And suddenly the emperor’s features began to show signs of animation.  His eye, but now so dull, shone more brightly, and he cried out, as if the long silence had scarcely broken the thread of his ideas, but in a still husky voice: 

“I should like to get up and go with you, but I am still too weak.  Do you go now, my friend, and bring me back fresh news.”

Alexander then begged him to consider how dangerous every excitement would be for him; yet Caracalla exclaimed, eagerly: 

“It will strengthen me and dome good!  Everything that surrounds me is so hollow, so insipid, so contemptible—­what I hear is so small.  A strong, highly spiced word, even if it is sharp, refreshes me—­When you have finished a picture, do you like to hear nothing but how well your friends can flatter?”

The artist thought he understood Caesar.  True to his nature, always hoping for the best, he thought that, as the severe judgment of the envious had often done him (Alexander) good, so the sharp satire of the Alexandrians would lead Caracalla to introspection and greater moderation; he only resolved to tell the sufferer nothing further that was merely insulting.

When he bade him farewell, Caracalla glanced up at him with such a look of pain that the artist longed to give him his hand, and speak to him with real affection.  The tormenting headache which followed each convulsion had again come on, and Caesar submitted without resistance to what the physician prescribed.

Alexander asked old Adventus at the door if he did not think that the terrible attack had been brought on by annoyance at the Alexandrians’ satire, and if it would not be advisable in the future not to allow such things to reach the emperor’s ear; but the man, looking at him in surprise with his half-blind eyes, replied with a brutal want of sympathy that disgusted the youth:  “Drinking brought on the attack.  What makes him ill are stronger things than words.  If you yourself, young man, do not suffer for Alexandrian wit, it will certainly not hurt Caesar!”

Alexander turned his back indignantly on the chamberlain, and he became so absorbed in wondering how it was possible that the emperor, who was cultivated and appreciated what was beautiful, could have dragged out of the dust and kept near him two such miserable ’creatures as Theocritus and this old man, that Philostratus, who met him in the next room, had almost to shout at him.

Philostratus informed him that Melissa was staying with the chief priest’s wife; but just as he was about to inquire curiously what had passed between the audacious painter and Caesar—­for even Philostratus was a courtier—­he was called away to Caracalla.

CHAPTER XIX.

In one of the few rooms of his vast palace which the chief priest had reserved for the accommodation of the members of his own household, the youth was received by Melissa, Timotheus’s wife Euryale, and the lady Berenike.