The roof of the hall in which the prefect found the Empress, in summer was open to the sky; but at this season was suitably covered in by a movable copper roof, partly to keep off the rain of the Alexandrian winter, and partly too because, even in the warmer season Sabina was wont to complain of cold; but beneath it a wide opening allowed the air free entrance and exit. As Titianus entered the room a comfortable warmth and subtle perfume met his senses; the warmth was produced by stoves of a peculiar form standing in the middle of the room; one of these represented Vulcans forge. Brightly glowing charcoal lay in front of the bellows which were worked by an automaton, at short regular intervals, while the god and his assistants modelled in brass, stood round the genial fire with tongs and hammers. The other stove was a large silver birds-nest, in which likewise charcoal was burning. Above the glowing fuel a phoenix, also in brass, and in the likeness of an eagle, seemed striving to soar heavenwards. Besides these a number of lamps lighted the saloon, which in truth looked too large for the number of people assembled in it, and which was lavishly furnished with gracefully-formed seats, couches, and tables, vases of flowers and statues.
The prefect and Pontius had intended a quite different room to serve for smaller assemblies, and had fitted it up suitably for the purpose, but the Empress had preferred the great hall to the smaller room. The venerable and nobly-born statesman was filled with vexation, nay, with an embarrassment that made him feel estranged, when he had to glance round the room to find the persons in it, collected, as they were, into small knots. He could hear nothing but hushed voices; here an unintelligible murmur and there a suppressed laugh, but from no one a frank speech or full utterance. For a moment he felt as if he had found admittance to the abode of whispering calumny, and yet he knew why here no one dared to speak out or above a murmur. Loud voices hurt the Empress, and a clear voice was a misery to her, and yet few men possessed so loud and penetrating a chest voice as her husband, who was not wont to lay restraint upon himself for any human being, not even for his wife.
Sabina sat on a large divan, more like a couch than a chair; her feet were buried in the shaggy fell of a buffalo, and her knees and ankles wrapped round with down-cushions covered with silk. Her head she held very upright, and it was difficult to imagine how her slender throat could support it, loaded as it was with strings of pearls and precious stones which were braided in the tall structure of her reddish-gold hair, that was arranged in long cylindrical curls pinned closely side by side. The Empresss thin face looked particularly small under the mass of natural and artificial adornment which towered above her brow. Beautiful she could never have been, even in her youth, but her features were regular, and the prefect confessed to himself as he looked at Sabinas face, marked as it was with minute wrinkles and touched up with red and white, that the sculptor who a few years previously had been commissioned to represent her as Venus Victrix might very well have given the goddess a certain amount of resemblance to the imperial model. If only her eyes, which were absolutely bereft of lashes, had not been quite so small and keenin spite of the dark lines painted round themand if only the sinews in her throat had not stood out quite so conspicuously from the flesh which formerly had covered them!
With a deep bow Titianus took the Empresss right hand, covered with rings; but she withdrew it quickly from that of her husbands friend and relative, as if she feared that the carefully-cherished limbuseless as it was for any practical purpose, a mere toy among handsmight suffer some injury, and wrapped it and her arm in her upper-robe. But she returned the prefects friendly greeting with all the warmth at her command. Though formerly at Rome she had been accustomed to see Titianus every day at her house, this was their first meeting in Alexandria; for the previous day, exhausted by the sufferings of her sea-voyage, she had been carried in a closed litter to the Caesareum, and this morning she had declined to receive his visit, as her whole time was given up to her physicians, bathing-women, and coiffeurs.
How can you survive in this country? she said in a low but harsh voice, which always made the hearer feel that it was that of a dull, fractious, childless woman. At noon the sun burns you up, and in the evening it is so coldso intolerably cold! As she spoke she drew her robe closer round her, but Titianus, pointing to the stoves in the middle of the hall, said:
I hoped we had succeeded in cutting the bowstrings of the Egyptian winter, and it is but a feeble weapon.
Still young, still imaginative, still a poet! said the Empress wearily. I saw your wife a couple of hours since. Africa seems to suit her less well; I was shocked to see Julia, the handsome matron, so altered. She does not look well.
Years are the foe of beauty.
Frequently they are, but true beauty often resists their attacks.
You are yourself the living proof of your assertion.
That is as much as to say that I am growing old.
Nayonly that you know the secret of remaining beautiful.
You are a poet! murmured the Empress with a twitch of her thin under-lip.
Affairs of state do not favor the Muses.
But I call any man a poet who sees things more beautiful than they are, or who gives them finer names than they deservea poet, a dreamer, a flattererfor it comes to that.
Ah! modesty can always find words to repel even well-merited admiration.
Why this foolish bandying of words? sighed Sabina, flinging herself back in her chair. You have been to school under the hair-splitting logicians in the Museum here, and I have not. Over there sits Favorinus, the sophist; I dare say he is proving to Ptolemaeus that the stars are mere specks of blood in our eyes, which we choose to believe are in the sky. Florus, the historian, is taking note of this weighty discussion; Pancrates, the poet, is celebrating the great thoughts of the philosopher. As to what part the philologist there can find to take in this important event you know better than I. What is the mans name?
Apollonius.
Hadrian has nick-named him the obscure. The more difficult it is to understand the discourses of these gentlemen the more highly are they esteemed.
One must dive to obtain what lies at the bottom of the waterall that floats on the surface is borne by the waves, a plaything for children. Apollonius is a very learned man.
Then my husband ought to leave him among his disciples and his books. It was his wish that I should invite these people to my table. Florus and Pancrates I likenot the others.
I can easily relieve you of the company of Favorinus and Ptolemaeus; send them to meet the Emperor.
To what end?
To entertain him.
He has his plaything with him, said Sabina, and her thin lips curled with an expression of bitter contempt.
His artistic eye delights in the beauty of Antinous, which is celebrated, but which it has not yet been my privilege to see.
And you are very anxious to see this marvel?
I cannot deny it.
And yet you want to postpone your meeting with Caesar? said Sabina, and a keen glance of inquiry and distrust twinkled in her little eyes.
Why do you want to delay my husbands arrival?
Need I tell you, said Titianus eagerly, how greatly I shall rejoice to see once more my sovereign, the companion of my youth, the greatest and wisest of men, after a separation of four years? What would I not give if he were here already! And yet I would rather that he should arrive in fourteen days than in eight.