The Tour. Louis Couperus

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Yes, it was the east. It was Egypt, it was Alexandria. Never in the Forum at Rome, lively and busy though it was, never in the basilicas had Lucius beheld this ever trotting, ever hurrying tumult. It was as though every one were pressed for time and hurrying feverishly. Processions of priests hurried; the Roman guards even, returning from the Palace after being relieved, marched with an accelerated step; and yet the numerous litters never struck against one another: they all glided at the trot of their bearers, to the right, to the left, beside one another; there was only a shouting, a din, a cursing, a cracking of whips loud enough to rouse the dead. Here was a quarrel, with violent gestures and shrill voices; there the noisy gaiety of squabbling vegetable-women and bawling vendors of water-melons; suddenly, in a rage, the women flung cabbages at the vendors’ heads and the vendors sent melons trundling between the women’s legs; the cabbages and melons rolled across the street and the crowd yelled with enjoyment, while distinguished but still trotting processions of notables in litters or on horseback made a way for themselves. The cabbages and melons rolled in front of the feet of Lucius’ bearers; and Caleb, rising in his stirrups with flapping burnous and uplifted arms, hardly holding the reins in his fingers while the mare reared on her hind-legs, poured forth a torrent of curses over the women and the hucksters ... and then turned to Lucius with a pleased smile, as though all this tumult were the most ordinary morning affair in the streets of Alexandria.... Yes, that was the Egyptian character: bustle, tumult, uproar, yelling and cursing for the least thing; quarrelling for the least thing; and then everything just ordinary again, as though nothing had happened. All this in a motley whirl of colours: Rome was monotonously white and colourless beside it, Lucius thought. Here the colours glared more fiercely: the citrons, oranges and melons lay yellow and gold over the markets; and there were exotic fruits too, scarlet and vermilion....

      They came to the painters’ quarter. Troughs of used colouring-matter ran in gutters along the streets: there were rivulets of indigo, there were little waterfalls of ochre. The bearers splashed through purple and trotted on with purple-black feet. A golden whirl of dust in the morning sun powdered over these motley colours as with handfuls of the finest glittering sand. Tall buildings shot up their pillars in that glitter, seemed to shimmer, to move in that shimmer of light.

      Caleb now pointed to the Acropolis, standing fortress-like, four-square and heavy, protecting and dominating the city. Next came the Sun Gate. Outside the city-wall was a canal; along the canal ran an avenue of tall sycamores, bringing a sudden blissful calm and coolness and silver-green shadows. And now Caleb pointed to the famous lake, Lake Mareotis: it lay spread out like a sea, but was divided by isthmuses into smaller inland lakes; there were islands often bearing some temple to Aphrodite; and along the margins of the lake rose villa after villa, in royal pomp of marble-coloured villas, casting their reflections into the limpid water.

      “That is where the rich hetairæ live,” said Caleb, with a wink, “hetairæ for people like your lordship: a prince like you can take your choice.”

      Tall papyrus shot up on the lake’s edge. There were papyrus-eyots: the stalks rustled at the least breeze; and on the eyots lived the basket-makers: there were families of basket-makers; the children weaving baskets and hampers looked up and cried out for an obolus. White lotus and pink water-lilies blossomed and small gilt barges passed across the lake, with coloured awnings to them. Ibises and cranes fluttered out of the reeds.

      “You must come here again in the evening, my lord,” Caleb advised, winking eagerly. “This is the place for one like your lordship to enjoy himself: at Rhacotis there are only the common women and the houses where the sailors go. But many princely nobles like to see everything at Alexandria.”

      The procession trotted back through the Gate of the Sun, which made a wide breach in the city-walls, a vaulted arch above Corinthian pillars; and Caleb said:

      “We are now coming to the Avenue of Pillars and to the Museum.”

      Here again were the bustle, the tumult, the uproar, the shouting and cheering and cursing, the multitude, litters, horsemen, pedestrians. The Avenue of Pillars also was swarming, mainly with students, philosophers and loose women. The sun blazed down in the middle of the street; there were golden patches of light and blue-purple islands of shadow. And there was always the golden glitter of dust, as of the finest sand whirling through the air. Here were the hair-dressers and barbers; here were the baths, here the tailors’-shops with their riot of colours and here the glittering jewellers’-shops and here, behind tables, stood the money-changers. There were stretches of green garden; and behind the gardens loomed the colonnades of the Museum. Close by were the Gymnasium and the Athletic School.

      “Will your lordship visit the Museum?” asked Caleb, still parading his horsemanship on the Sabæan mare.

      Thrasyllus thought that it would be interesting to visit the Museum; and the travellers alighted. There was a great rush to see them. Uncle Catullus threw oboli among the street-boys, who rolled over one another, fighting. Beggars approached, grey-bearded men like prophets and old women like sibyls; and Lucius flung a coin here and there.

      The runners and guards drew themselves up around the two litters, the mare and the donkey; but Caleb walked in front of the travellers, mincing elegantly on the tips of his red riding-boots and holding the hem of his burnous in his swaying hand. It was as though he were always dancing, whether on horseback or on foot.

      “The Museum,” Caleb explained, “is, as your lordships know, the Academy of Alexandria, founded by the beautiful Cleopatra.”

      “That is not true,” Thrasyllus whispered to his young master. “It was founded by Ptolemy the First.”

      “Here philosophers and scholars in every branch of science devote themselves to study; and they are surrounded by thousands of disciples from all countries. But both masters and pupils are as poor as rats and do not, all told, possess ... that!” said Caleb, with a flip of his finger and thumb.

      “The Museum has produced great scholars,” Thrasyllus expounded, more appreciatively, “such as Euclid, Erasistratus and Diophantus; then there were the poets Theocritus, Aratus, Callimachus; and among critics Aristarchus; and among philosophers more than I could name.”

      “And because they are so poor, all these learned gentry,” said Caleb, with a laugh, pointing, as they entered the gardens of the Museum through a portico, to stately white-cloaked figures walking to and fro, “because they are so poor, they live on a fund provided by the State: they’re no use for anything, these learned gentry; but they are certainly clever, my lords, they’re all that: you won’t find their equals for cleverness anywhere. And the books they collect! Their library is quite famous.... Look,” continued Caleb, pointing, “it is just the time when they have their mid-day meal: it seems to be philosophical to do so earlier than princely nobles are used to do. No doubt it will interest you, as strangers, to see so many very wise and poverty-stricken scholars and philosophers eating their black broth.”

      The colonnades of the Museum loomed aloft; there were statues to commemorate famous men of learning; and there was an immense rounded exedra, from which lectures were delivered at frequent intervals. The travellers entered the cenaculum, the refectory, which was wide, lofty and very long; the scholars and philosophers sat eating at long tables; Lucius was struck by the fact that they were sitting, instead of reclining.

      “They don’t know any better,” Caleb explained. “They just sit down for a moment and gobble up their broth; they are not epicures, they are only just clever, you see. They have more in their heads, my lords, than in their pockets. But they have plenty in their heads beyond a doubt.”

      A philosopher moved towards the strangers. He was very old, frail and grey and looked like a long dry stalk, in his toga. He smiled and mumbled words which at first СКАЧАТЬ