Passing out of the library through the atrium the friends crossed a small courtyard enclosed on three sides, and turning sharp to the left began to climb the slope which sheltered the house. The walk was shaded by a thick hedge of ilex, and there were tall, slim cypresses at irregular intervals. Leaving the path, they crossed a plot of grass, starry with little flowers, and, passing through a thicket of myrtles, came presently to a semicircular stone seat shaded by beeches which stood, eastward, a little way behind it. Falling water tinkled like little silver bells somewhere close to them; and the leaves made a pleasant whispering noise. Lysis covered the seat with rugs, and left them. The seat faced westward, overlooking the olive-yards which the winds flushed to silver; and the friends had a magnificent view of the Atlantic. In the declining light the distant promontories, blue and lemon, seemed to jut out into a bath of liquid colours, as if suspended in the vague; and the horizon was indeterminate. A fleet of fishing-boats, some miles from the shore, seemed like small, brown moths with motionless wings that had settled upon a flat screen of transparent blue gauze, and about them the light gleamed and flickered upon innumerable little dancing waves. It was all blue and green, but so pale and silent as to seem a mirage. Marcus, lounging easily upon the wide seat, looked over the prospect with unconscious enjoyment. Rufus sat with his chin in his hands.
"I love to sit here on tranquil evenings," said Serenus; "and listen for the cry of the halcyon, or the heavy plunge of a dolphin, drifting up through the delicious air from the bay."
He unrolled his manuscript, and presently began to read, in a smooth, low voice:--
"When Venus rose out of the foam and froth of Ocean it was upon the prow of a Phœnician trader, that carried her into every part of the known world; and when her worship fell away and her votaries became few, the cult of Venus Pandemos still flourished at Corinth, and her temples there were served by a thousand priestesses. There she loves to have her abiding place, where she can look out upon two seas, and watch the sail-winged ships bringing her tribute from distant lands; she is the lure, beckoning them over the pathless sea. The port Cenchrea is surrounded by green hills and pine forests, and through the stone-pines at dawn the sun sends his first level rays, so that their trunks show black against the gold. The streets are infested with traders of all nations; Jews and Syrians swarm there; child courtesans with delicate and innocent faces pluck strangers by the sleeve and smile; the quays and streets are crowded with the booths of merchants and moneychangers, whose gay awnings striped red or yellow glare vividly in the sunlight; and doves are everywhere, fluttering about the streets, fanning the air with a soft pulse of wings, alighting upon awnings and architraves to preen their feathers, running swiftly among the passengers on their pink feet and cooing, cooing softly like the young girls who touch men on the sleeve, the very gentle, insinuating whisper of Aphrodite.
"I arrived at Corinth in the beginning of December, and remember well the gaiety, animation, and bustle of the scene as I watched it from the steps of the temple; for a long time I fed my sight upon that busy, amorous, wholly pleasure-loving crowd, until, at last, the red and yellow awnings so hot and vivid even in the winter sunlight, the perpetual passing to and fro of men and women, the continual change and motion of colours, and the humming noise, all combined in a curious hypnotic effect upon my nerves. What had seemed the very epitome of life became a mere stage-scene, and then again nothing but the dance of motes in a sunbeam.
"It irritated me and then tired me. I turned from the Temple of Venus and sought that of Apollo, where I rested a little time in peace. Then I went to the house of my agent, with whom I was to lodge until I had taken a house for my own use. The man was kindly, but tactless; his tedious anxiety to please distracted and irritated me, he was so much at my service that I could find no possible use for him. I said I wished to bathe, and my host insisted on coming with me. It was amusing to watch his air of importance as he conducted me through the crowded ways, for he was a notable person in the city, and every other man we met greeted us; as we paused a moment before a funeral procession I heard a voice saying: 'That is Serenus, a cousin of Acte's Serenus,' and once again I felt the intolerable stare of curious eyes, that dropped obsequiously when I met them. After my bath, my host led me to the Prefect's palace, for I had letters to Gallio, and then at last he left me. Gallio received me charmingly; his manners are those of a man who has known and forgotten everything. He begged me to dine, and to stay with him until I had found a house; but I excused myself on the score of business and fatigue. He smiled, answered that he would always be glad of my company, and I left him.
"Once again in the streets, that vivid and passionate life appealed to me with a new sympathy; I read beneath the superficial gaiety and glitter, the human tragedy, the flight of pleasures and the irrevocable advance of death; women passed me in soft murmuring draperies, smiled at me languorously and passed on leaving the air tainted with Eastern perfumes. I noticed that even as they smiled their eyes were wistful. The delicate winter sunset began. I called a boy to me and asked him to guide me to the house of Caius, whom I wished to see personally on some business connected with the outfit of my ship. He led me to a house in the Jews' quarter and I tapped at the door. A freedwoman admitted me, looked at me with surprise, and was just going to speak but changed her mind and led me toward the doorway of a room whence came a sound of some one reading. Light fell through the doorway as she drew back the curtain; and she motioned me to enter; but I drew back in astonishment, for a voice was reading aloud these words: 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And if I give away in food all my goods, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.'
"The grave voice ceased, for the servant had beckoned the reader, and presently Caius came toward me. I gave him my orders with reference to the sails and tackling of my ship, and spoke of other ships of mine which he had refitted for me; and then asked him what author he had been reading. For a moment he hesitated, and then answered that he had been reading to some friends a letter by Paul, an apostle of Christ. I enquired if I might look a little more closely at it as I had been interested in what I heard; and after hesitating again for a moment he brought it me. The scroll half opened in my hands and I read:--