Sónnica. Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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СКАЧАТЬ to serve a city which I do not know, but which has never done me any harm."

      "And did you sleep here last night? Could you not find a bed in any of the inns?"

      "What I could not find was an obolus in my pouch. If I appeased my hunger, it was due to the charity of a forlorn harlot who shared her meagre supper with me. I am poor, and I was faint for food. Do not pity me, Sónnica. Do not look upon me with eyes of compassion. I have given banquets which lasted from sunset until dawn. In Rhodes, at the hour of the songs, we used to throw the metal plates out of the windows to the slaves. The life of a man should be thus, like Homer's heroes, a king in one place and a beggar in another."

      Polyanthus looked upon the adventurer with interest, and the elegant Lachares, who had at first opposed Sónnica when she wished to awaken so ill-dressed a Greek, approached him, recognizing Athenian refinement beneath his humble exterior, thinking to make a friend of him in the hope of receiving lessons to his advantage.

      "Come to my villa at sunset to-day," said Sónnica. "You shall dine with us. Anyone can guide you to my house. One of my ships has brought you to this land, and I wish you to find hospitality beneath my roof. Farewell, Athenian. I also am from Athens, and seeing you I imagine that the golden lance of Pallas on the height by the Parthenon still shines before my eyes."

      Bidding the Athenian farewell with a smile, Sónnica turned toward the temple, followed by the slaves.

      Actæon overhead the conversation of Lachares and Polyanthus outside the temple. They had spent the night before at Sónnica's house. They had left the table at dawn. Lachares still wore his banquet crown, but the roses were withered and falling to pieces. When Sónnica heard of the arrival of the dancing girls from Gades, whom she had so impatiently awaited to present at her suppers, she took a fancy to see Polyanthus and his ship, and she wished to make a sacrifice to Aphrodite in passing, as she did whenever she went to the port. She had come in her great litter, accompanied by Lachares and the two slaves, proposing to sleep on the way back, for she generally stayed in bed until well past the hour of noon.

      The pilot withdrew and went toward his ship to disembark the troop of dancers, and Actæon walked with Lachares to the entrance of the open temple.

      The interior was simple and beautiful. A great square space remained roofless to allow the light to enter, and the sun's rays descending through this opening gave the changing bluish green of sea-water to the azure columns with their capitals representing shells, dolphins, and cupids grasping the oar. At the lower end in a soft penumbra, laden with the perfumes of the sacrifices, stood the goddess, white, arrogant, and proud in her nudity as when she first emerged from the waves before the astonished eyes of men.

      The altar was near the door. Before it stood the priest in a full linen mantle, held to his head by a crown of flowers, receiving the offerings to the goddess from the hands of Sónnica herself.

      Coming out upon the peristyle she swept with a loving glance the expanse of whitecapped sea, the port glistening like a triple mirror, the immense green valley, and the distant city, gilded by the first rays of the morning sun.

      "How beautiful! Look at our city, Actæon! Greece is not more exquisite."

      At the foot of the great stone steps was her palanquin, which was a veritable house closed by purple curtains, decorated at their four corners with plumes of ostrich feathers. It was borne by eight athletic slaves with swelling muscles.

      Sónnica ordered her women to enter this ambulatory dwelling; she pushed in Lachares, whom she treated as an inferior, and whose familiarity was tolerated as one of her caprices; and, turning toward the Greek, who stood on an upper step of the temple, she smiled once more, bidding him farewell with a wave of a hand covered to the fingernails with rings, which at every movement traced streams of light through the air.

      The litter swiftly disappeared along the city road, when suddenly Actæon became aware of hands caressing his neck.

      It was Bacchis, looking still more wasted and ragged in the light of day. She had one eye blackened, and bruised spots on her arms.

      "I could not come before," said the slave humbly. "They only let me loose a little while ago. What people! They barely gave me enough to pay Lais. I have been thinking of you all night, god of mine, while they were tormenting me, blowing in my face like tired satyrs."

      Actæon turned away, shrinking from her caresses. He perceived the odor of wine on the wretched woman, drunk and exhausted after the adventures of the night.

      "You run away from me? Yes, I understand! I saw you talking with Sónnica the rich, she whom her friends call the most beautiful woman in Zacynthus. Are you going to be her lover? Oh, I know that she will adore you. But she is only another like myself. Tell me, Actæon, why do you not take me with you? Why do you not make me your slave? My price will be only one night with you."

      The Greek pushed aside the thin arms which tried to embrace him, in order to see the road where trumpets were blaring, and helmets and lances were gleaming, in the midst of a great cloud of dust.

      "Those are the legates from Rome who are leaving to-day," said the woman.

      Attracted by the charm which men of war exercised upon her childish mind, she ran down the steps to obtain a closer view of the ambassadors and their retinue.

      In advance marched the trumpeters of the Roman ship, blowing their long metal tubas, their cheeks bound by broad woolen bands. An escort of citizens of Saguntum surrounded the ambassadors, making their shaggy Celtiberian horses caracole, waving their lances, their heads covered with triple-crested helmets which still bore the dents from blows received in their latest skirmishes with the Turdetani. Some old men of the Saguntine senate rode sedately on heavy horses, their long beards covering their breasts. Their dark mantles, held upon their heads by embroidered tiaras, swept to their stirrups in heavy folds. The Roman ensign, over-topped by the wolf, was carried by a strong classiarius, and behind it rode the legates, their round, shaven heads uncovered. One was obese, and had a fat, triple chin; the other was spare, nervous, with a sharp aquiline nose; both wore embossed bronze cuirasses; their legs were covered with metal greaves, and over their protuberant thighs hung skirts the color of wine-lees, trimmed with loose strips of gold which quivered at the slightest movement of their steeds.

      As the procession reached the wharf, where swarmed groups of sailors, fishermen, and slaves, they met a band of women wrapped in their mantles, who were walking along guided by an old man with insolent eyes and sunken mouth, wearing that repulsive aspect acquired by eunuchs who live perpetually in the company of enslaved women. They were the dancing girls from Gades, who, as they left Polyanthus' ship, passed unnoticed in the hubbub of the leave-taking.

      Some women, issuing from the fish-wharves, offered the legates crowns of flowers gathered from the neighboring hills, and lilies from the lagoons. Acclamations arose throughout the entire length of the quay, witnessed by groups of indifferent sailors from all countries.

      "Hail to Rome! May Neptune protect you! The gods accompany you!"

      Actæon heard a mocking laugh behind him, and as he turned he saw the Celtiberian shepherd who had killed the legionary in the tavern the night before.

      "You here?" the Greek exclaimed with surprise. "Are you alone, and do you not hide from the Romans who seek you?"

      The imperious eyes of the shepherd, those strange eyes which aroused in the Greek confused and inexplicable memories, looked at him with arrogance.

      "The Romans! I hate and despise them! I would go without fear even to the deck of their СКАЧАТЬ