have a gossiping slave.

But it was too late to start the subject; for they reached the house that Manethos had bought and renovated, on the outskirts of the Brucheion area. It was a Greek-built house, but Manethos had decorated it internally and furnished it in Egyptian fashion, not aggressively, but in a kind of collector’s arrangement which lent to his smiling resuscitation of national custom the excuse of an antiquarian’s whim.

Two native servants met Olympos and Daphne at the door and bowed them in, lowering their hands to touch their knees; then offered them fruit and drinks in an antechamber where they rested and had their shoes removed. Palm-leaf slippers were provided. The guests were then ushered into the room beyond, where the walls showed alternate lines of black and white bricks and slender lotus-columns supported the painted ceiling.

Here the hosts welcomed them; Manethos, his sister-wife Sheftu-Teta, and their two daughters, one younger and one older than Daphne, with names that no Greek could memorise. Other guests had arrived, an Egyptian named Gebu; a Greek treasury-official who collected antique rings; a jolly-faced Roman Senator who had thrown in his lot with Antonius and now ran one of the state-mills; a wise-eyed old man from Babylon who said nothing; and the Exegetes of the City, the most important civic official, who was also the eponymous Priest of Alexandros the Founder, an exquisitely mannered gross-looking man dressed in purple.

The hands of the guests were washed in silver bowls with the edges turned-in to obviate splashing. There were some low tables and stools, and against the wall were chairs; but beside the tables were laid daintily-woven grass mats, to which, in a compromise for unused knees and buttocks, Manethos had added linen cushions filled with vegetable down, “a composition softer than feathers and not pleasing to vermin.”

The guests seated themselves at ease on the cushions, and slave-girls came round to place garlands on their heads and to drop unguent in their hair, while salvers of cakes and salads were set on the tables. Manethos and his family did not eat flesh, but for the more barbarous tastes of his guests he had conceded plates of small roasted birds stuffed with rare herbs, the flesh ready sliced, or fishes boned and served with faint citron sauces.

While the dishes were taken round by the slaves, the guests conversed. Manethos elucidated a problem of Egyptian history for the ring-collector, and Gebu discussed horse-breeding with the Exegetes. The Senator gave an entertaining account of how elections had been held at Rome in the Republican days and how much ingenuity had been exercised in defining when bribery was or wasn’t bribery; and Manethlis related how some thousands of years previously an attempt at proletarian government in Egypt had failed. He went on to quote some passages from a poet of the period, translating them into Greek:

Nay but gold and lapis lazuli are hung round the necks of slave-girls, while noble ladies tramp through the land and mistresses of houses cry out: Would that we had something to eat.

Nay but those who were clad in fine linen are beaten with staves. The ladies that never looked upon the daylight are flung into the streets.

Nay, but the poor man has attained to the state of the Nine Gods. The poor come in and go out of the Great Houses of the Law.

Behold, ladies lie on hard mattresses, and the magistrates in the storehouse. He that lay sleepless on walls now owns a bed.

Behold, the rich man goes to bed thirsting. He that once begged for the rich man’s dregs now has strong beer for himself.

Behold, she that had no box now has a coffer. She that looked at her face in the water now has a mirror.

Behold, he that had no shade, now has shade. They that had shade are in the full blast of the storm.

Olympos said little, and the wise-eyed old man from Babylon said nothing, though he had taken a great fancy to Olympos and pledged him whenever he ate or drank anything. But his silence was understood later when it became apparent that he knew no Greek.

Daphne, who had heard that Manethos was married to his sister, looked with unabashed interest at the hostess and also studied the daughters, who were both remarkably like their mother. Of course she knew how often the natives married when brother and sister, but that wasn’t the same. She didn’t dine in huts, and nothing that the lower classes did was of any moment. (Victor she didn’t consider as lower-class, though he was a slave and most of the natives were “free-born”; he was educated.) But for a couple such as Manethos and Sheftu-Teta to be married—openly!—was an astonishing phenomenon.

Mother and daughters were alike clad in single-piece dresses tight-fitting at the hips and then flowing loosely down to the ankles. The upper-part was slit deep in front and back, and partially drawn together by a gold cord round the neck. The sleeves were clasped at the wrist with snake-charms. Mother and daughters alike had delicate features with small firm jaws and slightly-sunken cheeks, small heavy mouths and large clear eyes, frail shapely necks. Daphne, who had come to dislike, was enchanted. The hair was cut rather short, to leave it cool and comfortable, though, when occasion demanded, ceremonial wigs were donned. No wigs were now worn, to mark the homeliness of the gathering.

One of the daughters played a harp, and the other sang an old Egyptian song. Daphne wanted to ask what the song was about, but couldn’t ask, staring at Sheftu-Teta and her girls. She felt that she’d like to marry an Egyptian (Manethos, if he was young, but not the somewhat thick-lipped Gebu) and live calm and contented, with cropt hair and refined manners. Even the few flowers in the vases seemed more elegant than other flowers. Daphne wondered if Sheftu-Teta and the girls trimmed each petal with scissors to make it more perfect before the flowers were arranged in the copper vase.

The jovial Roman Senator and the pompous Exegetes looked out of place in the room; they shouldn’t have been asked. Olympos was different, he was perfectly in key with the house and its ways; and that made Daphne proud of him and proud of herself, for what was true about him must be true about her. So she argued to herself. Olympos was too discreetly a dear to be wrongly placed anywhere. He lay with his elbow on a cushion, chuckling quietly as the Senator told him stories of the trouble caused by unruly state slave-girls in the factories. One of the girls in the packing department of the glass\A are section had actually given birth to a child, fed it and placed it in a large vase, wherein it had been delivered safely to Busiris. The Exegetes expressed astonishment. Did the Senator think there was anything behind the incident? In any case a report should at once be composed and submitted to the right department—that of Freights, probably.

Daphne looked at Sheftu-Teta to see how she took these crudities; but without appearing inattentive to the guests Sheftu-Teta entirely ignored the conversation. Daphne wondered how one gained such a manner, not in the least rude or superior, but merely self-contained, chaste without any effect of condemnation of the unchaste world. She was sorry that she didn’t have a brother; but she was sure somehow that if she had had a brother, he wouldn’t have been at all like Manetheis; he would have been a quarrelsome wretch that she would have disliked violently.

Everyone in the room was decorous, too decorous, except the Senator. Without exactly approving of the Senator, Daphne began to rebel against the spell cast on her by the Egyptian household. The daughters seemed unconstrained with their parents, neither subservient nor placatory, neither excited nor suppressed; and this attitude of theirs filled Daphne with revolt. She resolved to protest to her father as soon as she got home—about what she wasn’t sure; and the less sure she became, the more she wanted to make the Egyptian girls protest and revolt. The fact that they appeared to have nothing against which to revolt was the most exasperating thing of all.

Unnoticed by Olympos, Daphne drank all the wine that she could get. It was a rich sticky wine, dark red, too sweet, but very nice; it stuck to the tongue even after it was all swallowed. The only way that Daphne could feel patronising to the Egyptian girls was to drink more wine than they were allowed; for it would be no use for them to say that they drank all they wanted. Daphne had made up her mind that they weren’t allowed to drink as much as she was drinking, because only by thus making up her mind could she get the required satisfaction out of drinking so much.

She wondered if Sheftu-Teta saw the horrid way that the Roman Senator looked at the girls; and then she grew aware that he was looking horridly at her also. At the same time she felt how difficult it was to manage a skirt while sitting on a cushion on the floor, particularly a pleated skirt that it took hours to iron and press. Without getting up to look at oneself one couldn’t be sure of what one was showing to horrid-eyed Senators. She felt hate for her elaborately-pressed dress and coveted the graceful soft-linen dresses of the Egyptian girls. Then a thought pleased her. There wasn’t any brother in this family either. She smiled at the girls, who smiled pleasantly back.

Nobody except the Senator was taking any notice of Daphne, and even he took notice of her only when he couldn’t keep looking at the Egyptian girls any longer. The old man from Babylon sat still and gazed at each speaker in turn, his square head laid on one side, like a parrot; he had a curving beak-nose too, and his tongue looked fat and blunt as he ate. Daphne wished that he’d speak. She was certain he’d make a cackling noise and say: “Come in, everybody,” or “Sarapis bless the house.”

There came over her an irresistible wish to startle.

The Exegetes remarked that King Herodes had paid a hurried state-visit but had set off again at once for Ioppa.

“He wanted Marcus Antonius to kill the Queen,” announced Daphne loudly. “But he was told to get out, so he went.”

She had imagined that it would take hours to unfold all the thrilling story as it lived in her brain, communicated by Victor’s half-sentences and suggestions. But after she had uttered her two sentences, she couldn’t think of anything more to say. The story seemed woefully inadequate and pointless.

But everyone was staring at her.

“How do you know?” asked Olympos with sharp concern.

She brought out her explanation of slaves talking in the market-place, and didn’t expect for a moment to be believed. But no one saw anything unlikely in the explanation.

“Slaves will talk,” said Manethos gently, to ease the situation, “and I fear that they often say the first thing that comes into their head. Now I had a friend who owned a Galatian slave...”

Daphne didn’t listen. She hated him for trying to spoil her story, refusing to consider that he was also trying to save her from trouble and to stop the interested Exegetes from following the matter up. She seized the large goblet of wine that Olympos had left untouched, drank it all off, and then was sick into her lap, almost before she knew what was happening. She didn’t even have time to taste the wine. And even at this dreadful moment, she was unhappily aware, Sheftu-Teta and the two girls showed not the least signs of embarrassment or dismay. Sheftu-Teta merely lowered her lids slightly, and a slave-girl was instantly at Daphne’s side with unobtrusive napkins, and another slave-girl was leading Daphne out, and Daphne was feeling very dull and bilious, and sat somewhere with her head suddenly icily sweaty, and then saw that Sheftu-Teta, waiting till her departure did not seem meant to draw attention to a guest’s misfortunes, had followed after, to bathe the guest’s brow and to produce a medicine-phial and to do it all without bothering or being bothered.

*

Olympos was troubled. He tried to convince himself that there was nothing in Daphne’s remarks. No one else took them seriously after her collapse. The Senator made a joke about young girls wanting to be both seen and heard and about the necessity of Venus being able to stomach Bacchus; and though the joke was coolly received, everyone now thought that Daphne had been talking at random.

Olympos was upset both at Daphne’s words and at the state into which she had got. He blamed himself for not having watched her more closely, but was pleased that her retching had diverted the company from her disclosure. He felt that Daphne was not the girl to invent such a tale, and he wondered at the emotion stirred in his heart, he who had so long considered himself above all politics and their repercussions. Dynasties might change, but people would still get stone in their bladders.

He was troubled. He took Manethos aside, and said that he could stay no longer, that he had a professional call to make—but as he did not wish to disturb his niece in her recovery, would Manethos please send her home with some trustworthy attendants when she felt better?

Manethos answered that he could not possibly allow the niece of his esteemed friend to make a journey until she had had a night’s rest; that he would at once send a messenger to her father to say that she was detained and would return early in the morning; and that he would be delighted to have the niece of his friend sleeping under his roof for the night.

Olympos thanked him and went.

Straight to the Timonion in a hired carriage. He knocked at the door exhausted and trembling, asked for Antonius, ready to say that Cleopatra had sent him to inquire after the health of the Autocrator. He didn’t know what he feared, but felt that he must do something, whatever complications he involved himself in. Daphne’s words had thrust on him a responsibility which he could neither analyse nor evade.

The depressed but talkative door-keeper said that Antonius had gone off some while ago with his two pages, to the Palace it seemed, and there had been a great waste of wine, and the world was in a bad way...

Olympos agreed, and set out for the Palace. He had dismissed his cab and did not think of sending for another. His legs dragged, all his strength had left him. Never had he felt so weak. He chided himself; an old man who had put aside the toys of emotion.

Walk calmly, for it is your own body that walks, no one else’s. For no one else’s can you care. In no one else’s can you walk, now that you have left your mother’s womb for sixty years.

When was his birthday? Not for six weeks, but he made no oblations to his daimon now, hadn’t for many years. Let the world go to wrack. Debauchery produced diseases, which were interesting; and the sins of the fathers were poison in the blood of the children, generation after generation. No one need be ill. Cleopatra could look after herself. And in the end it did not matter. In fact, before her corpse he would feel only the analytic impersonality of an inquest. One sigh, and then he’d turn her body over like a stone in the grass, to see what was underneath.

The stress of his seething thoughts enabled him to overcome his weakness, to flog himself along. Time doubled and twisted across his brain, and he looked up astonished to find himself arrived.

The sentries knew him well and let him through. He hastened for Cleopatra’s bedroom.

*

When Antonius entered the room, Cleopatra was already abed. Caesarion sat on a carved sandalwood stool at the bedside, reading aloud to her. Her eyes were shut and her long brown-golden hair spread down over her naked pillowed shoulders. At the noise of the entry she opened her eyes wide, but did not stir. Antonius stood swaying, and scowled at Caesarion, who rose timidly.

“Shall I go, mother?”

Cleopatra nodded, and the boy went, clutching the roll in his hand and brushing blindly past the pages who had halted in the shadow of the doorway.

Cleopatra’s half-covered bosom heaved once, and her blue eyes gleamed with a chilly incandescence. She was lying in a large four-poster bedstead hung with finely-woven mosquito-netting looped with golden tassels.

She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and then once more stared back at Antonius, who came gradually towards her.

“I’ve come,” he said roughly.

She nodded.

“You didn’t send for me.”

“What use would that have been?”

“No use.”

They stared at one another, the same questioning fear on both their faces. To their dulled, heavy eyes the room seemed clouding with dusty fumes of yellow light from the lamp of bronze shaped like a gladiator’s helmet. Antonius went on:

“I meant to kill myself, drinking.”

“I knew.”

A quiet fell between them, a chasm of strangeness. Yet they felt, wearily, that they knew utterly everything about one another. If they spoke on for a hundred years, each would still know what the other was about to say next, what to reply. And no understanding would be reached.

Then Cleopatra’s calm infuriated Antonius. He beat on the acanthus-figured end-post beside him, and the bed shook.

“But you don’t know why I stopped.”

She looked at him contemptuously. “I do. You’ve lost your nerve.”

He tore himself away from her and walked over to the window. The Pharos, on the other side of the harbour, was pouring out its flame, sending the rays over thirty miles for sailors lost in the darkness of the sea. The lamp by which Casarion had been reading spluttered and went out, and the room was lighted only by the dim glare sent sidelong from the lighthouse.

“But you don’t know why.”

“I don’t want to know.”

He swung round, “You’ve got to know.”

She said nothing. She was altogether tired-out, and the only thing that interested her was to watch her hair flowing down over her breasts. In the flickering light the tresses seemed to undulate, to move like snakes. She was warm in bed, with comforted spine, and tired out.

“Herodes called on me.”

“I know.”

“But what do you think he said?”

She answered in a long-drawn hiss, venomously, feeling the snake-life of her tresses flow into her, panging her breasts as if the thirsty gums of a babe settled on chafed nipples.

“I’m tired of all these questions. Of course I know what he said.”

“What?”

“He advised you to get rid of me.”

Antonius was disconcerted, he felt his strength flagging. He leaned his head against the window-post, and tried to reply mockingly, but his lips and throat were dry. His voice rasped.

“And what did I say?”

“You refused, and now he’s gone to make his peace with your master.”

Antonius turned, raising his hands hopefully, self-pitifully, but her next words crushed him:

“You refused...because you were afraid.”

He sank back, and pressed his head against the glass-panes. “Right. Always right.” He sneered. “What a woman.” Regaining power over his limbs, he returned to the bed, and stood looking down at her. “I loved you once.” He wanted to hurt. “You still look beautiful in a dim light.”

“Well?”

He beat himself into a rage again. “Don’t stare at me like that. You think I’m done for. You’re right about Herodes. I wouldn’t kill you to join with an eastern vagabond, a roaster of Jew-flesh. Do you think I’d give him that satisfaction when I know how he’s hated you all along?” He laughed bitterly. “Don’t you give me credit for a scrap of pride?”

“No,” she answered coldly.

He winced and shouted at her, “You’re wrong!” Then, as if deafened by his own voice, he put his hands to his ears. He leaned closer over her, and removed his hands. The right hand slid down to his waist. “Listen.” There was a threatening entreaty in his voice. “After he came I couldn’t go on as I was going. Yet I couldn’t kill you his way, and give him the satisfaction. Listen.” His voice grew suave, wooing, resonant. “But I can kill you my own way. Did you know that?”

He wrenched the dagger out from under his tunic, and lurched yet closer. She did not flinch or speak. She stared up at him, quietly, with a faint unsmiling disdain. Then with a slow gesture, still keeping her eyes fixed on his eyes, she threw the coverlet off.

“Kill me, if you can kill me.”

In his eyes his whole soul was concentrated, burning like a soul in pits of hell. He stared into her eyes, searching for the remotest show of fear. He was possessed. One glimpse of fear, and he would be able to kill. His hand would do its work, unbidden. The dagger would leap out, a live thing, and she would lie dead. Then, and then only, would he be able to kill himself. The dagger would turn back on him as compulsively as it would thrust at her heart if she weakened with one quiver of fear, one tremor of the eyelids.

With a wild cry he threw the dagger to the floor, where it stuck vibrating. He fell on his knees and buried his face in the mattress against her flanks.

“Poor Marcus,” she said, almost under her breath, and laid her hand on his head. He lifted his head with a moan and placed it on her uncovered breasts; and Victor, peering through the dimness of the room, saw in a momentary increase of light from the Pharos such an expression of abysmal despair on her face that he shrank back against the wall, praying that he had been deceived by the light-effect, but not daring to look a second time. It was too painful: to see someone with every defence broken down, every privacy mercilessly exposed, without hope or complaint, suffering as a child suffers, with a fatalistic submission of terror...and that one, Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, Queen of Kings.

He felt his own insecurity, the shifting webs of the spider-world, the slow-poisons of time, the rat in crannied flesh.

Every day the feeling grew worse. Only with Daphne did he find escape from it; and he was burned through with the fear that she would be snatched out of his life.

*

When Olympos reached the bedroom door, the pages told him to stand back; but Cleopatra heard and called him softly in.

“My husband is sleeping in the Palace tonight,” she said, indicating Antonius who slumbered at her side, one hand holding fast to a tress of her hair. “I have just given him the sleeping-draught you prepared for me.” She tried to speak lightly. “So I am glad that you have come. I need another draught now.”

“I’ll prepare it,” said Olympos, and turned to go, but she raised a finger.

“What brought you here?” she asked with sudden interest, hesitatingly.

“A fancy...An old man’s fear...”

“You’re a good creature,” she answered, and her voice seemed happier. She lifted out her hand for him to kiss. He bent over it a moment, then saw that she was crying. “A strong draught,” she said. “ I feel that I’ll never be able to sleep again.” She smiled through wet lashes.

Olympos felt the words forced out of him. He bent closer and fluttered an eyelid towards Antonius.

“Any time Your Majesty...wants something stronger...”

“No, no,” she whispered passionately; and Antonius, stirred in his sleep by her voice, made some guttural noises. She waited and then went on, “I love him...I couldn’t harm him anyway. I’m sad for him. That’s all. He can’t fail easily. I can. I think I can.” Her voice hushed. “I’ll speak to you about a draught...stronger...some other time—but for myself.” Olympos again turned to leave, but she drew him back. “Tell me, Olympos. Why are men such cowards? Don’t answer. I’m as weak a coward myself. I can’t bear to see him weeping. He’s such a child. But that’s what every woman says of her man. I loathe weakness...I love babies...Now I don’t know what I’m saying. Go and get me that draught, Olympos. Strong, but not the stronger draught...” She seemed unable to let him go, though she was tormenting herself. She stretched out her arm, then withdrew it.

He hobbled from the room, glad to escape from human counsels to computations that did not err. So much of this, so much of that, and the result, sleep. Life was no different, but the ingredients were too many—too many for a fatigued old man to count. Why couldn’t people content themselves with getting stone in the bladder if something had to break their health and happiness?

The pages had fetched rugs from down the corridor and prepared to sleep against the threshold, ignoring the cluster of eunuch-chamberlains under the archway. Victor was haunted by Cleopatra’s face, its despair. If a Queen could feel like that at the moment of love restored, what hope was there for a slave who would never possess his beloved. No hope at all. The light from the great Pharos, which sent its beams of comfort and guidance to sailors far out at sea, flickered across the rich desolate room, the sleeping man, the woman crouching with bared breasts.

6 A CHILD IS BORN

The morning was taken up with the removal from the Timonion back to the Palace. Again Victor avoided sharing a room with Eros, and managed to have as his companion another page, Borios, who had been left behind during the retreat to the Timonion. Borios was a heavy good-natured fellow who suited Victor’s mood. Antonius appeared entirely subdued and tamed. He had little to say, agreed to all Cleopatra’s suggestions, and could not keep his eyes or hands away from her. His shattered nerves were tremulous with the sudden cutting — off of wine, and she made him drink a watered cup every now and then, though he insisted that he never wanted to see the stuff again. But he gratefully drank from the cup she held, looking up at her with wide eyes of devotion.

Eros and Victor stood at the end of the long mosaiced room with its tall rafters which had been lately re-gilded to remove the torch-smoke. Eros was discussing toilet problems with the girls, but Victor refused to join the conversation. He disliked both girls. Eiras was tall and dark, and had a way of looking at one for a long while as if she had an inner joke; and a slight dark down was visible on her upper lip when the light caught it. Charmion was lithe and fair, and always ready to laugh and shake her curls down over her face. They were intelligent girls in their way, Victor admitted, but didn’t like them; they were too shrewd and superior. He was irritated that Eros couldn’t see how they made fun of him; once they’d persuaded him to dress in some of their clothes while they painted his face, and the fool was pleased. Even so, they were better than the eunuchs, whose hands were always damp and flabby, and who went into hysterics of excitement so easily—unless they were the wizened-rat kind.

Cleopatra, seated in a chair of plaited palm-leaves, was telling Antonius about her plans. Victor knew, because he’d heard what she was saying when he’d taken the wine and cakes to the couch. She’d had the old canal from the Nile to the top of the Red Sea cleared of sand, and thirty of the best ships taken across. The ships had had to be hauled over the sand part of the way, where it would have taken too long to repair the canal.

Antonius was listening intently.

“I’m sure you know best,” was all he said.

Again the fear of a departure from Alexandria had come to break up all Victor’s plans, and he tried to piece together all that he’d heard. He couldn’t make out what was Cleopatra’s goal—India, or the Persian Gulf, or some tropical island where she could set up a tiny perfect-state. She’d gathered all her best portable property: gold and silver and gems and plate and rare woods. That was to ballast the ships. From one of her remarks it seemed also that she was meditating whether she would land in Ethiopia and make that the base for reconquering Egypt. A Holy War with Osiris as the rallying-cry. At the same time she had been strengthening all the coastal defences of Egypt, intriguing with the petty princes of Asia. If the fleet were powerful enough the Romans could yet be beaten off.

Victor waited anxiously for the next chance he would have to overhear a few more sentences of the long accounts that she was tumbling out. Contradictory hopes and divided efforts. Antonius was looking up again, and Victor knew what he was saying.

“You know best, my dear.”

The girls were teasing Eros.

“Would you marry me,” said Charmion, “if I asked you specially?”

“I wouldn’t marry any woman,” replied Eros loftily, “whether she asked me or not.”

Eiras regarded him with her malign smile. “You haven’t any idea what a desperate woman will do.”

“I’m a poor orphan,” moaned Charmion. “How can you be so hard-hearted?”

Eros raised his eyebrows. “Haven’t you girls anything else to talk about?”

“She’s madly in love with you,” insisted Eiras. “She embroidered a funny little man on the over-sheet and stitched Eros as his name.”

“Don’t,” said Charmion, wriggling. “You’ve made me drop a blush and now I don’t know where it is. Do find it for me, Eros.”

Eros scornfully shrugged his shoulders at such flippancies, and the girls went off, kissing the backs of their hands to him. Victor watched the pair. They were fine-looking girls, but not Daphne. What made Daphne different? The leap and tug of a wrestling flame, the sweeping poise of a wave, the curve of the wind in a sapling, the swaying balance of a blown fountain-jet, everything that has a mounting rhythm and yet belonged to the earth. Dimly he sensed the forms that he saw in Daphne, the memories of contact, the moon-reflections in the heron-guarded waters. But the other girls were only girls walking about, bright bits of flesh with mocking laughter behind their greedy teeth, hands to take and tear, legs to run away, eyes to burn, buttocks to crush. Daphne was different. Even when she was angry, she was kind; she was his.

And now he would never be able to claim her.

It was only the final obstacle. He could never claim her anyhow.

Yet she was his, reflected in the mirrors of memory, myriad-shaped and always herself, coming towards him or going, in the prison of the mirror.

*

She thought that she would never have the courage to face again the family of Manethos after she had been sent back home with the politest of thanks for spending the night in the house. No reference was made to the cause of her stay, but her dress appeared first thing in the morning, washed, pressed, and pleated, entirely dry and ready for wear. How it had been prepared, she couldn’t discover. Someone must have been up all night with it. She began protesting and asking questions; but Sheftu-Teta merely said, “The girl hung it before the kitchen-fire to air it,” and Daphne felt that her inquiries had been unmannerly. Certainly the family of Manethos were restful; they seemed incapable of making a fuss about anything.

She told her father that she’d had a slight fainting-fit and Olympos had advised her to stay for the night.

“A stuffy house, I suppose,” said Nicias irritably, yet pleased that his objections to the visit were now justified. “You know I don’t like foreigners. Incense-burning, no doubt.” All Eastern people were to him confounded with the Jews, whom he disliked because they had such a financial hold on Alexandria. Others of his colleagues were friendly with the Jewish scholars who preferred the liberal atmosphere of Alexandrian Jewry to the political and theological strife of Jerusalem; ever since the Jews had collaborated with the Museion in producing a Greek version of their Scriptures Alexandria had been the seat of a new school of Judaism, which sought to combine the growing syncretism of religious thought in the Mediterranean world with the specifically Judaic attitudes; but Nicias would have none of such things. His hatred was divided impartially between Jews and Romans.

Daphne in her new admiration for the Manethos family wanted to reply to his comments by pointing out that, after all, Alexandria was in Egypt and it was the Greeks who were foreigners; but she stopped in time, made a face behind her father’s back, and went to her room.

Nicias returned to the pamphlet that he was reading, enraged at the rash stupidity of the author, but relieved that there was still work to do on Aischulos. This fool tried to prove that the geographical names in the beacon-chain in Agamemnon were chosen by Aischulos symbolically. The only name that fitted into this scheme was Gorgopis Limne, the marsh of the Gorgon, the snake-flashing destroyer, the evil-eye; and perhaps Mount Aigiplanctos, the Crest of the Goat-wail, Tragedy meaning Goat-song; and perhaps Mount Arachnaios, the mountain of the spider’s web, since later in the play the cloak which wrapped Agamemnon as he was murdered was compared to a spider’s web; and perhaps Mount Hermaios, the mount of Hermes the herder of the dead...

Nicias was infuriated at having to make so many con-cessions, seeing that the theory was so entirely wrong-headed. The philology employed by the pamphleteer in the dissection of the other names was enough to make a true lover of words vomit. And Nicias yet couldn’t find out who had written the work, so that he could denounce him. He took a papyrus-sheet and wrote the title for a thesis, Place-Names in Aischulos.

But he got no further. For he started to read Agamemnon, and read it right through, though he could have repeated every word with his eyes closed. Because he knew it so well, he felt that he knew hardly anything of it, the voice behind the voice, the knowledge behind the thinking. Ah, that was poetry, that was life. Modern existence was insultingly patternless, vague. Men and women ought to live amid gigantic crimes and atonements, curses and God-epiphanies. One knew all about life while one read Agamemnon, but when one looked at life itself one knew nothing. One saw only a pack of fools without even the intelligence to be significantly evil. Everything could be forgiven except lack of style, and there was no style without passion. Life should consist wholly of murders and harvest-revelries, women in childbirth and battles. Everything else was irrelevant. Nicias, who found existence intolerable if the slightest noise distracted his reading or if his meals were a second late or a fraction overcooked, indulged in dreams of tragic irony.

He himself was often late for his lectures at the Museion; but, early or late, he never lectured on anything but the derivation and usage of Greek words.

None of the students guessed that he was an admirer of great eaters, great drinkers, great wenchers—anything over-life-size. He had the wish to talk and act heartily, but never did more than overeat and overdrink at times at home, and the resulting indigestion merely made him more irritable. Even with old associates like Olympos he could make no more than a cumbrous attempt at heartiness followed by fretful glooms.

Only Callirhoe had understood. He was sure of that now, though tortured by the thought of so many things left unsaid and undone. He had desired her so greatly and yet had fallen into habits of possession. If only she would come back to him, he would show her, he would be able to express himself, to possess her mightily, in the daylight. She had died without knowing, and of what use was life thenceforth to him? She had wanted someone more easy-going, more earthy; and that was what he had wanted to be. But there was so much to read, words were such exacting masters...

In the next room his daughter, stripped, had hung a mirror on the wall opposite the mirror propped-up on her table, and had placed another on the floor, and was screwing her lips into an imitation of the small heavy mouths of the daughters of Manethos. She had also tied her hair back to give the effect of a close crop, and was trying to see herself from unusual angles. Losing her balance owing to the cramped position into which she had got herself, she fell forward and bumped her head on the wall.

*

Without telling Nicias, she called again on the Manethos household and achieved a kind of friendship with the girls. She was asked to come whenever she wished, and went as often as she could, wanting to find out what kind of life the girls led. They seemed to go nowhere, being contented to play music and sing, do needlework, and read poems, Egyptian or Greek. They conveyed to Daphne without condescension that they found Greek literature interesting as a youthful, indeed sometimes childish, offshoot of the Egyptian mind. They seemed on the best of terms with their parents, without being spoilt or asking much notice from them. They had never been beaten and were horrified to learn that Daphne had often been beaten as a child and once, so Daphne said, only a few years ago when she had tried in a storm of naughtiness to set the house on fire. In the first place, they could not imagine themselves setting any house on fire; and in the second place, if they made any such peculiar attempt, Manethos would merely give them some soothing medicine and read them poems written some 2,000 years ago on the decencies of family life.

These discoveries alternately charmed and angered Daphne, and she didn’t know if she was more sorry at having admitted such things in herself as the capacity to set houses on fire (though indeed she had no wish whatever to burn anything and couldn’t remember now why she had wanted to do such an act) or more wilfully tempted to go on inventing excesses of suffering and outbursts of temper in order to shake the enviable but unfair calm of the Manethos family. She was sure the girls were hiding something, and had the feeling that if she exposed herself she would end by making them confess; and every time she left the house, she thanked heaven for not having said the things she’d wanted to say.

There were many things that she didn’t comprehend about the family. Once a month, on a day fixed by the motions of the moon, Manethos, his wife and daughters, all used an enema, in a family-ritual of cleansing and dedication. They used a hollow gourd, smooth and pliant, and pure Nile-water in which flower-essences had been dropped. The treatment was necessary for good health, the girls assured Daphne, and produced a sensation of delightful well-being; but Daphne resisted the idea strongly, though very curious about it.

So the elder girl told her a story about the method and its divine origin. “One day the wise god Thoth took the shape of an ibis-bird and went to bathe in the Nile. He took that shape because of the long curved beak. You see, the beak enabled him to cleanse his intestines by bending down and using it as a water-squirt. Haven’t you ever seen an ibis with its head down between its legs? Well, some doctors were passing by, and they saw Thoth. Thus they were initiated into the process.”

The younger girl added gravely, “All knowledge is in nature. So with reason it might be argued that the ibis on that day became Thoth. For there is no reason to believe that a bird is less divine than a god. As a bird, I mean.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Daphne, not mentioning whether she disbelieved in the efficacy of the treatment, the metamorphosis of Thoth, or the divine reality of birds. She spoke emphatically, and was annoyed by the encouraging smiles of the girls. She looked at their boyishly slim figures, their frail self-possessed elegance, and was somehow outraged.

She longed for Victor, and felt that all his confused mistakes, crudities, and weaknesses were more akin to her than the inherited and admirable composure of the Egyptian sisters. As soon as she could, she left.

“She is unhappy,” said the younger girl.

“She is sick,” said the elder. “All these foreigners are sick. They think their body is a dress to be changed daily, and they fret because dresses become soiled.”

“How clever you are,” said the other, and kissed her slowly on the mouth.

*

Daphne called again, a week later, and asked if the girls would be in the Sarapeion on the night of the winter solstice. Knowing that Manethos was a priest, she expected that the whole family would visit the temple to attend the Nativity of the Sun. Yes, the girls said, they would be there, to hail the new-born child of the year; and Daphne asked if she might go with them. “Father won’t let me go unless it’s with someone he trusts,” she said, thinking that she was being very astute; and the girls agreed that their father and mother were eminently trustworthy.

But after Daphne had gone, they looked at one another. “Why does she want to go?”

The elder girl tossed her head slightly. “Something vulgar. Can’t you see it in the way she moves, in the way she crosses her legs, in the way she looks at one. It was rightly said: A girl should spend a year of her education looking at nothing but a lotus-lily, so that her eyes may learn restfulness.”

The other took up an Egyptian nine-stringed harp with rounded frame that was carved at the end with the head of Hathor, goddess of love. She sang:

My love has made me wise,

wise and gay.

When I run to meet him on the way,

the half of the forepart of my hair

falls down over my eyes.

Look at all the birds,

all the birds of Asia,

hovering in the air.

“It was written very long ago,” remarked her sister, as if in warning.

“Very long ago,” answered the singer, sadly.

*

Daphne went to Olympos and said that the Manethos girls had begged her to go and see the Birth of the Sun-baby and to stay the night with them, but of course Nicias wouldn’t agree, and as she didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the girls, would Olympos speak to Nicias on the subject, being such a dear old fellow that nobody could deny him anything. Then she kissed him on the top of the head and waited expectantly.

Olympos replied that good young girls had other things to think about than sun-babies, who could very well come into the world without their help; and that the first rule of health was early to bed and early to rise; and that on considering the matter he didn’t think he’d speak to Nicias.

“You’re a bad old man.” She ruffled his scanty hair. “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“But I meant what I said.”

“Then I’ll cry. Look at my lower lip.” She raised his head and made him look. “It’s shivering and shaking already, you old bully.”

She pointed at her lip. It was certainly quivering. She was proud of the trick which she’d practised before the mirror until she could do it perfectly; but she spoiled the effect by laughing.

“Say you’ll do it.”

“You oughtn’t to want to make me act against my convictions.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t care at all about your convictions. That’s only another word for nastiness. I simply want you to do a little, little thing for me, and you won’t.” She began to cry in earnest.

“You know I can’t resist your tears.” He patted her on the cheek. “Stop crying, and I’ll do it.”

She wiped her tears away and flung her arms round his neck. He disentwined them and placed her hands in her lap.

“I’d like your affection a trifle more disinterested, my dear.”

“I don’t know the meaning of big words, but how am I wrong for loving you because you show you love me?”

He looked at her penetratingly.

“Is there any young fellow that you fancy? I really think Nicias ought to give you a chance to see more company. There are several of the students in his class that he might ask home for a meal occasionally. Good young fellows.”

“Don’t you dare to suggest it,” she answered fiercely. “I’ll bolt my room and stay in it all the while. I won’t be put on show. I won’t.”

Olympos looked at her in amazement, her burst of anger had been so obviously sincere. Once before he’d made the suggestion, and she’d been more than ready to see it carried out. But it was so hard to remember his own youth, to judge from the right standpoint. Besides, a young growing girl...

“All right, little hermitess,” he said at last, taking her hand. “You shall have your Egyptian outing. They look good girls, quiet and homely.”

Daphne wanted to say, “So is my broom-handle,” but corrected herself in time. “They keep a pet ibis,” she said instead, and giggled, and couldn’t stop giggling till she coughed and went red in the face.

*

When next Daphne and Victor met, in the Meandros Park, she told him that he must at all costs get away on the night of the solstice and keep to the left hand of the door of the Sarapeion, as close as he could; she would be there with some friends, Egyptian nobles.

“But I won’t be able to speak to you,” said Victor bitterly. “You’ll be able to see me, won’t you?” she asked in indignation.

He ached to reply that he had no wish to see her with people who would look down on him as dirt, that he’d suffer horribly all the while he watched her, that she was requesting him to undergo meaningless self-torment. But he said nothing. Besides, he was jealous and wanted to make sure that no young men were in the party, or to see how Daphne behaved if any were present.

“I’ll be there,” he said sullenly.

Things had settled down to a humdrum routine in the Palace, and he’d be able to get away. At the worst he’d have to sacrifice some pocket-money among the eunuchs and other pages. Antonius still followed Cleopatra about wherever she went; agreeing with all she said or did; a pathetic nuisance, trying to touch and caress her, regardless of the audience. He’d recovered from his drinking-bout, but his nerves were still frayed. Victor, however, had so completely lost his slave-devotion that he rejoiced in this impotence of Antonius because it meant that the work of the pages was light and Antonius did not note which of them waited on him.

“Dress your best,” said Daphne, resisting an impulse to rearrange the fall of his short cloak, which, as it happened, needed no rearrangement.

“I always do.” He hated her taking this proprietary air, which should have overjoyed him.

“No, you don’t. You ought to oil your hair more, and watch the way the courtiers wear their cloaks—”

“You want to get me whipped. I’m a slave.”

But he had so often referred to his servitude that now the words had scarcely any meaning for either of them.

“So am I—to father. We both have trouble to get out. But at least you can get out at night sometimes. I can’t.”

He was terrified she would accuse him of using his night-freedoms to meet somebody else. One night he had gone out and walked the streets and halted for an hour opposite her window; and he had longed for the next meeting so that he could tell her all about it. Then, when they met, he hadn’t dared to say a word, for fear that she would accuse him of something of which he was guiltless but which he couldn’t disprove.

“But you’re able to get out to see this ceremony at night.”

“You haven’t any idea what difficulties I’ve had. You’d be better-tempered if you had.”

He turned pleading eyes to her. “Don’t be angry. I love you so much.”

She stroked his cheek gently with her crook’d forefinger and leant nearer, and he flushed with pleasure, but she repeated, “So you’ll dress your best, won’t you?”

*

All the houses in the western area were illuminated as soon as the Night of the Solstice fell. Oil-lamps had been prepared and hung at the doors or on poles from windows; and the children sat on the door-steps impatiently waiting for the sunset, continually pestering their parents with false alarms. “The Sun’s gone, he’s dead now.” But at last the sun was truly gone, down through the desert, into the ocean, beyond which he became Osiris fighting his way across the underworld of terrors in order to ascend once more as Sun, as Ra, in the east. The houses in the Greek quarters had also put lamps out, if only toy lamps, partly out of the tolerant acceptance of Osiris as Dionusos, partly from a fear of annoying one who was at least a powerful local daimon—emotions which had merged to create the Osirian figure of Sarapis, Judge of the Dead and Sun-giver of sustenance. But in the Delta, the Jewish quarter below the Brucheion, there were no lamps. Indeed the Jews shrouded every door and window lest a crack of light might appear a homage to the unclean. They sat inside and talked of Jerusalem and the rites of the Dedication, for which they had lately sent their subscriptions. And Egyptian and Greek noted this lack of illumination, and, when next something went wrong, they would know whom to blame. Whom but the Jews who, by refusing to join in the succouring jubilation of light, had declared their adherence to the enemy of man, Set, who tore the divine body into bleeding shreds?

In every temple of Isis throughout Egypt the gilt cow with the sun-disc between its horns had been carried out and conducted seven times round the temple, then put back in the holy place where it would remain for the rest of the year. Seven to express the seven more months needed to bring the sun to the height of summer; seven for the months of woman’s labouring, the teen of the unborn babe, the quartering of the moon-period, the woman-phase.

Nicias had stoutly refused to let Daphne go to the Sarapeion; although it was a Greek temple architecturally, it represented a tampering with what was for him the Greek truth, it was a mongrelising of Greek and Egyptian in its cult.

Olympos listened to the diatribe. He had lost all belief in race-purities, though he had found no belief to put in the place of the arrogant Greek dream. Unless a mild acquiescence could be called a belief. Something of the Stoical teaching had touched him, though he applied the teaching in his own fashion. Interbreeding couldn’t be stopped, though there was a charm in the Egyptian hope to purify the blood-stream by mating brother and sister. Perhaps there would be no end to the world’s discords till what Nicias called “mongrelising” was complete, till the vision of Alexandros, a common race-brotherhood of east and west, was realised in the marriage bed.

But he said nothing of these uncoordinated thoughts of his, which certainly gave no clue in the present tangle of the world. And it was with Daphne’s whim, not the world’s strife, that he was concerned. He talked amiably to Nicias of Daphne’s need for companionship with girls of her own age, her health, and so, until, grumbling, Nicias assented to her outing.

“I don’t like Egyptians. I object to this nonsense about the secrets of their antiquity. The only good thing they ever did was to let Alexandros conquer them. Not that it would have made any difference if they’d resisted. I only hope that she doesn’t catch eye-trouble from them.”

“But, father, it’s the poor children that have sore eyes. It’s the heat and the sand, and the flies that bite them.”

“Is it likely I thought it was the crocodiles, huh?”

His joke mollified him, though he showed no smile and neither Daphne nor Olympos seemed to notice it. He withdrew within himself once more, sure of approbation from some hidden source—not from the tomb of Callirhoe, though she had always smiled at his jokes and said, “O you men”: which had pleased him, though it was rather point-less—it suggested that he might have been a riproaring kind of a fellow if he’d let himself go, if he had...

He looked up with a frown. “All right, she can go.” He addressed Olympos and would not glance at Daphne. “Now don’t let’s have a lot of noise about it.” He waved Daphne from the room.

Olympos rose to go. His conscience awoke and he felt uncertain whether he had done the right thing in obtaining Daphne her permission; but the Manethos girls were the last girls in the world to lead anyone astray. A suspicion jolted his heart.

“Send Simon along with Daphne to the Manethos-house. It will look better than if she arrives alone.”

Nicias grunted. “All right.”

*

The children in the Palace had refused to obey the orders to go to bed. So Cleopatra had said that they could stay up to watch from a tower-window. The Sun, the Moon, and little Philadelphos, with Iotapa, wife of the Sun, had been sitting for hours in gilt chairs, yawning and playing tricks on one another, staring out of the window at the upbeating glow over the city, listening to the distant hubbub, surrounded by the eunuchs and nurses of their retinues who jealously watched for any infringement of their respective rights. Coesarion and Antyllus were there, too. Czesarion wanted to leave; but Antyllus wouldn’t go, and so aesarion stayed, trying to remember not to bite his finger-nails. His mother had taken so much trouble to cure him of the habit, and he’d thought himself cured; but during the last few days he’d begun it again. He must stop; his mother would be so distressed.

Iotapa asked for all the lamps to be put out; there was enough light from the votive illuminations. But the chief eunuch refused to have the largest lamp extinguished, and the children were all sulky, for they championed Iotapa’s idea.

Iotapa saw Antyllus looking at her. She jumped up took the lamp from its tripod-stand, and threw it out of the window. Antyllus clapped his hands lightly. Some-body howled below, and the children eagerly crowded to the window-sill.

*

Cleopatra was undecided. A public performance would be fitting; it would help to silence rumours. But there was the problem of Antonius. He still looked so very broken; his face was mottled; he walked unsteadily, though he was drinking little. What he did drink he took as a kind of medicine, cursing it. If Cleopatra were to appear she would have to go as the new Isis; she couldn’t abdicate her godhead on such an occasion without an admission of defeat and fear; and tonight she didn’t feel capable of the ordeal. If she had had confidence, it would have been pleasant to appear as the goddess of continuing life, perhaps with Philadelphos at her side, chubbily half-naked; he was really getting too fat, she must speak to Olympos about it, but probably it was only a passing phase of childhood. If ever she was to vindicate herself as the new Isis, now was the moment, at the midwinter of her fortunes, baring her breasts to the world. But she did not feel strong enough. It was Antonius who drained her strength.

He came into the room, pretending to look for something.

“O yes...no...I don’t think so,” he muttered to himself, staring round and blinking. Then he pretended to notice her for the first time, though he thought he had only then noticed her as he had thought he was looking for something; sincere, like an actor who gives himself up to his part, though he knows that every word and gesture of the part is dictated to him by another will and intelligence.

“You...Spirit of the Earth.” It seemed that he was quoting someone, trying to remember the context, waiting for the rustle of attention from an audience who had come to see him act, to hear him out. He could recall no more of the words, but that also was dictated by his part. The words, the forgetting, were alike not his, yet made his by the performance.

He came uneasily closer. “The Moon.” And looked out of the window. “There is no moon. But too much light. I don’t like it. As if the city were on fire. The earth on fire. That is what they say. But nothing’s crackling. I’ve heard a whole hillside on fire. It rushes and pounds like water. The noise that the people are making isn’t loud enough.”

He came up and took her in his arms, as he had been wanting to do ever since he entered. Once again he was relieved that she didn’t repulse him. He let her go, and then at once clasped her again. Only while he held her did he feel master of himself; if he could embrace her while he led an army, he would be invincible—if she could melt into his body, absorbed, eaten, digested into blood and yet enveloping him with her character, her loins...He realised that she had said nothing.

“No word at all...”

She pulled away and went towards the window. No, she wouldn’t go out. At once the tensity of her feeling against Antonius passed, and she was sorry for him. He had followed her to the window, blinking, dismayed, fumbling with his hands.

“You’re not angry, are you? What is there to be angry about? Life isn’t worth living unless we’re friends...”

“I’m not angry. Let us go to bed. I’m tired.”

“Yes, yes,” he answered, speaking energetically at last. “Where...Come on.”

With an effort he remembered that both of them must submit to the ceremony of royal undressing. But why? A flush of his old strength returned. To hell with all pages, chamberlains, and tire-maids. Smiling, he picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the room and along the corridor, disregarding the appalled eunuchs who stood back against the wall to escape being hit in the chest by her trailing sandals.

She held him tight around the neck. It was pleasant to have him acting like a boisterous boy again, pleasant and sadly futile, but pleasant while it lasted. She laid her head on his shoulder. It was better to go to bed. After Antonius had fallen asleep, she would be able to think. There was so much to think about. But she smiled to herself, with her face nestling into his strong neck. She could put the thinking aside for a while; she would have to put it aside, in his arms recovering their lost strength, in his eyes losing their fear, in this brief summer conjured upon the bed of winter.

*

There was no people so excitable as the Alexandrians. All that was most volatile, genial, and unstable in Egyptian, Greek, and Jew had met to produce the atmosphere of their community; and almost every nation of the known world had contributed something. Phoinician traders, Roman outlaws, northern slaves, Celts from the cavalry left behind as a garrison-force some years before, Arabs and Syrians, negroes, even a few Persians and Hindus. A mere horse-race in the Hippodrome would send the city seething with excitement for days; and an audience emerging from the Theatre looked drunken, swaying and gesticulating, drugged with their participation in a world of fantasy. The great religious rites swept them off their feet, like a tidal wave pouring upon the city from the blue Mediterranean, spun them giddy, drowned them in a turmoil of heady images and evangels.

Now they were flocking through the illuminated streets, gazing at the lights till their eyes were sore and their brains filled with swirling pictures of the life unloosed for one night on their city of travailing earth. But they restrained their emotions. The hour was not yet. The sense of waiting smote them at times, hurt them physically, and they howled or searched for yet another lamp. Every light was needed to help the dying Sun, to carry him round the corner of the year, to scare away the devils with which he was fighting in Amenti at this very moment. They listened for noises underground, for the strokes of the battle in the darkness, the harrowing of hell. Some lay with ears to the pavement and were trampled on, and began fighting—fighting for the Lord in His struggles to slay Death. Fear increased. Could Osiris quail? Listen to my heart, where the strokes of the battle are echoes, where heaven and hell and earth are gathered. Bring more lamps!

Manethos and his family, with Daphne between the girls, set off early in the evening. Manethos, as chief priest of an important temple, would be admitted into the inner sanctuary; but he wished to avoid the crush in the streets. He disliked Alexandria, for very much the same reasons of disapproval as Nicias; but it was the race-purity of Egyptian, at least of the noble families, about which he felt concerned, whereas to Nicias the cosmopolitan city represented the downfall of Greek independence, the curse of promiscuity induced by the vaunting insolence of the god-masque of Alexandros. Manethos sorrowed for his people who in the city were shown at their worst; the Egyptian polity had always decentralised. In the country now the natives might be trampled on, driven, toiling; but they were still Egyptians, vaguely aware of the heritage that they might yet claim. In Alexandria they were slaves indeed, locked up in factories by day, debauching by night, learning all the dirty crafts of the townsman, the lust for useless possessions, the lust for amusements provided by others, the degradation of sport. Yet Ra lived in the disc of the Sun by day, visible to all; and the power of light lived in the spirit of the unrebellious seeker. Egypt had swallowed invaders before; and Alexandria, which had been purely a Greek city 30o years ago, was daily becoming more Egyptianised.

He was robed in his pure linen vestments, shod in papyrus-fibre; no filth of dead animal life, wool or skin, might touch his flesh. The people made way for him in reverence; and Daphne, in her saffron dress, felt abashed with the Egyptian women, who, however, had added to their usual toilet wigs with fine dark ringlets squarely massed.

They turned off from the Canopic Street to the left and began to ascend the slope towards the Sarapeion. The huge temple rose out of the diffused flood of lamplight like a strong rock, a splendid ark of God floating amid the dawn-mists of creation, ignoring the furious life of the city, the animalcules of the waters. It stood on a rugged hill, a pile of syenite, red granite and marble, composed of endless colonnades and cells, the whole vast rectangle dominated by the lofty dome. Under the temple proper was a basement of vaulted cells and sanctuaries, into which light came from gratings and embrasures, and where the profane were not admitted.

Up the long approach went the Manethos party, up the shelving hundred steps. Daphne had visited the temple several times, but not at such a time of festival or at night; and she seemed to be seeing it all for the first time. In the day the temple had been a fine sight, but merely the largest and richest building in Alexandria. The night, the floating illuminations, made everything different, gave the whole scene, the whole earth, an unsubstantiality, a plastic and fragile beauty that seemed to dare the beholder to make of life and the world only what the heart desired. The temple was serenely alone, rising above earth and sky alike, a refuge and a palace of realisations.

Round the square ran conference-halls, and cells for the pastophori or image-bearers, while the rooms aloft were in-habited by the tonsured priests who had taken the vow of chastity to the Mother of God, the God-Mother. Four great columns interrupted the converging approaches and supported a cell built with little columns of differently coloured stone. At the door Manethos dismissed the servants who had been attending discreetly in the rear; bidding them find their own positions for viewing the ceremony and be waiting on the lower steps when it was over, to attend the family home. Then, passing through, the party made their way to the inner court encircled with equally sized columns, portico merging into portico in a bewildering forest of gleaming pillars. Statues and paintings narrated the vicissitudes of the god, his wife and child; and in the recesses of the cloisters were stacked holy bibles recounting all that the divine family had done, their drama of death and redemption which became the revelation of human fate and the hope of human happiness and health. The roof’s of the cloisters were gilded, and the pillar-capitals of gilt copper. Under the copper plates on the walls, so guides were wont to declare, lay plates of silver, and under the silver plates of gold.

At the further end of the inner court stood a colossal figure of Sarapis, a mystery-form of Osiris, the judge and benefactor: a bearded figure, grave and majestic, his head surmounted by a great corn-measure. In the middle of the court rose a pillar so high that Daphne could not see the top as it faded into the dazzled dome-sky, and beside the pillar was set a sanctuary-cell with several doors. Before the cell were two obelisks and a fountain that sent up its glittering tree of waters, forever shedding silver blossoms but still unimpaired in its slender grace, its bright fecundity. Everywhere burned lamps, and the fountain was so splashed with light that it seemed another lamp, a torch that spouted with drops of crystal reflecting copper gilt,

Daphne had never seen so many priests, and, not having a clear idea what was the use of priests, she was astounded at the number and tried to count them, feeling that she was suffering from an optical illusion—but if that were so, to count them was useless; so she gave up, and looked at her own feet shod in yellow Sicyon-shoes. For the priests seemed to stand in as many rows as the pillars, and the array of lamps made her eyes wink and water. The glare was worst in the court, there was so much gold and polished stonework and gem-set ornamentation.

Manethos spoke in a low voice to some very old priests who looked as if they had parched away through living amid stone and flame. For by now the night had taken on a magical aspect, neither of daylight nor of darkness, and the Sarapeion was a dream-building which dwelt always in this strange dimension of lamplight that dwarfed the earth and made all-embracing the home of the god. The centre cell was particularly frightening; the lights, the warmth, the unexplained movements of everyone, the awe of the colossal Sarapis with his curly ambrosial locks and beard, all seemed to direct attention towards—or rather to divert it too obviously from—the closed cell before which the fountain clashed its lithe belly-dance, like a bejewelled naked harem-girl, and within which surely lurked some god-ogre for whom the temple with its flame and ritual was the oven steaming the flesh of the chosen victims.

The sensation was growing overpowering, when to Daphne’s relief Manethos led the womenfolk down a cloister less noisily lighted than the court and its annexes. Sheftu-Teta and her daughters settled down at once on some marble seats in meditation; and Daphne, with an anticipation of discomfort, followed their example. Either she herself had ceased to feel feverish, or the heat of the many lamps and torches had not penetrated to the cloister-depth, for the stone seat was chilly and seemed at once to wear away all the protective fat of her rump, striking straight to the bones. She was unable to meditate on anything except her dislike of all temples, her cold bones, her wish to get away from her friends, and the extreme unlikelihood of finding Victor in such a crowd. She hadn’t realised how big the temple was. When she’d come with her father in the daylight to give a hurried travellers-look round, she had thought there was only the usual amount of porticoes and altar-space, or perhaps a trifle more. She’d been more interested in the view over the city and the harbour from the steps, and it was the view that had had awed vastness. Perhaps Sarapis was getting his own back on her now for that disrespect. With extreme repugnance she offered up a prayer to him, thinking that a god with such an enormous statue ought to be above showing spite for a young unmarried girl.

She would never find Victor in such a crowd. She prayed earnestly to Sarapis that she should find him. Never before had she been so anxious for the success of a meeting, though she had no plans, no notion why it was so important to meet him on this crowded stirring night when they wouldn’t even be able to exchange two words in privacy.

The Manethos family meditated with closed eyes.

Manethos did not altogether approve of the temple or of the Graecized form of Sarapis, though his own ancestor had aided in the creation of both. In those days this synthesis of Greek and Egyptian had seemed more promising. But events had moved so fast. The irruption of Rome upon the eastern Mediterranean had changed everything, speeded up everything, broken down the kings and given the businessmen too much power. The capitalists of the East wanted Rome to conquer everywhere; for that meant peace, controlled markets of exploitation. Not the peace of a world become one family under the smile of Ra, the Word of power which was Light and manifested itself on earth as Trinity. Yet strange were the ways of the One. Perhaps the Roman was doing the work of Ra in the end, and the world must build on the greed of commerce until such time as all greed should be consumed.

A choir was chanting hymns. The style, though some-what modernised, though somewhat saccharinely shoddy for a man of Manethos’s severe taste, was yet definitely Egyptian. But he did not like the accompanying music of the organ. That was a Greek invention, with bellows worked by hydraulic pressure, keys operated by levers, and perforated sliders to open and shut the mouths of the pipes. Still, the general effect was Egyptian; and it was here, in Alexandria, that the organ had been invented.

He sighed and relaxed; and then, rising, bowed to the womenfolk and retired to take a part with the other priests.

“Will you be here all the while?” asked Daphne, the sense of nightmare returning upon her, as if Manethos’s withdrawal left her more at the mercy of Sarapis, who she was convinced was her enemy.

“Yes, we will be here,” replied Sheftu-Teta, emphasising we gently so as to include Daphne.

Daphne reddened. She had given away too easily the fact that she didn’t feel a member of the party, that she hoped to play truant; and even without such gratuitous self-betrayals she had the feeling that the serious-eyed Sheftu-Teta could read her thoughts.

She tried to think, defying Sheftu-Teta to see behind her eyes. There was only one excuse that she could think of, and that was no use. If she said she wanted to go to a privy, one of the girls would be sure to go with her. She studied her surroundings. A little way up the passage was an opening, hut it led in the wrong direction. If she slipped up it, she would still have to cross the top of the passage, in full view of the others. But she decided to take the risk.

Mumbling something about books in the recess of the next portico, she rose and strolled towards a painting on the wall, stood boring her left heel into the mosaic pavement and staring at the painting at first without seeing one detail of it; then the subject started out so suddenly that it seemed as if a real woman had detached herself, as if the plaster had swelled out in relief, into a breathing woman who thrust a child almost into Daphne’s arms. Isis suckling her babe. Isis with such outstanding breasts, and a stiff little baby wide-mouthed. The painter had made the nipples far too long, at least they were several times longer than Daphne could stretch hers, even after a warm bath. Still, she liked the painting, and for a moment forgot her purpose, hearing in surprise the chanting of the choir, a rising phrase of ecstatic yearning.

Then she remembered, and dodged into the next passage, ran up it into the court, and, taking advantage of a knot of passsers, slid across the court, sure that she had been hidden from her hosts. But she knew that she wouldn’t be left at liberty for long. As she ran, an idea throbbed into her head. If only Victor was at the door. But he was always on time, poor dear.

There was nobody at the door except several door-keepers, who, remembering with the expert memory of their kind that she had come with Manethos, moved obsequiously to let her through. She said to the nearest that she felt faint and wanted some fresh air; and hated him because she had been so undignified as to give explanations, and in a rather weak voice. But there was no Victor. How dare he be so late?

In shame she was turning away when she saw someone dashing up the steps and knew that it was Victor. Forgetting her anger, she moved down a few steps to meet him. He was panting, but looked up at the door-keepers with fear and resentment.

“They wouldn’t let me wait up there.”

“Ssh.” She lowered her voice, afraid that the door-keepers would again send Victor away. One of the door-keepers was hovering near, but he was deterred by Daphne’s presence. She must be brief.

“Come back in an hour or so. Ask for Manethos. Manethos. Say you have to see me. Then say you’ve been sent by father to take me home. I’ll tell you more later. Say he’s ill.”

Then, in her worry, she herself pushed Victor down the steps, almost causing him to lose his balance and tumble. She couldn’t bear that the door-keepers should order him off. But, with a dazed look on his face, he had already retreated down towards the surging crowd that had assembled all about the front of the temple on the slopes and lower ground.

“I feel better now,” she observed graciously to the doorkeeper who stood behind her; uncertain whether it was the man she had already addressed, and even more uncertain whether she should have said anything at all. With flushing cheeks she hastened back for the inner court, trying to saunter and to attain that sense of well-being which was necessary for a successful look of innocence in the eyes.

Yes, sure enough, there were the three Manethos women talking to some priests and giving instructions for a search. “Kind-hearted beasts,” said Daphne to herself. “They wouldn’t let me come to any harm, O no. They’d like to make me an ibis-bird like themselves, thin-legged and big-nosed and looking solemn all day.”

“So here you are,” said Sheftu-Teta mildly, resolving never to take Greek girls out again. “Come and sit down.”

Daphne, who was expecting a rebuke (which would have merely made her feel impenitent and superior), felt rebuked by the air of considerate relief.

“I lost my way,” she said, and shuffled. It was really most unpleasant having to deceive these people; she felt a rush of her first admiration warmed now into love for them; she would have liked to have told Sheftu-Teta everything; but as she herself didn’t know what “everything” was, lack of words seconded her caution and saved her. And since she couldn’t confess to Sheftu-Teta, her emotion of love began to wane and she decided that she would nevermore have anything to do with people whom it was unpleasant to deceive. She preferred people like her father whom it was an undiluted pleasure to deceive, or people like Victor, whom she’d never deceive, because she couldn’t. Poor Victor, what a lot of oil he’d put on his hair.

*

Hours passed, or what seemed like hours. Daphne couldn’t keep awake. Whether it was the incensed air of the temple or the monotonous chanting, she felt herself falling off to sleep: which was curious, for she was so uncomfortable. Once she slipped from the seat and sat heavily on the floor. The Manethos girls helped her up, and she hated them more than she had ever thought she could hate anyone. They seemed perfectly awake; their slim brown arms were so strong; they spoke so kindly. It was the way they were able to sit in meditation that hypnotised her with her sleepiness.

“I’m boring you,” she said. Which she knew was a silly remark, since nobody had said anything for over an hour. “I’ve never felt so sleepy. It must have been something I ate. I hardly ever go to sleep. Not when I’m away from home, I mean.”

The Manethos girls made it quite clear that they disliked general conversation in a temple. They seemed ready to go on meditating indefinitely. “I bet they cheat,” thought Daphne. “Some people can sleep with their eyes open; and since they haven’t got anything to think about, they don’t know when they’re thinking or when they’re not.” She decided to test the younger girl. “Do please tell me what you’re thinking about,” she whispered.

“Some other time,” said the girl with a charming slow smile. “When there’s nothing else to do.”

Daphne was baffled. But by dint of wriggling her toes, biting her lips, pinching herself, twitching her thigh-muscles, and crossing and uncrossing her legs, she managed to keep herself aware of being Daphne, daughter of Nicias, sitting on a stone seat and waiting for something. Most alarming, when she did feel that hypnotic drowsiness come over her, she kept seeing Isis, the suddenly incarnated Isis who had burst from the frescoed wall like a finger thrust through a papyrus-sheet. (Daphne guiltily recalled the rages of Nicias when she’d spoiled rolls and papers as a very young child—rather, she didn’t exactly recall the spoiling, she recalled her mother telling her about it, and it was easy enough to imagine what a rage Nicias would have been in. She wasn’t sure if the face that came scowling across her mind was memory or imagination, but anyhow it made her wonder if her mother’s nipples had been as long as those of Isis in the painting. Did suckling cause such an elongation? She couldn’t remember, though she’d often seen babies at the breast; she must watch more closely.) The emergent Isis was behind the screen of her hazy thoughts, waiting to thrust out at her the sudden baby; breaking through the wall of resistance; an image laboriously painted, a casual reflection, startling with new demands and possibilities, offering a world beyond calculation. Who that had never seen a rose could guess that the hard tight little bud would relax into such voluptuous whiteness, such stores of summer-scent? The music, the temple-smells, the paintings, were closing her round like a new dress which is of such astonishingly fine material and cut that one delays the moment of putting it on, the moment when the impersonal perfection of the dress must submit to becoming the slave of the wearer’s person, enriched with the new dimension of depth and action, and from that moment doomed to all the laws of attrition and change.

Why hadn’t she told Victor to come almost at once? Unfortunately he always did precisely as he was told.

At last he came. But she was so drowsy (fighting away, yet welcoming, the wavering frescoed wall of sleep, which threatened to curdle into the white swelling body of Isis) that she didn’t hear him come down the passage, guided by a round-faced priest. She opened her eyes to see him shifting on his feet before Sheftu-Teta.

“...I’ve come to take her back,” he was saying. “Her father’s ill...calling for her.”

“I am very sorry indeed,” said Sheftu-Teta, eyeing Victor. Somehow she didn’t feel convinced, though what there was to suspect she couldn’t see. The boy was clad in a palace-uniform, but Nicias worked in a palace-department, the Museion; and there was nothing improbable in an old man falling ill and asking for his only daughter...a widower too. But why did the boy stammer so? Perhaps it was his way. These barbarians were never at ease in the world unless they blustered.

“Your father is ill,” she said, turning to Daphne.

“Father!” cried Daphne, jumping up, and then felt that she was over-acting. But in her half-stupor she hadn’t been certain if the news was true or not. She went on, in her reaction from over-acting, in a voice that was far too emotionless. “I suppose I’d better go home.”

“I fear so,” said Sheftu-Teta, interpreting the voice to express reluctance to obey the call, and therefore feeling easier. “You had better take one of the girls with you.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t dream of it. Of course not,” insisted Daphne, trying in vain not to be too emphatic. “She’d miss everything; and besides, how would she find her way home again? Our place is too poky, there isn’t another bed, and father doesn’t like—doesn’t like being disturbed.”

But her distraught manner had the desired effect; for Sheftu-Teta recalled what Manethos had told her of the prejudices of Nicias, and thought that Daphne was endeavouring to hint that an Egyptian would not be welcomed.

The rejection of the offered escort did not displease her, for the last thing she wished to do was to send one of the girls back with this foolish little Greek girl; she had only made the offer so as not to appear wanting in hospitality and care. Daphne seemed so irresponsible, but perhaps it was only in comparison with the other two girls. Sheftu-Teta’s heart warmed with maternal pride.

“Good night then,” she said.

Daphne made her farewells, trying not to be too hasty or to look too pleased. She’d never call on these wretched people again; she detested them. They offered her their best wishes for her father, and she said she was sure that there was nothing wrong with her father at all, but she must rush in case he was dying, please don’t feel worried, but of course one can’t be sure, and anyhow she thanked them, she’d enjoyed herself wonderfully, and so she’d better go home at once.

She went, followed by sheepish Victor. They said nothing till they’d passed out of the building and down the steps. Daphne pushed into the front ranks of the swarming crowd, and they clasped one another and giggled, whispering and wriggling.

“Didn’t she look like an ibis standing on one leg.”

“I was so frightened I’d say something wrong.”

“O it’s so glorious to be free again.”

“Only you and me.”

Suddenly she grew afraid. “Where am I to spend the night?” She’d been so concerned to escape and see Victor that she hadn’t noticed how she’d isolated herself. “I can’t go back to father, and I can’t go to the Manethos’s again... ”

“Get a room in a boarding-house,” suggested Victor, his ardour quenched.

“I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. How dare you suggest such a thing. I’ve never slept in one in my life. Everyone knows they’re full of bugs and wicked men. You can’t love me.”

“I was only trying to think of something.”

“Then do think.”

But he couldn’t think; he was merely unhappy that she would have to leave him.

Then she had an idea. “I’ll go to my uncle.”

“Who’s that?” he asked, surprised.

But she had remembered that she wouldn’t know whether Olympos was at the Museion or the Palace, and she still felt secretive about Olympos, saying to herself that Victor would be sure to give himself away somehow if he knew.

“O somebody you don’t know. Why don’t you use your brains instead of shouting down all my suggestions.”

“I wasn’t shouting.”

The voices of both were raised; but in the heaving tumultuous crowd no one could overhear them. The crowd was moaning, wailing, screaming, then strangely hushed, all at the same time. The crowd was Isis in her birth-pangs, praying for deliverance from the body of death.

“We’ll have to walk the streets all night.” He knew that she wouldn’t like that, but wanted to hurt her after the unreasonable way she’d turned down the only sensible notion, that of the boarding-house. Some boarding-houses weren’t so bad. “I’ll probably be whipped for staying out all night.” He knew that was untrue; for he could appeal to Antonius who would laugh and pardon him; but he wanted to make Daphne sorry and afraid. “But I don’t mind.”

“That’s what we’ll do,” she answered calmly. “You’ll have to stay with me. I can’t help how much they whip you. It’s your fault.”

“It isn’t.”

“Would I be here if it wasn’t for you?”

That was true; she was suffering for his sake; tears came into her eyes.

“Forgive me. I can’t bear to see you suffer. If I’m rude, it’s because I’m so worried; and so I make you worry more. Dearest.”

She was touched, and they clasped more tightly, swaying with the crowd, forgetting all about rites, aware only of noise and movement, and glad to be in the midst of it all, swung on the dark tide, saved from all problems while the surging noise continued. Without thinking, they began to share the general perturbation, amid the oceanic whirl of lights, the yellow-fuming city, stinking with oil. Up in the sanctuary a miracle was happening. Midnight would finalise it, or end the world. The point of midnight would be a pinprick of flame on which the ball of the universe balanced.

Into the topmost sanctuary had withdrawn all the holiest of the priests, bearing the swathed figure of the Mother. Around her bed were standing the priests vowed to chastity. Their contained sexual potence was a reservoir for such moments as this; it flowed inwards, in to the centre of things, not out on to the surfaces and crannies of the earth. Isis in travail was chastity become active, the symbol of birth limned in clear lines and colours on virginal vision, the blood stormily recoiling upon its organs instead of flowing out into fresh shapes. Isis was the beginning and the end. She needed chastity as well as marriage. The prophets were standing round the doors moaning; the stolists, male and female, held in their hands the garments, light or dark, which represented the two-fold life of the gods; the pastophori held the sacred images.

Despite their preoccupation Daphne and Victor perceived the gathering of the priests; stared at the raising and lowering of holy things, the withdrawal into the sanctuary of birth; listened to the rattle and whining clang of the sistra in the hands of the priestesses who stirred in slow dances, dressed in their linen skirts, fringed scarfs knotted across their breasts. Cymbals clanged.

The crowd was moaning with an increasing terror and exaltation, waiting for the revelation. The eddying blaze of lights raced and foamed overhead like a sea, drowning the wild masses, squeezing out their breath; surely in the morning the crowd would float in the stilled pool of sunlight like dead fishes turning up their slit throats, their red-flannelled gills. Victor felt himself suffocating. Daphne held him tight and seemed to say something: that she wouldn’t let him be whipped. But he couldn’t hear, he didn’t even want to hear, he was absorbed by what was going on unseen inside the sanctuary.

Then came a mighty hush, suddenly, like the crack of a whip.

The door was opening. The priests were re-forming, quietly, quickly, regularly, making way. The movement of forming in and out, the discipline, drew all eyes with a hungry awe towards the door-panels. Midnight had come. The universe stood still, balanced on its pinprick of flame, on you and me. On me.

The image was in the hands of the priests, raised sweeping, uncovered. The naked-breasted mother with her babe, the suckling babe.

“The Virgin has brought forth! Light is growing!”

The million lights of Alexandria met in maelstrom, burst into a tremendous glow of power in the euphrasied eyes of the gazers. The Virgin was irradiated, her breasts milky with infinite fountains of gold. She smiled. Everyone saw her smile. The statue smiled. The immaculate babe was sucking her milk. The world was saved.

“The Virgin is a Mother! The Mother is a Virgin!”

“Light for the world! Light is growing!”

The shouts swelled, roared, fanning the universal glow higher into the sky, brushing away the dark, cleansing the troubled earth with proclamations of joy. Evangel of Spring. The Sun has passed through the loins of the Virgin.

Daphne was weeping, hung on Victor’s neck, saying something. He didn’t listen. He had at last found what he’d wanted to find. What he had felt stirring blindly on the day of the Adonia, opening unfamiliar eyes at the Finding of Osiris. Now he had been carried clean out of himself, into something great and rich and comforting. Into the life of Nature. One with the moving sun and the enduring earth. One with the snowflake of a flower that melted in a day, one with the crags of the mountains.

“Take me home,” sobbed Daphne.

*

They succeeded in getting away at last, on to the outskirts of the jubilant crowd. They were bruised, beaten, weary; their feet were trodden on till the insteps and toes ached; their ribs hurt from jostling elbows; their heads were fevered. Victor waited for Daphne to ask him once more to take her home; then he would argue the whole question out with her again. She really must go to a boarding-house; they could find a respectable one. The night was chilly away from the crowd. If she went home looking extremely draggled tomorrow morning, her father would probably make inquiries; she must be saved from herself.

But she said nothing.

They walked on fast, to get away from everyone. But that was difficult, when people thronged even the alleyways, shouting the glad tidings: “The Virgin has brought forth a son!” A detachment of the night-watch, acting as firemen, dashed past with buckets and axes. Such a night as this produced many fires. On towards the sea-front the lovers went, and Victor wasn’t sure if he or Daphne were leading the way. He didn’t care. In his exalted mood he didn’t really care what happened. But he rather wanted to get alone, after settling the problem of Daphne’s night-residence, to see if he could find out what had gone on inside him, to be peaceful and listen to his stirring blood, to shut his eyes and discover what images came. Daphne was an encumbrance. He couldn’t talk in this disquiet of his senses.

But she said nothing. He was relieved, astonished in a way that her mood was the same as his own, but afraid it would change. They reached the sea-front and turned eastwards, still silent, their mood of burdening mystery harmonised with the primeval voices of the sea, until they saw the palace-walls before them. Victor halted.

“Take me in with you,” said Daphne, speaking at last, in a husky whisper.

He started, paused, tried to think. It couldn’t be done. And yet, couldn’t it? Why not? There was a side door next to his room and only a short passage-way; usually he and others came in through the main door. Daphne’s words, while rousing him to an almost intolerable joy, frightened him; but they were like an order. He didn’t dare to show his fear. Whatever the risk, he had to take her in. Otherwise he would leave his life only a husk of regret. There were something final, beautifully irrevocable, about Daphne’s words and the tone in which she had uttered them, as if she were speaking from a depth which she had sounded for the first time, urgent, simple, passionate.

They had come to one of the postern-gates used only by the slaves.

“The password is Nusogenes. You go in first.”

He wanted to tell her to say, if questioned, that she was a newly-bought kitchen-slave; the soldier wouldn’t note her dress over-carefully and the light wasn’t very good. But the burden of silence was still in his blood, and he could not say more.

She nodded, walked straight up to the gate, spoke for a moment, and disappeared within.

Victor hurried forward, afraid that he would lose her on the other side. He passed the yawning sentry and found Daphne waiting in the shadows. She took his arm without a word, and he led her round in a detour to the side door; the buildings were all yet alight. But nobody would suspect anything if they saw; on a night like this the slaves would be stealing about together. It was really extraordinarily easy to smuggle Daphne in.

At the side door he stopped. “Wait a moment.”

He looked within. There was no one. He took her arm again and led her in, down the corridor and into his room.

Borios was there, already in bed. He sat bolt-upright, and in rage Victor saw that he was stript for the night. Sheltering Daphne as much behind himself as possible, he appealed to Borios. An old lamp spluttered dimly in a corner.

“Look here. I want to ask a favour of you. I’ve a friend here, and I want to have the room for myself tonight. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” answered Borios, trying to peer round Victor at the demure Daphne. “ Go ahead.”

“I said: for myself.”

“Then suppose I’m not here. Put out the light.”

Victor argued, threatened, promised; he didn’t himself mind the presence of Borios very much, he was proud of having Daphne with him, but feared that Daphne would object and insist on going away after all. Borios refused to budge.

“I’m not a spoil-sport. I shan’t take the slightest notice of you. But I won’t shift. Why, you fool, that would be sure to bring someone snooping round. I’ll keep my mouth shut, I give you my word, but I won’t shift. Go ahead.”

Daphne plucked at Victor’s sleeve and whispered in his ear, “Let him stay. Put out the light.”

Victor was pleased to escape from the necessity of browbeating the imperturbable Borios; but, though immensely eased that Daphne was not going to object, he didn’t quite like the suggestion coming from her. Surely she hadn’t taken a fancy to Borios, who was a good fellow in his way, but coarse and lumpish.

“Turn away,” he said to Daphne, determined that Borios shouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing her face. Then he moved across to the lamp and snuffed it.

He heard Daphne moving in the dark, rustling about, undressing; and he seemed to be back on the day of their meeting, in the lake-side glade, and blinked his eyes to remove the dark, feeling the green-dappled light of the glade somewhere beyond his reaching finger-tips. That day she had run away, out of the glade; would she fade from his grasp again? Then he heard her slip into the creaking bed, and recalled in misery how very easily the bed did creak. Still, it was lucky that there were two small beds in the room as in the old days with Eros, or the position would have been impossible. Curse Borios. Victor kicked off his sandals, wrenched off his cloak, dragged the brooch-pin from his shoulder, drew the tunic up over his head, and moved to join Daphne.

The haste of all these operations had taken his mind away from what was actually happening. Only as he drew the blanket up over him and felt Daphne at his side did he realise. An exquisite sweetness of warmth flooded his body, followed by a recoil of fear. He hadn’t dreamed of such a consummation; it had come so strangely, so unexpectedly, so irretrievably; otherwise he would have prepared, been physically ready...Besides, the presence of Borios affected him with an unforeseen oppression, seemed to be threatening him from the rear. The numbness, which had come over him on the pier and which he had felt growing on him in his tormented vigils on the tower, returned. He clasped Daphne, shuddering, and knew the worst, in a choking emotion of loss, regret and tiredness.

“…Don’t laugh at me,” he whispered in an agony of shame.

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered softly, slumbrously. “Kiss me goodnight.”

*

At last he fell into a heavy doze. She seemed to have fallen asleep long before, breathing evenly. Borios had kept turning over in his bed, but had said nothing. Then, out of a scurry of dreams, Victor awoke in the first gleams of dawn. Incredulously he beheld Daphne at his side, lying on her back with lips slightly parted, her hair sprayed in tangles of soft gold on the pillow. She appeared perfectly fresh, and her breath came as peacefully as if her dream was virginally assured, ranging in Hesperidean gardens beyond the crumbling confines of the world.

A sense of mastery and easy happiness came upon Victor as he lay looking down at her, resting on his elbow. Warmth tingled blessedly in his veins. He took her in his arms confidently; and without opening her eyes, still dreaming, she stirred, a dewy flower of repose that opened and closed about the active bee. Smiling she lifted her lids and showed her smiling eyes, still glistening with her dreams; smiled awake, dream and the world being one.

Disturbed, Borios looked across the room, but, being a lad of his word, he made no intrusive comment. The others had forgotten his existence.

*

But the sounds of morning were heard: someone clumping down the corridor, clatterings, voices overpitched with sleepiness. The lovers noticed Borios and pulled the blankets over their heads.

“I’ll have to go,” murmured Daphne, with big eyes close to the eyes of Victor, all of her close to the all of him, huddled in the trough of the bed, deliciously faint with sweat, straw-gold white in the filtering light and heat, flushed with ivory and unimaginably close, so much of her and so much alive, so beautifully put together, beautifully here and there and curving back again, and her toe-nails digging into his ankle.

He rose clear of the kiss, thrust his head out of the blanket, and told Borios to look away. Then they dressed, making silent little jokes with fingers and eyes and compressed lips because of Borios; and then Daphne looked away while Borios dressed. Borios scouted along the corridor and at length declared that all was safe. In a moment Daphne was out of the building, and nobody had seen her except a scullery-girl coming out of a door further down, who gaped and disappeared, and whose word would go for nothing whatever she said; anyhow she shouldn’t have been in the passage herself. Daphne thanked Borios, wasting time (thought Victor), and then Victor took her towards one of the larger gates where so many servants were coming and going that the soldiers in the sharp morning air did nothing except blow on their hands, drink warmed wine and milk, and talk to the girl who had brought the tray.

Victor went out with Daphne. He didn’t care what trouble he created for himself by his absence. Neither he nor Daphne spoke, though both were filled with an anxious contentment. Each wanted to know if the other felt equally enraptured; but the rapture precluded words, it over-brimmed and washed away the anxious thoughts as quickly as they arose. The fresh morning air sparkled in the awakened senses; the chuckling voices of the harbour-waters were the slow baby-lisp of love’s peace; the cry of the wheeling seagulls was the cry of the lover’s enisled union, warning the world to stand off; the crowd of busy people, still glamoured with the festival night, were tokens of the surplus energy of love, its rash undivulged thoughts.

Near the waterside they saw a man with a portable stand of rings and bracelets meant for trinkets or for bargain-pledges. The Semites still often kept to the custom of giving a ring as an earnest, a pledge of the price in a contract. Victor had seen his master give or take such rings at Antioch, and knew that people exchanged them during wagers or betrothals, to mark the agreement. He stopped the huckster and bought two gilt-bronze rings.

“A fine morning,” the man croaked. “Fine for putting rings on your fingers and whatnots.”

“We’ve just been married,” said Daphne.

Victor scowled at her and sought to catch her eye.

“I could have guessed it,” answered the man. “Such rosy cheeks come from more than blowing on your porridge.”

“Are you married?” Daphne asked, though Victor had taken her arm and was trying to draw her away.

“That I am,” said the man with a leer. “She’s twice my size too. So you might as well say I was double-married.”

“And how many children have you?”

“Five alive and six dead.” He counted rapidly on his fingers. “Two of the dead were twins,” he added, importantly, as if that fact complicated the arithmetic.

“Give him some more money,” whispered Daphne loudly. Victor, with the best grace he could summon, handed the man another silver coin, and then got Daphne away.

“Why did you tell him?” he said. “He might recognise you and talk about it. One never knows.”

“Yes, one does,” said Daphne, pressing his arm. “I know I love you.”

He forgot his annoyance in the overwhelming pleasure of such an admission, which brought true the furthest of all his most daring hopes. “My darling sweetest...that’s all I want to know, ever.”

They each took a ring. He put his ring on to the third finger of her left hand, and she put hers on to the third finger of his left land; and then they kissed each other’s hand and laughed, and swore that they would never lose the rings. They stopped beside a house, and Victor, losing his caution, wrote on the wall with a piece of chalky stone picked up from the roadway: “V. and D. betrothal and marriage contract. Each gives the other everything including all kisses and no provisions are made for divorce as there can’t be any such thing. Signed for ever and ever.”

Then, since the rings were far too large, they joined the tips of their ring-fingers and shook the fingers till the rings slid down and knocked against one another; and that was a further matter for laughter. They laughed and leant their heads together, and felt weak with yearning, and yet strong enough to live for ever, in one another’s arms. They took no notice when a street-urchin mocked at them and asked if they were goats butting one another. They merely thought he was asking for alms, and Victor gave him a copper, to his astonishment; and they walked on, light-footed and happy.

Victor still felt ashamed about last night and wanted to explain that he had been very tired; but after the nuptials of the dawn he couldn’t approach the subject; perhaps it was unnecessary. It was only the dawn’s embrace and the following sweetness of communion that mattered, and the days of trustful and unjarring companionship that were to come.

*

They parted at last, each unable to tell how it had been done, so many strands of sense and emotion still enwebbed them. But the strands broke in the end, painfully, joyously, dazedly; and Victor found himself striding up the street towards the palace and his deserted duties, and Daphne slipped upstairs, feeling abruptly a weariness in her bones, and a bitter taste in her mouth. She answered the questions of Nicias dreamily; yes, she’d enjoyed herself, but she didn’t like Egyptians much after all; she was rather tired; an Egyptian meal didn’t agree with her, it tasted of soda or something.

Then she drew Simon aside in a corner of the kitchen where Nicias wouldn’t be able to hear; and told him that she’d had to tell the Manethos that Nicias was ill because they’d been insulted through his continued refusal to call on them—so, if they sent a messenger, Simon was to say that Nicias was ill but not in any danger.

Simon growled an assent; and in a short while Daphne found that she had guessed rightly. Sheftu-Teta sent a slave to inquire about Nicias. Simon said what he had been told to say; and Daphne hugged herself. That had settled poking-nosed Sheftu-Teta. A lot she cared about Nicias; she wanted to catch Daphne out. But Daphne was too wide-awake. She yawned and stretched herself, suddenly very drowsy and hungry. She didn’t know which was the stronger, the wish to sleep or the wish to eat.

But she soon solved the question; for, lying down on the bed to rest while she thought, she fell instantly asleep.

*

Victor also discovered how hungry he was as he walked back to the Palace, but he had no time to think about sleep. After begging at the kitchen, he obtained some food, bread, cheese and barley cakes; and ate ravenously. He was so late already that he felt reckless. It would be better to have a full stomach; otherwise he’d break down and cry. While eating the last crust, he entered the page’s wing, and met Eros, who went past with nose in air. Apparently Borios had been talking, or there had been some unobserved observer after all. Anyhow that didn’t matter. Daphne might have been one of the pantry-girls; and the eunuchs couldn’t order one of the pages of Antonius to be whipped without allowing an appeal to Antonius, who would be sure to pardon such a peccadillo, with jeers at the eunuch.

Boris appeared in the mess-room.

“Come along. You’re lucky.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The ships are burned.”

Victor helped him to get out a new tunic for Antonius from the chests.

“What happened?”

“He tore the one he was wearing. He looked as if he was going to kill the messenger. He swelled up inside. Then he ripped his tunic right off, in a rage.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. She only looked away. I thought she’d flare out, but she didn’t.”

The pages hastened to the room where Antonius lay on the couch, his tunic tattered. He had called for some wine, but was drinking it weak with water. As the pages removed the old tunic, Cleopatra came across from her dressing-table, her eyes darkly ringed.

“You know who did it.”

“ The messenger said the Arabs from Petra.”

“Who controls the Arabs from Petra? who last collected the dues from them—against their will?”

The face of Antonius grew hideous with hatred. “Herodes.” He beat at the couch. “It’s all my fault for letting him go.”

Cleopatra said nothing. She scrutinised Antonius from under her lashes. Then she said, “It doesn’t matter. There are other ways.”

Antonius looked at her hopefully, afraid only of her anger, unable to think of the lost ships in which flight had been planned. Nowhere could he flee from Cleopatra. In India or Alexandria, it was all the same. He wanted to know if she blamed him.

She appeared to put the subject aside altogether. “The children were very naughty last night.” She came up and touched Antonius on the cheek, bent and kissed him.

“One can’t blame them. The noise and all those lights.”

He was now fully dressed again, and lay sipping his wine. The pages stood back. A eunuch entered and whispered with Cleopatra. She spoke sharply and then returned to Antonius.

“You really must speak to Antyllus. He encourages Iotapa to misbehave herself. She threw a lamp out of the window last night and hit one of the sweepers. Then she started a game of blindman’s-buff and pushed Alexandros over while he had his eyes bandaged. He cut his knee on the mosaic; and then she was found hiding under the bed in the next room with Antyllus. Alexandros is furious.”

“He’s only a child,” said Antonius with a contented smile. “He can’t be taken very seriously as a husband.” The thought of a small boy as cuckold pleased him and he laughed. “But I’ll speak to Antyllus.”

“Iotapa is the wife of Alexandros,” replied Cleopatra. “His wife, I say. I insist on decency and decorum in the matter. While she’s his wife, she must be true to him, whatever his age is. Why, the brat herself is only a child.”

“I’ll speak to Antyllus,” Antonius repeated, prudently trying to get rid of his smile. But the weakened muscles refused to change quickly; he felt the smile hardening into a fixed grin.

“With that smile on your face? That won’t do much good.”

“Of course I won’t smile then. I didn’t mean to smile at all.”

Cleopatra sat down on the ivory stool before her ebony toilet-table, turned away, and then turned back.

“Do you remember when you left me, years ago, only to arrange a few political matters—and stayed away three whole years—with the sweet-faced, long-suffering Octavia as your modest bride. Do you remember? Don’t you wish you’d stayed with her?”

Antonius stirred unhappily. “That’s all past...Political entanglements...you said you understood.”

“Political entanglements? When you came back, it was with a request for me to beggar Egypt on your behalf—to fit you out for the Parthian war that disgraced you. That sounds to me rather like a political entanglement. Now Egypt’s squeezed dry...and you’re drunk.”

“Don’t,” he pleaded. “I’ve never loved anyone but you. Why bring the past up?”

“Because the grin on your face just now was the grin you gave me as you left me. Consoled me with a kiss. Poor woman, with twins to keep her occupied, one for each breast. A lapful. Octavia had more room to spare. Go on. Grin again. I can see the grin you’re trying to hide. You were far happier with her. She never did unreasonable things. She believed everything you said. So did I for a while. She said: Yes, dear. She liked your grin. She’d forgive you still if you went back. Did you grin at her in Athens when you left—politically entangled—needing Egypt’s resources for your soldiers. You stayed three whole years with her. You’ve never spent more than a few months with me. Always going off to show that you could conquer the Parthians.”

He rose from the couch, muttering “I didn’t do so badly in Armenia,” and tried to take her in his arms. She beat him off.

“You husk of a man. You sogged bit of rind.” She hit him in the face. “I’m only a woman, the length of a bed. Grin at your whores, not at me.” She dropped from Greek into Roman camp-slang. Padicator tu’s, aurum meum rapuisti, stercorem tibi dabo...

Victor had heard her swear before, but never so violently. She went on to call Antonius every filthy name that she had ever heard or imagined. He shrank back and sat with bowed head, tightening his lips and tapping his knee mechanically.

At last she rushed from the room. Antonius waited till she was gone, then shook his fist after her, and muttered. “You ruined me, you wolf-bitch. You ruined me. And you know it.”

His head fell heavily on his breast, and he wept.

Ghosts were clustering round him. Fulvia, his fierce wife, who had broken a blood-vessel when he laughed in her face after she had demanded to know what he’d done at Alexandria—his first stay with Cleopatra. Gaius, his brother, who had died in Macedonia, his throat wretchedly cut, with a jeer till the end. Lucius, his other brother, who had been ready to die for him, a wild fellow, gloomy sometimes, but staunch. All the friends of his youth, dead. Curio, Clodius...and most terrible of all, the murdered Caesar, whom Antonius had avenged and yet never placated. Still the ghost of Caesar walked the earth; and the world of men was cloven with strife; and somehow Antonius knew he had failed his master Caesar...Caesar who had become more terribly a master in his death...dust and ashes; and a woman with a foul mouth, desirable, blaming him...

He put his hands to his cars; but the voices of the past still rang eerily in his brain. He rose with a twinge of fear, to follow Cleopatra, to feel at least the strength and warmth of her angry body near...at the other side of the room perhaps, but still near; alive and promising life; silencing the ghosts.

He hurried out, spilling his wine.

“Would you let a woman hit you?” asked Borios.

Victor thought. “It all depends...but there isn’t any need to be hit.”

“You don’t know women,” said Borios with casual contempt. “No woman would hit me. Not twice.”

But Victor was secure in his memories. It was his turn to look at Borios with a pitying superiority. Daphne and he would never quarrel. They were different from other lovers, who did not love so completely.

ANOTHER YEAR COMES - MARCH-OCTOBER 30 B.C.

7 ON A HEIGHT

Spring had returned; and the lovers knew it, in their blood (which would however have made a nest of spring on any wintry bough), and because they were less drenched or cut about by the wind. They had no eyes for anything around, and even the rain or wind hardly awoke their perception. They spent together every moment possible, and yet felt themselves sadly cheated in every moment spent apart. They exercised all their ingenuity in trying to escape from people and to be alone, but with little success. Only the night was hospitable for lovers. The day spread out its myriad baits of colour, its bellying tent of blue air, the lovely frilling carpet of the sea (with the notice “Walking Forbidden”) perpetually unrolled right up to the feet of the gazers on the shore, the various trees and bushes, the manifold town; but it gave no seclusion. It plastered the wonderful scene with eyes. What was to be done? Daphne refused to visit a boarding-house where Victor could have taken rooms; and though he resented her refusal, he did not press her. For he was rather scared of the ordeal himself. She insisted that they’d be found out that way and her father would get to know. Yet she shamelessly let him kiss her on a garden seat. Kisses, only kisses.

But kisses were enough, almost enough. They kissed all the time. During the winter months there was less foliage and therefore less chance of hiding in the parks. They did their best but a gardener always noticed them. They searched every nook of the sea-front, every cranny of the occasional cul-de-sac in the town (of which there were few, for Alexandria was a town carefully laid out in streets crossing at right angles). Nowhere was there privacy out of doors. They even tried the Zoo; stared at sulky tigers and lions, leopards, panthers and lynxes; inspected, with thoughts elsewhere, the gazelles and antelopes with spiraling horns, the Indian and African buffaloes, the wild asses and giraffes; hated the chattering disgraceful monkeys, and then loved them; admired the parrots, peacocks, guinea-fowl, pheasants, and assorted African rareties, and lamented their imprisonment; and had to listen to a kindly official who told them all the names and differences; yawned at the bored hippopotamus and the rhinoceros with his slack skin (the mere sight of which made one’s clothes feel uncomfortable), and the annoying horn on his nose which must have given him a squint; shuddered and passed the snakes quickly, with a backward glance; wanted to pat the elephants brought from the South on huge rafts; gaped at the whitish long-haired polar bear enjoying the change in the weather and diving in his pool for fish; and found nowhere to hide. Even if they had found somewhere, they wouldn’t have hidden. The proximity of snakes and rhinoceroses was too distracting.

So they wandered back into the Meandros Park, and went into the Surinx Gallery with its special shrubs, and the basilica where they could pretend to look at works of art and see if there were any to remind them of themselves; but in the priceless collection there was none good enough, though one easel-picture by Apelles they found passable; and they sat on almost all the cold seats, leaving behind an ineffective replica in warmth of their rumps; and explored all the recesses, which seemed constructed to thwart lovers in a hurry; and went out again. And then at last Winter aided them.

A violent storm burst. They rushed under a thicket of myrtles and oleanders, from which they had twice been ousted by suspicious gardeners during more clement weather. But they didn’t mind the rain, and no gardener ventured out, no one was there to see them. Everyone else had fled shrieking for the covered walls of the Gallery. The thicket was free for the taking of lovers, and Daphne and Victor were the only lovers near.

The rain trickled down over their necks, their clothing was sodden, the wind howled and threw handfuls of leaves in their faces. But they didn’t care. They laughed. For the wind had blown the gardeners away. The wind had cleared the garden. The wind was their bellowing friend.

They were warm, part of them at least. They didn’t care. They hoped that there’d be a storm every day, but storms came seldom in Alexandria. They had leaves and mud in their hair, and when they reached home, they found leaves under their clothes, wet winter leaves, half-dried and sticking to the skin. But it was two hours before they went home; and it would have been longer if the storm hadn’t finished.

Daphne made Victor promise to change at once and have a warm bath, and he made her promise the same thing; and they both caught colds, but not bad colds, and sneezed together, kissing. For nobody minded kissing, they could kiss in the open.

Kisses. No lovers had ever kissed so much. They couldn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t kissing. Several pages saw Victor, and his life at the Palace became empested with incessant ribaldry; but he bore it all for love, and was flattered. Once a tradesman, who knew Daphne, saw them, and spoke to Simon; and once Simon saw them himself, but that time they weren’t kissing as they were walking along the street. Simon didn’t like to worry Nicias unless he had definite evidence of something wrong, for Nicias was so lax in his supervision of Daphne’s acquaintances.

But he spoke to Daphne. “I saw you with someone.”

“You did no such thing,” she replied, with such lofty assurance that she confounded him. She stared him out of countenance, and he felt that he must be more certain of his facts before he complained further, though he dropped a few hints which were entirely unnoticed by the preoccupied Nicias. But thenceforth Daphne took greater heed and met Victor only in the corner of the garden nearest to the Palace-entrance: which was the most suitable place, since it enabled him to spend the most time with her.

Once they had an idea. Why not hire a boat and row out into mid-harbour? No one would be able to see them there. So Victor hired a skiff, and with clumsy care rowed it out into the gently-rumbustious waters. But they never seemed to get away from the shore. It jutted out in so many more places than they’d thought; and they could always see people clearly somewhere, and so reasoned that the people would be able to see them. Also there were more ships coming in and going out than they’d expected; even in the winter months, when deep-sea shipping was laid up, there was trade with the ports nearby such as Pelusion and Phoinicos. And there were fishermen everywhere, who didn’t show up particularly from the shore. In fact the harbour was almost as populated as the land, with the disadvantage that there was nothing to break the view. And then, when they decided to ignore the people on the Mole, the fishermen on the right, and the small cargo-ship swooping out from the Quay, they almost upset the boat. It rocked terrifyingly, and they had to grasp the sides to steady it. Then they found they had drifted till the cargo-ship was steering almost on top of them, and Victor only sculled the boat out of the way with a fearful effort, having had no time to calculate and thereby do the wrong thing. Also, it was very cold.

After that they decided to go back to land, and finished kissing gratefully in the garden; for they couldn’t even kiss in a boat without extreme danger of drowning.

*

Three months passed, and the winter was farewelled. In deeper Egypt there were feasts of Ptah and Horos, but Alexandria was cut away from the land which it ruled and which fed it with wealth. Most of the Egyptian rituals proper had failed to enter it. Still, the blessed Ship of Osiris was launched on the waters, and the Alexandrians signalised the opening of the trading months by noisy expeditions to the pleasure-resort of Canopos eastward of the city. In Canopos every kind of wine and woman in the world was buyable, the most precious scents and the most bestial vices. Every night was a night of lanterns. The nights were only louder than the days; and when a woman had once visited Canopos, so the saying went, she was like a sheep-dog who had had his taste of sheep-flesh—the wolf came out in the blood. The visitor was never a good housewife again she heard flutes in the night, and usually had a bad temper. To Canopos the revellers sailed along a canal in flower-wreathed barges, past the rich villas that littered the banks; and they sang all the while.

Daphne and Victor had no need to sing. Every sense sang for them. Even before the birds came back with the spring, they thought that they heard birds everywhere; and when the earth burst into flowers, they merely wondered why they hadn’t been picking flowers before, because they were sure that they’d been smelling flowers wherever they went; and when they found thickening grass to lie on, they merely thought that they were feeling lazier and therefore more aware of such things as grass-beds.

Olympos had been thinking about Daphne since her request for his help to gain her solstice-outing, and had decided that Nicias wasn’t acting fairly by her. He called on him and told him so.

“You ought to bring home some of the better-class young students—to dine with you. They’d be honoured, and they could meet Daphne. She’s growing up.”

Nicias considered the suggestion.

“I’ve nothing against what you say. She’ll have to be married sometime or other, I suppose—though my sister never married. She was a trifle crabbed, but marriage would doubtless have only made her worse; and anyhow she died of internal troubles that even such a learned doctor as you didn’t seem to understand—despite the advances of medical science.”

“But Daphne—”

“I’ll bring some students home then. Some lads with money. I wouldn’t like to see her in want. I don’t care whom she marries as long as he’s a pure-blooded Greek.”

So Nicias promised, and promptly forgot all about his promise, and no students were brought home. Nicias wasn’t interested in his students. Their characters were under-life-size, and he wanted men and women more virtuous and more wicked than men or women had ever been; he wanted life that achieved the ritual of tragic drama. The attendants at the Museion grinned with the tolerance of well-trained servants of an ancient and famous institution as they watched him slouch about, a roll under his arm, blind to the world that lusted and plotted on all sides.

*

Alexandria was almost a second homeland to the Jews. Their colony had grown until it filled the whole of one of Alexandria’s five districts, and they were the wealthiest of the citizens. Though they piously admitted the prior claims of the Temple of Yahwe at Jerusalem, they privately considered their own chief synagogue incomparable. They asserted that it could hold 100,000 worshippers. Seventy-one chairs of gold were reserved for the great masters and presidents of the Council; no single man could make himself heard from one end of the hall to the other; and flag-signals had to be made so that the congregations might utter their Amens at the right pauses. The Alexandrian Jews were the best-fed, most prosperous, and haughtiest of all Jews. Even the noble Sadducee families at Jerusalem were less stiff-backed; for the Sadducees, being suave men of the world, were too well bred to show insolence. Not so the Alexandrians, though in many ways they also had departed from the excessive strictness of the zealots at Jerusalem. They wished to gain the world while preserving Yahwe, but they saw no use in gaining the world unless they could display their wealth and answer hatred with hatred, blow with blow. It was therefore at Alexandria that anti-Semitism first arose.

The time of Passover was come, and the underworld of Alexandria was hoping that the usual muttering would become a serious riot. Smoked ham or boiled bacon was the main meat of the Greek worker, to flavour his corn or beans; and the Jewish abstinence was regarded as an insult. But even the Egyptians, who also did not eat pig except on one ceremonial occasion (the conjunction of Moon and Sun, sister and brother), disliked the Jews. So the Greek talk about pig-flesh was but an excuse to attack Jewish clannishness.

Manethos, following the account given by his ancestor, declared that the Jewish inhibition was borrowed from Egypt, since Moses, the prophet of the Jews, had originally been an Egyptian of the City of the Sun, named Osarsiph because he was a priest vowed to Osiris. Moreover, he quoted the case of an extinct set of Jewish sectaries who had met in secret garden-rites to sacrifice and eat pigs and mice. Consequently the Jews had stolen the taboo from Egypt, perverting it in the process.

The antagonists of the Jews went further and said that the Jews worshipped the pig, because they were forbidden to kill pigs and religion forbade the killing only of’ things sacred.

The argument about pigs arose whenever the Graeco-Egyptian populace wanted to harass the Jews; and if pigs weren’t the subject of abuse, it was an ass. For the anti-Semites insisted that the highest god of the Jews was an ass because Osarsiph-Moses had found water in the wilderness by following some wild-ass tracks. The question of the ass-god Yahwe (whose very name was a hee-haw) arose strongly at the festivals. For periodically broke out allegations that the Jews sacrificed gentile children to Yahwe; and as in such a populous city as Alexandria there were always children missing, it was always possible to declare that one or other of the missing children had been kidnapped by Jews.

The Passover could only be celebrated at Jerusalem, and all Jews who could go went thither as pilgrims; yet the tens of thousands left at Alexandria could not let the occasion pass altogether unnoticed. They wished also to eat of lamb while the more fortunate faithful were leading victims to the altar of the one Temple, where Yahwe actually lived. Besides, it was to bondage in Egypt that the Passover referred; and the gentile Alexandrians, aware of the feast’s date, felt wrathful as it neared. For the Jews to have ignored the great day would have been prudent, but insulting to Yahwe. At least they must eat of lamb, sprinkle their doorposts, and read the exodus-scriptures. Thus only would they feel safe, even if they were doing what was unsafe.

This year also there was a further scandal. The consumptive son of a Greek merchant had been converted to Judaism; and with the zeal of a convert had gone to extremes, joining the sect of Therapeutee who had their hermit-camp below the lake; and he had died in agonies a few days past, on a Sabbath, rupturing himself during colic in his effort not to evacuate, for the sect considered all motions to be a rank sin on the Sabbath—as bad as the emptying of bowels before the face of the offended Sun. The tale of the convert had been re-told until it constituted an alarming indictment of the enormities of Jewish religion.

It was therefore with a defiant spirit and a certain amount of foreboding that the Jews on the 14th day of Nissen, between the sun’s decline and his setting, prepared to slay a male lamb yeaned that year and of unblemished body. The poorer bought the kid of a goat, or two families clubbed together for a single lamb. But for such an event even the poorest family could usually rely on charity from the richer brethren; and many thousands of lambs had their throats slit that afternoon in Alexandria according to the prescribed methods of slaughtering and blood-drainage. Every door-post and lintel of the Delta Area was sprinkled with blood, so that the Angel of Wrath might pass the doors of the faithful, who had given a hostage to gluttonous death, the lamb who died that man might live, ogre-man.

Parties of young Greeks prowled through the streets, snuffling at the blood and swearing that the Jews were cannibals. Their business methods were proof enough, with-out the blood. Even the Egyptians felt stirred when they remembered that the blood-sprinkling was meant to commemorate a night when Yahwe sent the angels of death to blast the first-born of Egypt. It was hardly tactful to suggest the Passover on Egyptian soil. It was vain for intellectuals like Manethos to smile indulgently and say that the impeccable records of the Pharoahs knew nothing of any such plague, though they told of an expulsion of Jews as undesirable aliens at the time of Moses-Osarsiph. The Jews had wanted to see the first-born blasted, even if their magic had failed to bring it about.

On the day of the Passover the lamb was roasted entire (bowels, head, and all, by some conservative households), and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter salads. The Delta Area was filled with the stream of burnt sacrifice, the odour of crackling flesh that makes the bestial stomach heave with craving. The faithful licked their lips.

At the same time a score or so of Greek youths sacrificed a pig before the chief Synagogue, splashing the blood on the door. The vergers came out with rods and were pelted with pig’s entrails. Other Jews appeared to contest the proceedings. A brawl began. A Greek was trampled, a Jew had his face rubbed in the pig’s carcass. Finally a Greek was killed. Both parties, dismayed, drew back, and there was a lull. But the news of the death spread rapidly; and as the ranks of the Greeks increased, an assault was made on the synagogue with the intention of hanging the dead pig on the pulpit.

More Jews arrived to defend the Synagogue, and the whole square was filled with rioters. The head of the civic police had brought up a detachment of his men, but no one took any notice. He had a trumpet blown, but the call merely swelled the tumult of the brawlers. A small squadron of palace-cavalry next appeared, and succeeded in dispersing the mob after running down several men, both Greeks and Jews. The mob took refuge in alleys, doors, and the spaces between the houses, and showed no signs of going home, despite the speech delivered by the head of police. The Greeks merely shouted “Hee-haw” and declared that he was bribed by the Jewish elders to deliver up the children of paupers for the Jews to pick their bones. Wasn’t the feast admittedly in honour of the slaughtered children of Egypt?

There was in Alexandria at this time an unprecedented number of reckless veterans and ruffians who had fled from Roman justice, and, with a vague sense that the days of independence were closing, they were eager for at least one last fling. They mingled with the mob, stiffening their resistance and suggesting that a search of the rich Jewish mansions would undoubtedly reveal piles of well-picked infant bones as well as money-chests, though there was no harm in despoiling the money-chests of cannibals. The situation was getting out of hand as dusk fell.

The chief of police, leaving the cavalry-officer in charge, departed for the Palace, where he reported to the Queen. She had no sympathy for the Jews, who had long been her enemies; she knew that the Jewish bankers were intriguing with their fellows at Rome and Puteoli to bring about the annexation of her kingdom. The capitalists had no use for an Egypt outside the customs-bounds of the Roman Empire. Besides, she couldn’t forget that anonymous balladist who had described her offensively as saying in a supposed Testament:

I’d give my blush, but I have none

to make the rose more scarlet.

My nose in pity I will leave

to grace a Jewish harlot.

For months the populace had hummed the tune whenever she was seen in public. But she couldn’t allow riots to go on. The city might catch fire; and the Jews were her subjects, however much suspected of treason. She decided to crush the riot and next week to impose a crippling tax on all Jewish merchants. She smiled, and told the chief of police to take the rest of the cavalry that were in the palace-barracks.

“If there is a single sound heard in an hour’s time, I shall expect your resignation.”

Antonius had come in and listened with growing interest. He walked away and came back, briskly rubbing his hands together.

“Leave this to me. I’ve been waiting for something to do, though I didn’t know it until now, when there’s a chance...”

His eyes besought her not to humiliate him before the police official. She for her part was angry with him for asking her at all. Why did he speak to her as if he was a menial; ashamed because he knew how he’d wasted her resources, because he didn’t have any real status in Egypt despite his half-marriage with her and his Roman dictatorship, because he didn’t dare to be her husband as King of Egypt. Always trying to compromise in essentials, to please everybody, to be a shadowy king-consort in Egypt and a legalized magistrate of Rome. Now he was trying to shame her in return, to make publicly obvious his dependence, his broken heart, his pathos of loyalty. Bah.

“Of course take charge if you want to amuse yourself,” she said coldly and lightly—coldly enough to wound Antonius, lightly enough to deceive the police official.

Antonius was troubled by her tone but overjoyed by her words. Action! He rubbed his hands still more briskly, and whistled to his pages, who received his orders and came running with a uniform, a cuirass, leathern kilts, tunic, cloak, sword. Antonius snapped out his orders. The roughness of the leather delighted him like a soft caress; the lush scarlet of the cloak soothed his eyes; the gleam of the polished silver and steel was like spring sunlight on singing waters; the clank of the sword, the tightening of the belt, the pressure of the cuirass chiding slack muscles, the scrape of the shoulder-pieces fitting over the straps. All these matters enfolded him with an embrace of power. He ran his hand over the gorgon-face carved in relief on the cuirass, and he felt his very breast shrugging into metal, his heart moulded in the image of the basilisk-fury. How was it that he had failed before Actium, with tens of thousands of men loyal to his call? He had failed, yet surely there was hope when his blood could still respond so thrillingly to the need of action, the brutal world of force in which the finest moments of his life had blossomed. Amorously he fondled his sword, clasping the hilt and running his fingers up and down. He had forgotten Cleopatra and his weakness.

He strode out, followed by the pages, who carried his plumed helmet and its side-pieces. In the court the guard had assembled, a full squadron of cavalry and a maniple of foot-soldiers, Roman legionaries who bore on their shields K for KXeovari a. Eros knelt, and Antonius, stepping on his back, vaulted lightly into the saddle of the horse held by a soldier-groom. Down the cypress-avenue he rode, while Victor and Eros trotted at the side of the horse. Behind came the squadron and the men on foot. Out through the main gate they went, and rode southward, the populace shouting and rushing from the houses and side-streets to see the cavalcade. The noise of the rioters grew louder, and the flames of some bonfires showed above the house-tops.

Antonius whispered quietly and fingered his sword. He wasn’t concerned to handle the outbreak with gentleness; he wanted a violent outlet for his suppressed emotions. His horse paced proudly on, and he felt the old joy of leadership. It flooded him like wine when it came, without disturbing his judgment, indeed quickening and cooling his brain while warming his body to a careless courage. It was in the between-times that he chose wrongly or felt the fear that creates danger. But he had thought the power was gone out of him—ever since the end of the retreat through Armenia. Now it was coming back. Hercules, if it had come back to stay, he’d win the world yet.

Turning, he waved his arm, kicked the horse’s ribs, and charged down the road. He had seen the mellay in the square beyond, where the police had given up the effort to keep order and stood packed in the door of the synagogue with a few horse-soldiers, ready to give way at the imminent rush of the rioters. The Jews were mustering on the flank of the threatened synagogue, and the rest of the horse-soldiers left in charge were formed up weakly in a side-street.

Antonius charged, hearing the clacking thunder of the squadron behind him. He had no interest in race-bickerings, but wanted action. He struck down a man who was whirling a staff, rode into a group of Greeks who were outraging a captive Jew, and flung them cursing in all directions. Then he made for the front rank of Jews, among whom a zealot, having torn out the entrails of a slaughtered Greek, was engaged in draping them round his neck. He swung his sword at the Jew and slashed his ear off, ripping open his face. With a cheer he passed on.

Victor and Eros had run beside him till the charge. Then they had tried to run aside; but the squadron was too close behind, and they had to run on, afraid of being trampled down by their own men. The horsemen caught up, but had sufficient space to pass them by, spreading out into the square and checking something of the first speed. The pages found themselves in the thick of things; they dropped the helmet-pieces which they still carried, and, drawing their daggers, they tried to defend themselves from demented assailants who fought without knowing or caring whom it was they were fighting.

Victor thrust and snarled mechanically. He wasn’t exactly afraid, he was startled into a kind of dull anger. Why didn’t these madmen leave him alone? He had no quarrel with them, no interest even in their doings or creeds; he was so entirely outside the circle of their obsessions that he couldn’t conceive any peril from them. They were merely gnats, to be beaten away; unruly children; nuisances. And yet they were murderers too, driving him to a vigilant fury of self-defence.

Something whizzed through the air. He felt a grinding pain, but couldn’t believe it real, though it was hurting him with wild-beast claws. It must be somebody else who was struck, somebody concerned in such nonsense. He lifted his hand, to beat away the gnats, to make them sting someone else. The world whirled, cobbled faces and star-drops. The pain grew worse, the world whirling black, and he fell.

*

He was lying across something, head and feet dangling; something that rocked, clattered, swung. He was lying across the shoulders of the horse that Antonius rode, the horse-hooves beating in his brain, stinging. He tried to struggle up, but felt too weak, groaned, and found himself lifted in the arms of Antonius, who smiled, said something, rode on, holding him. He was grateful, but wanted to get off the horse. It was the beat of the hooves that hurt his head. He grew dizzy again.

Then they were back before the great pillared entrance to Cleopatra’s Palace, with Cleopatra standing on the steps, surrounded by girls in purple dresses. How white they were, but one girl was ivory-pale, another girl, named Daphne. Why were all the girls of the world on the steps except Daphne? It would be better if there were only Daphne and not all the girls of the world.

Cleopatra was staring at the blood on the horse’s ribs, then at Antonius. He smiled; he was unwounded. She made as if to open her arms, and then drew back. Lifting Victor down into the arms of a soldier, Antonius leaped from his horse and clasped Cleopatra, kissed her, and then, taking her by the hand, led her through the lofty doorway, followed by the trooping girls.

Victor was carried into his bedroom, and the fussy damp-eyed doctor who attended to the slaves was fetched. Grumbling to himself (merely out of habit, and because it frightened the more ignorant slaves who thought he muttered spells), the doctor sent for his surgical instruments and was cutting the hair away from the wound, when Antonius appeared at the doorway and asked how Victor was.

“Here, you,” he said to the doctor. “Hold on. I’ve sent for the court-physician. I can’t have my best page murdered because I lost my head and charged into that mob. However, things were cleaned up fairly thoroughly.”

He heard footsteps in the passage, and lifting the curtain, let Olympos in.

“I don’t think there’s much wrong with the lad, but I don’t want his wound to get infected. He’s only a slave—but a slave of mine,” he added bellicosely.

“I am not concerned whether he is a slave or a prince,” replied Olympos with dignified disregard. “For me he’s a person with a cut head.”

“Good,” said Antonius, and slapped Olympos on the back. “I’m glad you’re not one of these palace-lickspittles. Now if I asked the eunuch-chamberlain to wipe after a drunken little slave-girl, he’d have fits.”

Olympos paid him no attention but went on examining Victor’s head, and Victor felt how different were his fingers from those of the first grumbling doctor.

“It’s nothing,” said Olympos. “It merely needs careful washing and bandaging.”

Antonius took Victor’s hand, placed his own hand over it, whistled, and went out.

The slave-doctor, who had watched indignantly the usurpation of his functions, went to follow.

“You can stay and help,” said Olympos.

Torn between anger at the interference and pleased at the collaboration, the slave-doctor began explaining at length what he had intended to do, using all the technical terms he could recollect and speaking in ponderous periphrasis.

“Exactly,” said Olympos. “Washing and bandaging.”

The slave-doctor relapsed into affronted silence, half-convinced that Olympos was a charlatan, and was told that he could now carry out the basin, the patches of clotted hair, the instruments; and, grumbling to himself in earnest, he obeyed. Olympos finished winding the lint-bandage round Victor’s head over a poultice of olibanum and gum-arabic.

“Shall I be laid up long?” asked Victor.

“No, but you shouldn’t do any work for a while.”

Victor, who had been moaning at the pricking of his wound, brightened. “I’ll be able to go out, though I won’t have to work?”

“That’s it. But you mustn’t go drinking or pleasure-chasing. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Victor looked up, his eyes dim with thanks, into the old impersonally-bowed face. He felt attracted and keen to express his sense of benefits granted, discovering how much he longed for someone to whom he could talk about Daphne. “I’ve no use for such things. I only want...to go out.”

Olympos liked the lad’s open sensitive face. “You like the views, no doubt.” He prepared to go.

“No,” said Victor, doubtful whether this remark was sarcastic or not, and wanting to make the kindly, aloof doctor stay a little longer. “It isn’t views or anything like that.” He hesitated. “I want to see a girl.”

“I’ve told you that you mustn’t—”

“Only to be with her,” interrupted Victor, volubly. “ Only to talk with her. It’s not what you think. I love her.” He stopped, the pulse of the wound jerking into consciousness.

Olympos smiled. “No harm in that. But lie still.” No harm in love; he wasn’t sure. He was sure of nothing except that Erasistratos was wrong about arteries; and even that he couldn’t prove. Perhaps the boy couldn’t prove he was in love, whatever his love was. Olympos felt old, but liked the boy. “No harm. As long as it doesn’t tear wounds open. I’ll send instructions about salves...” No harm in love; no harm in lack of love, but much weariness—or was it merely age? He loved his niece Daphne, but hardly ever thought of her; he wished to see her happy, but didn’t let the wish destroy his sleep or his appetite. That was a poor enough love. Anyhow he wasn’t concerned with love, but with diseased tissues; and he wasn’t disillusioned either, lie was merely a conscientious physician. “I’ll send you a harmless sleeping-draught,” he said, stopping at the door.

The pain had come back knocking at Victor’s head, jagging a spur into him as time galloped. But beyond the jangling throb he was happy. He would have whole days free, and no questions asked; whole days with Daphne.

*

She waited an hour next morning at the seat in the garden, but no one came. Borios had gone on duty before Victor awoke from murderous dreams, and there was no one else who could be trusted. Victor sweated in his distress, thinking of Daphne at the tryst, sure that she would never forgive him, that she would be lost for ever (though he knew her address now), that she would die, run over by a carriage through her distraction, or would drown herself in one of the cistern-reservoirs that filled the pipes with water (as he had heard of someone else doing, because of the discussion whether the drinking-supply was contaminated), that she would be accosted by some overpoweringly charming youth who would snatch her henceforth all his own, that something dreadful would happen. And he couldn’t bear to think what she would be thinking; how she would be suffering, doubting him, torturing herself with phantom fears and suspicions...

Daphne was in a savage temper, sure that he had deserted her at last for some palace wench, afraid that he was dead, and then surer than ever that he was deceiving her. It was the first time she’d thought such a thing; but now it burst on her like a long-prepared misery. Once before, when detained unexpectedly, he’d sent Borios with a note and been stupidly jealous afterwards because she’d said that she thought Borios a very well-behaved boy for his age (a year beyond her own), particularly as he’d been so considerate that night and morning in the bedroom. She didn’t mention that he’d tried to kiss her when he brought the note, because that was beside the point. She had easily kept him in his place and he hadn’t been at all unpleasant when she refused.

But now she was sure that Victor had deserted her. (Perhaps the vile Borios had bragged and lied, and turned Victor against her.) The shock left her weak, empty of purpose, with quaking entrails and slogging heart that seemed to be swelling larger and larger...Perhaps she was so sure of the desertion because she’d wanted to see Victor so importantly today...

She climbed the stairs of home with dragging limbs, and found Olympos visiting. She heard his voice and entered her father’s room, as she always did when Olympos was there (and seldom did otherwise, except to make the bed); entered without thinking, for she had no wish to talk with anyone. Luckily Olympos was launched on some description; he merely took her hand, pressed it, and went on with his remarks. She moved behind him, tidying the table and settling the rolls in their proper cases, putting the reed-pens straight. For lack of something to do, she then picked up some reeds from a corner-rack and began slowly cutting them into pens with the little curved knife lying ready on the table beside the ink-pot. When she’d got the right length (not too long or it wobbled, not too short or it wrote scrubbily), she split the reed (not too deep or it scratched and opened, not too short or the ink wouldn’t flow). She liked cutting pens. Although she was afraid that she would draw attention to her woe-begone condition, she couldn’t bear to go into her own room and be alone.

Olympos was telling of the riot and the palace-rumours.

“Potheinos, on instructions, drew up a list of the richest Jews. They’re to be asked to contribute to the national defence fund. A circumcision-tax Potheinos kept calling it. You know his squeaky voice: Yes, my lady, we’ll skin these Jews, we’ll cut them to the quick. Charmion couldn’t stand it after a while. They’ll still have more left than you, Potheinos, she said, even if you beggar them. The wrinkled old eunuch blushed. Indeed he did. With rage, doubtless…”

Nicias was trying to listen, though he objected to the fiction that he was always avidly ready to hear Olympos retail this kind of gossip. What had these petty affairs to do with the real design of life, the vital geometry? In Agamemnon life had the compelling logic of a theorem of Eucleides, and yet the logic was blood, was emotion in nakedness. Close up, life was only a mesh of endless intricate veins and nerves, a nasty mess of blood and guts; at a distance it was the active body, the individual with his strange power to mimic or to pollute the divine system.

“Antonius was himself again—for the first time since the return. One of his pages was laid out—”

Daphne cut right down the reed, spoiling it; cut into the ball of her thumb. She watched the blood slowly rising, coming up it seemed tentatively, unwilling to leave her body, then gathering courage, rushing. Blood. In panic she looked round, and, finding no cloths at hand, staunched the wound on the inside of her skirt. Victor was dead; it served her right for the cruel things she’d thought about him.

“...a stone on the head...”

Everything was slowed down, the words came infinitely slowly. And she seemed to be going deaf, she feared that she would go quite deaf before the final words blackened out her life.

Her elbow knocked two rolls on to the floor.

Nicias glanced up in irritation. “Don’t touch my table.” Olympos turned to help, and saw her quivering hand, her pallid face.

She tried to avert her face, having read his solicitous eyes. “I’m all right.”

“You look ill.”

“I’m all right,” she repeated desperately, in harsh level tones. “I’ll pick these things up.”

Olympos, hurt and worried, turned away again. Nicias had seen nothing except that Daphne was being normally awkward.

“I wish you’d leave my table alone in the future.”

“Yes, father.”

Olympos was disturbed by the toneless voice; he forgot what he’d been talking about. Daphne waited breathlessly for his next words, terrified that she had really gone deaf and was losing the information on which her life depended. Olympos said nothing, but lay back, closing his eyes. Daphne felt hysterical; she couldn’t wait, she must know, she couldn’t think of anything else.

“Was he killed?”

“Who?”

Olympos turned to her again, and was distressed at her staring eyes, her shaking lip, which she bit. All the blood seemed draining out of her face into her eyes; her blue eyes were haloed yellow, dilated. He tried to relate the symptoms. Was she ill?

She had to speak again, difficult as it was. It was more difficult to keep on living without knowing. “What you were talking about. Someone that a stone...” She couldn’t say more. Not if she were to die. O to die! Olympos seemed to be standing over her (though she sat almost a yard away), with pincers that he thrust down her mouth, demanding more words, tearing the life out of her heaving bowels, but no more words. She hated him, with defiant eyes, gaining a trivial strength at last through hatred, enough to keep her upright on the stool, though the floor wavered and her thumb bled into her skirt, pressed against her thigh.

“It was nothing. A page. I attended to him. Only a nasty scalp-cut.” He forced himself, out of pity, to turn away, back to Nicias. “I only mentioned it to show how Antonius is getting back his spirits...”

He made himself talk on. Nicias grunted. He’d as soon have listened to Simon talking about the troubles of his brother and sister-in-law. One tale was as relevant to the universe as the other—as irrelevant, that was, as void of ritual form; nothing that a dance could be made out of; nothing for a chorus to make into a revelatory lyric, gravely danced. Boozy generals and trollopy queens, and children who didn’t know when it was time to go to bed.

He muttered to himself, as if the words were a charm against the infecting futility and lack of style in modern life:

What would have Priam done had he stood here? He would have walked upon the purple cloths.

*

Olympos managed to finish his account, and stood up.

“I think Daphne wants some fresh air,” he said, speaking as casually as he could. “Will she guide an old man as far as the sea-front?”

Daphne nodded and got up from the stool, ignoring the fact that she had ostensibly just come in from a walk. Her tremendous gratitude for Olympos (as if his medicaments had veritably raised Victor from the dead) changed into gnawing fear and hatred again; but for that very reason she could not refuse.

Nicias was pleased to see her leave his table alone. “Perhaps you’re right...”

Daphne and Olympos walked slowly along the road, as if by making their walk all the longer they delayed the moment of question and answer. They walked slowly, not arm in arm, so that they had to part every now and then to let hurrying oncomers pass between them. Now that he was forcing himself to frame his suspicions in words, Olympos felt that he must be utterly wrong. The idea was too fantastic. Daphne was getting overwrought, and the mention of fighting and injuries had upset her. That was all. (Think of all the queer symptoms quoted in gynaecological treatises.) But the boy had himself mentioned love. Well, what of the hundred thousand other young girls in Alexandria?

Daphne knew what he wanted to say, and didn’t know if she dreaded or wanted what was to happen. She wanted the excruciating silence to end. Suddenly she realised: Victor was alive, he loved her still. She didn’t care what happened.

Olympos moistened his dry lips.

“You seemed to take a lot of interest in the boy who was injured.”

“What boy?” she asked with wide-open eyes, far too innocently. His suspicions returned more strongly than ever, reinforcing his determination which had quavered after that first inquisitorial sentence.

“The boy I told about. I had a few words with him after I’d bandaged his head. He was rather a nice boy.”

“I wonder where all these people are going,” said Daphne, waving up and down the street. “Father says that everyone in Alexandria has work; even the blind weave baskets. But I never see any work, do you?”

“He told me that he was in love,” continued Olympos, relentlessly, more certain every moment that she was guiltily evading the subject.

“Everybody’s in love,” she answered, then grew confused. “Unless they’re horrid.”

“Then you must be in love.”

“O no,” she said, airily. “I’m horrid.”

“Daphne,” he said with quick appeal. “Be frank with me. Trust an old man who loves you.” Yes, he did love her, more than he’d thought; perhaps he would lose his sleep through her, and have his appetite spoiled, and not grudge the losses. It was almost a surprising discovery.

She made no reply, but stared down at the ground. That made her giddy, for the ground seemed to rush up as she walked towards it, and she felt that she would fall on her face or on the back of her head. She had to lift her eyes; and since she knew that he was staring at her, she had to turn and stare back.

“I’ve nothing to be frank about. Really.”

He knew she was lying. The meek timbre of her voice. She would have been rude or affectionately nonsensical if she weren’t hiding something. He saw the blood-stain on her skirt, and noted that she held one hand with the sleeve drawn over it; and he grew more suspicious, though entirely unable to relate these matters to the question at issue. He decided to meet guile with guile.

“It isn’t any use. He was delirious at first, and he mentioned a name. Several times.”

Daphne fidgeted. “Lots of girls have my name.”

“But I didn’t say he mentioned your name,” cried Olympos triumphantly.

She stopped and faced him with burning cheeks and eyes. “Why are you tormenting me? You’re wrong. I’ve never met this Victor of yours.”

“I never said his name was Victor.” He stared back at her and spoke calmly this time. “Now, Daphne, don’t try to pretend any longer. Please.”

Daphne looked wildly round. A carriage came clattering up, and she felt drawn fearfully to throw herself under the prancing hooves of the horses. Or to dash for the harbour ahead and drown herself. Anything to escape. Then she looked back into the eyes of Olympos and began crying.

“Come, my dear,” he said, and, taking her arm, he led her towards the harbour-side, where they could sit on the granitic ledge of the sea-wall and talk without being overheard. She still was crying quietly, but now was thinking hard, using the tears as a veil behind which to regather her wits. Olympos also was thinking hard, trying to visualise the situation. What had the girl done? A slave...a nice boy. Utterly impossible, the whole affair. He must stop it.

On the sea-wall, she rested with her head laid against his shoulder. She felt safer that way; he couldn’t see her eyes. The waves raced and tumbled under the ruffling wind, and smoke was belching in huge volumes from the Pharos.

“So you and this boy think you’re in love.”

The answer came in a low rebellious voice. “We are in love.”

“But what are your hopes? A slave...”

At once she began to pour out all that she had hoped and never dared to think about; but she poured it all out as facts.

“He isn’t really a slave. Antonius loves him and has promised to free him in a few weeks, and he’s going to give him a lot of money and a big plot of land with a house on it. And Victor isn’t an ordinary slave. He’s better educated than most of the students that father has. His other master used to make him read Greek poets and philosophers...”

“But he isn’t free yet,” answered Olympos, not knowing how much to believe. Certainly Antonius had shown great favour for the boy last night. But a freedman was almost as ineligible for Daphne’s hand as a slave. Olympos decided to concentrate on the present issue, to sap the determination which had spoken so strongly in her voice. “You can’t associate with a slave, whoever he is. It would break your father’s heart, and ruin your life.”

“It hasn’t broken your heart,” she said stubbornly, “and you love me more than father does.”

He hadn’t the power to deny what she had said; he merely repeated, “It would break your father’s heart, and you know it would.”

“He’ll never find out,” she retorted viciously, “unless you tell him.”

“I shan’t tell him if you’ll promise not to see this boy again.”

“I won’t promise anything. You can’t be so cruel. I love him. I can’t leave him now.”

Olympos was stricken with a fear. “You haven’t gone too far...made yourself common...with him?”

“No, no. How could you think such a thing? He hasn’t even kissed me. Except on the cheek and forehead.”

She spoke so vehemently that he believed her; he wanted to believe her; he couldn’t believe anything wrong about so dear a girl.

She waited a while, then spoke coaxingly. “You’re not going to say anything to father, are you?” He made no answer, not because he meant to give her away, but because the situation was baffling; and she sprang up. “Listen! If you say a word, I’ll kill myself, I will!” Her eyes blazed and her voice trembled throatily with passion.

He was frightened, sorry that he’d taken upon himself to intrude on this world of young love so foolish, so filled with a defiant pathetic power, so very sweet. Better to have closed his eyes. Now that he’d dragged it all out into the open, it was his duty to betray the lovers, to stop things. But he couldn’t. He would ruin their lives if he did, even though they themselves were already going the way to ruin. That way was their own choice, and they’d be able to bear its miseries better than his interference. It would be best to take the chance and to keep Daphne’s confidence; perhaps he would then be able to help her when the collapse came, as come it must.

“ I won’t say anything...if you’ll promise to be truthful with me, and to come to me if you’re in trouble of any kind.”

She threw her arms round his neck. “You dearest old thing. I knew you loved me. Of course I’ll tell you everything.” She kissed him on his clean-shaven cheeks which had the apple-rosiness of an unshrivelled old age.

“And you won’t let him kiss you...anything at all?”

“No, no, no.”

Olympos recalled that the boy had said that he only wanted to be beside his dear one, and, since he didn’t know who Olympos was, he had had no reason for lying. Olympos tried to think back into his own youth. The girl he’d met near the Bourina Spring in Cos, in his student-days, her mouth stained with mulberries and her eyes violet. Babies in the eyes. Kore, he’d called her, girl-doll, the same word as was used for the spring-maiden who rose from the blossoming earth. Kore, girl-doll, baby in the eyes. What had happened to her? She had married somebody, a stupid girl—with the cool shadows of the spring in her eyes, how could she have been stupid? It was hard to remember. The physician had better be chaste, moving among polluted humanity. He loathed sores and filth; the contact with such things had made him contract into himself; chastity had come like a cold shower of disgust, a remote tenderness; and his heart had remained unthawed till Daphne began growing up, a motherless girl, his niece. Nothing must stain her.

He didn’t know if he’d really acted for the best. But what did such a qualm matter when he’d done the only thing he could do.

“When Victor’s free and we have the estate that he’s been promised, we’ll have a special room for you,” Daphne was prattling on. “I’m so glad you like him. I knew you would.” She spoke lightly, her heart chilled with fear.

*

She went next morning to the place where she was to have met him, but no one came. Victor was not yet let out, and he had fallen into a fatalistic mood in which he preferred to let the worst happen than to confide in Borios. He had no great hopes that Daphne would be lingering beyond the wall; but even if she was there, the last thing he wanted was to send Borios to her while he himself was laid up within. Moreover, in his pessimism, he wasn’t unpleased that she as well as himself should be suffering. What would come, would come.

Olympos visited him, but made no personal inquiries, even shut him up when approaching tentatively the subject of love once more. He told himself that he didn’t want to play the spy on Daphne, to distrust and test her story; but his heart failed him at the thought of perhaps catching her out. He was rather grumpy, and soon went.

Victor was hurt, and then forgot him; and next morning strolled out into the garden, without any belief that he’d find Daphne there, his mind busy with the letter that he’d have to write. But she was there; and as soon as he saw her on the seat, he knew that he’d been sure of finding her, that he would have been anguished if he hadn’t found her waiting. He felt that she had been waiting on the seat all the while, for two days and nights, and saw nothing strange in the agitated tender way she hastened to meet him, in the fact that she took his wound for granted and didn’t ask him why he was two days late. They clasped hands.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked, and then remembering that she wasn’t supposed to know, went on. “What happened to you? why is your head bandaged?”

But her flustered voice made him realise that she’d known all about his injury; it brought back to his mind all the words rehearsed in reply to her imagined reproaches.

“You didn’t seem surprised. You knew.”

“I heard some people talking about a page of Antonius being struck with a stone. So I guessed it must be you, as you hadn’t come to meet me.”

He looked at her with searching eyes. “You met Borios and he told you.”

“I didn’t. I haven’t seen him at all. Go and bring him here. What lies has he been telling? You must bring him here to face me. I’ll make him own up.”

“He hasn’t said anything,” replied Victor, convinced. “I only couldn’t see who else it was.”

“Only some people in the street...”

She seemed distrait, and that woke his suspicions again. He tried to recall the overwhelming flush of pleasure which he had felt at the first sight of her on the seat.

“I’m free for days.”

She looked away, shiftily. “Are you? Can’t we go somewhere and talk? Somewhere quiet.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “somewhere out past the Cemetery, or down by the Lake.”

“That’s too far. Can’t you think of somewhere else?”

She stared harbourwards. The Pharos could be seen towering above the summer-houses and the façade of the Theatre, dominating the scene as it did everywhere in Alexandria except on the Sarapeion or Paneion.

He caught her eye. “Let’s go up to the top of the Pharos. There’s sure to be privacy on the top balcony.” He spoke in depression and turned away without taking her arm.

She caught timidly at his sleeve. “Victor, darling. I haven’t said how happy I am. I thought you’d been killed...” Her voice broke.

At once he was ashamed. Of course she hadn’t made an emotional display this morning; she’d got over her shock and her elation long before; she was tired, like himself, and wanted to rest from the strain. He lifted his smiling face towards her softly troubled eyes in which lurked a ghost of pain that eluded him.

“Forgive me. I love you. I’m only ugly when I fear you don’t love me.”

“But I love you always. I’m only afraid of the same thing.”

They stared trancedly into one another’s eyes, pleased that each was so jealously aware of the other, yet wondering how those barriers of uncertainty could be swept away. How foolish, how unnecessary, the barriers were; such pain they caused, such pointless pain.

Then arm in arm the lovers set off for the lighthouse.

*

To reach the great mole they had to pass through the Exhairesis, the walled-off quay district. At the gate stood sentries ready to enforce the demands of the customs officials who, while counting and rating all the merchandise that entered or left, also kept an eye on the porters, lumpers, and sailors. A double discussion was going on. A merchant’s clerk was insisting that he’d been overcharged for a consignment of terra-cotta figures, and a negro slave was being searched. A gold coin, a parrot’s feather, an ivory toothpick, an unidentifiable bone, and a worthless piece of pottery had so far been discovered secreted about the negro and were ranged at his feet, but to all questions he smiled and blandly replied that he had no knowledge of the articles. How then had they come to be found on his person? He merely replied that that question was for the officials to answer. What else were they there for?

Victor tipped a clerk and was ushered through, although he had no business-pass; and he and Daphne made their way through the yelling, shoving streets. A dry stench of stale spices and hay tickled their nostrils, soured with sweat odours. A diarrhetic camel, with green slime thick on its hind quarters, was pushed against a waggon, narrowly missing Victor; and the waggoner shouted with rage, claiming damages for his dirtied cover. The lovers stared at the camel, an animal seldom seen in Egypt. Asses and trucks were everywhere—intent porters furiously steering their course through the crowd, browned sailors with earrings or flaring scarves, and countless clerks with inkhorn slung round shoulder and complete with pens and scroll. Though the main customs work was done at the gate, everything was checked and re-checked. For since practically the whole of Egypt was state property with agriculture and industry state directed, there was an enormous bureaucracy needed to keep the machinery of production and distribution in running order; and since it was considered an axiom that most government officials were untrustworthy, checks were multiplied and goods were counted on all possible occasions to obviate pilfering. Since the officials were nearly all rivals for promotion, they cordially detested one another and were far more likely to spend their time in seeking to expose their colleagues than in collaborating together against the government. Such was the theory at any rate; and the complex gradations of service, inspectors and sub-inspectors, went far to make the theory work out effectively.

Despite the crush, the terrific activity of everyone, the zeal of the officials, the noise, and the general lack of all apparatus for relaxation, there were in the dock area almost as many painted women as sailors; and among the warehouses were to be found the dingy warrens of the parasites, smoky beer-shops and laystalls of Aphrodite. Daphne stared the women down whenever she had a chance; and Victor, unaware of her occupation, hoped that she wasn’t noticing such florid blemishes on the dusty scenery. A stunning crash of timber from a warehouse on the left awoke the itch of pain in his wound, and he tried to hasten. But there were no means of hastening through such a crowd, particularly with a girl on one’s arm. Over the quay-roofs rose the mast-tops, twigs of a barren forest.

At last the outer gate was reached, and another tip secured a quick exit on to the Great Mole which led to the island of limestone where the Pharos was built. The lovers walked lightly, with a sense of space, ease, and melodious quiet after the crush of the quayside, along the solid causeway grounded on the bed of the sea. Halting, they leaned against a mooring-post and looked back at the crowded city buildings that seemed all flatly pressed on one another in a death-squeeze, ringing with the last squalls of crushed animal life. Then they looked at the ships along the quays, filled with all the commodities known to man, sacks of grain pouring down a deck-opening into the hold, bundles of papyrus, crates of glassware or sham jewelry, furniture gilded and stuck all over with carved tortoise-shell, packages of linen of all qualities from rough canvas to transparent film for courtesans, carpets and tapestries, luxury-goods of ivory, delicate surgical instruments, unguents in pots neatly labelled, rare products from the East made up more attractively—silks, spices and scents—everything that Alexandria, the greatest manufacturing town in the world, produced. On the left of the lovers lay the Great Harbour, on the right the more exposed Harbour of Happy Return; and through one of the two water-passages in the Mole a barge was paddling and poling from the Great Harbour into the other. The lovers watched the barge emerge from almost under their feet, and then walked on, the sea-breeze cooling their faces. They heard one of the sailors on the barge singing the harbour-song to Isis:

Hail O Star of the Sea,

Mother of god and wife,

Virgin-mother of god,

Saviour of human life.

“What’s that written on the lighthouse?” asked Daphne, pointing to the inscription, originally gilded, that ran across the top of the lower section.

Victor shaded his eyes. “Sosistratos, son of Dexiphanes of Cnidos—he was the architect,” he explained, and went on reading, “To the Saviour Gods on behalf of Sea- Farers.”

“You can’t read it from here.”

“Yes, I can.”

“But I can’t see a word.”

“My sight must be clearer.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. You made all that up.”

He began walking faster. “All right. See for yourself when we get nearer.”

He didn’t like to admit that he’d known what the lettering was, and wasn’t himself sure if he’d read it at the distance or merely stated what he knew was there; but she caught the nervous smile on his face and guessed the truth.

“You’d read it before.”

“That’s true,” he said with a laugh.

She interrupted. “You couldn’t see it at all.”

“I could half see it, but perhaps I couldn’t have read it if I hadn’t known the words.”

“You couldn’t see it at all,” she answered fiercely. “Don’t you dare to deny it.”

He moved his tongue round his lips. He didn’t want to quarrel, but he couldn’t agree with her unless she was right; it wasn’t that he objected to lying, he told as many lies as other people, but he couldn’t merely agree to keep her quiet. She would know at once. He tried to hedge.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“You know I am.”

The bar of resistance snapped inside him. “Of course you are. I couldn’t see it at all.” He laughed again, more gaily. “Don’t be angry.”

She looked very angry for a moment, then smiled too. “I don’t mind, since you’ve told the truth.”

They were nearing the island now, and forgot to look at the inscription and to verify Victor’s reading. At the end of the causeway was a fort, garrisoned with lounging soldiers, which caught their attention; and when the sentry asked Victor his business, Victor dropped a coin into his palm and winked. The lovers walked past the barrier and mounted the viaduct that led to the entrance of the Pharos, supported by rounded arches. The ground of the island was uneven, and it was necessary for the ass-trains to climb easily to the entrance. The viaduct sloped upward, till the last arch was tall enough to let an elephant through, if an elephant could be fancied loose on the sea-lashed rocks. Round the Pharos ran a wide platform built of great blocks of hewn calcareous stone clamped together with iron, the crevices filled with molten lead to seal the joints. The western end, where the sea broke most tempestuously in a winter-gale, was piled with the largest blocks; and, descending some stone steps, the lovers walked about the spacious enclosure and wandered to the edge, to look down into the water that bubbled with foam and swept along the rocks with slow shouldering strength. Then the water cleared, pellucid depths of green sunlight, and the lovers could see down to the sunken reef. They leaned warmly on one another, pressed against the lip of stone, and tried to make out the colours of the rock-growths and the swaying sea-anemones, the flittering fishes that so quickly merged with the other sandy shadows, the rippling masses of weed, the water-ghostly shape of jelly-fish.

Then they drew back, both suddenly surfeited of that silent world of the under-sea where death was a darting, twisting shadow, suckered tentacles of horror, or cold nibbling teeth. Yet the depths of slanted green light, the ceaseless dance of foam-patterns, held their minds, subdued their chatter, and made them clasp hands with a pressure that hurt and was yet not tight enough, as they went up the steps.

Standing at the door, they looked up. The Pharos seemed immensely high. The first section, square-built though tapering slightly pyramid-wise, was some 30o feet high; upon this base was reared an eight-sided tower, about half as high again; and above this tower stood the round-shaped lighting-chamber, which, with cupola and topping bronze statue of Poseidon, was as tall again as the tower. The walls were composed of blocks of nummulitic limestone, ornamented with marble and bronze; and the columns were of granite from southern Egypt.

The door-keeper, like all the other officials in charge of gates or doors, showed a great interest in Victor’s business till he was presented with some coins: after which he developed into an anecdotalist whom the lovers could silence only by leaving in mid-sentence. They were aided in this by the arrival of a train of mules loaded with firewood, resinous branches of fir, for the fire-chamber above; and they walked hastily on; for once the mule-train got ahead, they would have to wait indefinitely. The ascent was a stairless spiral slope that wound round the inside of the building, with rooms on either side; and the paving-blocks formed the ceiling of the part of the spiral underneath. In the rooms were clerks noisily computing the fuel-charges and the costs for repairs as well as checking all arrivals and departures of shipping in either harbour, for they had windows that commanded the whole of the sea-front. There were also armouries, for the Pharos could be converted into a fortress against a naval attack.

On went the lovers, and behind them came the mule-train plodding up the ascent: which had been made stairless for this very purpose.

The lovers reached the level space at the top of the first section, and peeped over the rampart decorated with wavelike scrolls and statued with large tritons blowing conches at each corner. But to escape the mules they hurried on again, up the narrower second section, and reached the parapeted height immediately below the fire-chamber with its eight tall pillars and great rearing statue of bronze. Here they were safe from the mules, who would climb straight up to the store-rooms under the fire-chamber. They looked over the parapet, dazed somewhat from the quick climb. Below them the water stirred and crawled flatly, and the city seemed to have shrunk; but the Sarapeion showed up more boldly. The manikins on the quay could be seen rushing about in an activity rendered insensately futile by the veils of distance.

“It was far longer than I thought,” said Daphne. “We could have got to the Lake in less time. And we’ll have to go back through those stuffy docks again.”

“It was you that suggested coming here,” said Victor, replying to the discontented blame in her voice. She hadn’t thought how much his head was throbbing.

“O how can you say such things.”

He tried to remember exactly. “Well, I saw you looking at it, and that made me suggest coming.”

“It isn’t the same thing at all...”

The height was much hotter than they’d expected. Even by day a fire was kept going, so that there would be a smoke-column visible miles away at sea. But from the shore the breezy height of stone against the blue had delusively promised a cool retreat.

“Don’t let’s quarrel.” Victor took Daphne’s hand. “I only want to be alone with you.”

At least they were alone, or so they thought. It was too hot in the front where the fire-opening faced the sea with the large convex metal mirrors that intensified the flame. The lovers had edged round to the back, where none of the stokers could see them; and now, looking round, they were disgusted to see that they weren’t even alone. An old man was leaning over the parapet at one of the corners, a wandering Cynic preacher he looked with his worn cloak, charity-scrip, and long thin beard.

Victor was enraged. He’d felt sure that after all the racking journey he’d be able to embrace Daphne, close under the sky. That had been the attraction of the tower. Daphne glanced at the man and then back at Victor.

“He doesn’t matter.”

Victor was enraged more than ever. The man mattered terribly; he was a curse and a blight and an abomination, and Daphne said that he didn’t matter! That was to say that love didn’t matter, and the secrets of the unuttered body. It was all her fault for having looked at the tower when she did; they could have been down by the cool Lake, amid lilies of coolness and little water-noises.

He looked at her irritably and saw that she was plucking at her sleeve, tearing at a thread, her head bent. Surely she wasn’t crying. He forgot his irritation and touched her hand softly.

“Dearest...”

She looked up, wide-eyed, wet-eyed, his darling; and he whispered to her, “We’re alone wherever we are, only the other people don’t know it....I’m thinking of you. Can you guess what I’m thinking?”

“Don’t,” she said, and grasped the sooted parapet, then recoiled and held up her hands helplessly. “O what shall I do?”

He had been hurt by her lack of response, but, magnanimously touched by her gesture, opened his tunic.

“Rub your hands in here. The dirt won’t show.” She rubbed her hands on his shift, and he thrust them in against his bare breast. “Feel my heart.”

She smiled, winced, frowned, smiled again, and withdrew her hands.

“What is it?’ he asked anxiously. “Tell me.”

For a moment he feared that she was going to say she loved someone else—Borios. Then that fear seemed mad, and he was merely perplexed. “What is it?”

“I can’t,” she answered, still hanging her head. “But I’ll have to. Victor...” She began weeping again. “Why doesn’t that old man go away?”

“He doesn’t matter. He isn’t looking at us. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Hold me,” she murmured. “Hold me so I can’t see anything.”

He put his arm round her and pressed her face against his breast.

“Victor,” she went on in a voice that he could scarcely catch. “Victor...I’m...I’m going to have a baby.”

He was so astonished that he relaxed his hold and tried to look at her face, but she struggled and pressed her face against him.

“Surely not,” he said pleadingly. “After only two times.” That was all he could think of at the moment. It was unfair. Only twice. It seemed a mockery of the scores of times they’d been thwarted of embracing one another. Borios had been meeting one of the scullery-girls on and off for three years, and nothing had happened. “Only two times.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” she replied angrily. “O how beastly you are. I’ll throw myself over.”

He grasped her again tightly, and tried to think. Like Daphne he knew that it was really three times they’d embraced, but didn’t like to include the first time, the day of their meeting. Even Daphne, who wanted to rebut as much as possible his unfeeling emphasis on the arithmetic of the problem, didn’t like to mention it. Instead she recommenced to weep, dimly comforted by his strong clasp.

“I’d be so glad,” he muttered, trying to get at grips with the situation, “if only we were married.”

“But we are married,” sobbed Daphne. “Don’t say you’ve lost your ring.”

“Of course I haven’t,” he answered in annoyance. “I meant: married before the world.”

“You didn’t. You meant what you said. You meant that you don’t really look on our love as marriage, you don’t really love me. Now you’re giving yourself away.”

“I love you more than ever.”

He produced the ring from under his shift where it hung on a cord round his neck, and felt hers through her blouse, a knot between her breasts. He blurted out phrase after phrase of compassionate affection, until both of them felt soothed. But all the time he was aware that he didn’t, couldn’t, truly grasp the fact that she was with child. It wasn’t that he loved her any the less. He simply couldn’t conceive the meaning of her words. She looked precisely the same Daphne as of old. He wanted to let things go on as they were going, and it seemed that she expected her words to make things tremendously different. But what could he do? A slave...

At last she spoke in a muffled voice.

“You said that he’d free you...”

“So he will. Later on.”

“You must ask him now. At once.”

“And spoil everything!”

He objected intensely to her suggestion. Of course he’d ask Antonius; but he couldn’t be hurried about it; he must wait and find the right moment. But she couldn’t understand that. She wanted to push him.

She felt his body growing rigid, and said nothing more, desolated at the selfishness of his heart. Couldn’t he understand what had happened? There was no time to wait. Everything must be settled, here and now, or awful things would come upon them.

She temporised. “As soon as you can.”

“Of course. What do you think of me?” he answered fervently. Now that she had surrendered and slackened her insistence, he grew easier; he would ask Antonius soon—perhaps next week; but he must have time to nerve himself first.

The wandering preacher, whom the lovers had wholly forgotten, had risen from his crouching posture, and now approached. He stared at the shrinking pair from under his bushy brows.

“There is no love,” he said austerely. “There is only lust. When will you attain the directness of animals and the purity of human beings undeceived by words? Love is no more than a distortion of the mind, the evil of hungry words, words that merge into one another, distorting meanings, eating away the whole face of life with their mange. In sheer lust there is meaning. But love is entirely evil, the child and the begetter of suffering! spawn of the prying, dissatisfied mind! Be humble and learn wisdom!”

“Go away!” cried Daphne shrilly.

“I am going,” the preacher said, and went.

Victor looked after him pugnaciously. “I would have hit him, but he was too old. And mad, I think.”

Now the lovers had the whole top-platform to themselves. The stokers in the circular tower were hidden. But Victor didn’t feel as he had felt. Perhaps it was the mad speech of the preacher; perhaps it was the revelation made by Daphne. He seemed outside his body, without desire; but as he stood there gripped by his revulsion, he felt a vast pity and tenderness moving within him, voiceless, coming from depth beyond depth unknown; and he took Daphne in his arms. She yielded with a happy sigh, glad that she had unburdened herself, so very glad that she was able to forget, at least for a moment, the insufficiencies of his response.

Locked closely but gently, they stood looking over the parapet, at the world of waters below and the swarming city beyond, at the lumbering merchant-ship with stern towers that swung past the Pharos. But they saw nothing, content to stand there motionlessly clasped. Slowly, peacefully, proudly there emerged into Victor’s brain the consciousness that Daphne was with child, that the child was his, that they were truly wedded, that their blood had kindled and united in the Mysterion of love.

They said nothing, but Daphne was aware of the change in him. She sighed with increasing happiness and rested her head more easily on his shoulder. She was sure at last that he really loved her, because he hadn’t tried to take her after they were left alone.

Both were happy. They wanted to stand there, motionless, merely absorbing one another’s breathing presence, for ever.

8 COMING OF AGE

Though Victor was spending most of his time away from the Palace, he heard the gossiping among the pages and other body-slaves. Bad news kept coming from Greece and Asia, though Cleopatra did her best to stop it from spreading. Octavianus had been greeted with triumphal acclamations everywhere, honours were showering upon him, all the cities and princes of Asia were competing to gain his pardon and favour. Cleopatra had sent agents, but they reported failure. Antonius, once the man to whom all the states looked, was discredited.

She withheld from him as much of the news as possible, but he knew what was going on. Though afraid of relapsing yet again into heavy drinking, he had become morose again, but with a tincture of gay devilry rather forced and uneasy. Victor could see that he was hiding from the facts behind a weak hope that everything would turn out all right after all. Once he said: “Well, at the worst I’ll have to retire and become a private citizen, like Lepidus. I hope they give me a good pension as I haven’t any fortune left to be confiscated.”

He had got together his old boon-companions, the Inimitables; but now he had named them “Fellows-in- Death.” The dinner-parties began anew, but without the old zest. There were thirty-five Fellows, and Borios said he’d heard one of them say, in laughing at the motto: United we stand, divided we fall. “As one we drink, in twos we make love, and in thirty-five different directions we run at the sight of the foe.” The richer Greek families, those who still affected the broad Macedonian accent, visited the Palace; for though they objected strongly to the tactics of Cleopatra, they preferred her rule to the rule of Rome.

Victor felt quite recovered, though he still had to wear a bandage; but he called on Olympos in his palace-study and asked to be further excused from work, smiling with a feeble conspiratorial air and shifting on his feet.

“Very well,” said Olympos. “Take another fortnight.” He turned away; then, compelled, looked into Victor’s eyes solemnly. “Never forget to love, my boy. Life comes so easily between us and the thing we love; and it’s only afterwards we learn what we’ve done.”

He spoke from his heart and then wondered. How was he so sure? He had never loved and lost, loved and betrayed. Yet his heart felt bursting with unshed tears for irreparable loss. He was getting old; it must be the nearing of death. The lad seemed a nice lad.

“I’ll never forget,” said Victor passionately. “Never.” He wanted to go on talking, but Olympos closed his eyes and waved him out.

*

At the end of the corridor Victor found a hubbubing group, and at last learned what had happened. Iotapa had tried to stab Cleopatra, but had only succeeded in scratching her down one side of her face. Her young husband she had stabbed in the arm. One of the eunuchs in rebuking her for tantrums had unwarily mentioned that her father had been put to death a few months earlier at Cleopatra’s orders. Iotapa had thought he was still in prison, as Cleopatra had bidden the truth to be kept from her. The Armenian king has been too unwelcome a guest after Actium; besides he had insulted Cleopatra by refusing to bow to her at the Triumph which Antonius had held three years before at Alexandria in defiance of all Roman precedent. The king, a cultured man who had spent his time in jail in writing a tragedy and in teaching birds to sing tunes of his own composition, had asked the assassins for an hour’s grace while he worked at the tragedy’s concluding lines; but his request had not been granted. He had been strangled while his birds chattered angrily and his tragedy lay unfinished.

When Iotapa heard, she lay on the floor, then waited till Cleopatra was receiving the princes.

Victor tiptoed to the door and peeped through the line of guards.

Cleopatra was holding a fine-linen kerchief to her cheek, and young Alexandros was having his arm bound up. Olympos came pushing through the guards without recognising Victor; entered, and took charge of the bandaging, and sent for some ointment for Cleopatra’s face. Cleopatra was tense with fury. She turned with slitted eyes to the unrepentant Iotapa who was held by a eunuch and a male nurse. Victor waited to hear a death-sentence or something worse, all his sympathy for Iotapa because she was young and brave.

Cleopatra opened her mouth, but said nothing. She seemed to become weary, perhaps remembering her sister Berenice who had been put to death for usurping her father’s throne, her two brother-husbands who had died young, and her sister Arsinoe who had been strangled at Ephesos at the orders of Antonius (who acted at the orders of Cleopatra...who acted at the orders of whom? The daimon of family-hate, the will to power, which creates the hell of the lonely insatiable heart, desiring to give in generosity a gift greater than life...) Had it really been necessary to kill the Armenian king with his poems and his birds, so that he might not survive her that had imprisoned him? What had this young fool Iotapa to do with the stars in their courses and Isis lonely suckling the world? Stand out of my way.

“You have disfigured me,” said Cleopatra quietly, “at least for a short while. So I shall treat you likewise.” She looked at the eunuch. “Take her away and shave all her hair off.”

Iotapa tossed her head. “That is as I should wish. I shall lay my hair on the tomb of my father.” She glanced round. “Will you love me,” she asked Alexandros, “when I’m bald?”

“I hate you anyhow,” howled Alexandros, blubbering. “Will you love me?” she turned to Antyllus.

He shuffled and mumbled. Iotapa pulled away from her guards, ran at him, and smacked his face.

“Take her away,” said Cleopatra, unmoved; and Iotapa was led out. Cleopatra went on, carelessly, “I almost like her now.” She changed the cloth round, against her burning bloodstained cheek.

“So do I,” shouted Alexandros, not to be outdone, pleased because his wife had smacked Antyllus and because Cleopatra had praised her publicly. “She didn’t hurt me much. After all, she’s married to me.”

Caesarion approached Cleopatra with the ointment which had arrived. “Mother, let me.”

She inclined her head, smiling, and he began to rub gently on her cheek.

“Spit’s the best thing for a wound,” whispered the soldier who stood at the door next to Victor. “But I don’t suppose she’d take it kindly if I went and spat on her.”

*

It was early April, and Cleopatra had issued a proclamation that her son Caesarion, son of Ra, would finally receive adult status on his birthday in a fortnight’s time. The tidings were highly popular, despite the political uncertainty and the fact that Caesarion was on the whole disliked by the Alexandrians, who had not forgotten how his father had invaded and disturbed their city. But a show was a show. This coming-of-age was a Greek rather than an Egyptian ceremony, and Antonius complicated the matter by declaring that he would invest Antyllus with the toga of manhood on the same day. So a Roman variation was added.

“She means it to create confidence,” said Olympos, meeting Nicias in one of the colonnades of the Museion. “To have a real son of Caesar to set up against Octavianus, the mere adopted son.”

Nicias had just left the basilica where he had taken a class in Homeric grammar, and felt shaken, as he always did after teaching. For him the grammar was only a kind of veil over the precious reality, the heroic world; and the students were so fatuously superficial, his only defence was a pedantic obscurantism.

“Confidence!” he echoed with a dim sneer, and then forgot Cleopatra. “There are some more medical tracts turned up among the Pergamene books. They might interest you. I can never make up my mind whether I like Pergamene sculpture or not. Though I don’t suppose that has anything to do with medicine.”

“Perhaps it has,” answered Olympos. “Anatomy links sculpture and the healing art. But I don’t think I like those bellowing stone giants, those flamboyant gods. They’re over-life-size.”

“All art should be over-life-size.” Nicias decided at last that he liked the Pergamene school, even though their style lacked the simplicity of his tragic poets.

It was down a cloister lined with the statues of dead poets that the two men were walking—dead poets and gilt Muses, with a fountain at the end, a replica of Hippocrene, with a winged horse modelled springing overhead. It might be a replica as it was claimed, but its waters certainly did not make poets of those who drank them. The pupils of Nicias often quenched their thirst there, with no appreciable results. The great hall of the Library opened before the two professors, a tall dome of space and light. Slaves were busy cleaning and dusting, keeping the cases free from worms with cypress-oil.

Olympos didn’t like the Library. It reminded him of a tomb: men’s efforts neatly sorted, dead men who spoke. All men sought to speak to the future instead of living in the sweetness and the structure of the hour. That was what was wrong with life. Time was jangled—past and future writhing across the present, cutting it into a myriad planes of light and darkness, dead men crying, living men who were not yet alive, all striving into dimensions other than the present. It seemed almost that time went backward while space went forward...

He found his emotion outdistancing his thought, lacking symbols to express itself, wasting itself in the very immensity of his detestation. Only the melancholy of the jagged sense of frustration remained. Was it the fear of death?

Nicias clasped his bony hands and crackled the knuckles.

“I swear that I’d feel warm here on the coldest day. Here are friends who never deceive, a world that isn’t weighted with regrets and doubts. No men chaffering in the streets. How ugly the world is.”

Every fraction of the world is beauty, thought Olympos; even the ulcers that I have to probe, the woman in childbirth, the raping soldier; hunger and death; doubt and regret. Everything is beautiful—except perhaps this room of death. But even that must be beautiful too.

“I’d like to see those books,” he said.

A slave swarmed up a ladder and brought down the rolls. Olympos knew them at once, out-of-date works on the surgical cure of an ozcena, and on indurated tonsils; but he didn’t like to depress Nicias.

“They look interesting,” he remarked, and told a slave to carry them to his study.

In a recess, on cushioned seats, lighted by windows of mica, a group of the state-paid professors were gathered, discussing the latest poem by Parthenios. Rhodon, the tutor of Caesarion, was insisting that the epyllion or little-epic was overdone; he preferred the subjective touch, an epistle-form or a soliloquy. Theodoros his rival, the tutor of Antyllus, was clearly bursting with concealed pride, and engineered the conversation till he was able to mention that he’d had a letter from Parthenios himself, who was at Rome.

“He declares that the Romans have taken up writing verses most strenuously.”

There was an outbreak of laughter from the group. Romans as poets, it was richly funny.

One of the professors, reputed a wag (though a mathematician and author of a work on Unclassified Incommensur-ables) , asked with a bright air: “These Romans, have they an alphabet? I thought their learning stopped at the abacus.” And there was another outbreak of laughter, for the abacus was the calculating-machine.

Olympos and Nicias had drawn near, and Nicias was glumly silent again, for it was only with Olympos that he had any ease at all in expressing his attitudes.

Theodoros, determined to make the most of his letter, went on as soon as the laughter had subsided, “ He says that they’ve a poet Catullus, who is, however, as coarse as might be expected, except in his translations which are surprisingly passable. But there’s a coming man, Gallus, who ought to do better things.”

The wag again commented. “I bet Gallus has a government position.”

Theodorus admitted that Gallus at the moment commanded in Africa and was in fact a patron well worth flattering. Again the group applauded with laughter; and the wag returned to his discussion with a colleague who was writing a book on the Helicoidal Line. Olympos nodded to acquaintances, and went away. Nicias stayed, not to talk, but to sit among fellow-Greeks who at least hated many of the same things as himself. He despised all the modern poets, Greeks as much as Romans.

Olympos passed out through the long cedar-panelled hall where meals were served. The professors dined at two long tables of polished wood. Trestle-tables were set up for the resident students at the other end. Everyone sat up to eat, ignoring the general custom for men to eat reclining.

Olympos went through the further door, and out along a shady myrtle-avenue, to regain the street. He wanted to look at men and women and children, all warm and alive, ignorant of the poisons that contrived queer clottings of disease in their veins. It seemed to him, for a flash of vision, that disease obeyed absolute laws like those sought mathematically by the star-gazers—laws dictated by the relationships of the moment of birth. The individual was stabbed and torn by invisible fates; on the loins or the heart or the eyes the leper-hand of fate was laid, and there, at the appointed moment, collected the venoms of pain, coagulating, growths of deliberate fear. I am afraid of my loins, my heart, my eyes. Then the disease struck.

Nevertheless the vision was a lie. It was true, and not altogether true. Olympos came out into the street and looked at the people passing. He felt that he loved them all, however worthless they might be, and love could break the laws of fear and pain, the invisible net of memory.

But he was an old man. Why were these thoughts forced on his old age, because he loved his niece and she was playing the fool? At least I shan’t interfere and say that I only acted for the best, said Olympos to himself; I shall do nothing.

As soon as he was completely sure of his decision, he was also equally sure that Daphne hadn’t confessed everything, that she was more involved with her lover than she’d admitted.

*

The lovers had made many excursion, taking a cheap cab along the Canopic Way or down one of the cross-roads that led to the Lake. They went out to the beaches of Eleusis and bathed, and lay in the sun. They visited the canal that led towards Canopos, and drank on pleasure-barges. They saw a horse-race and the performance of a comedy at the Theatre, sitting on seats that gave them a view of the blue harbour over the roof of the stage. They went westwards, outside the city, where Cleopatra had laid out a garden and where many villas nestled amid olive-plantations and vineyards. They strayed through hollows below the ridges of soft limestone, among brown-purple bushes; and then went further inland still, over the undulating hills, gathering wild flowers, kneeling amid drifts of marigold or blue-budded borage, frail-textured gladioli or white-bunched garlic fighting against nettles and knot-grass, arum-lilies with dark sheens and stock that locked up its fragrance for the night-hours when perhaps other lovers like ghosts of their day-presence, but not themselves, would be there. They loved all the flowers, even the thick coarse asphodel which was the plant of the blessed fields of the dead, not because it was phantasmal like some of the thin-petalled blue flowers, but because it was tough and enduring; it would remain when the feet of the wind had trampled out more delicate companions.

The lovers lay in the hollows, with no one to see them. For who minded an occasional goat-herd? They were abandoned to one another, amid the flowers, the beautiful genitals of shameless earth; and Daphne eagerly desired the embraces, because they made her forget the burden she bore, and Victor welcomed them because they made him gradually realise that he had begotten on Daphne another life, a life that linked them for evermore. The breeze came fresh with the clean and holy odours of the sea, touched with a strain of mignonette from someone’s garden on the other side of the slope; and the lovers lay on the earth, remembering with distaste the city that had paved and tiled and scraped away the earth from under the feet of its inhabitants. Out of earth and sun came the magnetic forces of growth, tingling in the exposed bodies of the lovers, making their embraces more than a mere contact of over-driven human organisms. The earth shelved under them, and the sunlight roofed them, as close as breathing. The earth was theirs, the living earth that broke into veiling flower and leaf beneath the nuptial sun, and offered her breasts to the hunted animals, among which were men and women, if they could pause to take. Sap of coursing sunlight, nipples of the flowers, juices of the fruits of the earth. Such richness for the nurtured blood. But the hunted animals had no time to pause, crying for blood to drink, killing, disguising dead flesh with the savoury magic of fire, caught in the murderous money-nets of craft, lusting for the burnt sacrifice, for the flesh of the saviour-god.

The lovers lay in the bosom of the earth, no longer hunting or hunted, at peace in desire.

But the world was there still, though they forgot it in the cradling hand of nature. They had to return to the world, and there to meet all that threatened them, all that tore away the warm tissues of peace and ravaged them with anxieties, making them again hunter and hunted. The world refused to be denied.

One day they went to visit the Thalamegos, the huge ship built by Ptolemaios IV with forty banks of oars as a mere gesture of gigantesquerie since it had only once gone on a trip as proof that it could move and had thenceforth been docked as a pleasure-barge. Cleopatra had given it yet another refitting, and in years past had held parties there, with no pretence that the banks of oars, the longest sixty feet, were meant to dig the waters or that the purple-fringed sail was hoisted on the hundred-foot mast for voyaging. Victor gained admittance with a tip, owing to his palace-dress; and he and Daphne passed through the entrance-colonnade into a covered ante-room, then through another colonnade to an open court fenced with pillars and set with four folding-doors. From the court they went into a large banqueting saloon, built of cedar and cypress with columns of cypress adorned with Corinthian capitals and gold and ivory fittings. The carved cypress-roof was overlaid with gilt, which was again peeling, and the twenty doors were made of citrus-wood with brass nails and fastenings. Twenty couches were laid out, each to hold three guests. Beyond was another room with nine couches, and numerous cabins for sleeping. On the deck above, reached by a broad carved stairway, were more dining-rooms and bedrooms, a drinking-room with paintings of Dionusos, a grotto built of stones and gold, and a dining-room in the Egyptian style. There was also a Chapel of Aphrodite, with a smiling statue; and there Victor took Daphne in his arms.

But the great ship was damp and chilly with decay, despite all repairs and re-paintings; eerily wind-whispering with the echoes of the voices of the voluptuaries who had drunk or kissed there during vanished hours of summer-moonlight. Cruel voices, sad only because they were impotent, ready to whirl into the vicious screams of winter when the wind hurls itself solidly as a beast against the doors and shutters that hide men and women from the Year gone mad.

The lovers were dispirited, and longed for the hollows in the hills. They wanted no more sight-seeing; they were afraid—too afraid to go back to the hills. The world was drawing them in.

*

There was one matter of sight-seeing that they could scarcely avoid: the Coming-of-Age ceremony. If Victor had been well, he would have ridden behind Antonius, but he was still excused, and with Daphne he went early to find a seat on the Paneion, the artificially constructed hill covered with ledges of flowers and shrubs, and surmounted with Pan’s shrine. From that vantage they could see straight down on that part of the Canopic Way along which the procession was to pass. But the nearness of the crowd, the excitement in the air, gave them a sense of attack; and they were sorry that they had come. Daphne’s face was flushed, her eyes overbright; and soon her manner became rude. When Victor said that he loved her, she asked him how many other girls had heard him say the same thing. He swore that she was the first, blustered, and then admitted that he’d kissed a girl at Antioch.

“And what about the Palace-girls? You said Charmion was witty and wild.”

“But I don’t really know anything against her.”

“Of course not. You wouldn’t count it against her if she let you kiss her.”

“Well, I haven’t kissed her. She’s never looked at me.”

“So you confess that you would kiss her if she’d let you.”

“I didn’t say any such thing. You seem to think that any girl has only to be looked at to come running after a man. Is that your opinion of yourself?”

“How dare you say such a thing—you of all people! You mean that you think I ran after you.”

“I don’t. You take up everything wrongly.”

“Who was the girl at Antioch?”

“An Arab girl...just before my master was killed.”

“Did you love her more than me?”

“I didn’t love her at all.”

“Yet you’d take her. You confess you’d take any girl. If you’d take one without loving her, you’d take any. You’re saying that you took me only because I threw myself at you.”

“You know I love you.”

He was desperately afraid, not about the Arab girl, but about other things: some of the poems that he used to read his master at Antioch, and the dances, and then his friendship with Eros. And beyond all those matters, there was a deeper fear...Daphne would never understand how he’d thought he scorned girls—except for the one attempt with the little Arab girl, and that hadn’t been quite his choosing and hadn’t been very successful.

“Tell me the truth. No, I won’t let you kiss me. You did more than kiss the Arab girl, I know.”

“I only kissed her...and...that’s all.”

“Go on. Tell me.”

He gulped. His stomach was threatening to turn over, to rise into his throat, and choke him. “Well, I did more. Only once.”

“Of course it was more than once.”

“No, it wasn’t. Because it was just after my master was killed. It would have been more than once if it wasn’t for that.”

She paused, satisfied for the moment with his admissions. He gained courage. “But what does it all matter now?”

“It doesn’t matter at all. I only want you to tell the truth. But I can’t bear you going back to that Charmion.”

“You’re quite wrong about her,” he began angrily.

Daphne interrupted. “See how annoyed you get when I bring her up. I knew you wanted her—even if she has turned you down. I’ll find out yet.”

“There’s nothing to find out,” he said wretchedly. “Please, Daphne, don’t let’s go on like this.”

“Then stop it.”

They had started talking in low fierce whispers; but their tones had grown unconsciously louder, and the people around were staring and nudging. The Paneion was packed, and the gardeners would spend the morrow lamenting over ruined beds and rare shrubs trodden to the ground. The streets below were filled with the crowd, who were kept in place by a line of soldiers. Around the Gymnasion, where the ceremony was to occur, the surge was thickest and it was impossible to keep order for more than a few moments at a time. The shady platform of the pillared Dikasterion, the Court of Justice, was one mass of sight-seers, from which there was no hope of withdrawing those who fainted. Victor and Daphne would have liked to have left their hot position on the Pan-slope but had no choice except to wait till the crowd began to break up. Opposite them the harbour twinkled with foam, in mockery of all sweating mortals.

At last the procession emerged from the Palace-grounds passed down the street beside the Theatre, and passed through the Brucheion district, then into the Canopic Way, turning to the right. The guards on their white horses, glittering; a maniple of swinging legionaries with curved oblong shields; Cleopatra in a gilded state-carriage with Caesarion; then Antonius in a chariot driven by Eros, with Antyllus at his side; then carriages with the other royal children (but not Iotapa, who, bald, was shut in her room, threatening everyone and swearing to kill herself to make the day ill-omened); then the chief officials, the Exegetes, the head priests; more soldiers. The Alexandrians cheered and threw flowers, and felt that their freedom was assured for ever—though they had no particular freedom under the Ptolemaic Queen. Antonius also they cheered, because he looked tall and noble despite his years; forgetting for the moment that they blamed him for making Alexandria a battle-ground of Roman interests.

The Queen was unable to smile on her cheering subjects; her face was too stiffly enamelled with cosmetics to hide the unhealed scratch made by Iotapa. But she bowed graciously, dressed as Isis. Only on a state-occasion did she assume even this slight Egyptian effect. She wore a tight silk dress flowing luxuriously over the hips and looped up in the front, her breasts thrust firmly above the cloth by a skilfully-cut breast-band. On her head she wore the urxus, the serpent-crown of Isis, with silken flaps hanging down over her ears.

Caesarion, pale but controlling his tendency to tremble, sat at her side, gripping his hands together on his lap. Only the sense of his mother, so near, so queenly, kept him upright. His whole life was his pride in her; and as the carriage swung onwards, his shoulder touched hers at moments, and he knew that there could be no greater joy in life than to feel her soft shoulder momentarily touching his, as they drove through the screaming world. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, but was sure that she knew, and yet still wanted to tell her. Suddenly her near hand moved across and closed over his hands, soft and possessive and strong for all the smallness of its bones. Without looking at one another, mother and son were happy.

The crowd cheered, and waved caps or the edges of gowns. At the Gymnasion the Gymnasiarch, the most influential civic official, repeated to himself the address of welcome, and looked back to make sure yet again that the epheboi, the better-class young men admitted to the privileges of the Gymnasion, were keeping their carefully-drawn - up ranks. Games were to be held afterwards. Meanwhile the unprivileged crowd was noisily pushing into the porticoes and walks. The Gymnasiarch frowned at the attendants, and the police and soldiers began to press the crowd back.

At last. The procession was nearing. The Gymnasiarch cleared his throat; he wished to spit, but, not liking to do so before such an audience, he swallowed the phlegm and repeated to himself the opening of the address of welcome.

*

The lovers got away from the crush as soon as the procession had passed and those Alexandrians who couldn’t get into the Gymnasion had scattered for the beach, the lakeside, or the Zoo. But the brightness had clouded away from the sunlit day, and both the lovers feared to trespass again on unkindliness. Solitude, which had been their safety, was now hedged by fears. They bought some cakes from a huckster and lay in the park at the foot of the Paneion. People were passing near them, talking loudly; but there was a small grassy plot under the rhododendron-bush all their own.

As they lay in silence, they saw two sparrows come fluttering down out of the bush, fighting wildly. The sparrows were so absorbed by their conflict that they had lost all fear of humans; they swooped and beat their wings about the lovers, their tiny beaks tearing at one another; then they fell to the ground at Daphne’s feet, both overcome with weariness, enlocked but harmless. Daphne put out her hand to take and separate them, but drew it back, afraid of rousing them to fresh warfare. A breath of wind frilled the down on their small breasts. So small were their thin feet pushed out against the adversary.

“I don’t like them,” she said faintly, in a sinking voice.

Her words roused the birds, or their strength had returned. Frantically pecking once more, they flew up and disappeared over the bush-top. A woman passing, convulsed at some jest of her escort, uttered a jeer of vulgar laughter, which sounded like a cymbal-clash farewelling the birds with its taunt, though the lovers knew there was no connection.

“Why do you think they were fighting?” Daphne asked dubiously after a while.

“I don’t know,” said Victor sadly. “Perhaps they’d thought they loved one another.”

“More likely one was a husband who found the other in his nest,” said Daphne wisely, laughing somewhat constrainedly; then began to cry softly. “I can’t bear to hurt you.”

“I know you can’t, because I can’t bear to hurt you either. I can’t sleep if I’ve said anything harsh...”

“Neither can I.”

They were surprised to learn once more that they were both the same. It always surprised them, though they felt at the same time that it was impossible for things to be otherwise. They kissed, and were silent, kissing; and nothing more came between them. Only words robbed them of peace, and they had no more words to speak today.

*

Cleopatra was weary when she reached the Palace again. She kissed Caesarion on the brow and sent him to his apartments, told Antonius that she would see him at dinner, and ordered Olympos to be fetched.

“You have given me sleeping-potions,” she said in a meditative weariness, her hands clasped between her knees, her ceremonial breasts still bared with rouged nipples. “I want something stronger...Not to be taken yet. Perhaps never to be taken. But I must have it nearby.”

“There are many poisons,” answered Olympos, insisting on the plain word, for he no longer felt sympathy with her and the wish to palliate her sufferings; all his thoughts were with Daphne and he demanded straightforward dealing. He glanced at her supple form; she looked a young girl in the dim light, despite the fatigued lines of her body, her drooping hands. “Some poisons are painful.”

“It must be quick and without pain.” She looked up, dark patches showing under her eyes where the cosmetics had begun to wear. “Neither must it discolour or puff up the dead body, nor make it rot before it can be embalmed.” She twined her fingers together, speaking clearly.

“I will look into the matter.”

“You know all about it already.” Her voice became once more weary. “Don’t play with me.”

“The combination you ask is not easy. Quick poisons are mostly painful. The best that I know is the venom of the cobra. It is used upon the condemned in your prisons.”

“I will go and see its effects. If it is suitable, you must make me up a potion from the venom. And say nothing of this to anyone.”

She rose with a low laugh, as if relieved after a decision, took up the serpent-crown from the table on which it lay, and placed it on the head of Olympos.

“Is it very heavy?”

“Too heavy for an old man who wears no headgear.”

“It has crushed me.” She took the crown again from his head and studied the cobra modelled upon it. “Ra visits his wives in the form of a snake. Ra has wedded me, all Egypt knows. I am the wife of the snake, Olympos.” She smiled at him. “You are a good old man; and the only person beside myself who has worn my crown. Can you guess why?”

“Certainly, my lady,” he answered in a subdued voice. “Because I have the least wish in all Egypt, in all the world, to wear it. Your crown or anyone else’s.”

“Do you know, Olympos,” she said, reluctant to let him go, wishing to justify herself before the voiceless accuser, “I have been true to my two men. First to Caesar and then to Antonius. Entirely true. Yet neither has been true to me. Is not that humiliating?”

“Virtue cannot humiliate its possessor,” he answered humbly, wondering if the moral tag had any meaning.

“I had lovers before that,” Cleopatra went on, only half to Olympos. “Many of them. Once a dozen in a night. Therefore am I all the more proud of my faithfulness throughout these years. For when a girl gets a taste for such things, it is seldom that the woman can lie lonely in bed. And I have known many lonely nights.”

“You have always been as lonely,” said Olympos with quickening realisation, looking at her sharply and seeing her in the truth of her nature.

Cleopatra made no reply, wondering why she had told the lie about the dozen men; and Olympos felt his glowing certainty of penetration fade. Was that certainty the inner meaning of love, the meeting of infinitely distant tendrils of self which were stimulated by the mating of bodies? However that might be, it was very hard to preserve a moment of illumination, to see clearly into another, right into the heart of identity.

“I’m tired,” said Cleopatra in the voice of a complaining child, and Olympos bowed and left her. She clapped her hands, and the maids crowded round the curtains, to wash and scent her, to change her semi-Egyptian garb for a Greek gown. As they were braiding her hair, Antonius entered impetuously, brushing aside the eunuch door-keeper.

“They’re advancing on Cyrene,” he said, waving a despatch. The day of public activity had returned him to confidence. “I’m going to take part of the fleet and sail for Paraitonion. We can hold Egypt if we keep them from making a base there. Once I gain Paraitonion, I’ll soon bring all Cyrene to heel. Then I’ll lead the army into Iudxa and Syria.”

“As you will,” answered Cleopatra, trying to react to his enthusiasm. Certainly Egypt could be defended if sufficient energy and leadership were shown, and one real reverse would shake Octavianus. But she felt tired, and Caesarion had looked so worn-out, and she had no faith in the returning spirits of Antonius. “Still, you must not enter my rooms so unceremoniously.” She turned back to the mirror held by a slim negress, and the murmuring girls surrounded her afresh.

Antonius gave a look of rage at her bared back, whistled, and went out, patting the eunuch on the cheek.

“Throw me out next time, old lad,” he said, squaring his broad shoulders and winking. Hercules, he’d beat the enemy and then give Cleopatra a public spanking.

9 FORLORN HOPE

No sooner had Victor unwillingly reported for duty than he heard the news of the expedition. It was of no interest to him that Paraitonion was only about two hundred miles along the westward coast; for if Antonius went there first, heaven knew where he’d go next. Victor was conscience-stricken for not having obeyed Daphne and pleaded at once with Antonius for freedom. He would never see Daphne again if Antonius was to go warring outside Egypt. He met her and told her the news, and they wept, clinging piteously to one another.

“You must speak to him now.”

“No, now is the worst possible time,” he answered, with mingled terror and resentment. “If I asked him now, he’d think I wanted to desert him. Can’t you see that? But he’s sure to take the place, and then he’ll come back. That will be the right time. He’ll be ready to give anyone anything.”

Daphne was unconvinced, but had to acquiesce. Victor talked on till he was quite sure that Antonius would return triumphantly; then would be the moment to appeal. Growing sure of this he refused to heed Daphne’s tears, and, overcoming the feeling that she was trying to force him to ruin, he consoled her magniloquently, so that while they were together they grew filled with soaring dreams. They even quarrelled over the kind of furniture they were to buy, and the kind of bathroom they would have, and whether they’d plant olives or castor-trees.

Antonius was in earnest. He sent his officers travelling round at post-haste; and in five days the fleet of his selection was stocked, equipped, and manned; a legion had been withdrawn from Pelusion on the eastern border where the troops were concentrated, and distributed among the ships as marines; and Cleopatra, surprised from her despair, began to feel that there was hope after all. Egypt was so easy to defend. No attack could be made from the south; if Paraitonion was held, no attack could be made through the western deserts; the Pelusiac swamps guarded the east, and the isthmus could be guarded confidently. Only if the enemy had a very strong sea-power could a frontal assault be made. Therefore if Antonius safeguarded the west, there was no reason why he should not afterwards checkmate Octavianus in Syria. One victory, and the East would again sway towards Antonius, the familiar Dionusos-figure. This time there would be no divided counsels such as had wrecked the last campaign; there would be no pretence of restoring the Republic of Rome and the hierarchy of financiers and a corrupt governing class (all in the name of Liberty); the issue would be plain. The East with the mysticism of its collective aspiration, the demand for a unification of power, would stand against the restless individualism of the West, its crafty liberalism. The East would conquer.

*

The fleet had been anchored On the sea-front between the Timonion and the Palace; but the flagship was to sail from the Royal Harbour. Antonius had sickened of the imposing hulks of vessels with five or six banks of oars; at Actium he had seen the damage inflicted on them by the more manageable Liburnian galleys; and now he had chosen ships with two or three banks. He himself was sailing in a trireme. Also, he wanted to move quickly, to manoeuvre with ease; he was tired of all grandiosities, and dressed in an ordinary staff-officer’s uniform, keeping only his scarlet paludament to mark him as commander; all his elaborate corselets, scabbards, and helmets were laid aside.

Victor forbade Daphne to come to the quay, saying that she would give herself away and would make things more difficult for him; but Olympos was there, standing in the rear of Cleopatra’s train, wryly smiling and looking out for Victor, having promised Daphne to bring her word that no accidents had happened. Perhaps, however, it would be best if the boy was killed in the war; but Olympos could not bring himself to wish it. Instead he looked at the Queen.

She was dressed in a straight-cut gown of fine Amorgos-stuff, wearing a purple-dyed hat with very shallow crown and very wide brim, held in its place by fillets tied under her chin; and the purple dye, a necessary token of her royalty, treated her face unkindly.

Still, she was bearing herself with queenly grace and assurance.

Olympos closed his eyes and saw her in another setting. Early that morning she had visited with him the condemned cells at the rear of the Dikasterion, to see the cobra sting condemned prisoners. There had been two prisoners under sentence, a girl and a man. The Queen asked what the girl had done, and learned that she had murdered her husband by getting him drunk and then driving a rusty nail into his heart with a wooden mallet. The Queen stared at the half-swooning girl and then said, “Let her go.” She refused to hear what the man had done, but ordered the cobra to be applied at once to his breast. The cobra with its flattened head, as if someone had trodden on it, so that its tongue flickered in throes of panged revenge...The man had crumpled up, died on the pavement, showing the whites of his eyes, but there was no discoloration or swelling of the flesh, and he died quickly. The fetid smell of the jail. The corpse would be presented to the Surgical Faculty. “Make me a phial of cobra-venom,” said the Queen. Nothing more; her skirts held close against her shapely ankles.

Now she was farewelling Antonius, shining with the certainty of success, although the purple light sallowed her face a little, brought out a greenish tinge visible at least to the eyes of Olympos. A slight discoloration, but no swelling as yet. A slow death.

I should like to see her die nobly, thought Olympos, and then I should have no regret; but if anything happened to Daphne, I should regret it for ever, however noble it might seem. Quite irrational. It was disturbing to find himself as irrational as all the others, when he had considered his life perfectly systematised and only the nature of the arteries unproven. Nothing was proved. He knew now that he knew nothing about the body—except that it was everything, was the universe. Sad, penetrating thought.

The ship had been strewn with flowers and hung with garlands and pennons; and the court-girls were pelting flowers at the party of officers. The sails had been run up, for show. On the sail of the main mast was painted a large image of Isis benignly blessing the ship, and on the sail of the foremost was painted a K. A gay carpet had been hung over the stern, under the carving of the twin-brother gods. The quayside was filled with chatter and laughter.

Victor had boarded early, to get away from the crowd with their endlessly repeated remarks of inane farewell, the weak jokes that created such a gust of merriment from people brightly ill at ease. He wandered about in the inside of the vessel, which showed like a dim melancholy cloister; the movable seats of the rowers, installed only yesterday, made a complicated geometrical pattern of ascending and retreating lines; resting on planks that ran sideways from the foot of one of the deckstays to the top of the stay behind. Light floated shadowily across the covered space through the hundreds of oar-holes.

He climbed up on to the parodos, the encircling gangway; but everything was so bare that he could find no rest for his uprooted spirit, and he went out on to the deck again, where the flowers and flags lessened the sense of crude emptiness without slaking loneliness. The ship was going to be crammed; no luxuries as on the Antonias, the old flagship.

The soldiers were gathering on the quarterdeck and the platform below; the sailors were grinning round the fore-castle, thrusting out their hairy chests before the ladies of the court on the quay. Antonius had gone ashore again for some further last words with Cleopatra. The rowers filed along the side of the quay, and climbed up the narrow rear-plank, each man with a leathern apron and an oar of firwood. They disappeared below.

Antonius, who a moment past had been fuming to leave, had fallen into a deep conversation with Cleopatra, spreading out his hands, his brow lined. Everyone was looking at him and the Queen. The band played under the yellow awning on the right. At last Antonius finished what he had to say; he clasped the hands of the Queen; they both smiled. He turned and raced back to the ship. At a whistle the seamen sprang at the ropes and brought the sails rattling down. Isis swayed for a moment, then crumpled pathetically, was crushed, fell in distorting creases to the deck, and went out of sight. All was a bustle. The plank was hauled aboard, ladders were drawn over the bulwarks, ropes creaked and rasped, hawsers were unwound, poles pushed the ship from the quay. The trumpeter on the quarterdeck pealed forth his call. The oars appeared at the oar-ports, were adjusted, dipped into the water. The ship swung out. The half-submerged beak with its three prongs cut at the creaming waves. The oars gripped, lashed the water, rose into the air. The oar-rudders clattered out. The cry of the boatswain was heard. “O-op op!” O-op for the pull and the jerk of recovery, op for the stroke. The rowers answered in chorus, “O-op op!”

The ship’s-musician shrilled in time on his flute. The ship lurched, resisted, then gathered strength, and shouldered forwards, the timbers straining. Out of the Royal Harbour the trireme went, between the narrow jaws of the entrance and the cheers of the dock-guard. At once the other ships beyond signalled for their anchors to be raised, and followed after the admiral’s ship. Soon the whole of the Great Harbour was covered with warships converging towards the Lochias Promontory.

Victor climbed up on to the quarterdeck, slinking past the group of officers. He went to the extreme aft-platform, disregarding the shrine of Isis-Aphrodite and the Saviour Twins. The sternpost curved up overhead, turning into a swan-curve and carved with the head and beak of a swan. Victor saw only the disappearing city, and a tiny form in white dwindling on the sea-front. He knew it wasn’t Daphne and yet believed that it was. Then the white smudge was lost, and the ship slithered and heeled, meeting a stronger surge outside. Daphne was lost.

*

There was nothing to do except quarrel with Eros. Three days sail to Paraitonion: that was the calculation. Antonius wished to arrive fresh and with the whole fleet intact. The first night was spent in an uninhabited inlet. The weather was calm, and the sailors were not instructed to draw the ships ashore (for which purpose war-ships had a false oak-keel), since the coast was rocky: a dangerous place in which to be caught by a storm. But the pilots swore that no storm would come, and the risk was taken. Antonius was in his most jovial mood, and called all the ship’s officers to dine with him, except the boatswain and forecastle-chief, whom the captain, chief helmsman, and purser considered to be of a definite lower ranking. Even as things were, each officer was very much on his dignity and fearful that the others would presume. But Antonius ignored their stiffness, drinking gaily; for with action he had lost his dread of drunken obsessions, and the wine had little effect on him. Lucilius was there, drinking also, and other officers, centurions and tribunes.

A brazier had been set out on the deck, attracting mosquitoes and insects from the shore. Antonius boasted as he drank. Everyone was pleased, except the helmsman who considered himself snubbed by the attentions paid to the purser. Antonius had had rations of wine shared out for all aboard, and below deck the rowers were gabbling together. The sailors lay on the forecastle-roof, telling lies about Alexandrian girls, and soldiers were grouped on all sides. The other ships were clustered round at anchor, with stern-lights showing. A large lantern had been hoisted to the mast-head of the flagship.

Victor and Eros amused themselves by throwing into the water any scraps or oddments they could find, watching the splashes of light. Though not on speaking terms, they could hardly refuse to share their boredom; and each played silently, as if unaware of the other.

“Borios told me that he kissed your piece,” said Eros at last, when they had used up every missile and sat fanning away the insects.

Victor wanted to pay no attention, but couldn’t hold his tongue. “Borios is a liar.”

But his pulse was beating faster; perhaps Borios had really kissed Daphne...However, he meant to get his own back on Eros. He went on:

“Borios said you were in love with Charmion, and she told you to come to her room, and gave you directions for the room of that baggy-eyed old eunuch Mardian. And you went there in the dark and kissed him, and didn’t know your mistake till he woke up and squeaked out: Thanks be to Aphrodite Arsinoe Zephyritis!”

“That’s a vile lie!” cries Eros. “Wait till we get back. O what a lie. How preposterous.”

But Victor still felt disturbed by what Eros had said. He tried to argue the feeling away. Surely Daphne wouldn’t have been so jealous if she’d had anything to hide, but perhaps her jealousy was only worked up to hide a bad conscience. Either argument seemed correct, but neither satisfied. Victor longed to be back in Alexandria. How could he wait? Probably the war would go on for months, for years, for ever. He looked at Eros malevolently and wondered if he could push him overboard without being noticed. He must do something!

But he did nothing. He and Eros were supposed to sleep on the small floor-space beside the bunk in the cabin of Antonius. But on such a night as this they could sleep on deck. Victor got his rug and lay on the planks, smelling brine and pitch, and unable to rest. The darkness gurgled about him, heavy with stars. Mosquitoes buzzed hungrily, a deceptive croon, till the star-swarm seemed hungry too, wild for blood, shaking their stings of silver. And Daphne was many miles away. Crying in bed. Victor didn’t want her to be miserable, but if she wasn’t miserable it would mean that she didn’t love him—that she had been kissed by Borios, was perhaps being kissed by him now, for Borios had been left behind.

Victor rose and prowled up and down the deck; stumbled over a late-drinker. Lucilius.

“Sit down and have some wine,” said a friendly voice; and Victor obeyed, so glad at anything friendly and wondering why he hadn’t sought out Lucilius with his confidences before.

Lucilius did not seem talkative tonight. He handed Victor a cup of wine, and then sat hugging his knees, staring up into the rich sky. Victor drank for a while, and then felt that he must talk.

“I love a girl,” he said, “and she’s a bitch.”

Lucilius accepted the statement without question. Then he leaned over.

“I love nobody. And I’m a beast.”

Having explained himself, he sat back, satisfied.

“She’s a wonderful girl,” continued Victor, who had been appalled by the rush of bitterness which had made him libel Daphne, and who now felt that she was the most blameless girl ever born. “I’ll die without her. I wish you knew her.”

“I know them all,” answered Lucilius, flatly. “You’re a good young fellow. I told you that before. Why don’t you come away with me?”

Victor stood up joyously. “Now? Straight back to Alexandria? Let’s go ashore and walk back.”

“No, no,” said Lucilius, with patient scorn. “Later on. I’ve got a farm in the Arsinoite Nome. He gave it to me two years ago. I’ve always had a hankering for a farmer’s life. My last illusion. Come along with me.”

“But what about Antonius...?”

“O he’s done-for.” Lucilius brooded, and then spoke more soberly. “I’ve been a fool, lad. I followed Brutus who you may or may not know said he was going to make the world free. It was he that killed Caesar. He had a snappish temper, but I loved him for what he saw in life, Freedom. He didn’t see it at all, but he thought he did. I’ve never been able to make out what freedom is, but I’ve always lived to find out. Is that clear?”

He paused and spat over the side, then resumed:

“Antonius beat Brutus at Philippi, perhaps you know. They were chasing Brutus. So I stood in the way and swore that I was Brutus. He was an ugly-looking fellow, so they believed me. They led me off to Antonius and gave Brutus the chance to escape if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to. He stuck his sword in his navel, saying that Virtue had let him down. Which was a rather mean complaint I’ve never made. Is that clear?”

“Did they cut your head off?” asked Victor, who was growing more confused with the wine and the heat, and had dissociated Lucilius from the “I” in the story.

“Antonius stared me up and down. A noble-looking fellow he was then, and he’s not too bad now. ‘I’ve come to die for Brutus,’ I said. Ah, I was young then. ‘You’re a friend worth having,’ said Antonius; ‘I’m certainly not going to kill you, lad.’ So I followed him instead of Brutus. Is that clear?”

Nothing was clear to Victor. The star-drifts were floating closer, spikes of irritating heat, and there was sweat in his eyes, starry blindness. Lucilius was talking.

“I saw Freedom in Antonius. The complete man. Not regulations and stern conscience as in Brutus. But joy. A dance of immortal gladiators. Things like that. I thought he’d free the world by letting everyone live his own life. No work and all play. Bodies mating or standing alone. Spring-water for wine, and a lettuce for dinner. No more need for wine. So I’m drunk now, to show I was all wrong. Dionusos is a dark god and eats raw flesh. Lad, I’ve killed a lot of men. Twenty-three, to be exact. And all because I wanted them to be free. But I’m not free. Antonius is done for. But I can’t desert to Octavianus and say: I’ve come to die for Antonius. A man can’t do things like that twice any more than a girl has two maidenheads. I’d be a fraud and the girl a whore. The next time, I’ll simply go out of the back door and retire to my farm, to live on cabbages. Is that clear?”

He poured out some more wine, and drank, and wept.

“But I love him. More than I did Brutus. But I can’t do anything for him. I’ve got to look for Freedom somewhere else, and I’m afraid of being alone, so I’ll never be free. But I must try. Will you come along?”

“Would you mind if I brought a girl too?” asked Victor, feeling that he was being very shrewd. “She’s not very big. She wouldn’t take up much room. I mean we’d only want one bed. And she doesn’t eat much.”

“Bring her by all means,” answered Lucilius, benevolently.

“As long as she doesn’t play a musical instrument. I’d like her to come, as long as she isn’t ugly or talkative or anything of that sort.”

“O no, she isn’t anything of that sort. You’ll like her all right,” exclaimed Victor, overjoyed at this discovery of a friend-in-need and sure that somehow his diplomacy had arranged the whole thing.

*

Sure that a storm had arrived to blow the unprepared ships on the rocks of the coast, he awoke out of sleep with knocking heart, his blood sour with the oppression of doom which was recognised at the next moment as the sickness of a stomach unaccustomed to much wine. There was no evil shape leaning over him, only the dull before-dawn sky and a smear of black cloud caught in the moving mast-top. And Lucilius lying nearby, snoring. The night paled away beneath the imperceptibly encroaching dawn; the wilted stars were brushed out. Where was Daphne? In almost the same pulse of thought Victor was sure that she had played him false and equally sure that she was untouchable, his alone. He sighed and settled back into an imagined embrace. His only fear was that Lucilius had been so drunk he would fail to recall his offer.

But Lucilius recalled it. He blinked his eyes, reached for the flask, washed out his mouth with wine, and spat the wine out.

“I’m not quite sure, lad, what I said last night. But I think I asked you to come down to my farm with me if I ever go there. I meant it. If I was as whole-hearted as I once was, I’d have a try at freedom all alone. But I’ve lost my first zest, and I’d like company. If anything goes wrong,” he paused, meaningly, “then off I go. And you’ll know where to find me.”

“But where?”

“In the Heracleides district. Just outside Socnopaios Nesos. I’ve been down there twice to inspect. The steward needs some jogging.”

Victor made him repeat the address, and memorised it. Dawn was rising, an intense orange glow that slowly coarsened with red and fused the low-lying slaty-blue clouds. Then the sun cleared the horizon. The ships were already echoing with the sounds of breakfast, oaths, and orders. In half an hour the fleet was on its way again.

Tiring of the race of foam restless in its monotony, Victor left the deck and descended to the covered gallery that ran above the rowers. This gallery projected over the waters, supported by brackets of which the lower ends rested on the waling-pieces that bound the ship lengthways. Leaning on one of the curving rib-timbers that met the crossbeams of the deck-flooring overhead, he watched the rowers.

They sat about three feet apart in each bank. The second bank were two feet below the first, and the third two feet below the second. The men in the second or third bank were seated a foot ahead of the men above, and the men in the upper banks had to sit with knees open to give space for the movements of those below. There wasn’t indeed room for much movement of the body. At each stroke the men stretched forward a little, extended their arms, and then put their weight on the oars. The arm-muscles took most of the strain. “O-op op!” called the boatswain, and the musician walked up and down the middle space, fluting in time. One man to an oar: as always—the shipwrights had no thought of widening and flattening their ships into ungainly barges. As a result only the rowers of the top-bank could pull with both hands over the oar; the others had to grasp with one hand over and one hand under, and take care not to dip the oars too deeply.

Victor, somewhat seasick, stood and watched the men at work. Never had he seen anything so mechanical, so expertly timed; and the sight fascinated, disgusted. The skill with which the two hundred odd men were packed into the space, draped on the walls of the ship’s inside, made the effect of their regular movements all the more perturbing. The lines of their ascending series swung forward, intersecting the rigid structure of seats and stays, counteracting the pull of the backward-leaning supports; then with the cry “Op!” the resilient thrusting lines sagged, failed back to the first rigidity...It was inhuman. Yet the human mind had invented it, and human beings were carrying it out. Victor longed for the cabbage-garden of Lucilius, for work where men could see what they were doing, knew what they were tackling, were intimately contesting and yet friendly with the earth, because after all they were serving her purposes, quickening, modifying, yet still serving. But this mechanical action was real slavery.

He merely knew that the sight of the rowers somehow horrified him and that his thoughts turned desirously to toil in a garden.

He staggered back on deck.

That night they slept ashore, at Catabathinos the Lesser; for Antonius landed with soldiers to guard the circuit of the township and ensure that no one rode out towards Paraitonion. He stayed in the house of the president of the local Council, and the pages slept in an anteroom on rugs full of fleas, disturbed at midnight by a fat girl who said she’d left a brooch in one of the rugs, which had been taken from her bed. Eros insulted her, and she slapped him; but Victor, scarcely half-awake, recalled dimly what had happened, and swore next morning that Eros had made a tryst with a tub-shaped slave-girl. Bubbling over with an uncontrollable lightness of spirit, he felt that the joke was marvellously good, and told everyone, even Antonius; and Eros sulked. Antonius, now in the heartiest of moods, laughed loudly and went on sketching out his future campaign in Syria. Victor was glad to listen to what was said; for in his frothy optimism of the moment he was satisfied, because to reach Syria they would have to pass through Alexandria again and he felt that to see Daphne, if only for a day, would solve everything.

*

With the break of day they embarked and put to sea, and three hours later sighted Paraitonion. Antonius had already issued full instructions. Followed closely by ten ships, the flagship sailed into the harbour. The ten ships beached. The soldiers leaped over the sides or scrambled down the ladders, forming on the shore. The flagship was steered under the walls of the fortress. Antonius bade the trumpet sound.

“Open your gates,” he cried, standing in the prow. “I am Marcus Antonius, come to claim his own.”

A Roman officer, also wearing a scarlet cloak, stood out from behind the buttress of a tower.

“And I am Gaius Cornelius Gallus, Governor of Cyrene and master of Paraitonion in the name of Octavianus Caesar.”

Antonius groaned and almost fell. Foam flecked his lips. He had never thought that so swift an advance would be made along the coast.

“Listen to me, Romans, fellow-soldiers,” he began; but Gallus stepped back into shelter. At once a din of trumpets broke out all along the walls, drowning the powerful voice of Antonius. For a moment he still stood in the prow, shouting against the trumpets, appealing to the hidden legions. Then the hopelessness of pitching his voice against the trumpet-blare of hostility struck him. He staggered and would have fallen, but Lucilius took him by the upper-arm, moving forwards quickly. An arrow hissed and stuck quivering in the ship’s side, near the large eye painted over the hawse-hole. It was the signal for a shower of arrows, most of which fell short. One arrow hit Lucilius in the arm, but most of its strength had been spent. He pulled it out with a curse, and pushed the dazed Antonius down the steps. Victor, seeing that Lucilius bled, ran for lint, and bandaged up the wound, while Lucilius muttered to himself, “I said I couldn’t play the fool twice, and I almost did it again. A man never learns....” Victor was anguished lest Lucilius should die and cancel with his death the invitation to the farm.

Out of the side-gate of the fortress soldiers had streamed, and from behind a hillock on the further end of the beach came a shouting band of cavalry. The legionaries who had disembarked from the ships were caught while still in dis-order, and flung back on to the shallows. The sailors tried to launch the ships, but in their eagerness they had run them too far ashore. There were men with torches among the charging cavalry. They tossed their torches aboard the stranded ships, and the few soldiers who managed to climb back on board found that they had gained a refuge aflame. Torn between the efforts to push out into deeper water and to quench the fires, most of the men did nothing at all except get in one another’s way; and the fires steadily grew stronger. Antonius watched in impotent misery.

More soldiers were pouring from the fort. There was no hope of rescuing the grounded ships. Catapults began shooting, and lumps of stone fell splashing in the water or thudding on the sides of the flagship or the other ships that had now come up. Oars were smashed. Then came a discharge of fire-bombs. Antonius ordered the ships to withdraw out of range.

Paraitonion was lost, and ten ships with it.

*

Next day, after they left Catabathinos, the wind freshened and the rowers had difficulty in keeping time. Their arms ached, and they cried out for a respite. Water was coming in, despite the leather shields through which the looms of the oars passed; and each time that the oars knocked against the thongs fastening them to the wooden thowls, the rowers were jarred. But Antonius was madly anxious to get back to Alexandria; he refused to beach the ships, and Victor to his joy realised that all thought of the Syrian campaign had now been abandoned. Antonius wished only to get back to Alexandria, to Cleopatra; and it was strange to Victor that Antonius could thus be lured on by despair to the woman whom he blamed in his weakness for his misfortunes, whereas he, Victor, was lured on with an equal compulsion, but joy not despair, to the woman in whom he reposed all his hopes. Cleopatra and Daphne were equally the goal of this ship straining through the sundering space of waters, through time’s denials. Victor swore to himself that as soon as they were back in Alexandria he would beg Antonius for his freedom. Delay was too dangerous. He mustn’t put off asking a moment longer. He must ask.

Antonius was still stunned by the sound of trumpets, silenced before the world. Gallus, who was this Gallus? Antonius recalled the gossip about him. A poet. Yes, Antonius had met him once, some dozen years ago, after the death of Caesar. Cytheris the actress had recited some of his poems and then gone off with him. Ah, to be back in the past with knowledge of the future—to be able to tear that conceited youth limb from limb, to teach him his place and the place of his rotten poems. Cytheris, you big-breasted girl with a fine laugh, why did you let such a pest come near you? Yet you took him home, the rat.

Antonius sat with his head between his hands, staring into the past.

Caesar, where have I failed? Caesar, your power moved in my hands when I led the army across the Alps, and we all shouted with laughter. “Death to the murderers and a righteous world at last!” What had happened?

“Who is this Gallus?” Antonius asked raspingly at last, but no one heard him.

Victor fascinated by the clash of the oars, the cry “O-op op” with its flute-accompaniment, went down into the parodos and was commandeered by the purser, who had discovered a leak. One of the catapult-shots appeared to have opened a seam. The sailors had lifted the cover from the hole into the hold and were passing down buckets. Victor could hear the swash of the bilge-water, slimily glistening in the lantern-light, washing around the legs of the sailors. The purser asked him to go back and tell Antonius.

The rowers could do no more. Antonius gave orders for the sails to be hoisted and the oars drawn in. He refused to beach. The ships must run all night if any stars were visible; he would hoist up the admiral’s lantern, and the others could steer by it. He wanted to be back in Alexandria.

Early next morning the ships reached Alexandria, and Antonius hurried ashore to the Lochias Promontory in a dinghy, leaving no orders and unable to wait for the docking of the ships. He took the two pages and Lucilius with him. and Victor leaped with a joyous heart on to the small landing-stage adorned with a stone Nereid. He was even more joyous when he heard the latest news. Octavianus was in Syria, threatening to march through Iudxa, where Herodes had made terms. There was no time for a move in Syria, even if Antonius had still wished to make it. Victor would be able to stay in Alexandria. But he hid his joy, ashamed of it when he saw the stricken look on the face of Antonius and afraid that Antonius would order the impossible campaign merely to spite him if he saw that joy, So hard is it to keep a sense of proportion when in love.

10 BETRAYAL

When Victor saw Daphne he forgot all about his doubts. He knew at once that Borios had lied. He felt that he could already note a broadening of her body with the child that she was bearing, his child. But when she asked him if anything showed, he swore that she looked as slim as ever; and meant what he said. For nobody else would notice it; he noticed because he knew what he wanted to see. He clasped her reverently, and sometimes they sat silently enclasped, how long they did not know till they saw how the shadows had changed. But at other times she grew reckless, and that led him on. He wanted her more than ever he had wanted her. In the dusk they leant against the palace-wall, frantically embraced; or below bushes, regardless of discovery. She bit his lower-lip, and her eyes were mistily bright, scaring him a little, making him let loose too strongly the vague images of cruder desire that fluttered through his brain. They hardly spoke, and to his relief she said nothing more about asking Antonius for freedom. He was keen to ask, but felt again that the time was unpropitious. Antonius was so depressed.

Daily there were quarrels in the Palace. Antonius and Cleopatra no longer slept together, and both were continually dispatching messages to Octavianus, who was nearing the frontier. His advance-troops were almost in sight of Pelusion. His ships had occupied all the Palestine ports without meeting any resistance. Herodes had supplied a contingent of soldiers. Antonius alternated between defiant outbursts and wheedling efforts to placate Octavianus, which were alike ignored. What Cleopatra was doing was kept more decently shrouded. One day the Palace rang with the tale that Antonius had caught an envoy from Octavianus kissing the Queen’s hand and had knocked him down. Rumours of betrayal were heard on all sides. Antonius was supposed to have bartered Cleopatra’s life for his own safety, and she to have bartered his life. Steadily Octavianus advanced.

Cleopatra had sent Caesarion south with his tutor Rhodon after a night of tears. Mother and son spent a sleepless night together on a balcony looking over the sea, twined in one another’s arms; and at daybreak Caesarion fainted and had to be restored by Olympos, pale and complaining of pains across his back. Then he went off to Coptos far down the Nile, where the land-track branched off at right angles for the port on the Red Sea whence India or Southern Arabia could be reached. The civil service was speedily falling into a demoralised state, reporting the collapse of communications and the failure of supplies. The Harbour was closed, and stores of food collected throughout the city, soldiers being sent to scare the officials of the nome-capitals. Inland the peasants were awaiting the rise of the Nile with the awe and rapture of worship; but Alexandria was never much concerned with agricultural rites, and now it was entirely taken up by its own problem. But the shops were all open; well-dressed women paraded the streets; the factories hummed with activity; the civil-service officers signed and countersigned their innumerable dockets, receipts and reports; the professors gave their lectures; and patients even arrived from Greece or Asia to be treated for rheumatism or to be cut for stone in the spacious medical wing of the University.

The discipline of the Palace servants had grown so lax that Victor was able to meet Daphne often. There were thirty pages, and Antonius was too preoccupied with his despairs to notice who served him. Eros was the only page whom he recognised nowadays.

*

Daphne had good news, behind a rose-bush. Victor dropped petals down her shift and kissed her over her shoulder. Nicias was going to Canopos for a day and a night, to judge with two other professors in some declamation-contest at a festival; and Daphne had worked out how to get rid of Simon. It was no trouble at all. She would merely tell him to spend the night with his brother. He’d be only too glad; he was always trying to get away and spend some time with his brother in the Rhakotis quarter; and Nicias seldom gave him leave. So Victor was to be waiting at dusk outside the door of the flat; Daphne would open and beckon him in as soon as the road was clear.

Long before dusk he was lurking behind the pillars; but it was not till the silent shuttles of darkness had spun their thickening web that Daphne opened the door, hardly visible, but unmistakeable. Daphne. He raced across the pavement, though he’d meant to go slowly in order to attract no attention. Closing the door with an unintentional bang, he took her in his arms. Then they went arm in arm up stairs, gradually growing more distinct as they neared the lamplight (for it was a lengthy ascent, not many steps but many kisses), and at last stood in the living-room, wondering how they’d reached it, for they only remembered the kisses. They moved excitedly about, clasping a moment and then unclasping to walk round the room again, taking up something and putting it down without even noticing what it was. As if they knew privacy for the first time, pretending to be in their own house. They went into the kitchen and ate some bacon, merely to show how much they were at home, kissed with greasy mouths, then wiped their mouths with the back of their hands and the back of the hands with their palms and (in desperation) their palms with the napkins they should have used at first. Daphne said she’d make some special pastry, and Victor said he’d longed to taste some of her pastry, and then they forgot about pastry.

Daphne showed him her room, blushing a little, and then hastily led him back into the general room, though he wanted to linger over every article that was impressed with her peculiar presence: the little table with its bit of an Indian coverlet; the narrow bed neatly made with mosquito-net already down, so that Daphne, slipping from her outer-clothes, could plunge beneath and shed her shift from the net’s covert of safety; the brown rug; the cupboard; the chest of papier-mdche; the three-legged stool worn smooth by use—dear stool.

Suddenly she was shy, bent her head, wouldn’t be kissed.

She insisted on getting some more food, chatting all the while over-brightly. They ate bread and cheese, and a lettuce, and a honey-cake, and drank some watered wine. Victor wanted her to sit on his knee, but she said that she was too heavy, and twisted away, to get some more bread which neither of them ate.

Then she said, “I’ll show you father’s room,” and led the way into the study with its couch at the end in a curtained recess, showing a torn mosquito-net tucked carelessly over the frame. Nicias always tore it, however much it was mended, and said his skin had grown as tough as the rolls he handled; mosquitoes didn’t worry him.

“This is where father works and sleeps,” said Daphne in a failing little voice. Victor felt embarrassed also, and then saw that there were tears in her eyes. He held her in his arms, and this time she didn’t push him away. Her hair fell over her eyes.

“Victor,” she said, and her voice still sounded strange, queerly far-away and small. “That’s the same name as father’s. Funny, isn’t it. Nice and Victoria...the same meaning...one Greek and one Latin....What makes different languages? Babies can’t talk at all...”

She ceased speaking, accepting his kiss; then came to life and kissed him back, startling him. This was the first time she’d kissed him thus of her own accord, a real kiss. He felt falling, dizzy, closed under, happy, wanting to fight for air and to drown. To drown.

“Victor...Victor...” she repeated. “Say you love me. Say you love me. Say it.”

And she did not seem to hear, no matter how often he said it. He said it, all hers. “I love you. Can’t you see? See...”

She moaned, “Say you love me or I’ll die. Go on. Say it.”

*

In Rhakoti the streets were crowded with labourers, mostly Egyptians, lounging after the day’s work. Every few yards there was a beershop, around which a thirsty jolly crowd was gathered, men, women and children—all more or less on an equality. At other doors painted girls lolled or sat on damaged chairs with their dresses girt round their waists.

Simon, the slave of Nicias, was short of hearing and strict of morals, but he liked to see what other folk were doing. After deliberating through five streets he decided to have a mug of beer and entered the next beershop; for beer was the national drink of Egypt, brewed from barley steeped in a vat filled with water and leavened with fermented bread-crumbs.

After drinking the beer, Simon felt easier and less deaf, though noises sang pleasantly in his head and made the outside world even less intelligible. Halting beside a window, he lifted the curtain of matting and looked in. A girl, bare and dyed all over with henna, was squatting with crossed knees on a mat of palm-leaves and playing a mandore, a kind of lute with long thin neck and three strings ornamented at the end with red tufts. The hennaed body glowed a deep rich gold in the light of the uncertain boat-shaped lamp. The girl’s face was round, the veins on her brow carefully pencilled with blue, and her long-lashed eyelids were tinged with green. On her head was a tousled blue wig, obviously second-hand. Simon perceived by the colour-effect that the girl was of a class superior to those who lolled on the doorsteps; doubtless she was awaiting someone. But she noticed his peering face, chattered angrily in a language that Simon thought was Persian (though he didn’t know a word of Persian), and swung the mandore by its long thin neck which looked so liable to snap—unlike the girl, who was strongly built.

Simon removed with a chuckle, then composed his face into solemn condemnation of a lewd world.

He entered a street of houses several storeys high, tenements sublet to labourers at heavy rentals. Simon’s brother (also a slave) had the coveted position of caretaker to one of these tenement-houses; he collected the rents, saw to evictions and leases, and cleaned the passages whenever the pressure of other duties slackened (which wasn’t often) or some official sought to apply the sanitation bye-laws.

Simon walked faster as he neared his brother’s house, wondering how close to her time was Tesenouphis; for his brother, though a Carian Greek, had obeyed his master’s order and taken to board and bed a fellow-slave, native by birth. Tesenouphis, when Simon last heard, was expecting a child in a few weeks.

As Simon approached the house, he saw outside a crowd larger than usual; and hastening up, he discovered that one of the tenants had gone mad and tried to burn the house down, to escape paying his rent. That was the general explanation; and Simon was only in time to see the man being led away by the police, yelling that he wouldn’t be made a laughing-stock and have his wages stolen.

Simon was interested to find out the inner story of the tenant’s outburst; and after pushing his way through the crowd, he discovered his brother leaning against the doorpost and dusting his hands. Questioned, the brother replied that the imbecilities and villainies of tenants were without number, but that the serious event of the day was the confinement of Tesenouphis which had arrived earlier than expected. He led Simon down into the basement by a side-door that let them straight into the kitchen. Then, pointing to a door already ajar, he bade Simon see for himself.

In the hot smoke-dim room about a dozen women were collected, all giving advice. Tesenouphis was seated in a large-brimmed vessel of baked clay, while a midwife held her forehead between her hands and made encouraging noises. Tesenouphis gripped the sides of the vessel and groaned, unencouraged. At intervals the midwife anointed her joints with a stinking unguent made from magical ingredients. Then, noticing that one of the women had dared to clasp her hands together, she darted across, tore the woman’s hands apart, and insisted that she be turned out at once. All the other women agreed, shouting down the offender’s excuses. Everyone knew that to clasp hands in front of a woman in childbirth was a magic potent to stop the child’s emergence.

Indeed, to prevent as much as possible such evil-eye influences, the husband (so he whispered to Simon) had been sent earlier to ask all the tenants in the building to leave their doors ajar, since any closed door in the house where a woman was in her throes would also hinder the birth. But there were so many doors in a tenement-block; it wasn’t like a private house; and the caretaker had had an uneasy sense that as soon as he turned his back the tenants would be having their revenge on him by closing their doors, barring and bolting them. But he’d done his best; he was a good husband. He might beat Tesenouphis at times (and she herself was the first to admit afterwards that she deserved it — sometimes anyway), but he never looked at another woman except when considering her as a prospective tenant. In fact there were two girls on the top-storey who’d tried to inveigle him only last week into condoning the unpaid rent, and he had sternly refused. Doubtless now they had closed their door, and even gone so far as to sit in the house of birth with legs crossed!

In front of the travailing wife was placed on a stool an image of the baby Horos, called Harpocrates in such representations. With one hand he pressed a finger on his lip; the other hand he placed behind his back (to silence the god-voice of the belly that had its egress there). The entrance and the exit of breath, the spirit of life; and silence. The thundrous silence of Mystery, the rites which may not be divulged because they cannot be divulged, the incommunicability of Faith. A man may tell about a kiss, but he cannot tell the kiss itself; a man may look on a god revealed, but he cannot utter the god. The woman in the earthen bowl was in the throes of a Mystery, and Harpocrates (also the baby of release) invested the act with the ineffability of its nature.

But though there might be the pang of meaning beyond words in the convulsed woman, the Mysterion of change, there was noise enough in the room. The women were chanting something in low shrill voices, the wife was wailing, the midwife was loud-voiced with instructions.

The brothers went outside into the street, where the caretaker could speak more comfortably into Simon’s ear.

“I’m afraid I can’t put you up for the night,” he said, opening his arms apologetically and cocking his head on one side. “It isn’t a time for men to have a quiet chat together. Women like these things of course. But you and me” He broke off and spat, then added in a tone of aggrieved calculation. “I hope it’s a boy. Times are too hard for a poor man to rear a girl. If it’s a girl, I’ll have to drop it into the canal.”

Simon nodded his head, agreeing with the sentiment. His brother went on:

“I won’t say it doesn’t get on my nerves to see the wife suffering. She doesn’t take it easily, like some women can. And it makes the lodgers restless.”

He was silent, thinking of the boy-child who had been born dead two years ago. The world was a hard place, perplexing for a poor man. He felt that he must blame something, but what? He could only think of the lodgers. Things must be different in the country; a man could afford to bring up a daughter there—or where did all the women come from? After all it would be nice to have a daughter. But somehow a city presupposed lodging-houses, and lodging-houses the necessity to do away with girl-babies, because if a man didn’t feed himself no one else would. Suddenly he felt very tenderly disposed towards his wife and wanted to do something to help her. He decided to make another tour of the building and open all the doors again.

Simon was nodding to himself, glad that his lot had kept him from marriage. The noise of the woman was growing worse, penetrating his deaf skull and troubling him obscurely, so that he forgot his resentment because his brother wasn’t offering him for the night the room vacated by the mad lodger. He wanted to go. Achieving a nod longer than the others, he shook his hand in a repetition of the gesture of his head, and set off down the street.

“Come to the naming-day—if it’s a boy,” shouted his brother; and Simon nodded vaguely without looking round.

*

On the way back he looked out for the window through which he’d seen the hennaed girl, but couldn’t find it. He peered through various pieces of matting, and saw many things but not a girl of gold with a blue wig. He saw several families residing in a single room in different stages of nudity and animosity; gamblers; bare boards; a small man all alone eating a whole sucking-pig; a sailor and two girls; a girl and two sailors; several girls; darkness; a fat old woman with three babies; and a small boy standing on his head. Then he was punched in the face, and he gave up looking through mat-curtains. He didn’t know why he’d looked again for the hennaed girl; he had no interest in her that he could analyse.

He had another mug of beer, and listened to the crowd as well as he could. They were singing and clapping hands, asking riddles and making bets which would beggar them. At times the voices dropped and Simon couldn’t hear what was being said. He feared then that he himself was the subject of discussion, though he had done nothing to attract comment except spit by mistake on a sailor’s girl. But the others were speaking of the prophecy that a Saviour would come out of the South, a prince of the Pharaonic line, a child of Ra with the true blood of the Sun in his veins, to save Egypt. Stimulated by the beer, Simon lost two coppers at pitch-and-toss; and, sad at heart, decided to go home. He was free to spend the night as he liked, and there was nothing he wanted to do. For a moment he realised that he’d meant to speak seriously to the hennaed girl, and wondered if he’d look for another such—not that there was any need to look, for, while he thought, a girl who had seen him playing pitch-and-toss pushed her elbow in his ribs and bared her teeth in a hungry smile. Simon shrank away. Years ago he might have done otherwise, but he couldn’t remember that time very well; he’d had rheumatic fever; and somehow or other the girl reminded him of his past and of rheumatic fever; which made his bones burn inside him with streaks of pain. He didn’t like her teeth; he grew afraid of her, muttered a fascination-charm against the squint in her eye, and shoved through the crowd.

When he reached the door of home, he took out the key that he had been given on account of marketing; and raised the latch with it, very quietly. He was always quiet, to explain away to himself why he couldn’t hear his own movements; and at this moment he didn’t want to rouse Daphne, who would be sleeping. He tiptoed up the stairs, guided by the lamp that had been left in spendthrift fashion on the table at the top-landing. As he crossed the main-room, he noticed the two plates on the table but took them to be a further instance of Daphne’s lack of any sense of economy. Then he was sure that he heard voices and laughter, and shook his head, fearing that a spell was descending on him, a spell cast by the beershop girl’s gleaming squint, her dark eyes of kohl. But there was a burst of loud laughter. Simon’s knees gave way, and his lips quavered. Then he . grew suspicious and tiptoed to the door of his master’s room. It was half open. Cautiously he peered round, and saw Daphne and a young stranger—no, not a stranger, but the youth that Simon had seen hanging round the place.

He withdrew his head hurriedly, pursed his lips, and stood in thought. But he was never a man for intemperate action. If he faced the wicked pair, they would probably assault him, kill him, and say that a burglar had done it. The youth would go in the morning, to avoid Nicias, and then would come Simon’s turn.

Stealthily Simon tiptoed to his own cupboard of a room, opened the door slowly to prevent creaking, and shut himself in the darkness. He didn’t dare to light a tallow-candle. Besides, he knew his way about the flat as well in the dark as in the daylight. Without undressing, he stretched himself out on the pallet-bed, thinking. Slowly a malicious smile crept across his face, and he clenched his bony hands, raising and lowering his eyelids as he stared into the pleasant darkness.

*

Simon did not stir from his position till he heard the lovers stamp from their room in the dawn, to invade the pantry and snatch at the food there, laughing in mock quarrels. They had no right to be in the pantry; Simon felt indignant and licked his lips at the thought of the food they were eating, disordering his neat shelves. Then there was a silence, but Simon was sure that the youth hadn’t gone. No, he hadn’t gone; for there were more noises, a chair knocked over, and laughter, and the sound of scampering feet, as the lovers chased themselves through the rooms. Then a brief silence. Then the clump of steps on the stairs. Simon shifted slightly, and his smile returned.

He heard Daphne returning up the stairs, humming a tune. She went into the study and began tidying things, thumping pillows and tugging at coverlets. Then she came into the main room and set the fallen chair upright, went into her own room and came out again. Simon was now quite sure that the youth had gone. He rose silently and slowly lifted the latch of his door.

Daphne was standing in the middle of the room, her hands behind her back, yawning luxuriously. She even belched, secure in her solitude; the breakfast had been eaten so hastily and given no time to digest. Then, drawn by the slight noise, she saw the latch lifting.

Horror struck her, the greatest horror she had ever known. Breath left her as if sucked by some death-kiss from every chink of her body, and her blood seemed changed to water; her heart beat with faint tumultuous strokes. She felt herself sinking floorwards as if her limbs were dissolving, from the soles of her feet upward; and she stared with fixed eyes at the moving latch. The door creaked, began to open. She did not think of Simon, she did not think of anyone. She knew only that she was alone in the flat with an enemy, the silent ambusher of her dream, the lurking murderer of fear. She put her hand to her mouth and tried to call out, but her breath was gone. Then the grinning face of Simon appeared.

She recovered sufficiently not to faint, all fears obliterated by the relief of having given a face to the enemy of dream. She pointed at Simon wildly, trying to speak. “You...you...” she managed to say.

He nodded maliciously. “I came back early last night. My brother couldn’t put me up.”

He went across to the head of the stairs, took a stool, and seated himself there, making it quite clear by his grin and widely planted feet that he did not mean to let her escape. Daphne could not believe that he had been present all the night; it was impossible that she could have been so happy if his poisonous presence had been so near...he wanted to ask what he knew; but his grin told her everything. She crimsoned and fled away into her room. There she lay on the bed and tried to think, but rose at once. She went back into the main room and made to pass down the stairs. She had nowhere to go, but she wanted to test Simon’s intentions.

“You can’t go out,” he said sullenly, scared but obdurate. “Why not?”

“Wait till master comes back.”

It was no use keeping up pretences. She dropped on her knees before him.

“Please, Simon, don’t say anything. It was the first time, and I’d never do it again. I don’t know how it happened. Please. You can’t think I’m that kind of girl. You know me too well. Please. I’m sorry if I ever scolded you...”

Simon shook his head stolidly and she saw that he was unmoved. She changed her tactics:

“Simon, I’ll give you everything I’ve got.” But she had nothing to give, only some cheap jewelry, and Simon knew it. “I’ll give you everything I’ll ever get. I’ll get you ten gold pieces.” She swallowed with difficulty. “He he’ll get them for you.”

Simon deigned to answer, with a phrase of infinite contempt. “He’s a slave.”

She wanted to say: But so are you, that ought to make you sympathise with him (and at the same time she wanted to add: He isn’t a slave like you, he isn’t a slave at all). But with a chill of recognition she saw that Simon could never forgive her for having taken a slave as lover; he despised her. If Victor had been one of the rich young students, she might have won Simon over, frightened him, silenced him. Now she had no hope. And the contempt of an old slave, whom she had always considered as having no more right to emotions than the mere furniture, weighed her down.

She rose from her knees and went back to her room, paced round, and then scribbled a note: “For Victor Simon saw us he’s going to tell father please.” She screwed the note up small and put it in a little ointment-box. Then she returned to Simon.

“Go out and get me some bay-ointment. It’s the only thing that stops my headaches.”

He shook his head, and she went on, “Then let me go. The shop’s only two doors down.”

He shook his head again, and she made another suggestion, “You can lock the door so that I can’t run away.”

He shook his head again, and she made her last attempt, “Then go to the door and hand the box to one of the street boys to take. I’ll find you a copper to give him for the errand.”

Simon could find no objection to this proposal. Daphne found a copper, gave it to him with the box, and watched him descend the stairs. He opened the front door, called a boy, and gave him the box and message.

Daphne felt easier. At least Victor would learn what had happened; he must be able to find some way of rescuing her, if he loved her—and if he didn’t love her, she didn’t care if she died.

She retired to her room, and, as soon as she lay on the bed, felt horribly ill. The smell of bacon attacked her, nauseating, forcing itself into her nose, her mouth, her throat, a corruption of dead flesh. She drew herself up with a great effort, for her strength was once more ebbing, and leaned out over the bed, but was too late, vomiting on the floor. She didn’t care. It was such a pleasure to ease her overloaded stomach, to grow weaker and weaker till she died, to hang with loose head, cool, staring under the bed at the unswept spider’s web, the dust, the wool-fluff; then the blood began rushing to her head, burning her scalp, and she felt less at ease. With another effort she dragged herself back and lay flatly on the bed, flat as a dead woman, hardly able to breathe, sour-mouthed.

*

It was afternoon before Nicias arrived back, depressed as usual after contact with the world. The more he saw of the world, the less he was able to understand how Tragedy had been able to distil its essences from such unpromising material. Life was a mere smudge on the luminous forms of poetry. Did the worms hold inquest on the corpse they devoured? Yet men talked, matching their miserable little schemes against the terrific pattern of moral law that dwarfed them like a mountain beside a pebble. Where were the supreme virtue and the supreme sinfulness that would save the world by shocking it into significance?

Broodingly he climbed the stairs of the flat, thinking that there was something in the remarks of Olympos. He would get Daphne married off to one of the young students, and then remove to an apartment in the Museion, never emerging to look on a world that insulted the seeker after values.

“What are you doing?” he asked angrily, finding Simon straddling the top of the stairs.

Simon leaped back and pointed with quivering finger at Daphne’s room. He did not know what words to use, and was overcome by an emotion of worship for Nicias, his old master, whose name had been smutched. He wanted to prove what a good servant he was, to kiss the hand of Nicias.

“Is she ill? “ asked Nicias harshly.

“She...” began Simon, his throat drying. “She...” He pointed again at the room, and shrank from the threatening glance of Nicias. “Listen to me.”

“Speak up! “ shouted Nicias.

Simon’s eyes were starting from his head as he pleaded with Nicias for belief, striving to convey to Nicias the image of guilt which had been imprinted on his own eyeballs.

“She was with a man last night. Here. I came back. My brother couldn’t put me up. She—she had sent me away. I came back. They didn’t hear me. They were in your bed.”

He slavered with fear and sank to the floor, his hands over his ears.

Nicias paused, unable to understand. What was the man saying. Simon jabbered on, repeating the same phrases over and over, till Nicias at last comprehended what was being said. But he couldn’t believe it. He kicked Simon aside.

“Where is she?”

Simon again pointed to the door of her room. Nicias went to it, opened it without calling, and looked in. There lay Daphne dishevelled on her bed, her hair loose on the pillow, her dress up over her knees. On the floor lay the souring pieces of her rejected breakfast.

Nicias recoiled, shut the door and leant against it, mopping his brow with his sleeve. He knew now that Simon had been speaking the truth, but couldn’t grasp yet what the truth meant. Suddenly he saw it all. He turned and hammered on the door.

“Let me in. Let me in.”

“Open it,” said Simon timidly. “You opened it before.”

“Father,” called Daphne feebly.

At the sound of her voice something snapped within Nicias. He turned on Simon, struck him a blow that sent him sprawling, tore open the door, and rushed into the room. He caught Daphne by the shoulders and dragged her up.

“What have you done? Answer me!” He shook her ferociously. “Where’s the man?”

“He was a slave,” said Simon, who had hobbled to the door, determined to vindicate himself, whatever blows he earned. “A palace slave.”

“Get out!” roared Nicias and flung a stool at him. Then he turned to Daphne and stroked her tenderly. “It isn’t true. Say it isn’t true.” But as he spoke, he knew again the worthlessness of his appeal; yet still he couldn’t believe what Simon had said. Why had Simon told him? why couldn’t Daphne stand up for herself, lie if need be?

“It isn’t true,” she said tonelessly.

“You filthy lying slut!”

He flung her from him. Her head hit the edge of the bed and she moaned. A warm mist swam before his eyes.

“I’ll teach you,” he cried, and looked round for anything with which he could beat her. His hand found a sandal on the floor. “I’ll teach you,” he repeated between his set teeth, and grasped her, the room redly swimming.

The world was evil. That was sufficiently demonstrated. But an evil unbalanced. That was wrong. Could there be sin without redemption? There was purification for all evil. Let the world grow more evil then. It was the only way out. Let the slut sin and let her pay for her sin. A vast incoherent joy struggled in the blood of Nicias as he beat his daughter; a joy of grappled evil, of power. Life had meaning as it had never had before. If he was to kill her, the mercy would be perfected; the sin would pass from her into him, and the Furies would turn to flog him across the world, into the place of judgment on the high hill. Only by killing his child could he save her, take her sin as his own, resume all good and evil in his blood.

His hand shook and he dropped the sandal. Daphne turned to and fro, moaning. He sat stone-still, shuddering, fighting down the wish to kill, to save; the furious joy that stormed in his blood. With his hand over his eyes, he rose abruptly and tottered from the room, brushing aside the unnoticed Simon, seeking his own room, his desecrated bed.

*

Next day Daphne did not arrive for a tryst in the park; and when she failed on the following morning also, Victor decided to visit the shop where they had arranged to leave notes in emergency. The girl in charge was friendly with Daphne and delighted to be a go-between for lovers. She was a tall girl with plump kindly face and a small retreating chin, and she spoke with a lisp. When Victor called after a fruitless glance at the closed door of Daphne’s home, the perfume-girl produced at once the note.

“I found it in a box that she sent to be filled.”

Victor read the note and knew that he had always expected the discovery to come. It had to come, and all that he could realise about it was that there was pathos in the wording of Daphne’s message. The ending “please.” But why hadn’t she given more details. Besides he couldn’t find out what he felt while the shop-girl was waiting for him to show misery. He sank down on to a chair, glad to find that he really felt weak, while the girl looked for some reviving flower-waters. She insisted on scenting his brows and the place behind his ears, and asked him sympathetically if he didn’t feel better.

“I’m so sorry. I saw what was written. Can’t we do something?”

He was too aware of her admiring sympathy to give way to the weakness which had gripped him in the belly, too concerned to show his misery to know how miserable he was. For he was miserable; he would die.

“What can I do?” he asked plaintively. “I can’t resist her father. He’d only have me whipped.”

He thought with panic of what would happen if Daphne gave his name away. Nicias would use all the influence of the University against him...

“I’d better go.” He rose with a vague hope of proving an alibi if he remained at the Palace.

The girl pressed his hand. “I’d do anything for Daphne...and you.”

Victor was angered. The girl seemed to be feeling more than he, and the blow was his, not this stranger’s. He hesitated, and the girl enfolded him in her arms.

“I love you so much for loving my dear poor friend so dearly,” she said with a sigh. “I think that you’re a perfect lover. I’d do anything to help you. Are you sure there’s nothing I could do?”

Victor disliked her embraces. She was taller than he was, and seemed longer even than he’d suspected, when felt so close. She overshadowed him, physically and emotionally; and he wanted only to think of Daphne. He must do something.

There came the sound of someone trying the street-door, and the girl let him go, after asking him to be sure to return and tell her all that happened.

As soon as he had escaped into the open grounds of the park, he knew what had befallen him. Tears flooded into his eyes, and the knife of loss turned agonisedly in his bowels. Daphne was gone; he would never see her again; and the world was desolate. Whenever he heard a bird sing, he would hear her name and the sound of the silence that came when she had finished speaking; whenever the wind passed over the grass, he would see the blades straightening themselves in the spot where she had been lying. The sudden beauty of a flower was her body on the edge of vision. She was gone. At last the nightmare had come true, blackly, in full daylight, in a few scribbled words. “Please.” It was fantastic, but there it was. Please, come back. Daphne his beloved, whose flesh was as much his possession as his own flesh. Daphne in whom his blood had come to new life. She was torn from his life like a flower torn from the unresisting earth. Ah, the infinite fertile earth could spare her flowers; but he had only Daphne.

The world was blinded with tears.

As he wept, he felt himself in the consoling arms of the scent-girl, and that made his bitterness worse; for he loathed to think of the scent-girl, who could never be Daphne; whose whole body was less real than a whisper uttered by Daphne in her deepest sleep. But his tears seemed to be aimed at the consoling scent-girl. See how sad I am. What a perfect lover. There were birds singing. He wouldn’t die; he knew he wouldn’t die. But the knife would turn agonisedly in his bowels; he would look round with a smile on his lips, and suddenly there would be nothing. No birds, no earth, no consolation.

O his tears were real.

*

He must ask Antonius to free him. But even then, how could he face Nicias? And he was frightened of choosing the wrong moment to ask. Again and again he went to Antonius with the exact words of his petition rehearsed, but said nothing. Things were getting worse and worse in the Palace. Octavianus was encamped before Pelusion. Antonius and Cleopatra no longer made any attempt to hide from one another that they were daily sending him messages. Once when they passed in a corridor, Antonius said: “It’s no use painting your face, woman. He looks lower than that, and so he can’t tell one from another. He’s the only wise man. You’ll have no third chance.” She replied nothing. Eros had heard Charmion saying to Eiras that Octavianus swore he was in love with Cleopatra. Everyone was sure that both Cleopatra and Antonius had each offered to betray the other. Then, to the general surprise, they became friendly again and slept together. Antonius had been heard weeping. He and Cleopatra planned to hold Octavianus in Egypt, if he broke through the frontiers; to make a naval sortie against his lines of supply after defeating his fleet. Or to flee to Spain or Ethiopia. Nobody knew for certain.

Victor determined to ask Antonius for his freedom that night. There was a small dinner-party of the Fellows-in-Death; the floor was ankle-deep in violets and other dark flowers, and naked negresses served the dinners. Antonius had given the cook several pieces of gold plates for inventing black sauces to go suitably with the different dishes. He drank more wine than usual and began to talk once more of his godship.

“The god has to die,” he said, “or he’s no god. Isn’t that so?” He turned to the Roman Senator who ran the state-mills.

The Senator blinked his small eyes. “That is so, Dionusos.”

Antonius guffawed. “But not the goddess. She doesn’t die. She’s the everlasting earth. Do you hear that, Queen of Egypt? “

Cleopatra, who always drank very little, paid no attention. Antonius called for more of the wine, an almost-black resinous vintage which many of the guests refused. Victor saw that the petition would have to be again postponed. He and Eros helped Antonius to bed; and after they had finished, Cleopatra came. They had not expected her to come. They took their stand behind the door-curtains, and listened. Cleopatra was talking, pleading about something. Then Antonius could be heard, pleading in turn. He called out for the doors to be shut.

Next morning the pages found him lying on the floor, with marks across his back. Cleopatra had returned to her own room by a side-door.

Again Victor postponed his petition. It seemed impossible to find the right time. He wept in his room, utterly despondent; and yet could never broach the subject when face to face with Antonius. The standard of things changed so unaccountably between the moment of sobbing in his room and the moment of facing Antonius. In his room, nothing else whatever mattered but Daphne, and brave speeches of persuasion came without effort to his tongue; but before Antonius, there were so many other things in the world, even though Daphne still remained the centre of his being. In the sense of unreality that seized him he wasn’t even sure whether he really wanted to be free; but as soon as he was alone again, he wept for freedom as the solution of all his afflictions.

When he grew utterly hopeless, he had an overmastering impulse to go at once to the scent-girl, who would console him; but as soon as he rose to go, he felt that things weren’t hopeless after all, that somehow Daphne would be his after all, and that if he went to the scent-girl he’d finally spoil things, he’d throw Daphne away. He couldn’t go.

Then came news that Pelusion had fallen, had opened its gates to Octavianus. The invaders were on Egyptian soil Antonius in an uprush of energy determined to drive them back while crossing desert-ground; but his energy dissipated itself in making the arrangements. He could not settle his mind unless Cleopatra was at his side, and twice he had to send the officers out of the room and to draw the curtains for an hour, before he could proceed with the deliberations. He grew more haggard.

Cleopatra too was showing the effects of the strain. No cosmetics could hide the dark rings round her eyes; her mouth was looser, and she pouted it coarsely in an effort to present an aspect of strength. In the midst of issuing orders Antonius once said with glazed eyes, “The god must feed the world, his blood must feed the earth, the everlasting earth,” and went on, unaware of what he had said, “Bring the men round to the other side of the Lake...”

Cleopatra had developed a weakness of the chest. She kept coughing, moistening her lips with her tongue and then wiping them with a kerchief.

When the officers returned to report that everything was ready, Antonius had gone off with Cleopatra and left instructions that he wasn’t to be disturbed.

Victor was outside the door when it was opened at length. Antonius was cursing Cleopatra. “You wanted to stop me going...Delayed me...Traitress.”

Cleopatra said nothing. She coughed a few times, then said something in a low voice. Antonius calmed and returned to kiss her, then rushed out. Victor, standing in the doorway, saw Cleopatra smile sadly and then go towards her toilet-table. He had the impression that she no longer cared what Antonius said or did, that her thoughts were elsewhere, and that she was ready listlessly to humour him.

*

Eros and Borios rode out behind Antonius, but Victor managed to stay in the Palace, watching Cleopatra’s girls and trying not to think. His conscience ceaselessly told him that he ought to be doing something for Daphne, but what could he do? Charmion flicked him once with a fan, but even she was subdued. Then came the astonishing news. Antonius had been successful, he had driven back the advance-guard of the enemy. Alexandria went wild with joy, but Cleopatra seemed untouched, Victor noticed, though she smiled. Antonius came riding back at dusk, bloodstained and jovial; and Cleopatra was dutifully on the palace-steps to greet him as he leapt radiant from his horse.

She did her best to fall in with his swashbuckling mood. She gave her hand to an officer whom Antonius pointed out to her as specially gallant, and ordered him to be presented with a carved helmet and a corselet of gold. The next day, swore Antonius, Egyptian soil would be cleared of the invaders.

Now was the moment to approach him, Victor’s conscience urged; but still reasons for delay interposed. Give Antonius time. He was too excited, probably wouldn’t listen, would blame Victor for an ill-omen if anything went wrong afterwards. Wait till things were settled. Wait at least till next morning.

During the night the troops of Octavianus, mustering in mass, marched closer and invested the city; and the officer who had been armoured in gold for his gallantry opened one of the gates and deserted to Octavianus.

The spirit of Antonius remained hectically assured. He declared against manning the walls and accepting a siege; he swore that he would drive Octavianus from Egypt. He set feverishly to work reorganising the soldiers and the fleet, determined to make a simultaneous assault by sea and land in three days’ time. On the appointed day he led out his forces through the eastern gate and ranged them between the walls and the Racecourse, in sight of the sea. The navy sailed out of the harbour and made towards the Roman fleet, which was already drawn up in battle-line; but as the Egyptian ships neared their waiting opponents, they ceased the pretence of warlike display. The sailors and marines crowded the prows with cheers of friendship. The two fleets met without a missile thrown; the Egyptian ships turned, and the united fleets rowed on towards the Great Harbour. The chains were down, and no effort of defence was made. Antonius, aghast on the shore, realised that Alexandria had fallen. His troops were unable to withstand such a sight. They were wavering, and there was nothing for him to do but to ride headlong back into the city to escape capture.

Cleopatra had watched from a palace-tower. Victor was there, with other pages, the girls and eunuchs. He saw Cleopatra’s lips curl with scorn; he saw misery dark in her eyes; but he saw no astonishment when the fleets fraternised. With a curt gesture, she turned and descended, not waiting to see more. When Victor tried to find out where she had gone, no one knew.

Antonius had plunged through the hall, shouting the same question. Then he collapsed on a couch. “I never want to see her again. God help me. I wanted to kill her. She’s betrayed me.” Victor and Borios helped him back to his quarters; but they had no sooner reached the bedroom than Eros entered.

“She’s killed herself. Charmion says so.”

Antonius looked up with gaping mouth and wide eyes. For a moment a savage hope gleamed across his eyes, then darkness fell for ever.

“I praise her at last,” he said, and struggled to his feet. “She was the woman for me. And she’s dead.” He tugged at his sword. The pages moved towards him, but he turned on them, crouching, with an animal-growl. “Keep away from the dying lion. Would you sell me alive to your new master?”

Before the rigid despair that he showed they felt helpless, could only wish to aid him quickly out of a life so intolerable, so degraded.

“Come, Eros,” he said, sternly, suppressing a wild note of appeal. “You swore to kill me. When I bade you. Obey me now. Kill me.”

Eros gave a little gasp and drew his sword, with eyes brightly inturned. Moving lightly, like a dancer, he looked at Antonius with a soft beseeching glance, as if all his life were deprecatingly laid bare. He shortened the sword, stabbed himself in the heart, and tumbled to the floor.

Antonius gazed at the corpse with a half-frown, sagged for a moment and then drew himself up to his full height.

“Well done, Eros,” he said gravely. “A fitting rebuke.” He unsheathed his own sword, pressed the point under his ribs, and fell on it.

Victor looked away. He heard Antonius groaning, calling for help. But he couldn’t bear to go near the dying man. Sick and weak, he ran for the door, vaguely aware that Borios was tending Antonius. All he could consider were the consequences to himself. Who would he the heir of Antonius to claim the slaves? Victor could surely count himself free if only he could find somewhere to hide, some means of earning a livelihood. It was the question of livelihood that was abhorrent. Fearfully Victor longed that Antonius would not die, that he, Victor, might be able to stay a slave, not thrown on to the world to share the terrible lot of a paid labourer. Even if he managed to find sufficient work to keep himself alive, he would be more cut off from Daphne than ever. Of course he needn’t run away; he could wait till Octavianus claimed the estate of Antonius; but his conscience protested that now was his chance, he must take it...

He heard cries and shouts, and hid himself in his room, drawing a coverlet over his head.

*

He was lying on his back, staring blindly at the ceiling, when he realised that someone had entered and was standing before him. It was Lucilius.

“Well, lad, I’m off to the farm. I thought I’d speak to you first. Are you coming?”

“I can’t go yet.” Victor sat up, still staring-eyed. He felt like a ghost belated in the streets of earthly life, genuinely unable to see any meaning whatever in the movements about him. But something out of the uncomprehended past, a frail voice crying “ please,” drew him a little closer. “I’ll come later on.”

“All right.” Lucilius moved across to the wall and struck it. “But I’m in a hurry. I can’t bear this loathsome air a moment longer.” He paused. “Ah, he was a good fellow, but mad—mad like us all.” He rushed to the door.

“I must get away to my cabbages. Come if you want to come.” With a wave of the hand he was gone.

Victor wanted to run after him, to make him stop and hear the whole story of Daphne. Why hadn’t he thought of Lucilius when he was feeling the need of a friend so badly? Lucilius would have done something. Then another wish came over Victor, driving him to the door. He wanted to go off at once with Lucilius and forget all about Daphne. After all what could he do? It was useless to remain. If only Lucilius had returned for another word, Victor would have gone with him. There was still time to catch him up.

Victor did not move. With Lucilius, as with the scent-girl, he could only desire to act, but the strength left his limbs as soon as he tried to actualise the desire. He felt himself drowning, saw the great water-rings spreading above as he sank deeper, into no lap of love, into the squelching lair of bloodsucking monsters, shark and octopus (under the waters beside the Pharos, O lost day); sank with his eyes open, blind.

The commotion outside was ceasing somewhat. A trumpet-note snapped in half. Sunlight filled with motes. His leg was cramped, darting with prickling pains as he moved it. If he put out his hand, the world moved away. Antonius was dead.

*

Antonius was not yet dead. They had hauled him up with creaking ropes into the upper-storey of the Mausoleum where Cleopatra had taken refuge with Eiras and Charmion. She was afraid to open the door below. The room was piled with golden ingots, rare perfumes, and chests of jewels; she had had her treasury transported here a week ago. Antonius lay on the couch and groaned, a mess of blood, his face contorted, unrecognisable.

The two girls, embraced in dismay, listened to the voices which sounded so emptied of life in the large room, menacing but powerless.

“You betrayed me.”

“No, no.” She wrung her hands. “They would not fight. Ah, don’t leave me now. I love you.”

“Why did you tell the lie...that you were dead?”

“I didn’t think that you’d kill yourself. I wanted to see—if you loved me.”

“You knew. You must have known.”

“I don’t know why I did it. Don’t die. Forgive me and don’t die.”

“It’s too late.” He tried to raise himself. “And I’m glad. Glad that I lost.” A tremulous joy crept into his voice, as though he were triumphing in the end, over Cleopatra if not over Octavianus—triumphing over himself. “I’m a Roman. I’ve always been a Roman. The god cursed me when I turned on Rome. Rightly.”

She wrung her hands, then grew angry. “You wrote to him: ‘What does it matter which woman a man...’.” She tried to make herself repeat the obscene word that he had used; failed; bent down and hissed it into his ear.

He shuddered. “Political necessity...How did you find out?”

“I have spies. How did you dare do it?”

“It was years ago.”

“But a man doesn’t change. You wrote that of me.” Her voice challenged him fiercely, bringing a brief note of life into the dim chamber.

But his attention had wandered. “Fancy having twins. I’d always laughed at others....”

She pressed her knuckles against her temples. “You mustn’t die. I don’t care what you wrote.”

His eyes opened, and he stiffened. “O god, what pain. I’m dying, Cleopatra. Here.” Obediently she bent her head, and he whispered, “Dying...but you...earth everlasting. Bury me.”

She fell to the floor, with arms outstretched. Darker grew the room, darkening with the nearness of death; the silent girls against the back-wall remained embraced, saved by the warmth of each other’s bodies from the threat of the corpse chilling the darkness. Cleopatra lay alone on the floor, beside her dead.

*

As dusk came on, Victor felt that he must do something. He was haunted by the memory of Eros falling, the light of love in his broken eyes, the body on the floor cere-wrapped in its strange immobility. “Well done, Eros.” How he’d despised Eros of late, who was yet capable of a finalising gesture; poor body mouldering, all bravery gone. He still felt Eros at his side, a bleeding carcass, whom no touch could warm; he wanted him to return to life if only to be despised again, to be mocked. “Of course you didn’t die, lads like you don’t stab themselves out of a deluded loyalty, you’re a butt for my laughter, you...O, well done, Eros.”

Without any plan, he rose and hastened out of the Palace, seeking the city and its clamour, but not surprised to stray along deserted streets, for the open space relieved him. Everyone was afraid, except thieves and harlots, who were always afraid, hiding behind a brittle mask of gaiety, drink and paint. Antonius was dead. Cleopatra too, it was said. The great bird of dusk folded its wings over Alexandria, rustling faintly.

He found the familiar door and watched it for a while; then suddenly knocked. Simon opened. He knew Victor even in the dusk. He shut the door at once and retreated upstairs. Victor waited, turned to flee, waited. The door opened again; and someone heavier was there, speaking in a rough guttural voice.

“What do you want?”

“Daphne,” answered Victor boldly, stiff with terror.

“What right have you to ask to see my daughter?”

Victor’s tongue grew unloosed; he could not believe that anyone, even a father, could want to separate him and Daphne, if only the simple truth were told.

“I love her, and she loves me. You know all about it. Please have mercy on us. Please...”

Nicias listened coldly, with intense interest. Daphne had refused to say who her lover was, however she was beaten. Not that her beatings would have ceased, even if she had told. Perhaps she had known that, the sly one. Nicias had had no intention of following up the information. He felt no rage personally against the lover, but only against the act of loving, against Daphne in the act. He had scarcely conceived the lover as a person at all, and that was why he listened so sharply to Victor now. He didn’t believe that Victor was Daphne’s lover, but that he was someone sent by Daphne in her slyness to deceive him. He wanted to find out why. But it was all irrelevant to the main thing. The growing horror of life, the approach to the great moment of release and purification...

He scowled at the youth who claimed to be Daphne’s seducer; cut him short.

“You are a slave.”

Victor faltered. “Yes.”

“What was your birth?”

“My mother was from Gaul. My father was Aulus Cornelius Fronto...I think. He was her master.”

“A Roman?”

“Yes,” said Victor eagerly.

“Scum of the earth! Destroyers!”

Nicias at last felt his rage turn upon the youth before him, and he knew Victor as an enemy, still without visualising him in Daphne’s arms, still believing that every word said by him was a lie...The Romans were coming to destroy the last refuge of the Greek tradition. This Roman bastard had been an instrument in ending the domestic peace of Nicias. It was all part of the same thing. Life was real enough now, too poignantly real, demanding the final toss of the game, the victim, the vicarious death. Tragic drama had leaped from the verses of papyrus-rolls, to incarnate itself in the flesh and blood of the reader, the participant. There was supreme irony in it all somewhere, and pity for Daphne, who must be saved.

“Go away!” he shouted thickly. “I have nothing to say to you. I do not know you. If I find you lurking here, it will be the worse for you. Go.”

“Please…” begged Victor. “We love one another. Please.”

Nicias could not shake off a sense of dread before this stranger, this destroying shadow, who had no place in the scheme of things. “Go away.” His rage increased. He lifted his hands. “I’m an old man....Go, you leching bastard!”

He slammed the door with a mighty effort and stood back panting. Above, Simon was leaning over the stair-head, waiting to see if any help would he required. Nicias beat at the air. He would have liked to kill the Roman by-blow; but after all such creatures did not matter. It was on Daphne that his life was concentrated. Thinking of her, he forgot about Victor and the reasons for his unexplained visit; and he climbed the stairs slowly, his tongue moistening his dry lips, a gleam of crafty expectation in his eyes.

11 A WORLD DIES

Victor couldn’t go back to the Palace. Growing upon him was the wish to become a free man, despite his fears. Daphne was lost. Now he was sure of it. But even if the scent-girl hadn’t long ago closed her shop, he wouldn’t have gone to her; the consolation that had seemed so luring to his wavering state, was now of no account. The sense of dreadful finality burdened him, destroying all lesser thoughts or emotions; and yet he felt something new and hopeful within his heart. He could bear loneliness; he was free.

Only a few slinking figures showed in the streets. There was a slip of a moon; no lights in the city. He moved towards the quay. The weather was warm, rather damp and oppressive, rusting the iron of the nerves till suddenly they jangled and the head grew hot. He sat on a block of granite, and stared at the waves slowly heaving, oily spotted with moonlight. Peace on the city, preluding what? Peace on Victor, an unimportant slave...The fear of death gripped him. Antonius dead, Eros dead, Daphne lost. He thought he saw a corpse rolling in the waves, a dead man’s greeny face, the flesh dripping from the bone.

He too would die. He had never known it before. The turf was growing green over the darkness of rot. He would feed the grass that a goat-bitch chewed, and the grass would turn to milk and feed other men and women. The world was pastured on his flesh. Death everywhere. The dust of the dead blew in our eyes. Daphne was lost, a ghost of sweetness, a voice singing sadly across the waters, someone beckoning in a maze of flowers. Victor wept. He was alone, in a city of the dead. Tomorrow he would go to Lucilius.

He huddled himself in a corner of the wall, and slept.

*

Hungry at dawn, with pain in his bones, he crept out and looked on the flashing waters, and the world was beautiful beyond words, beyond the comprehension of tardy senses. A world of light that ached against his eyelids, searing his blood with loss. The flashing water went flowing, and left only the pang of its passing, its unpossessed beauty. Was the only wisdom to want nothing, to look in upon oneself, stripped of the world’s raiment, defying the leeches of the blood? That course was nothing but an anticipation of death; and he was hungry.

The little purse in his belt had a few coins, and he wandered down the road till he found a cookshop with door ajar, pushed in, and spoke to a scared proprietor who after a while produced some boiled lentils. Warm heartening food. Victor ate, and then, leaving the cookshop, walked into the centre of the town. People were venturing out; they looked round curiously, as if in a strange locality, then rushed back indoors. To the sound of trumpets a detachment of Roman legionaries had been seen advancing. Legionaries were coming down every street, converging on the Brucheion. Victor huddled with other fugitives inside the first door that would open. It was the house of a shopkeeper, who complained in a dull voice that his small son was ill and that he objected to strangers in his home. No one stirred, and the man took no steps to turn the intruders out. “Father,” cried the boy from upstairs. It was the only voice in the city. “Father.”

Father, echoed Victor. Who was his father? The bluff Roman who had gone bankrupt and sold him with the other chattels? One of the kitchen-slaves had told Victor that he was the son of the master, but how could one be sure with a war-slave like his mother? He shivered impotently, hating everyone. He wanted to question the bluff Roman, his master, who was now probably dead of gout and apoplexy; wanted to strike him down and beat him. Why had he been born? His poor mother. She died.

“Father.”

The man couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even turn strangers out of his own house. How could he help his ailing son? There was no difference. All men were as bad. And Daphne would bear a child, unless she died, she and the child died; and the child would never know its father. Thus life repeated its evil, never breaking the bonds of suffering. Victor hated the child, glad that it would never know its father. There was no difference, knowing or not knowing. He hoped that he’d been a good child, making his mother happy and proud; he couldn’t remember. She shouldn’t have died. They were all as bad as one another.

The soldiers had gone past, and the man succeeded in clearing his house. Victor went away the first. A proclamation had been affixed to a pillar. No disorder was to be shown, and there was to be no looting; the Alexandrians were graciously pardoned.

Victor strayed up and down the street dazedly, watching the people cluster at the corners with more confidence, looking at the detachments of legionaries with less alarm. News passed from lip to lip. Octavianus was to enter shortly, and he expected the citizens to welcome him. The streets were soon lined with Alexandrians keen to show their allegiance to the conqueror.

Victor leaned against a pillar, his mind void. He was hungry again, but did not feel capable of looking for food, though he had some coppers left. At last he noticed a small boy.

“Go and get me some food,” he said, “and keep a copper for yourself.”

The boy sped off, and Victor wondered why he’d been so foolish as to trust him; the money, all that he had, was lost. But the boy returned with some sausage and a hunk of bread. Victor ate slowly, with enormous effort mumbling the food and forcing it down his throat, watched by the entranced small boy who between whiles tried to balance on his nose the copper he’d earned. His jaws pained as if he’d exercised them for hours; but he swallowed every crumb, except the sausage-skin, which the small boy begged from him.

Then the conqueror came. Soldiers. More soldiers. Glittering standards with eagles and bulls and figured medallions; men with bears’ heads drawn over their helmets. More soldiers, marching tirelessly, the victors. Gallic cavalry with enamelled traces. Ensigns silken, tasselled. Veterans with large round medals and many scars, on horseback, followed by a baggage-slave. Centurions with vine-staffs. So many men, where did they all come from? Then an empty space. A rippling murmur, and silence. A young man walking carelessly along, clad in light chased armour, with a scarlet cloak of the finest wool, unhelmeted; and at his side an old man in a philosopher’s dark cloak. The two passed on, talking amiably, entirely disregarding the awed and inquisitive tens of thousands of Alexandrians. The crowd began to cheer weakly; then, stirred by its own noise, cheered with ringing applause, cheered the magnificent conqueror.

“He’s the son of Caesar,” someone said.

“Hail, Caesar,” they shouted.

Octavianus, with scornful negligence, went on talking to his old master Areios and discussing the value of the Alexandrian science-school. Areios had been educated at Alexandria.

The crowd cheered. Victor cheered too.

*

He discovered that he had been walking towards the palace-gardens. The unfed animals of the Zoo were hideously bellowing. Without thinking, he entered the Palace, relieved to see that no sentries were yet placed, and regained his old room. It was no use. He couldn’t run away. He didn’t want to be free. There was no cause to be free, no recompense for freedom. Borios came in, and from him Victor learned that Cleopatra had been captured. The officer in command of the advance-troops, Gallus, had held her in conversation from below, while another officer climbed up a ladder and got through a rear-window. She had been threatening to set fire to the Mausoleum and burn herself and all her treasure. Now she was in the upper room of the Mausoleum under guard, and the treasure was removed.

Victor grew restless again. He went out, and approached the Mausoleum, which stood a short way north of the

Palace, near to the promontory. The sea wind blew there more freshly, kindling the stars. The world grew a better place, baring fangs of rock, but cleanly. Sound and men of the sea in the darkness made life worth living, purified the blood; but yearning went deeper, down to the silence of memory, where all the phantoms had the vanishing face of Daphne, with eyes like burning flowers, flowers burning with their own intensity of colour. The curtains of the wind rustled.

Soldiers were squatting round a camp fire, saying how sorry they were to win without striking a blow, bragging about what they would have done if Egypt had put up a fight; it would have been pleasant to storm such a rich city, to make the Egyptians jump off the roofs of their tenements. One of the soldiers was hiccuping, saying something about a Jewess on the banks of the Jordan; he hadn’t noticed that she had her head under the water. “You might as well say she drowned herself.” Torches were fixed in the doorway of the Mausoleum, blackening the stone; and the building hunched its back, a dark mass, against the tinsel-stars.

In the doorway stood an officer. Victor heard a soldier address him and knew that it was the Gallus whom Borios had mentioned. A handsome man in the early thirties, more showily dressed than the other officers, his face rather puffy, and his eyes with a hard brightness.

Someone came down the stairs. Olympos. Victor drew nearer. They were talking about the Queen’s health. Olympos assured Gallus that she was in no danger, but was going through a nervous crisis.

“No need to explain,” said Gallus with a short laugh. “I know all about women.”

Victor disliked him intensely, but was pleased to have seen Olympos. He had forgotten Olympos, who had once been so friendly. He had then almost told Olympos all about Daphne; perhaps Olympos would listen now. Victor decided to stop him when he left the lighted area.

But when he saw him coming, he took to his heels and ran. It was all no use.

*

Olympos was thinking about Daphne. Cleopatra was a woman who had lived her life and chosen her course: let her suffer. He could attend her without feeling more than a wish to do his best for her. But increasingly he felt sure that Daphne was more involved and troubled than she’d admitted. She hadn’t come to him with any further statements of her position, and he had yesterday learned that Nicias hadn’t been seen for some time at the Museion. He had called this morning on Nicias, and after much knocking succeeded in getting the door opened. Nicias had answered, but said that he was extremely busy and that Daphne was staying with friends at Canopos, and Olympos hadn’t been asked inside the door.

Olympos had been shocked at the appearance of Nicias. Nicias was unkempt and unwashed, with head and beard untrimmed; his face had shrunk and darkened patchily; his eyes were wild and roving, under jutting brows; and he kept wiping his mouth with his left forefinger. He was in a state of fever of some kind. But when Olympos asked him if he felt ill, he merely repeated a line from Aischulos:

This very day the Achaians enter Troy.

The line delighted him. He chuckled and recited it again, and looked up and down the street.

“Can’t you see? It’s all coming true. The pattern of the tragic dance. The deliberate repetitions of the choric burden. Sin and purification. I shall write my book now. I’ve almost finished it. I promise you that you shall be the first to see it. I have made you my executor. I’ve learned a lot the last few days. I’ve learned how Alkestis died for her man and how Orestes was purified. It’s all so simple when one sees it.”

He glanced up and down the street, reciting anew the line:

This very day the Achaians enter Troy—and then shouted angrily, “I never felt better in my life.” He shut the door in the face of Olympos, who knocked again, but failed to bring Nicias back.

The only pleasant part of an unfortunate situation was the news that Daphne was at Canopos. If it hadn’t been for that, Olympos would have felt forced to take some action. Probably the fever would leave Nicias in a few days. He ought to have proper attention; but if he was in a condition of cantankerous semi-delirium, he was doubt-less best left alone. After all there was Simon to look after him, and Simon would run for Olympos if Nicias became really ill. The fever would pass away.

Olympos forced himself to feel easier. He had the Queen to consider; she was ill enough.

*

She was too ill for several days to see any visitors. The life of the Palace was suspended; the house-servants did nothing except bicker in the kitchen where the cooks had refused to cook for any but themselves. Victor took some bread and cheese whenever he felt hungry, and brooded in the towers, trying to gain sufficient will-power to leave Alexandria and go south to the farm of Lucilius. But he dreaded the journey. Lucilius might have died on the way, and Victor knew no one else. In the villages before he reached the Arsinoite Nome there would be natives hostile to the Greeks and unruly in these unsettled times. But most paralysing of all was his inability to leave Daphne. He felt that she was lost for ever, and had no hope, until he rose to go. Then he found that he could not go.

Olympos was tending Cleopatra, all his time taken up with calming her. Antyllus had been put to death as an adult rebel; but the younger children, who had not yet come of age, were merely under guard, and it seemed that no harm was to come to them. But what of Caesarion? Cleopatra tossed in her bed, but could get no news. Octavianus had bidden Antonius be embalmed with all speed and given a burial-place in the Sema. There his sarcophagus was placed among those of the Ptolemaic Kings. Thus Octavianus could not be blamed for severity, while he censured his rival even in death for desertion of Roman ideals. Cleopatra, supported by her girls, had attended the funeral-service, weeping bitterly, clad in black. She had a relapse.

Octavianus was doing his best to appear brusque, brutally Roman. He gave out that he had spared Alexandria only through consideration for his old master Areios. When the tutor of Antyllus, Theodoros, who had betrayed his charge, was found to have stolen a valuable jewel from the boy’s neck, Octavianus ordered him to be crucified. He insulted the Egyptian priests by showing scorn for their animal gods, acted the stoic rationalist, visited the Sema and refused to look at the tombs of Ptolemaic kings and queens. “I have come to see a King, not corpses.” He looked only at the embalmed body of Alexandros, which was now enclosed in a glass-coffin—the gold covering having been plundered some years before. Alexandros he scrutinised with reverent but brotherly interest. Alexandros had been a man worthy of respect, but superstitious foolery and would-be god-kings were a different matter. Octavianus scattered flowers over Alexandros and placed on his head a gold circlet, touched his face and damaged the embalmed nose. But what was a broken nose between two men who understood one another?

He had so far refused to visit Cleopatra, lodging in one of the older palace-wings; but now she grew insistent and he agreed to grant a single interview. Clad in full field-uniform, he entered her room awkwardly, and Cleopatra waved out all her attendants, but told Olympos to wait within call. She had been bathed carefully and anointed with the perfume Kyphi, which was made of blended honey, wine, raisins, galengal, resin, myrrh, aspalathos, seseli, lemon-grass, asphalt, fig and sorrel-leaves, two sorts of juniper, cardamon and sweet rush. But in her distempered state she smelt nothing but the blood of death. Her face had been skilfully washed and painted with tactful cosmetics, but she felt an old woman, though she was only thirty-eight years. She lay in bed, feeling very weak, dressed in a semitransparent gown of byssus, with no ornament except a gold serpent wound round her left upper-arm.

He halted six paces from her bed and spoke in a pointedly formal manner.

“You wished to see me.”

“Naturally,” she answered, surprised to hear the old tones of persuasive huskiness, the rich warmth in which was uttered her love of life, the purring warmth of her belly.

He bowed again. “The chances of war have made me master of Egypt, and necessitate me paying my respects to the Queen who is the last of the Ptolemaic line, descendant of that worthy general of the great Alexandros.”

She winced at “ the last.” Was that a hidden threat against Czesarion?

“You are master of Egypt and of the world,” she said slowly and quietly, knowing that her voice then thrilled most warmly. “And I have lost the world.”

She sobbed, raised herself suddenly, threw off the coverlet, slid bare-footed from the bed, and fell at his feet, his crudely military-booted feet. He drew back, but she clasped his knees. He saw the bruises on her breasts where she had beaten herself in grief, her eyes painfully staring up under her long lashes; he felt her body pressed against his legs, filled with deep resources of resilient energy despite her present weakness.

“Please control your emotion and get back into bed,” he said sharply, and helped her back. She lay for a while huddled, with no effort to straighten out or push the fallen hair from her face. He addressed her again. “I trust that all your requirements are attended to, and that you will soon recover yourself.” He turned to go. “I will burden you no further with my presence.”

“Don’t go.” She sat up and reached out a hand to him. “Indulge the conquered.”

“It is painful for me...” he began, and stopped short. “And for me.”

“Then again let me bid you good-bye.” He bowed.

“Don’t go. When one has been beaten in a game for such stakes, surely one can at least claim the right to learn something of one’s conqueror?”

“There is nothing to know about me,” he answered doggedly. “I am merely a soldier. A Roman patriot. I do my duty, and there’s an end of it. I have a bad constitution, and catch colds easily. There is nothing more to know about me.”

She thought: He has spent the night with at least three girls, this cautious man. She said, “You remind me of your uncle—your adoptive father.”

He laughed harshly. “I am entirely unlike him. I have no ambition.”

She countered with a light laugh. “A man without ambition never yet led an army.”

He made no reply, angry at the way she leaned forwards, exposing her breasts. She was a fool. Did she want him to seduce her? If he took her, things would be exactly the same. Couldn’t she see that? He was telling her the truth, and she thought he was fencing with her, playing with words.

She went on, “Also, the citizens of Asia are raising altars to you as the Saviour of the World. The citizens at Rome will do the same when you return. Can a man without ambition be worshipped? “

“I am sorry for the suffering of the world,” he answered coldly, “which makes men so delude themselves. But it is not my fault. I would crush all such manifestations of servility if I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Why not, pray?”

“It would only increase the sufferings. The people need safety and peace, food and work; and until that is fully given them, they must dream. I can’t stop them dreaming, but I can make the dream as harmless as possible. I tell you that I have no ambition.”

“Then resign your position, and give me back the throne of Egypt. I am ambitious, I make no pretensions otherwise.”

He smiled without approbation. “Egypt belongs to Rome now. I am a Roman. I obey the law of my race: which includes the ordering of all other races in the civilised world.”

“You obey the law—even when it means the breaking of all laws.”

“Even then.”

She felt baffled. His pale handsome face with its curly hair and bulging temples repelled her. Yet there was power in him, as there had been power in Caesar. But with Caesar she had felt at home; with Octavianus there seemed only a faceless stone, without crevices.

He looked at her, and wondered when she would have the sense to let him go. How she clung to life, undignified, utterly unattractive. He was suffering keenly, though the years had steeled him against most things—suffering through shame for her—and she appeared quite blind to his emotion. He wanted to cough, but was determined not to show physical weakness before her. His heart thumped, shaking him from head to foot; but he stood nonchalantly, deliberately turning his pity into disgust. For a moment there swept over him a wish to ravish her, out of anger for her obtuseness—to show her that it made no difference. The issue was Rome against the East, not wretched personalities, not dreams of the disinherited tribes for a Saviour, not dreams of the ruler for the crown of a god-halo. All the world needed was common-sense and respect for the moral basis of the state. Order. That was everything. The sense of Order. Emotion was the destructive force, and dreams. The woman on the bed was rotted with emotional fantasies.

She felt her grip on the situation slackening, her head growing confused and heated. She realised that she had made every possible error in her effort to impress Octavianus, and even yet she could not understand him. She began talking wildly about Caesar and Antonius; most of the time Octavianus couldn’t tell to which of the men she referred, except that he guessed she was blaming Antonius for the war with Rome.

She tossed and bit her embroidered pillow. “O I wish you were alive,” she moaned, herself uncertain whether it was Caesar or Antonius she meant. She knew that she was acting too obviously; and yet the more she felt this doubt, the less she could stop herself. She wasn’t acting at all.

She tried to talk coherently, to argue out the position of Egypt from the point of view of international law, to insist that Caesar had definitely assured the independence of Egypt. Octavianus scarcely listened. He was so ashamed for her sake. If Egypt had been merely his, he would have given it back to her to stop her from making such a show of herself. But Egypt wasn’t his, though he was taking it over personally as President of the Roman Senate—an illogical arrangement, and open to the charge of ambition, but the only one that would work.

Cleopatra seemed to read his brain. She broke into an accusation again of ambition. She swore that all Caesar’s ideas of Empire had come from her. What would serve nowadays but the centralisation of rule which had been achieved in Egypt with such pre-eminent virtue? Hadn’t every event during the last twenty years shown that the trend of forces vindicated what she wanted to do.

Octavianus stood with bowed head, listening at last with interest, but making his own private reservations. His presidency was not kingship in the Egyptian sense; it was the rule of law that was the basic factor of Roman life, and Cleopatra would never grasp that. It might be true, it certainly seemed to be true, that the disrupted world was praying for a saviour-king; but the world was rotted with dreams bred of insecurity and malnutrition, and didn’t know what was best for it. Let it pray. The Roman must seek to give security and food, while resisting as much as possible the prayer for the saviour. Yet things were difficult. Some dream-cry was needed to cement the aspiration for brotherhood...No matter. Let the cementing come from the home, from a religious sense of the decencies; and if there was truth in Cleopatra’s prophecies that the dreams of the East would sap the walls of Rome, then let the walls collapse.

She leaped from the bed, saying that she must show him what Caesar himself had written to her on these matters in his letters. She ran to a chest in a corner of the room, returned and thrust into the hands of Octavianus a bundle of love-letters. In one of them, she said, Caesar promised her Egypt. Octavianus glanced at them, sickened by the perfumes in which they were drenched as if in spices to hide the odour of the dead. He knew the handwriting. C4...That night...only you...kisses as many as the stars...I think I left a portion of manuscript in the left-hand cupboard...” Below Caesar’s usual high standard of literary form. That was his only comment. He wasn’t interested—rather, he was extremely loth to read. He pretended to look, skipped over the papyrus-sheets and wax-tablets, and handed them back.

He was turning to go. She wanted at all costs to keep him as long as possible. The vulnerable point might show at any moment. It was her last hope.

“I want to hand you personally the treasury-list,” she said, speaking slowly and distinctly to keep away the leaden sense of failure. The disregarded bundle of letters lay at the foot of the bed. “My steward is ready.” She clapped her hands, and Olympos appeared at the curtains. “Send Seleucos in,” she said.

Seleucos entered, a squat man with a long nose bulbously pointed. He made a short bow to Cleopatra and a very deep bow to Octavianus, and to Cleopatra’s rage handed the sheet direct to him. Octavianus glanced at it and was about to lay it aside, when Seleucos sidled up.

“Excuse me,” he said, clearing his throat and then realising he couldn’t spit in such a presence. After almost choking in his dismay, he managed to speak on. “You saw that list.”

Octavianus nodded impatiently.

Seleucos looked furtively at Cleopatra, spat in his extreme confusion, then, after a gulp of horror, declared, “ She cheated. It isn’t a full list. She left out a casket of jewels.”

All Cleopatra’s rage of frustration burst out within her uncontrollably. She sprang from the bed, her strength returning. She caught Seleucos by the hair at the top of his head, wrenched at his nose, ears and hair, and banged him on the face. Octavianus was startled; then with a laugh he interposed and freed the steward. Panting, Cleopatra fell back upon the bed, and Seleucos ran terrified from the room. Octavianus dropped into a chair and laughed heartily. The tension went from his body, and he laughed with boisterous cordiality. Cleopatra felt that he had at last unmasked himself, but that his unmasked self was even less suited for her aims than his masked self. He was impenetrable, laughing with the abandon of a boy; his face had lost all its effect of tiredness and aloofness; and he laughed as loudly as Antonius had laughed, but without the element of bull-throatiness that had betrayed the lecher in the laughing-boy.

Still panting with vexation and impotence, she stared at him.

“I wished to keep those things only that I might have presents for your wife and sister.” It cost her much to mention the sister, who had been the wife of Antonius, but she succeeded in doing so without any effect of strain.

“Of course,” said Octavianus easily. “I thank you on their behalf. By all means keep the casket.”

He seemed to have lost all fear of her now. He sat calmly on his chair, waiting to hear if she had anything more to say. But she felt used-up, disarmed. She could sense that the man before her had many weaknesses, but there was no contact possible between him and her; he wasn’t interested in her except as an historical personage who was a bother; and if he took her it would be only out of a slight curiosity or compassion which would evaporate an hour afterwards.

He saw that she had nothing more to say. He rose and bowed.

“You can be sure that you will be treated with all courtesy; and a person of your experience knows perfectly well that matters of international importance are settled by laws beyond the control of the individual. I wish you good-bye.”

He turned smartly on his heel, and was gone.

She sat motionless on the bed. She felt soiled. Why had she acted so ineffectually, so basely? He would go about laughing at her. No, at least he wasn’t that kind. But he despised her. She didn’t care. As long as Czesarion could be saved. The words of Octavianus smote her again, “The last of your line.” Caesarion was excluded, not con-sidered, as if already dead. Ah dear Isis, look down on Caesarion. Let him escape.

The walls of the room closed in on her. The world was evil, and there was escape for no one.

Olympos raised the curtain, and found that the Queen had fainted. He called to Charmion and Eiras.

*

For the next two days Cleopatra was continuously demanding the attendance of Olympos; but despite his care of her he grew hourly more worried about Nicias. He sent a slave and learned that Nicias had still not visited the Museion. Snatching a few hours’ leisure when Cleopatra had taken an opiate, he slipped into a carriage and was carried to the flat of Nicias. But no one answered him when he knocked at the door. Standing back in the roadway, he looked at the windows. Across the window of Daphne’s room the shutters were tightly fixed, and, as he stared, he saw that there were nails appearing through the wood. The shutters had been nailed up from the inside!

At once all his doubts rushed back upon him. The nails could only have one meaning: that somebody—who else but Daphne?—was imprisoned in the room. He recalled the shifty look that Nicias gave while speaking of Daphne’s visit to Canopos. The tale was incredible; he had never believed it, but hadn’t definitely questioned himself about it till this moment. Daphne had no friends at Canopos, and why should she have gone there at such a dangerous time?

He knocked again, and got no answer; then unwillingly returned to the Palace.

That night he could not sleep. The sense of evil deepened, wrapping him in clammy webs of distaste; and at dawn he rose with a sudden desire to see Victor. Surely the boy would know about Daphne. It was only the slight remaining impulse on the part of Olympos to forget the association, to ignore his doubt whether Daphne had told him the entire truth, that had kept him from seeking out Victor before. But now he was overwhelmed by a hope that the pair had run away together, leaving Nicias embittered and determined not to confess what had happened. Although Olympos would not have approved of such an elopement it was better than the dark suspicions begotten in his head by the manner of Nicias.

He knew where Victor slept, and went straight to the room. Victor was in the pantry, said Borios who was lacing up his shoes. Olympos waited. In a while Victor returned with a bowl of barley-porridge. He started at the sight of Olympos and wondered what the coming meant, but felt irrationally that it was something to do with Daphne; for since the night when Olympos had bandaged his head and talked about love, he had always connected Olympos with his affair.

Olympos told him to finish his breakfast, and studied him while he ate. There was something pleasing about the boy, yet weak; his mouth had sensibility and there was intelligence in his blue eyes. But this morning he looked washed-out; his hands trembled as he stirred the porridge; his eyes wandered uneasily to the bed, and he tidied the sheets.

At last Borios had gone out, and Victor put the bowl down. “Where is Daphne?” asked Olympos.

Victor was astonished, and yet he had expected some such question. “Daphne...” he stammered.

Olympos narrowed his brow. He had forgotten that Victor was unaware of his knowledge. “I’m her uncle,” he said. “She told me all about your love.” It was hard to use the word “love”; all his deep-buried but half-ignored and rationalised social-prejudices rose up within him to abuse this slave who had compromised Daphne; but for Daphne’s sake he humbled himself. He went on quietly, and his self-control brought him a real sympathy for the lovers, a forgiveness for the boy before him. “You can trust me. I’ve been trying to see her, but her father says she’s gone to Canopos.”

“He found out about us,” blurted Victor, his first suspicions disappearing before the need to unburden himself. “The slave told him. He’s got her locked up there, I think. What’s this about her going away?”

“What have you done to help her?” asked Olympos severely.

Tears came into Victor’s eyes. “I’ve done my best. I went to see him and asked him not to be angry. If you only knew how I had to fight to do that. But he turned me out. I could have run away to a friend in the south.”

Even in his anguish Victor had caution enough not to mention the exact locality of the farm. “But I stayed on here as a slave. I couldn’t bear to leave her. I couldn’t be free without her.” He realised that he mustn’t boast about intentions of illegal flight. “Antonius said I could be free. He freed me.”

Olympos was softened. “There was nothing you could have done.” He felt a wish to ease the boy. “But it will all come out right in the end.”

Victor rose from the bed and came close to Olympos with distraught eyes. “O will you help us?” He lifted his hands limply, and Olympos felt dislike stirring again.

“Leave it to me,” he said testily. Victor hung his head and drew back. “Don’t lose heart,” went on Olympos more kindly. “I’ll see that you both have your chance.” He rose and laid his hands on Victor’s shoulders. “You’ll be good to her? you’ll love her always?”

“As my life,” answered Victor, staring yearningly into the pale eyes of the old man, and trying to convey the depth of his devotion; but though he knew that the devotion was there, he could only feel the wish to convey it, not the devotion itself; and he feared that Olympos would misunderstand.

Olympos was satisfied. “I believe you.” He wanted to believe; always he wanted to believe in people; and so often he had been betrayed. Now Nicias had become crazed. There was only one disease: fear. Everything else could be cured but the taint of fear, and nothing except that taint was worth curing. Yet there was an achievement in perfecting the operation of removing stone from the bladder. Olympos saw the operating-slab before him; the body was cut open, and the hook was fixed in the stone to keep it from moving; then the thin blunt-edged cleaver was placed against the stone, and the stone was carefully broken without injury to the bladder. He had closed his eyes, and the picture rose before him—the body was the body of Daphne, and Nicias was holding the cleaver, with mad eyes; he let the edge slip.

Olympos sweated, chilled, and awoke to the scene about him. The disordered room, the anxious-faced Victor. No one should interfere with another’s life, another’s body. No one should get stone in the bladder, necessitating interference. No one should be in love. It didn’t matter. His hands were firm; he didn’t fumble. That was the main thing. Probably he did no good. He couldn’t know. Only, his heart was torn.

“Wait at the corner of the Sema street,” he said and went out.

*

Passing down the corridor, he heard his name called, and saw a slave who had already come several times with messages from the officer in charge.

“I have a message for you, master Olympos,” the man said loudly, though some of Cleopatra’s girls were standing by. “You are to watch that the Queen has no poisons, for Caesar fears that she may wish to end her life if she hears that Cesarion is dead and she is to walk in the Triumph at Rome. She is not to be told such matters.”

Olympos put his finger to his lip and frowned; but the man’s air of deliberate gaucherie, his embarrassed smile, confessed the truth. The girls had been meant to overhear. Murmuring together, they had hurriedly withdrawn; the Palace would buzz with the news in a moment; and within an hour it would have reached Cleopatra, whatever precautions were taken.

Olympos signed to the slave to go, and himself passed on. So Caesarion was dead; and now Cleopatra would die. There was no doubt of it. And she was best dead in a world where she had no place. But Daphne’s life was only beginning...His heart froze. What if Daphne were already dead? She had been weeks alone with Nicias. Perhaps he had starved her to death, strangled her. Olympos quickened his pace and called again for the carriage. He wished to go as fast as possible; also he had not the strength to walk.

But he made the carriage go by a roundabout way, although at full speed; for he must not arrive too soon before Victor. Then, deciding that he had allowed enough time, he descended and knocked at the door. There was no answer. He called the two coachmen and bade them heave the door down. They braced their shoulders and pushed. There was a crackling screech, and something snapped. Olympos bade the men stand back. Ignoring the curious knot of passers who were collecting, he listened and heard footsteps. He waved the men back to the carriage.

With grating of the half-broken hinges, the door opened and Simon put out his head. “Go away,” he said. “Master says go away.”

Olympos pushed past him and walked up the stairs. At the top hovered Nicias, his face darkly convulsed with fury.

“Go away,” he cried, swinging his arms round. Then he saw who it was. “You...”

“I want a word with you, please,” said Olympos mildly. He took Nicias by the arm and drew him into the study. Nicias submitted, after a backward glance down the stairs.

“What was the noise?”

“A drunken soldier fell against the door,” answered Olympos, saying the first thing that came into his head.

Nicias accepted the explanation, with a muttered male-diction against Romans; and they sat down beside his table.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” said Olympos, seeing that Nicias did not mean to open the conversation. He himself had no plan; now that he was faced with Nicias, he did not know what to do or say. He had taken for granted that by entering the closed premises he would find out everything; but he had found out nothing, except that he was afraid of the eyes of Nicias but could not look at anything else.

“No,” said Nicias with sidelong eyes. There was a pause, and Olympos felt that there was no way of getting Nicias to speak, when suddenly Nicias began talking of his own accord.

“I’ve been working. Finishing my book. It only needs a word or two.” He rose and settled some papers, then turned them upside down as if to hide what was written on them. His voice soared exultantly. “It’s getting clearer. It’s like this.” He stretched out his arms from the shoulder cross-wise, then drew them gradually together before him. His eyes glinted, and he stopped the movement when the hands were about an inch apart. “One is life, and the other is poetry. Never before have they quite touched. Well, soon they will come together, and then we’ll see. Ah, then we’ll see. Let all those who have hounded me beware in time. Something that has never been seen yet. A full explanation.”

He stared at his hands, defying them to touch; then dropped them to his sides and looked again at the papers he had turned over.

“I advise you to speak in a low voice,” he said warningly.

“She’s sleeping.” His voice grew very soft. “She’s tired.”

Olympos had ceased to be alarmed, but could not forebear one professional probe. “Hasn’t someone else written all that before?” He pointed at the papers.

Nicias snatched them up, hugged them to his breast, and glared fiercely round. “Has someone cheated?” he screamed. “By god, I’ll kill the man who’s stolen in and copied my work. It’s mine, mine.” He stroked the papers and set them down again, keeping his palm tightly pressed over them.

Olympos felt his alarm returning. He knew all he needed to know about the condition of Nicias; there was no sense in prolonging the conversation. But he felt caught in a downward vortex, of which he himself was part; he was no longer able to feel a spectator, a physician. The unexplored depths of his own life padded with horrifying jungle-footsteps, thrust spidery fingers of decay out of the night of ages, echoed with gibbering voices and the wail of valley-winds. He felt that it was not Nicias at whom he was looking, but at himself; and a slow paralysis, a terror of those forgotten depths in himself, kept him in his seat, waiting for what Nicias would next say.

Nicias seated himself and leaned forwards, staring into the eyes of Olympos from under his heavy brows. His sunken eyes were filmed with a bright unfocussed glare; the eyes of a bird. He spoke in a low ecstatic voice.

“The joy of life is death. Then the spirit of blood is free. It’s free; pouring out; suddenly. Coming and going as one. Squeezed between the fingers.” He paused and plucked at his sparse beard. “One must not die at the wrong time, or it is wasted. But to die with all the will, to gush with all the blood at once. In such a moment one sees everything, owns everything. One is God. And imagine if such a moment is the end of a cleansing from sin, if it is union with the beloved, if it is the death of sin and the becoming of God...Ah...”

He gave sidelong glances and plucked at his beard again. “Of course I was only putting a case. Do you think anyone was listening?”

He studied Olympos suspiciously, trying to remember how much of his secrets he had given away. He had tried to express himself in a way that wouldn’t be understood, because it was necessary to say something to put Olympos off the scent; necessary to say something that was almost the reality, but not quite. But what if Olympos was cleverer than he seemed? what if the secret was stolen at the last moment, when Nicias was so near the final explication, Daphne’s throat under his hands and his spirit and hers mingling, purified, acceptable, god and victim? with the world fading away in the light of glory, the coming and the going of life made one at last, mystically merging. His head was sick. He wanted to nurse his head, a sick baby. He swayed his shoulders and wondered if he ought to throw Olympos out of the window or hit him on the head from behind while going down the stairs.

“Let us have some wine,” said Olympos, growing more and more oppressed. “And I will go.”

Nicias took no notice, counting the movements of his head to and fro. Nine-ten. He was terrified that when he came to thirteen he would be stopped, held there for ever. Eleven-twelve. He gripped the chair. Thirteen. Sure enough, his head stopped, inclining over his left shoulder, and he couldn’t raise it again. Now he was convinced that Olympos was up to no good; once he could raise his head, he would have things out with him.

Olympos went to the door, asked Simon to get the wine, and stood there waiting for the tray. Simon had degenerated as badly as his master; his hair was knotted; his eyes protruded. The rooms hadn’t been tidied for many days. At last the wine was forthcoming. Olympos took the tray, and, as he turned, broke into one of the cups the phial which he had been hiding in his sleeve. Then, reaching the table, he quickly poured out the wine.

“To your health.” He lifted his cup to his mouth.

Nicias continued to stare at him. Everything that Olympos said was proving him a traitor, a skulking liar. What was there wrong with Nicias that he should be wished good-health in that suggestive way? Olympos was trying to ferret things out. Nicias glanced haggardly at his papers, but couldn’t draw them away from Olympos because of his rigidly inclined head. There was some demonry in this matter of his head. Why couldn’t he straighten it? He was sure that Olympos had some evil intent.

Olympos was becoming frightened. How could he get Nicias to drink? He did not dare to speak directly of the wine again, but raised his own cup, hoping that the gesture would call forth an automatic imitation from Nicias. But Nicias still stared at him, all his faculties employed on the problem of lifting his head from his shoulder.

“This is quite good wine,” said Olympos in a shaky voice.

Nicias looked at the wine-flask and at the cups. Why was Olympos jealous of the wine? He wanted for a moment to fling the wine in the face of Olympos; then felt that that would be too obvious. No. He would get Olympos drunk; he would call for a whole cask and drink Olympos senseless; for he was certain that no wine could affect himself. A man tense on the brink of death’s meaning, a man destined to save the world, to redeem the sin of his nearest and dearest, to slay in order to save...such a man could not be affected by wine. He felt a desire to drink. Dionusos, the bringer of wine, was the redeemer, the giver of death’s ecstasy.

He put out his hand and took the wine-cup, forgetting that his head was bound down to his shoulder. He straightened his head and drank.

Holding his breath, Olympos watched. Slowly the wine gurgled down the throat of Nicias. The drug was a very quick-acting one. The last drop of the drugged wine went down the throat of Nicias. Olympos breathed again.

“Let’s have some more wine,” said Nicias with kindled eyes. “Let’s have all the wine in the world. I have never taken wine seriously enough. But that will all be explained. Have you ever killed anyone, Olympos?”

Olympos shook his head, and Nicias went on, “Neither have I.” He felt quite fond of Olympos, no longer afraid of having his secret read. He wanted to tell all, for he meant to drink Olympos senseless and then consider how best to dispose of him. The man knew too much already. “Not yet. I’m not referring to ordinary murder. That’s easy. I mean ceremonial death....You don’t understand...”

He waved his hand hazily, contemptuously. “We’ll come to that after...” He chanted in a deep vibrating voice lines from Agamemnon:

Now you shall hear my oath, my solemn oath. By Justice that avenged my daughter’s death, by Wrath, to whom I sacrifice this man, Hope does not tread for me the halls of Fear...

His voice died away, and he thumped his hand on the table, counting. Would the cursed thirteen thwart him again? One, two, three...His head nodded and sank on his breast. He fell forward.

Olympos caught him falling, and laid him back in the chair. The words of the quotation “my daughter’s death” had sent a shiver of dread through Olympos. Had Daphne already been killed ? But there was only one way of finding out. He passed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Simon,” he called. Simon appeared at the door of the small kitchen, and Olympos addressed him with as easy an air as he could summon. “ Go over to my rooms at the Museion and bring the roll that you’ll find on the table there. Your master wishes to see it. They know you and will let you in.”

He looked straight into Simon’s eyes. If Simon refused, he would use what strength he possessed to throw him down the stairs. Daphne must be rescued if she were still alive. It seemed that all his life he had prepared only for this moment, which would give him a real claim on Daphne’s love for ever; he forgot Victor and saw only his own old-age tended by Daphne in her darling gratitude, bringing him the surety of life’s beauty and eternity that he craved. And the fear of her death hardened him, gave him power to dominate Simon.

“Go right over,” he said in level tones, and Simon left unuttered the demand to see his master and have the order verified. The determination in the eyes of Olympos quelled and disconcerted him. He went off down the stairs, slowly, muttering to himself; but he went.

The front door shut behind him. Olympos went at once to Daphne’s door. It was locked. He picked up the largest chair in the room, with an effort normally far beyond him; and flung it at the door. The gesture used up all his strength, but the latch on the inside was broken. Hobbling weakly to the door, he opened it and peered into the dark room.

“Daphne,” he called. There was no reply, and he was sure that he was too late. Then in the filtering light he saw a shape on the bed. The shape moved, moaned, sat up.

“Olympos....”

“Daphne.” He was at her side.

“I haven’t had anything to eat for three days. I think it was three.” She moaned, and then winced beneath his examining fingertips. “I’m sore all over.”

“You are with child,” he said. “O god.”

She stroked his tear-wet cheeks. “Poor father...” Then she shuddered. “O I thought you were him. He keeps staring at me. Save me.” She clung round his neck.

He lifted her from the bed; she tottered, still holding to him.

“Listen,” he said. “However weak you feel, you must walk downstairs. Victor is waiting for you.” The memory of Victor returned bitterly, but nothing mattered except to rouse her.

She gave an incredulous cry, and clung more tightly. He helped her towards the door, but was so weak himself that he almost fell beneath her weight.

“Why isn’t Victor here?” she asked suspiciously as they halted in the door-way of her room.

“He couldn’t get in, he’s waiting,” said Olympos, unable to think of better excuses.

She held to the door-post. “Are you sure he loves me?”

“For God’s sake, come on,” he cried.

She wavered. “You’ll come with me.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

She let him draw her on, and down the stairs, without sandals, in a tattered filthy dress that she clasped about her with pitiful attempts at coquetry. At last they reached the foot of the stairs; then after a brief pause emerged into the street, dazed by the many people, the sunlight and the noise and the swarming forms of life, after the dark chamber caverned with strangeness. Victor was hurrying forward. “O Daphne.”

She clung to Olympos, speaking in her timbreless child-voice, her eyes closed with brain-fever. “You’ll come with me. I don’t know if he loves me.”

Victor wanted to kneel at her feet, to kiss the hem of her dirtied gown; but there was so many people passing. Already several had stopped to look at Daphne.

“Come with me, dearest,” he said brokenly. “I love you, utterly, only you.”

She turned to Olympos. “You heard what he said. He said he loves me.” Her voice still had its note of child-questioning. “But so do others say. I don’t know what to believe. I wish I knew.”

Olympos could not but feel pleasure in the way she turned to him rather than to Victor, giving him and not Victor her trust. But he was deeply pained at the same time; for it was not the real Daphne who acted thus, it was a poor child of pain, and to wish to keep this suffering trust of hers was nothing but to wish to keep her suffering.

“He loves you,” he said with gentle certainty, and felt that he was giving her up to a stranger, thereby making her a stranger henceforth. “Truly he loves you.”

She stood swaying and looking into Victor’s eyes. “Yes, I believe he does. Say you love me again.”

“I love you, darling.” He wanted to weep with terror and pity. What had they done to his Daphne? Would she remain thus bewildered always?

She touched his hand. “I’ll trust you then. It’s all so hard.” She passed her hand over her brow. “I’m so sore,” she said complainingly. “I’d like something to eat, please.”

Olympos put his hand into the pouch that hung at his side, took out a handful of gold pieces, and gave them to Victor.

“Take her away and let her rest for a few days. Then come to me again.”

He called to the coachmen, who, following his instructions, had brought the carriage up once more; and Daphne was led towards the carriage. She climbed in obediently and lay back on the seat, pouting her mouth like a child for a kiss. Victor climbed in beside her, and kissed her. She shook her head. “You mustn’t do that. He wouldn’t like it.”

Victor felt that his heart was breaking. He clasped her in his arms, and she nestled against him, then looked appealingly up into his face.

“You’ll be kind to me, won’t you?”

“Darling Daphne,” he sobbed, half-feeling that she wasn’t Daphne after all, that the world had suddenly become a different place without his knowing of the change, and that he alone was left, the survivor of a meaningless past. “Don’t. I love you. O do be yourself again.”

The coachman asked where they wanted to be driven, and Victor told him to find any decent house with apartments to let near the Dragon Canal. The carriage moved off, Daphne lying quiescent in her lover’s arms.

*

Olympos watched the retreating carriage, a great relief and emptiness in his heart. He turned to go, but something held him to the spot. After all Nicias was his brother-in-law; he was in a bad state of feverish breakdown and needed attention; and on recovering consciousness he might rush to the authorities and cause trouble for the lovers before his state was discovered. The police weren’t functioning very well these days, but a risk was a risk. Besides, Olympos felt curious. He didn’t like to leave a process half-way through.

Calling to a loafer who seemed sturdily built, he offered a good wage for a few hours’ attendance. The man readily agreed; and thus accompanied, Olympos returned upstairs.

Simon arrived back with the roll, panting, to find Olympos and his sneering guard in possession, with the door of Daphne’s room wide open.

“What have you done with master?” he howled, and ran to the study-door. The guard flung him back and sat him in a corner, where he was bidden to remain; and there he remained, glowering.

Olympos went into the study and seated himself opposite the drugged Nicias. He was ready to wait. It would be some hours before Nicias recovered; and the time would have to be passed. Time passed anyway, whether a wretch was having his limbs wrenched apart on the rack or a lover was dawdling in the bed of a kiss. Time passed, thank the god.

Moved by a sudden impulse, he went to the table, and, conquering a feeling of distaste for such prying, he turned over the papers which had aroused in Nicias so strongly the fear of plagiarism. The pages were entirely blank.

Olympos went back to his chair, and waited, trying to understand. If only he could see himself as Nicias, he would know why it had all happened. But it was no use. As soon as he thought he had it all clear, he found that a voice within himself answered, “Yes, but still you wouldn’t have done to Daphne what he did.” Probably, however, what he would have done would have been just as cruel, pointless; and Nicias would have failed to understand how anyone could have done such a thing. One could never really know another person or the act of another person. One could work out from oneself all the reasons why the act was done, and yet not know in the least why it was done...Misery everywhere. Cleopatra would know by now that Caesarion was dead. A world forever wailing. The present was in throes of the future and there was no rest. There was no present, only a dying past and an unborn future; and humankind stood on that cloven point, that nothingness, and tried to create happiness and loyalties, to dream of justice. Was it heroism or madness?

Hours passed, and the bored guard came in to ask for an increase in wages, after ransacking the pantry. Olympos ate a few brine-pickled olives, and tried a date, but the lusciousness repelled him, and he ate another olive to remove the taste from his mouth. He waited. Night fell, and still Nicias slept. Then out of a dim silence he stirred and looked up.

“Why are you here?” he said, blinking in his returning awareness; and Olympos had the hope that the obsessions had left him, for he spoke in his old grumpy tones.

“I am here to look after you,” said Olympos quietly. “You are ill.”

Nicias lay back, trying to digest this statement. Yes, he was ill. He tried to remember. “Daphne!” he called suddenly. Then “Daphne!” in a bleak despairing voice.

Simon appeared at the door. “He took her off,” he shouted angrily, before the guard yanked him away and shut his mouth for him.

Nicias tried to comprehend. He stared at Olympos and struggled up on his elbows. “Give me my papers,” he said in a furious mumble.

Olympos handed him the papers from the table. Nicias turned them over and over, scrutinised them, lifted them close to his eyes. “They’ve been stolen,” he said fearfully. “These are not my papers.” His eyes roved round the room, looking at everything but Olympos. His great work was ruined, he was cheated. “Where is Daphne?” Then he remembered in full and knew that he had indeed been cheated. Daphne was taken away! He struggled up again, his chest heaving, foam between his blackened lips.

“God!” he screamed. “Blast this man! She is stained forever. God, have pity on her, my poor lost child. Give her back to me, only for a moment! How can I die for her unless I kill her first?”

He raised quavering fists towards the ceiling, and fell heavily back, a rattling noise in his wasted throat.

Olympos placed a hand on the chest of the collapsed man, but knew that he would find no heart-beat. Nicias was dead. All for the best. Olympos went to the door and spoke calmly to Simon. “Simon, your master is dead.” With a howl Simon ran for the study, bent almost down on his hands and feet. Olympos signed to the guard to leave him alone, and stood at the stairhead, wondering whether to go or to stay out the night.

Noting the roll that Simon had fetched for him from the Museion, he picked it up from the floor where it had fallen, and dusted it carefully. Knowledge—was it all no more than the blank sheets which Nicias had consigned his discovery, the blankness of life, the scrawled fantasies of his overheated brain? The anatomist Herophilos had discovered the cerebrum and cerebellum; his statue stood in the portico of the Museion where he had once taught. A great man. Olympos unrolled the first few pages of the treatise in his hand. What was it all about? Both Herophilos and Nicias were now dead, and Nicias would have no statue. There was the difference. He had been a good man, Nicias, in his way.

Olympos tried to come to a decision. He couldn’t stand at the stairhead for the rest of the night. But somehow decisions didn’t seem to matter. Why not stay where he was, instead of going out at once into the street again, being forced to speak to people at the Museion or the Palace? Besides, he had been friendly with Nicias, certainly his best friend. In the morning he could arrange for the interment.

“We’ll stay for the night,” he said to his guard. “I’ll pay you well tomorrow. Make me up a bed on the floor here.”

Perhaps things would grow clearer if he delayed and slept in these rooms of crime and hatred; where his sister had died, and where he had had many pleasant conversations and watched Daphne comb her hair. It was hard to get one’s thoughts in order. There was such vileness in everyone.

*

Cleopatra had called for him, but he was absent, nobody knew where. She smiled sadly, being too weak to feel vindictive, thinking that his negligence was disrespect; then knew otherwise. He wasn’t of that paltry kind. Meanwhile she did not trust anyone else for an opiate (queer that she couldn’t trust them, in view of the course on which she had already determined, but so it was), and she had none left of what he had given her. She had the other phial, under her pillow; but that she did not mean to drink as yet. In a short while, a very short while. But she wouldn’t be hurried. There was all the rest of life left to die in, and therefore no hurry at all. The endlessness of time was about her. But she would have liked to sleep first, and now she must lie and think.

It wasn’t the past of her queening that she wanted to think about; she was beyond reviewing those bleached triumphs. She thought rather of the days when she was very young and used to play in the rose-garden, while her father blew on the flute, his fat cheeks puffed out, usually a little drunk, but she hadn’t understood that in her young days. She thought it was merely a part of being a grownup king to have such hot breath and kindly, somewhat glassy eyes, and to talk in a rambling sort of way that never quite made sense. Berenice had been too old to be a playmate; but Cleopatra had hated Arsinoe ever since she took Cleopatra’s best doll one morning and hung it on a tree with its head half torn away...Arsinoe, who had been strangled at Ephesos...Cleopatra stuffed her fingers into her mouth: a thing which she had never done since those far-off times of the rose-garden when she had also been frightened of the dark—but not for the same reasons, for it was of a broken-necked doll she dreamed, not of a strangled sister. And yet there could not be so much difference between doll and sister, since both had brought the same dreams, and Cleopatra had been guiltless about the doll. What was conscience then?

She grew reassured. For Charmion and Eiras were close at hand, ready to spring to her aid at a whisper. Fear went deeper than conscience, yet conscience could only work through the power of fear. There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing.

Caesarion was dead. His trustful, loving face was wiped out of the mirrors of life, but he lived in her thoughts, charming still, asking questions about his father, wanting to be worthy. Her heart paused, and a great moon of silence burst out within her, a sponge of light that absorbed the sweat and blood of her being...But she set her teeth and made no sound. The girls slept, evenly breathing. Somewhere Octavianus slept.

He puzzled her. He seemed so ordinary, and yet the strongest man she had ever met. She had almost loved him when he laughed at her, though she had wanted to kill him too. How dare he laugh? She smiled, and then her face hardened into a mask of suffering hate. He had murdered her Caesarion. But he couldn’t win. Rome was already half-Eastern. Egypt would do more to Rome than Rome did to Egypt; but Cleopatra would lie in a sarcophagus, for tourists to see.

The beauty of the night stirred in her blood like sudden wine. She didn’t want to die. If she could hide away successfully anywhere, she would toil as the wife of the poorest peasant, and would bless every moment wrung from life. Anything was better than death. Life in a prison, shame in the streets of Rome, pain and insult. And yet she had to die. Caesarion was dead, and Antonius was dead, and, long ago, Caesar was dead. And many others, countless others. Go away, Arsinoe!

She wouldn’t die. She would do anything but die. O Antonius. She loved him at last, who had always loved him. But he had been so weak, and she had been a thousand times right in all her too-few interferences. Any man with fine words could sway Antonius. How they two had laughed together. She held her left breast to still her painful heart. The dying god...the everlasting earth...O for another word with him. But never would it be. Silence for ever, a widening silence. Thanked be the mocking gods that death ended all, despite the tales told by the priests to the people. The gods were all in the blood. She had learned that when the world became her shrine and she walked therein as Isis newborn. The priests were right to teach as they taught, because they spoke of the images in the blood, and what could the people do but misunderstand? Yet the images must be uttered.

She must die, and Egypt would conquer Rome. Rome would conquer the world, and out of the East would come a voice that would make of her order a scorn and a plaything. Perhaps. One exaggerated so much, even when speaking the truth. Anyhow, Octavianus wouldn’t have things all his own way, or those that came after him. He had no son. May he die eaten of worms for murdering Caesarion!

She put her hand under the pillow and touched the poison-phial. But she wouldn’t drink it yet. Tomorrow, in the light. Fitly dressed, like a queen; not tousled in bed, where they could make jokes of her. One thing worried her badly: a petition from the township of Sais, which she had neglected to settle—an urgent matter relating to judicial bribery. Things had got out of hand during the last few weeks. That shamed her.

Two soldiers below exchanged quarrelsome words, and the sounds floated up through the open window. She wanted to hear what they were saying; to enter into their quarrel, into their lives; to be part of everyone in the world. The expanding moment of acceptance hovered with soft wings over the seething earth. The darkness of the hermit-hours overbrimmed with love; but the dawn would be different. Then she would contract to impotent disgust, left only one way of asserting herself, one last assumption of power, one throne—death. The night was murmurous with love, but the day would be armoured with resistant surfaces, Roman faces thronging, daggering high-lights all aimed at her heart.

She would drink the phial in the day, with the serpent-crown on her head...and the serpent-fancy in her heart. Bride of the sunlight, the everlasting earth.

12 A CHILD IS BORN

Next morning Victor went from the apartment-house where he and Daphne were staying, to buy food. He felt at once a deep current of emotion pulsing among the people, and in a few moments he learned the cause. Cleopatra was dead. Some said that Octavianus had smothered her while soldiers held her down, some that she had been dropped into a pit of serpents, some that she had poisoned herself to escape the overtures of Octavianus, some that she had placed a cobra to her breast. The people mourned for her. Though they would be no more enslaved under the Romans, they felt in the death of their Queen the loss of something inestimable, the end of a personal achievement. Egypt was now submerged in an Empire. Sincerely they mourned.

They were in this mood when a legionary, startled by a cat, drew his sword and slashed out. The cat was killed. The deed occurred in the street along which Victor was walking. He saw the flash of the sword and heard the outcry. The rush of people swept him on, and he saw the Roman’s astonished face for a moment lifted above the stormy sea of heads and thrashing arms. It was all he could do to save himself from being thrown over and trampled. The mob pushed and roared, surging over the dead Roman, tearing at his flesh, stamping him into the roadway. Then they scattered in fear for shelter, still breathing threats against all aliens who did not respect Bast. A trumpet had been heard.

Victor retreated back to the apartment-house, carrying the three small loaves which were all he had had time to buy and which, though crushed, were still eatable. Shopping was not a very safe pursuit at the moment. After haggling with the caretaker, he obtained some cheese, beans and barley.

Daphne was still in bed; but now her eyes were clear and softly happy, despite the drawn lines of her thinned face and the shadow that fell across her as soon as she began to tell of the last few weeks. Victor too was unbelievably happy, though he could not bear to listen to Daphne’s account of her sufferings; and she, in her effort to realise that they were all over, kept on repeating details and remembering something new. It seemed that until she had told it all she wouldn’t have finalised the escape. They wept together, clutched with a pity which both feared would turn into reproaches. Yet they were happy.

He stroked her hair, paler than ever but still gold. She asked him what the noise had been; for though the brawl had occurred two streets away, she had heard the uproar and feared that Nicias had found Victor.

He told her what had happened. She shivered. “Can’t we get away ? I’m frightened he’ll find us here.”

Victor too wanted to go, though he dreaded the final wrench of parting from an environment which was at least familiar. He had sent a street-boy with a letter to be delivered at the Palace for Olympos; for he didn’t dare to go there himself. One of the eunuchs might see him and cause trouble. Doubtless Octavianus would now claim what was left of the property of Antonius, as the guardian of the young children; but there would be no great search for a missing slave outside Alexandria. The Palace would be in confusion; there would have been gaps caused by casualties in the skirmishes; and the eunuchs would be too busy trying to peculate, they wouldn’t produce exhaustive lists. Once in the Arsinoite Nome with a propertied friend Victor would be safe. It would be taken for granted that Antonius had freed him if by chance anyone ever recognised his face. Lucilius would testify on his behalf...

Every argument led to Lucilius. It was necessary to go. Victor said that he’d make arrangements to go in two days’ time.

“Don’t leave me more than you must,” Daphne pleaded. They kissed, and talked of the life that they would lead, blessedly free from the city and its crooked ways. Lucilius would leave them the farm; it was freehold, unlike almost all the other property in Egypt.

Later, after endless homilies and warnings from Daphne, Victor went out again, having promised to watch for traffic and soldiers and Nicias and everything else that was dangerous. He wandered along the canal towards the dockyards, but all the shipping seemed to have stopped and no one could give him any information. After the first aches of disappointment, he felt not unrelieved at having the responsibility of settling the departure thus taken from his shoulders; but as soon as he felt that there was no means of leaving Alexandria, he longed again for the farm. He was so tired and overwrought that he didn’t know what he wanted, and was about to retrace his steps when he saw two men come out of a beershop, wiping their lips. They climbed down some steps and got into a large flat-bottomed boat. Victor watched them, leaning over into the canal. He would make one more effort; and if that failed, he’d go straight back to Daphne.

“Do you know any boat shortly sailing up the Nile?” he called.

The men considered him for a while, and then one of them answered, “Say we do?”

He grew confused. “I mean a boat that would take passengers.”

“Suppose you did?” said the man, who had a snub nose and a fringe of beard under his chin. “What’s that got to do with the price of a mug of beer?”

He laughed loudly at his own joke; but the other man, who seemed more serious, a dark man with a large greasy forelock, addressed Victor who was about to retire in discomfiture:

“If you know a person who’ll pay passage-money down on the spot, we know a boat. But it all depends how far you want to go.”

“To the Limne,” said Victor, unwilling to give the full details.

“You came to the right men this time,” said the man, nodding importantly. “We’re going to the City of Dogs—miles further up. We can put you off at the nearest spot for the City of Crocodiles. Where is it exactly you want to go?”

Victor, with shrinking courage told him. “That’s thirty miles inland,” said the man.

“Twenty-eight,” replied the snub-nosed one.

“Thirty-eight, if you like,” said the other firmly. He turned again to Victor. “Can you pay? That’s the main thing.”

Victor produced some of the gold pieces, and the men stared at him with something of the respect due to a successful thief. Quickly they stated terms, insisting on payment down. Victor handed the coins over, feeling sure that he’d been cheated. He muttered a few words about a receipt, but the men stared him silent.

“We’ve got no paper and pen,” said the serious man.

“And we can’t write,” added his friend.

“And all the scribes have run away.”

“So you either trust us or you don’t.”

Victor realised that he hadn’t explained that passage for two was required. “It isn’t only myself. There’s my...my wife too.”

“You ought to pay double for that,” said the serious man, spreading out his arms.

“She isn’t at all fat,” answered Victor, who objected to the gesture; then remembering that Daphne’s womb-burden was now plain, he went on, “riot very fat.”

“Still she’s a woman,” said the serious man. “And a woman always takes up more room than you’d think.”

“Perhaps he hasn’t had experience of the barge-trade before,” remarked the snub-nosed man, excusing Victor for not understanding the fine points of the discussion.

“If you won’t pay double, what will you pay?” asked the serious man. “You aren’t playing fair, arranging terms and then springing a woman on us.”

“You should have told us first,” agreed the snub-nosed man. “We had a friend whose boat was swamped because of a woman he took aboard.”

“It wasn’t swamped,” said the serious man. “It was a leak.”

“There isn’t any difference,” the other protested. “You can’t say it wasn’t a woman.”

“When a boat’s swamped,” said the serious man in an argumentative voice, “the water comes in from the top, and when there’s a leak it comes in from the bottom.”

“I told you it was the woman, and now you say the same thing in different words.”

“Anyway he always was a liar, and I don’t believe what he said.”

After much more discussion, which seemed to Victor not quite relevant, they agreed to take Daphne for another gold piece; and Victor, though he knew he was being outrageously overcharged, was yet proud of not having been browbeaten into paying double the first amount. When the price was fixed, the men proposed a drink to seal the bargain, expatiating on the sacrifices they were making in accepting passages at such an unprecedented low rate. The suggestion pleased Victor, since it looked as if the men were in earnest; but he didn’t want to drink. Daphne would smell it on him and think that he’d wasted time in mere pleasure. He was seized with a tearing need to get back to her, afraid that something dreadful would have happened, that she would be weeping, misjudging him, sick...

They went into the beershop, and the bargemen pounded on the wall, disturbing a sleepy group in a corner. A slatterny girl came out, stared at the new customers, and went away without waiting for the order.

“She knows our tastes,” said the snub-nosed man complacently. “It will be beer in a double-sized can.”

In a few moments the girl returned with large mugs of beer, thrust them at the ready customers, and put out her hand after rubbing it on her hip without particularly cleaning it, since her dress was as dirty as her hands. The bargemen looked at Victor, and he paid. Seeing one of the gold coins, the girl took a sudden interest, sat on Victor’s knee, and began plaiting her hair. He didn’t like to push her off, and at the same time he was terrified that the sailors would make some jocular reference to the girl when they later saw Daphne—that is, if they didn’t abscond without waiting for the passengers. He therefore did his best to pretend that he wasn’t aware of the girl on his knee, and was overjoyed when one of the men called for more beer; the girl would have to rise to fill the cups. She rose, and he rose also. The men at once grasped his arm.

“Come on now. One round more. We ought to get to know one another. We don’t like taking strangers on our boat. No hurry.”

Victor didn’t like to say that Daphne was ill. They might suspect plague and refuse to have her on the boat. He mumbled something about an appointment, and sat down again. The girl came back with the beer, including a mug for herself. She sat on Victor’s knee again, and, having finished plaiting her hair, kissed him with slobbery mouth. It was harder now to pretend not to notice, but he did his best, rather overcome with the fumes of the weak but unfamiliar beer and trying to follow what the bargemen were saying. They seemed to be simultaneously computing the last harvest, advising him about the journey, and talking of a girl nicknamed Three-legs. The beer-waitress wriggled against him shamelessly; and he, conscious that she was pleasantly warm though abominably ugly, that beer was even warmer, and that the bargemen were fine fellows with magnificent powers of conversation, was yet agonised by the wish to get back to Daphne, a rebuking image in the distance of his mind.

Suddenly, to his great relief and partial exasperation, the girl rose and went out, leaving a slipper behind. He instantly rose once more, apologised, grew flustered, sat down, leaped up, and said that he’d come along with his wife first thing the next morning but one, gripped the horny hands of the bargemen, smiled at their cheery reassurances, and went out.

He was free. He rushed down the road, divided between his regretful desire to hasten back to Daphne and an elated sense that he was free at last. He wanted to shout it out. The sunlight was richer-textured. The mud of the street was squelchier. The waters of the canal were turbid with new swirls and voices. Everything was freshly-born. Men and women passed, vocal with joy or silent with purpose. The sparrows were bastards of the eagle. Victor was returning to his beloved, and he was free. His life was in his modelling hands, a clean mass of clay; and the hands obeyed no will but his. He had never thought such joy possible, and Daphne was at the core of it, like embalmed Alexandros in his home of glass. Nothing could ever upset him again.

He went stumbling up the stairs and burst into the room. Daphne had been asleep, and sat up in the bed with large scared eyes.

“O what is it?” she asked, her hands over her heart. “Is it him?”

Victor no longer feared Nicias. He feared no one. “I’ve found the boat, and two fine fellows to sail it. We’re leaving the day after tomorrow. You and me.” He kneeled beside the bed and took Daphne in his arms.

“You smell of drink,” she said pettishly. “It’s beer. You’ve been drinking. And you said you’d come straight back to me.”

“I had to have a drink. Only one. To seal the bargain. Don’t be angry. I love you. O we’ll be so happy.”

She regarded him with a vague uncertainty. “How much did it cost?”

“Five gold pieces,” he said, averting his eyes. “Because the times are bad. I couldn’t find anyone else.” He poured out the contents of his purse on the bed. “You couldn’t have done better...What does the money matter?”

She separated the coins with her forefinger. “There ought to be another gold piece.”

He counted. “So there ought,” he said angrily. “I must have lost it.” There wasn’t so much money left when it was set out; and without money one starved... ” Someone must have stolen it from me,” he insisted. He was about to go on when with a start he recalled the beer-waitress. So that was why she’d sat on his knee and gone away with such abrupt unconcern after kissing him. He flushed and said weakly, “I must have dropped it.”

“You remembered something. What was it?”

“It was nothing.”

“Yes, it was. Tell me.”

He couldn’t tell her, it would make her miserable, and there was nothing real behind it. So he knit his brows and said, “I thought I remembered one of the men pushing against me. He must have stolen it.”

“But why did you stop like that instead of telling me?”

“I didn’t want you to think we were going off with thieves—cut-throats.”

“I won’t go with them,” she cried shrilly. “How could you want me to go in a boat with murderers?”

“I don’t really think they stole it.” He felt that he’d tangled himself properly with his effort to smooth things out. “ I only thought one of them might have stolen it.”

What a muddle his lie was producing, and he’d only told the lie in the first place so as not to give a false impression. “I’m sure we can trust them. More likely I dropped the piece while taking out the others. I paid for the beer.”

“O you did, did you? I thought you said the men made you drink with them.”

“They did. They insisted on the drink, and left me to pay.”

“I’m sure they’re thieves. I won’t go with them.”

He felt desperate. Daphne’s outcry awoke all his own qualms. The men did look rather ruffianly; they knew he had more money—what more likely than that they’d hit their passengers on the head one night? Or else they’d go off from Alexandria without waiting for their passengers at all. Victor didn’t know which prospect was worse. To crush his doubts he began arguing wildly.

“We must go. It’s our only chance. They’ve been paid all that money. Don’t ruin things for us both...”

“How can you say it’s me ruining them?”

On and on went the whirl of words, pressing the life out of the arguers, dragging all the breath from their chests and bellies, weakening them, buffeting. Painfully Victor drifted back on fear and despair.

Then, with an effort, he relaxed. He stayed quiet, listening to his excited heart, and clasped Daphne and kissed her gently; and wept. “Love...love...” She resisted, went on talking, pushed him away, succumbed. She was so sore still, so enclosed with nightmares.

“You really love me?”

“You, you, nothing but you in the whole world.”

Close together, they found peace, and the warmth of oblivion. Tenderly, hardly moving. It was closeness, and surrender, the veiling of both their egoisms. Trust me, I trust you. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Bird-cry without the haunting cruelty of the bird. Peace of a kind, and a mounting sweetness. But not freedom, not the security of striding the streets of purpose. And yet a deeper purpose. And yet he wept, a little.

*

She would not let him go out again; and they sent the caretaker’s small son for food, and sent him with a note to Olympos, saying that a boat had been found. Olympos came a few hours later, gravely composed. He took Victor aside and told him of the death of Nicias, but said that Daphne had better not know as yet; and he bade him not to worry about his status, for he would be able to use his influence to have him entered on the list of slaves as freed a few weeks before the death of Antonius. Then he examined Daphne and saw that she was very near her time. He had not realised how near. Perhaps she had better stay in Alexandria.

Victor listened in dismay, sure that she would take ad-vantage of this advice to refuse passage with the suspected bargemen; but she did no such thing. She refused to stay. She said that Victor had arranged everything for the passage and that the chance mustn’t be lost; she would die if anything went wrong and Victor was arrested after all as a fugitive slave. Olympos, who had been meditating whether to change his mind and tell her about Nicias, saw that she was resolved to leave Alexandria. He took Victor aside again, gave him more advice and another twenty pieces of gold, and made him promise to apply for any aid he and Daphne might ever need.

Then he went out, after many kisses and oaths and thanks and embraces; went out, and never again saw the lovers; and knew that he would never see them again; and he felt happy in the scene of affection that he had left, and sorry—sorry for the youngsters who had yet to live their lives, and sorry for himself who had lived his life. He, whose days had always been filled with small interests, felt an immense blank, like the masterpiece of Nicias, as he faced the streets again.

What was he to do with himself? Well, he could start writing the Memoranda on the Last Days of Cleopatra, which Octavianus had suggested. That was a simple matter. He had merely to find out the official account, and corroborate it, though he would gain pleasure in noting down some of the things about the Queen that had made him pity and like her. Antonius and Cleopatra were to be buried in the same tomb: that was good. And an old Macedonian, faithful to Cleopatra and the Ptolemaic line, had paid a large sum to have all her statues left undefaced: that was good also. There were still as many sick people in the world for a doctor to attend.

But Olympos, who had always considered himself in-different to the world and interested only in his profession, felt that the thread of life had snapped. Snapped for him. Octavianus was already reorganising the Civil Service, reconstituting the bureaucracy which had ruled for so many centuries this Egypt with its state monopoly of production and distribution; he might scorn mummied corpses and bull-gods, but he was very concerned to master the Egyptian technique of economics. Cleopatra was gone, and the Dionusos-masquing Antonius; but the machine remained. All no doubt for the best. The world must grow more sane, shedding the husk of its gods, the heritage of terror. But was terror any the less in the hidden heart? were there less people with ulcers or stones in the bladder or phthisis? Olympos the physician had the test, at least the only test he could accept.

But there was beauty in the lovers. Only because they were young and didn’t understand. To an old man the kisses of lovers seemed only a dream—fumbling for the nipples of the mother. He had no wish for kisses. Yet he envied the dream of the lovers. There was a radiance under their skins, and their ignorance was also the shadow of an excess of knowledge.

Still the thread was snapped. For Olympos the world would never be the same. Poor old Nicias. Olympos was sorry for the madman, in whose bed his sister had died. He decided to dedicate the medical memoranda on Cleopatra to his memory. “To Nicias a true devotee of the Muses...” No, something more original, a couplet Simonidean in style. Nicias had grasped at something too big for him. So had Antonius and Cleopatra. But they had not therefore failed. No one failed; no one succeeded. All did their part, and yet there was no purpose. There was only life.

There was only life.

Olympos halted in the street, unaware that he was jostled. He felt that he had grasped a great truth, but had no words for it; and he knew anyhow that words may grasp but cannot contain a truth. What was the truth? Life existed only as it existed, only at the moment of breathing, of expansion, of wonder. Here and now, life existed. Not with purpose; neither purposeless. But living, active, complete.

The glow was passing from him; the truth was becoming meaningless words, a philosophical thesis. But something stayed to comfort, a wisp of light. It was less painful now that the thread had snapped for him; but painful enough. He must think only of Erasistratos and the theory of the arteries. There was nothing else left.

*

Victor and Daphne were now entirely happy, shut in their room with a subservient small boy as intermediary between them and the world (for they couldn’t see him poke out his tongue at them when the door was shut). Daphne was feeling better, nursed and fed by Victor; and nothing came to trouble their dreams and embraces, except that Victor occasionally worried lest the bargemen should slip away without their passengers, and Daphne occasionally worried lest the bargemen were anxious to lure them away and cut their throats. But neither spoke of these worries, and the time passed in dreams and embraces, and meals cooked by Victor. There was only one thing which Daphne was allowed to do: to sew the twenty gold pieces in the lining of a belt for Victor, which he agreed to keep on all the time of the journey, though he scoffed at the idea that there was any need for such precautions.

Daphne woke first on the morning of departure, kissed Victor awake in turn, and then sat on the side of the bed, slowly dressing herself with aid every now and then from Victor, who was preparing the breakfast and collecting their few belongings. For even in the couple of days they had got some baggage together. Daphne had bought some clothes from the caretaker’s wife and a girl on the fourth floor, and had sent out for some others; and a man in the next room had been mentioned as ready to sell a baggage-chest. And Victor had sent out for another tunic; and there had been caps and shoes which they had bought from a travelling dealer introduced by the caretaker...When the time came to put the various purchases together, the lovers were surprised to find that they had two packages besides the chest. And the caretaker’s wife had given them half a long black sausage; and that had made them feel that food was necessary, so that they’d bought a large smoked ham wrapt in sacking.

They were extremely pleased at the accumulated baggage; for it seemed to make them a truly and respectably married couple, not a mere pair of runaways. And when the time came to go, Victor enjoyed running out into the street for a porter, after having strained himself, despite Daphne’s protests, with trying to carry everything. Walking behind the porter, so that he shouldn’t abscond, they proceeded towards the spot on the canal where the barge was moored, exhilarated after farewells with the caretaker and his wife, the fourth-storey girl and various other unknown lodgers. Victor’s worry was now increased by the fact that he couldn’t remember exactly where the boat was. If he hadn’t recalled that there was a drawing of a phallos and a scorpion outside the beershop, he would have been without landmarks; but he didn’t like to mention the beershop to Daphne (and of course someone might have rubbed the drawings out), so he talked about his unerring sense of direction, and, trying to take a short cut, delayed the arrival by almost half an hour.

But the beershop was found, with drawings intact, and, to Victor’s shattering pride and joy, there was the boat still hawsered to the stone on the bank. And there stood the two bargemen on its deck, with a third, coiling ropes. Victor shouted to them and turned to Daphne, “I told you what reliable fellows they were,” and she smiled, infected by his relief. Then he shepherded her to the steps, keen to get away as soon as possible from the roadway with its beershop. He was sure that the waitress was standing at the door (which was unlikely, as she’d fear the charge of theft), but he didn’t dare to look round; and at last Daphne was on board, despite slippery steps and no gangway, and the porter had deposited the chest and the two packages, giving an able representation of a man with a broken back as he stood up, in order to increase the tip; and on receiving the tip, which was larger than he’d expected, straightened his back and moved quickly across to the beershop, where it was a different waitress who stood yawning in the doorway, slapping herself on the stomach for no ascertainable reason (except perhaps that she liked the noise).

Victor and Daphne were shown their quarters, amidships. A pile of sacking was lifted, and they were told to make themselves at home. The boat had only half a cargo, chiefly of furniture; and a space was made in the hold where the passengers could sleep on some carpet-bales. If it rained, they could pull the sacking and canvas over them. No fires were allowed on board, but usually every night they moored to the riverbank and cooking could be done ashore. The lovers were delighted with their hole, and went on arranging and rearranging it, moving the baggage round and trying to find which positions were least bumpy. The sailors retired for a round of beer, after Victor had refused the invitation to join them; but he sent a street-boy for a mug-full each for Daphne and himself, and they drank in their warm hole, pledging one another with whispering laughter.

The sun was growing stronger, and they found their hole far too hot. Besides, there was a lot of chaff left in the sacking and their skin began to chafe; and the hold had an endless variety of smells from old cargoes. They sat on the deck; and soon the men returned and set to work, taking the ropes aboard and poling down the canal. Down the canal the boat slid easily, quietly; and life began to flow again. The lovers clasped, careless of the bargemen who took no notice of them, being simple fellows who considered an embrace the natural posture of man and woman. Past warehouses with huge timber-piles, old houses almost falling into the canal, overbuilt houses with trap-doors in their sinister rooms (though they never dropped anything out but sacks of flour), blank walls, offices with notices, more wharves. An exchange of curses as another boat passed. Then a smaller barge, ferry-boats, and some fishermen in skiffs. The officials hadn’t yet re-taken proper control of the canal. And all the while the bargemen sang.

Then, round the curve, towered the walls and the arch of the water-gates. Would the gates be closed? would there be soldiers and an official demanding details of identity? The lovers were sorry that they’d left their hole, however prickly it was; but to retreat to it now would attract too much suspicion. They gripped hands and waited. The barge slid on, while the bargemen sang their river-songs in a language that neither of the lovers knew, and there was only a drowsy old man at the gates, who shouted something in a toothless voice and who almost fell into the water, being a beggar who was partly mad.

Then the boat was out on the Lake, swinging away from the large dockyards there; and the lovers, tightening their embrace, turned to the grove on the right where they had first met. It could be just seen beyond a cluster of summerhouses and a tongue of reedy land. Did other lovers now meet under its roof of green light? or was it only Victor’s and Daphne’s?

The lovers felt the melancholy mood of farewell which melts into the dreamy hail of an other-shore. Out on to the waters of the broad Lake the boat swerved, and two of the bargemen ran to hoist the red sail that lay ready. The third man was at the single rudder.

Again Victor felt the sense of freedom, but more calmly, more as something to be attained by effort; to be held, not as a clamouring pulse, but in acceptance of the test. He would work hard; he would toil at the farm.

*

It was the seventh night out, and they were near their place of disembarkation. Daphne was feeling ill. She refused to complain, but Victor knew. At times she turned pale and could not speak, holding her breath. The bargemen were kindly fellows who had seen at once her state and who respected as much as possible the wish of the lovers for privacy. They spent their days singing, steering and drinking beer from the supply they had brought aboard. At Sais and at other places they stopped to replenish the supply, but otherwise they did not loiter. They were good river-sailors, experts at making the most of the breeze as they tacked from side to side; and the northern wind wafted the boat with its lateen sail steadily up stream, for the boat’s draught was shallow and the wind was therefore strong enough to counteract the current. The flooding of the Nile was as its full, and on either side the lovers could now see inundated land, with cottages or small villages here and there raised dry out of the spreading waters and in the distance the brown hills of sand. They seemed to be entering a drowned world, and the sight depressed them, despite the assurances of the sailors that soon the waters would retreat and leave the ground fertile for the sowing. The little mud cottages with their grey grass-roofs seemed derelict shapes in a world whence human life had been expelled.

Perhaps things would he different in the Arsinoite Nome; but its very name, Limne, the Marsh, was hardly encouraging, though the sailors said it was a vast district of marshland reclaimed. The lovers lay tighter in one another’s arms, feeling that there at least was security; and discovered at least one good point about the flat world of waters into which they were hurrying. Surely no one would pursue them into such a waste. Nothing could be less like populous Alexandria with its innumerable crafts and distractions. Indeed a new start was being made, and life had offered an immensity of brooding waters to express the nakedness of the choice of love. The old was discarded, and perhaps in very truth the waters would recede in due time and leave an earth ready for fresh harvest. Victor had told Daphne of the death of Nicias; and she had wept and then begged him never to mention the past again, and he had been glad.

The sailors knew the course intimately, and stood in turn with a pole to keep the boat from running aground when the banks were submerged, though they steered so well that there was seldom any risk. Daphne and Victor grew used to this endless passage through a world which was neither land nor sea. The scraps of the desert lost their effect of harsh sterility and appeared the friendly and stable foundations of the waste of waters, promising the day when all would he land again, firm and fertile. The lovers began to ask for no other life. They liked the sailors, and felt at home, whereas the Limne they did not know.

The sailors found a patch of land on which to moor the boat: on the right-hand side where the ground was higher and drier. The running line of the desert hills had come close; and there were no cultivated fields, water-covered, between the rugged slopes and the river-bank. There was only dry sand, with a few palm-trees and a solitary sycamore. But one of the sailors reported that there was a nook about a hundred yards up the river, which would suit the young lady finely; and when Daphne said that she didn’t want to walk so far, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to it. But he did it so gently, so respectfully and inoffensively, that even Victor could not object. Victor followed the sailor’s stalwart figure, merely wishing that he was as strong, and determining that he would work so hard on the farm he would soon be able to carry Daphne, lightly as the sailor carried her, even when she was weighted with an unborn child.

He stopped, his heart quavering. His child. The knowledge came with an urgency it had never come before, a terrifying sweetness that drew something out of him—like an arrow twanged from a bow—and yet left a need of greater giving. Indeed he must grow strong now. He had something to protect, something utterly his own to protect; a world that rested on his shoulders, without crushing. His life was knitting with strength to carry the desired burden. Even as Daphne’s blood had accepted the child. So did he accept the child. It was in his blood as well as come out of his blood.

He caught up with the sailor, who laid Daphne in a little bushy lair, softly grassed. Then, after muttering incoherently, he raced back to the boat for rugs. He returned and tucked Daphne in, trying to find words to tell what he had felt, this fatherhood in his blood, and afraid that he would lose the awareness. It was no longer so clear, and yet it was there; it would never go. He wanted her to know that he too was bearing the child. Why hadn’t he known it before?

But he couldn’t say anything. He merely stroked her face and breasts, and kissed her, and lay quiet; and then they ate some bread together.

*

In starry darkness they slept. Then noise awakened them. Shouts and blows, banging. Victor crawled and saw a fight was going on round the boat, a whirl of forms outlined by the noise rather than the starlight. Desperately he cleared his brain. Robbers. The country had been filled with them ever since the Romans took Pelusion; the sailors had been discussing it. Robber-bands half-starved and violent. With horror he realised that they would be least of all merciful towards Greeks. What might they not do to Daphne?

He crawled back to her and whispered, “Don’t be frightened, but we must get away.” They would be seen in the daylight, even if one of the robbers didn’t blunder on them before then.

“But I can’t walk...very far.”

“We must do our best. I’ll carry you part of the way.”

Sooner than he thought he would have to learn the weight of Daphne and their child. He led her out on the further sight of the little ragged thicket, trying to keep calm. Certainly there would be several hours before dawn; better to go slowly than to hurry and collapse. The robbers would be thinking only of the boat, taken up with sharing out the plunder.

“Let’s not go too fast.”

He put his arm round Daphne’s waist. They walked on towards the hillocks that cut away the stars westward. Once they thought they saw some men prowling near, and crouched down. There was nobody. Victor was sure that he remembered a clear way on to the foothills on the other side of the sycamore. With relief he made out the top-branches of the sycamore against the sky, for it stood on a slight rise, and he guided the way thither. Daphne was breathing hard. “I’m sorry.”

He took her in his arms and moved towards the sycamore. She grew heavier, but he gritted his teeth and struggled on. He would get as far as the sycamore. Having that goal, he had something on which to base his resistance. The muscles tore at his back, at his arms, plucked red-hot at his calves, as if someone was flogging at him. He plodded on. It would not kill him. He would be stronger yet.

The sycamore was reached and he laid Daphne down—slowly, despite his tortured arms. Ah, the agonising release of comfort.

“We’ll rest here awhile.”

The noise was fainter. They lay against one another, taking deep breaths, watching stars through the sparse boughs.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yes.”

They walked on side by side, westward to the hills but with a curve southward. Victor was sure that he had the lay of the ground. Daphne made no complaint, but he could tell from her breathing when she was hard pressed. He took her up then and carried her as far as he could, then they rested. She made no protest when he carried her, no complaint while she walked. They lay motionless for a while, till hearts subsided and breath grew even and wrenched muscles grew easy. Then he spoke again.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Yes.”

So it went on. Once they found themselves panting up a sandy incline. Once their feet splashed in marshy ground. But after a while Victor found the direction again. They rested and went on. He carried her, and they rested. They were past the stage of tiredness. They moved in a delirium of exhaustion, yet keeping one faint awareness clear and decided. And aware of their love; upheld by the nearness of bodies anguished beyond desire but infinitely adored; lost in terror, but trusting.

On and on they went, and the night would never end, Pray God it did not end till they were miles away.

*

Suddenly the sun came up over flat eastern hills, waked them out of a dazed sleep. They looked round, painfully raising their racked bodies. They did not know the scene they saw. There were no robbers, no boat, no scyamore tree. How far they had gone they didn’t know, but it was far enough. Unless the robbers also came that way.

Victor staggered to his feet. Below them ran the Nile; and that sight was pleasant, for it gave him a feeling of contact with the known world. Nearer were some mud-flats and a stretch of arid sand with a few bushes and some greenery round the edge of the mud. Behind were the dead slopes of limestone cracked and herbless. There seemed no shelter anywhere. He thought with ravenous desire of the bread which had been left by the river-bank. Not a habitation was to be seen.

He heard Daphne gasping.

“What is it?”

“I fear...it’s coming on me.” She spoke with difficulty and smiled wanly. “I’m sorry....”

“Darling,” he cried, and kneeled beside her. But what use was a kiss at such a moment? He must do something, and what could he do? The burden crushed him, and he wanted to lie on the ground and weep for hunger and inability to help. Then the weakness passed, and he knew that he must do something or die. He stroked Daphne’s hair and rose, to give another glance round. There was a bush a little further on, which seemed to have berries. He ran towards it, forgetting his fatigue and hopeful that he might find something to sustain Daphne. There were no berries on the bush, only shrivelled leaves; but as he looked about him, he saw an opening in the limestone, a pillared door. The sand-pitted pillars were cut from the stone-itself. He ran up and looked in. It was a rock-tomb, long ago pillaged, empty. But it was a shelter. Soon the sun would be cruelly beating down on the rocks, and here Daphne would be safe.

He ran back and breathlessly told her what he had found; picked her up and carried her towards the rock-tomb, strengthened by the chance which had provided this refuge. Inside the tomb it was cool but dry; the hot winds had seen to that. In one corner was a heap of driven sand. Opposite gaped the desecrated opening of the mummy-pit, filled with sand and broken pottery. Other pieces of earthenware lay on the ground, bits of figurines and mummy-wrappings. A hole had been made into a tomb on the other side, since the wall was only a few inches thick and thus easier to break through than the blocked-up front. Victor peered into the hole, dimly fearing snakes or wild-beasts, but could see nothing. Daphne lay back patiently on the sloping sand-heap.

“I must go and find something to eat—somewhere,” he said.

But she waved her hand feebly, to stop him. “Stay,” she whispered, and then gave a moaning scream and doubled up, dragging her legs heavily. The cry startled Victor, freezing his blood and making him want to flee. It was too intense in its confession of pain. But he ran to Daphne, knelt beside her and held her gently, helplessly.

“Hold me tight,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes screwed-up to shut out the light of life which had become pain. “Tighter...tighter...” And she screamed again.

Never had he known such panic as burned behind his eyes. The shock of pain so transformed her. It made of her nothing but an automaton of awful convulsion. It wasn’t Daphne crying. It was a beast of anguish, a ravished daimon, terrible and pure in its terror. But the next moment it was his poor Daphne who gasped, who whispered to him, who wanted to be held tighter than any arms could hold her, least of all his tired arms. It was Daphne who was suffering, and that daimon-cry of pain made her suffering his, shocking his blood to a terrified participation.

“Pull me away...away...” she begged.

But that was impossible. She was in the vice of the pain and could not be drawn out of it. She heaved and twisted, and he held her tight. It was all he could do. To hold her tight and to make her suffering his by bearing the cries that were torn out of her, that tore at him in turn. A wild beast of pain was in this place; not Daphne but the daimon inhabiting her, tearing her for a purpose about which she and Victor cared nothing. What was the child to him at this moment of death-life, this terrible moment of choice, this agony of change in the blood?

They wanted to be safe, to be alone, to be themselves only; and the daimon came between them, thrust a sword into the loins and the heart, binding them with unrealised agony of the scream, the bestial scream. It reached back, back into aeons of night and hunger and powerless cruelty. It came from the very heart of the living earth.

“Hold me tight...I’m dying...O God, let me die.” And again the scream, the scream.

*

The sun was setting as Victor came back from the pool with water scooped in one of the least-broken pieces of pottery. Unnerved, loathing, he washed the strange and filthied creature with whose emergence the daimon of the scream had ceased to devour the lives of the lovers. Then he laid it in the arms of Daphne who lay back in her corner on the slanting couch of sand. Her eyelids flickered but did not open, and he feared that she was dying, until he saw the faintest shadow of a smile about her lips. She held the child in her arms, laxly but proudly, and made a weak gesture that he should guide its mouth to her breast. It was a male child, Victor had noticed—without interest; for all his thoughts were centred on the enormous gladness that Daphne was no longer suffering, no longer screaming. He could forgive the child now, because Daphne smiled. But he felt nothing else about it.

He bathed her body, as well as he could without moving her, and lifted the water to her lips. She drank greedily. It was too late for him to go in search of a village or a herds-man’s hut. He sat beside Daphne, tearing up his shift to make swaddling bands, and watched the paintings on the wall of the rock-tomb gradually fade in the dusk. He was too tired to think, to feel anything but that dumb enormous gratitude for silence. Even his hunger did not disturb him much.

Idly he noted the details of the tomb, with a sense that he had seen it all before, that he had seen everything in the world, having touched the tip of the sky of noon and the bottom of the underworld of midnight, in this room of rock. The roof was higher one end than the other, because of the fault in the limestone that one could see outside running along the ridge; the hewers had cut up to the fault and then feared to go higher. The roof had been plastered, but part of the plaster had fallen. For some reason or other all the paintings hadn’t been finished. The marks of the chisel could be seen. Some of the figures were merely scratched on the wall round the outline in red, or the stone had been cut away to leave the figure in relief, but no modelling work had been expended on the figure itself. But other figures were brightly painted: reddish men and yellow women, a bird with each feather picked out, a scaly fish, ears of corn red-outlined in a field of yellow-gold, some ears standing straight up, others bending over, others caught into a clump by the hand of the reaper, the toothed sickle ready to sever them.

The shapes wavered and blurred, like the shapes of the abandoned world. The world had become these flat antique shapes, and the lovers were alone, with the new life that they had created. The unfinished haphazard world was gone, and only the lovers and the child were left. The holy Three in a rock-cavern, purified by hunger and a draught of water.

The shapes on the walls were gods, men made into a pattern of life, changing unchanging. But they were fading. The god with the cross in his hand and the straight thin beard, the god with a cobra-crown. All the hieroglyphs with their locked meaning were fading. The Cross was loins meeting. Out of the cross came the new life, the loins become energy, become pattern changing unchanging, and then suddenly a new life, the baby on the cross, on the mated loins, on the cross of life which was the cross of death in mystery of the screaming pain, the loss, the unavailing regret.

The shapes on the wall wavered across the brain of Victor, repeating their meaning, though no priest had ever unlocked the hieroglyphs for him, though he had no words to speak the meaning, no strength to utter it. The shapes were in his blood; and he slept.

*

At dawn he fetched more water, and gave Daphne to drink, and she opened her eyes and smiled; and he set out to find a village. He had his belt with the gold coins sewed into it, for Daphne had kept to her resolution of making him wear it all the while. As he started off on his search, he felt astonished at his good condition; but before he had gone more than a few paces, all his strength left him. The light hung on his eyelids like a swarm of stinging flies; the ground lifted and swayed beneath him; the sand clogged his steps. Twice he fell, breaking the fall with his hands, and went for a few yards on hands and knees. Then he dragged himself up, feeling that someone might see him...might take him for a hyena and hunt him. Fantasies whirled through his head. He wanted to bellow, to be a bull looking for pasture, to gore his enemies. Where were his enemies now? Hiding behind the rock, over the hilltops...He saw a hole, and wanted to sit by it, waiting till a hare put out its head so that he could seize it by the ears, kill it, and take it home to eat. But it might be a snake-hole.

The sun grew hotter, and suddenly he was afraid that he would lose his way and never find Daphne again. He turned and looked back, carefully noting how the rocks looked; for things always seemed different when approached from an opposite direction. He found a lump of hard stone and scratched a cross on a flat space of limestone, repeating the sign wherever he could find a suitable rock.

He walked down the water’s edge and took another drink, and felt better. Then he went on, round a spur of limestone, which forced him closer to the river; round another spur; and then he saw some huts. He stood for a while, to collect his wits; and removing his belt, undid one of the gold pieces, then put the belt on again. The natives might be hostile; none of them might understand Greek; but he would get food somehow.

As he neared the huts, a dog barked and children ran out, naked with fat bellies, sucking their fingers in wonderment and uncertain whether to throw stones. An old woman and a young girl were squatting on the brink of a hole, kneading something. Victor saw and smelt that it was dung. The children were fetching it, and the crone and the girl had their bare arms immersed in the dung-pit up to their elbows, getting the dung to an even state of liquidity; then it would be left to dry until it could be patted into thin cakes and stored for fuel in this timberless land.

The girl jumped up, swinging her arms to get the moisture from them, and ran away. The old woman went on kneading. Victor spoke to her. She gave one look at him, shook her head, and returned to the dung. Victor, followed by the children, walked on into the village. Several natives, men and women, appeared at the door-holes, and Victor called, “Anyone here speak Greek?”

There was no answer, and despair began to bring out anew all his exhaustion. He stumbled and leant against a wall, surrounded by suspicious eyes implacable in their stupidity. The sense of their antagonism grew stronger; it pinned him to the wall as if one of the men had driven a lance through his stomach.

He called again, “Anyone here speak Greek?”

A thin man came forward and answered in a mixture of Greek and the native dialect. At least Victor could make out the general meaning of what was said. He felt a consuming love of the thin dirty man whose surly voice broke the circle of absolute isolation; but he controlled himself.

“I want food. And I can pay for it.”

He produced the gold piece and was about to give it to the man, but drew back his hand. No. That wasn’t the way; he mustn’t show fear or weakness.

“Here’s proof I can pay,” he went on. “ Get me some food. Food.”

The man gabbled to the others, and after a while a woman appeared with some bread—thin slices which had been dried in the sun to make them keep well. Victor tried to eat, but the bread was too dry. He swallowed laboriously a few morsels, and then called for beer. “Cheese too,” he told the man. “ Soup...” His list of foods gave out, and he could think of nothing but warm appetising soup. The man shook his head; but after a long discussion with the women he managed to get a half-mug of sour beer, a small piece of cheese, and some dried fish.

Victor ate rapaciously, undeterred by the ring of watchers.

He felt guilty however because he was eating while Daphne was still hungry; but it was necessary for him to regain his strength first, so that he could return to her after coming to terms with these villagers.

Several younger men had now joined the group, and they were muttering together, looking at Victor malevolently. He grew afraid again and tugged at his belt; if he offered them all the money, perhaps they would do nothing. But his hand ceased its tugging; he felt as if Daphne’s eyes were upon him; he couldn’t give the money away. It was the only thing that could save his life and Daphne’s life and the life of the baby for which he cared nothing alone but which he could not bear to see die.

He drew himself up.

“Tell them all,” he said to the interpreter, “that I have many friends in the Limne. Officials. Great men. They’ll tear down the houses of anyone that does me injury. My boat was sunk through a leak, and I’ve lost my way. All who help me will be rewarded.”

He stared calmly and commandingly at the mutterers, folding his arms. The quickly eaten food was weighing down his stomach, weakening him as it drew the blood from his distressed body to grapple with the toil of digestion; but already he could feel a new strength creeping back into his veins, almost an intoxication. Nothing was going to go wrong. He wouldn’t let it. By God, he wouldn’t.

“I want a carriage,” he said to the interpreter, and then realised that such a demand was ridiculous. “A waggon will do.”

The man shook his head dully, and Victor saw that it would be necessary to find a means of arousing his self-interest if anything was to be done. He continued, “I’ll take you as my servant for a month. I’ll pay you well. Five times what you’d be earning here.” Perhaps that was over-generous, but he had wanted to say a “hundred times” and so he was proud that he had only said “five.” He tried to speak in a business-like way, as if he were used to hiring servants. “Will you come?”

The man agreed after a consultation with a muddy old man whom Victor discovered later to be village-head; and at once became zealous on his master’s behalf. He remembered that there was a cart in one of the sheds. Victor explained to him why the cart was needed; and the man remembered that one of the villagers had a mule which could probably be hired. The mule wasn’t very active, but could still stand upright. Slowly Victor had his way. It took a great time to make the purchases; at one moment the villagers refused to sell anything, at the next moment they were all clamouring round and trying to sell objects for which no request had been made.

He settled the matter by detailing to his newly-acquired servant what was wanted, and telling him to make the selection; if he took worthless things, the price would be deducted from his wages. The man had told the villagers that Victor had been shipwrecked with his wife who had thereupon brought forth a child; and the story appealed to their imaginations. Victor found himself carried away by the work of ordering his servant and the others; he forgot his leaden stomach fighting with acid juices to absorb the sudden food, the racking pain over his eyes, the sagging ache of his muscles. He heard his own voice caustically bidding the crowd to stand back. There was no menace now in the natives; they seemed to have accepted his intrusion; they smiled at him good-humouredly and gave friendly messages to him through the interpreter. One of the women, at the interpreter’s suggestion, agreed to visit the rock-tomb and assist Daphne.

Victor was happy. Never had he been so happy before, for he was at ease. He was dealing with these people on their own level. He liked them all, but hadn’t shown any fear of them. Now it would be all right to make a return of fellow-feeling. In giving the gold coin to the interpreter (to be given in turn to the village-head who was to provide the small change for disentangling the respective claims of the villagers, for a charge of five per cent), Victor declared that the money left over was to be used in providing a free public meal. When this offer was understood, the crowd shouted with joy and pushed round to touch their benefactor appreciatively (though the interpreter remarked to Victor that, if he knew the village-head, the five per cent charge would be sufficiently elastic to take in most of the money over). More food and clothing was produced and stowed gratis in the cart; various women gave extensive advice to Victor about Daphne’s condition (though he could not follow a word of what they said); and about half the village would have followed him on his return to salute, and have a look at, Daphne, if he hadn’t forbidden them through the interpreter on the plea that quiet was needed.

He responded to these shows of good-will by picking up a small girl who had clung round his leg, lifting her in his arms, and offering her a fig from a bundle in the cart. She opened her mouth and chewed at the fig, holding it with both hands. He put her down and found that the cart was ready to go; and amid the applause of the villagers he set off with the interpreter at his side, while the woman came behind, goading on the mule.

As they went, he deliberated. Daphne would not be well enough to be moved yet. They would lodge in the rock for some days, for it was a large chamber and there was room enough. Then he and the interpreter would take Daphne in the cart to the farm of Lucilius, which could not be many miles distant. The sailors had said that the district was only a short way further south.

As they came near the rock-tomb, he signed to the interpreter not to hurry, and ran ahead. He had some figs in his hand, the most palatable of the foods that the villagers had been able to muster. Sobbing with joy and anxiety, he sped over the broken ground, careless of his jolted limbs. O God, what if anything had happened to Daphne and the child.

But as he scrambled up the slight slope, he saw that she was safe within the rock-chamber. She had raised herself a little and leaned against the wall, the baby in her arms under her bared breasts. A dim glow suffused her, haloing her pale-gold head, softening her weary limbs in an attitude of perfect repose. He thought of Isis and the Divine Babe who had been born on the night of his marriage with Daphne. Daphne was greater than Isis, for she was Isis and yet mortal. Pity swelled and burst in Victor, leaving only love and courage and pride. Here was his wife and his son, here the meaning of things hidden and manifest. The unutterable Mysterion. The thought of the last years rushed upon him and he tried to find a way of grasping the changes that had occurred within him, for he had changed while yet nothing seemed changed; but the thought was too large, too exacting, and only fragments of it blundered through his mind.

Daphne opened her weary eyes, and they burned at once with deep violet fires of welcome.

“Everything is all right,” he said breathlessly. “Everything.”

“You are here,” she murmured.

He held out the figs, laughing. “Beautiful figs to eat.” She shook her head and parted her lips for a kiss; and he kissed her, and then broke up a fig and fed her.

Beauty and terror of the world. Images flared and faded within his blood. Isis and the Holy Child, Daphne with her bared breasts suckling the world. He understood it all, and yet it escaped him. The acts of religion were a veil behind which the reality stirred; they sought to mirror the changes of the blood, the pang and release of growth, the timeless darkness of memory, the mouth of light, hunger and eating and the food changing into blood, the life of the blood driven into consciousness, desiring, returning into itself, growing, finding new meanings. It was only this, there was nothing else. Why then did the priests make it difficult? or was the difficulty only in the darkness of the blood that clouded the moon-mouth, the releasing light? and in the fear of the past, the insatiable dead that cluttered up the earth, claiming their offering, their share in everything?

He had no words for these thoughts, which came to him in quick jerking emotions, like the moon racing through a wild cloud-rack, like fishes slithering in the underwaters; moons of beauty, glistening spawn of thought, in the wild depths.

In the body, in the changes of the blood. One in everything, touching or not touching, tired or active, in bodies reverend without shame. He knew it all, in her arms he knew it, or standing alone.

And he loved the child, his shared child, his son.

Outside the interpreter was loudly superintending the unpacking. The mule brayed. Victor went out and took up the rugs. “Bring in the food,” he said.

Then with cautious gentleness he raised Daphne while he slipped the rugs under her and wrapped her up, and he touched their child caressingly and smiled at her. And the answering smile in her eyes made him feel that his heart was broken, that he was the happiest man in all the world. And he was afraid of no one.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

A YEAR ENDS - OCTOBER – DECEMBER 31 B.C.

1 LOVERS MEETING LOVERS PARTING

2 ALONE

3 TELL ME THE TRUTH

4 THIS IS MY BODY

5 TEMPTATION

6 A CHILD IS BORN

ANOTHER YEAR COMES - MARCH-OCTOBER 30 B.C.

7 ON A HEIGHT

8 COMING OF AGE

9 FORLORN HOPE

10 BETRAYAL

11 A WORLD DIES

12 A CHILD IS BORN