Nydia

“ It is now, Nydia, some days since I have been admitted to Ione; there is something mysterious in this exclusion. I am distracted with doubts and fears; learn—for thou art quick, and thy care for me will sharpen tenfold thy acuteness—learn the cause of this unkindness; speak of me as often as thou canst; let my name come ever to thy lips: insinuate how I love rather than proclaim it; watch if she sighs whilst thou speakest, if she answer thee; or, if she reproves, in what accents she reproves. Be my friend, plead for me: and oh! how vastly wilt thou overpay the little I have done for thee! ”

“ I send these by one whom thou wilt receive for her own sake, if not for mine. She, like us, is a stranger; her fathers' ashes lie under brighter skies: but, less happy than we, she is blind and a slave. Poor Nydia! I seek as much as possible to repair to her the cruelties of Nature and of Fate, in asking permission to place her with thee. She is gentle, quick, and docile. She is skilled in music and the song; and she is a very Chloris to the flowers. She thinks, Ione, that thou wilt love her: if thou dost not, send her back to me. ”

“ And who is that sweet-faced girl in the pew just in front of the pulpit? She is beautiful. She looks like Nydia, the blind girl in 'The Last Days of Pompeii,' but she can't be Nydia, for Nydia lived and died hundreds of years ago. But she listens to the music just as Nydia might do if she were here now. It is not so sad to be blind in a world of music. And yet—how would I know where they were sitting if I were blind, too? ”

“ If it were not for thee, little wretch, I should be allowed to go with the rest and see it.'
Nydia leant back for some moments. Nature could endure no more—she had fainted away. But Sosia did not perceive it, for it was the dusk of eve, and he was full of his own privations. He went on lamenting the loss of so delightful a show, and accusing the injustice of Arbaces for singling him out from all his fellows to be converted into a gaoler; and ere he had half finished, Nydia, with a deep sigh, recovered the sense of life.
'Thou sighest, blind one, at my loss! Well, that is some comfort. ”

“ Nydia sighed, and after a short pause, without answering the remark, said: 'But do I weave too many roses in my wreath, Glaucus? They tell me it is thy favorite flower.'
'And ever favored, my Nydia, be it by those who have the soul of poetry: it is the flower of love, of festival; it is also the flower we dedicate to silence and to death; it blooms on our brows in life, while life be worth the having ”

“ Perhaps the flames yet lurk and dart beneath.'
'It is possible,' said Glaucus, musingly.
'Thou sayest thou art slow to believe in magic,' said Nydia, suddenly. 'I have heard that a potent witch dwells amongst the scorched caverns of the mountain, and yon cloud may be the dim shadow of the demon she confers with.'
'Thou art full of the romance of thy native Thessaly,' said Glaucus; 'and a strange mixture of sense and all conflicting superstitions.'
'We are ever superstitious in the dark,' replied Nydia. 'Tell me,' she added, after a slight pause, 'tell me, O Glaucus! ”

“ As thy faith and thy smile are its life and its joy, So thy frown or thy change are the storms that destroy. Ah! sweeter to sink while the sky is serene, If time hath a change for thy heart! If to live be to weep over what thou hast been, Let me die while I know what thou art!
As the last words of the song trembled over the sea, Ione raised her looks—they met those of her lover. Happy Nydia!—happy in thy affliction, that thou couldst not see that fascinated and charmed gaze, that said so much—that made the eye the voice of the soul—that promised the impossibility of change! ”

“ III Oh, happy Beam! how canst thou prove That bright love of thine? In thy light is the proof of thy love. Thou hast but—to shine! IV How its love can the Wind reveal? Unwelcome its sigh; Mute—mute to its Rose let it steal— Its proof is—to die!
'Thou singest but sadly, sweet girl,' said Glaucus; 'thy youth only feels as yet the dark shadow of Love; far other inspiration doth he wake, when he himself bursts and brightens upon us.
'I sing as I was taught,' replied Nydia, sighing. ”

“ This is a woman's task and duty; methinks her virtue is hypocrisy.'
'Self-control is not deceit, my Nydia,' returned the Athenian; and that is the virtue necessary alike to man and to woman; it is the true senatorial toga, the badge of the dignity it covers!'
'Self-control! self-control! Well, well, what you say is right! When I listen to you, Glaucus, my wildest thoughts grow calm and sweet, and a delicious serenity falls over me. Advise, ah! guide me ever, my preserver!'
'Thy affectionate heart will be thy best guide, Nydia, when thou hast learned to regulate its feelings.'
'Ah! ”

“ For long before those Pompeiian days, when Nydia would have welcomed renewed blindness in exchange for one glimpse of Glaucus, or of some token of his care, men and women have cherished the gifts of those they loved. ”

“ Meanwhile Nydia, when separated by the throng from Glaucus and Ione, had in vain endeavored to regain them. In vain she raised that plaintive cry so peculiar to the blind; it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided—to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive—to inquire of Glaucus—to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbor? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is more horrid than the unnatural selfishness they engender. ”

“ I will never part from it—it is thy gift.'
'My dear Nydia,' returned Glaucus, and raising her, he kissed her forehead, 'think of it no more! But why, my child, wert thou so suddenly angry? I could not divine the cause?'
'Do not ask!' said she, coloring violently. 'I am a thing full of faults and humors; you know I am but a child—you say so often: is it from a child that you can expect a reason for every folly?'
'But, prettiest, you will soon be a child no more; and if you would have us treat you as a woman, you must learn to govern these singular impulses and gales of passion. ”

“ My Nydia, my poor infant!'
'Oh? is that you—is that Glaucus?' exclaimed the flower-girl, in a tone almost of transport; the tears stood arrested on her cheek; she smiled, she clung to his breast, she kissed his robe as she clung.
'And how dare you, pert stranger! interfere between a free woman and her slave. By the gods! despite your fine tunic and your filthy perfumes, I doubt whether you are even a Roman citizen, my mannikin.'
'Fair words, mistress—fair words!' said Clodius, now entering with Lepidus. ”

“ Each hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all the various and complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of self-preservation.
Through this awful scene did Glaucus wade his way, accompanied by Ione and the blind girl. Suddenly, a rush of hundreds, in their path to the sea, swept by them. Nydia was torn from the side of Glaucus, who with Ione was borne rapidly onward; and when the crowd (whose forms they saw not, so thick was the gloom) were gone, Nydia was still separated from their side. Glaucus shouted her name. ”

“ Attempt not to appeal to Arbaces—he is marble. Seek the praetor—say what thou knowest—obtain his writ of search; bring soldiers, and smiths of cunning—these locks are wondrous strong! Time flies—I may starve—starve! if you are not quick! Go—go! Yet stay—it is horrible to be alone!—the air is like a charnel—and the scorpions—ha! and the pale larvae; oh! stay, stay!'
'Nay,' said Nydia, terrified by the terror of the priest, and anxious to confer with herself—'nay, for thy sake, I must depart. ”

“ I envy thee now, for thou knowest not that she is absent; and I—would I could be like thee—between the intervals of seeing her! What doubt, what presentiment, haunts me! why will she not admit me? Days have passed since I heard her voice. For the first time, life grows flat to me. I am as one who is left alone at a banquet, the lights dead, and the flowers faded. Ah! Ione, couldst thou dream how I adore thee!'
From these enamoured reveries, Glaucus was interrupted by the entrance of Nydia. She came with her light, though cautious step, along the marble tablinum. ”

“ Base is that heart which does not respect affliction! The moment she heard the messenger was blind, Ione felt the impossibility of returning a chilling reply. Glaucus had chosen a herald that was indeed sacred—a herald that could not be denied.
'What can he want with me? what message can he send?' and the heart of Ione beat quick. The curtain across the door was withdrawn; a soft and echoless step fell upon the marble; and Nydia, led by one of the attendants, entered with her precious gift. ”

“ He is to die. I shall never live happily if I cannot, in his hour of trial and doom, let him know that one heart is grateful to him. Sallust is his friend; he will convey my message.'
'I am sure he will do no such thing. Glaucus will have enough to think of between this and to-morrow without troubling his head about a blind girl.'
'Man,' said Nydia, rising, 'wilt thou become free? Thou hast the offer in thy power; to-morrow it will be too late. Never was freedom more cheaply purchased. Thou canst easily and unmissed leave home: less than half an hour will suffice for thine absence. ”

“ At length it occurred to Nydia that, as it had been resolved to seek the seashore for escape, her most probable chance of rejoining her companions would be to persevere in that direction. Guiding her steps, then, by the staff which she always carried, she continued{138} to avoid the masses of ruin which incumbered the path, and to take the nearest direction to the seaside.
She had gone some distance toward the seashore, when she chanced to hear from one of the fugitives that Glaucus was resting beneath the arch of the forum. ”

“ There is no pannier under thine arm; hast thou sold all thy flowers?'
The person thus accosting Nydia was a lady of a handsome but a bold and unmaidenly countenance: it was Julia, the daughter of Diomed. Her veil was half raised as she spoke; she was accompanied by Diomed himself, and by a slave carrying a lantern before them—the merchant and his daughter were returning home from a supper at one of their neighbors'. ”

“ THE SLAVE CONSULTS THE ORACLE. THEY WHO BLIND THEMSELVES THE BLIND MAY FOOL. TWO NEW PRISONERS MADE IN ONE NIGHT.
IMPATIENTLY Nydia awaited the arrival of the no less anxious Sosia. Fortifying his courage by plentiful potations of a better liquor than that provided for the demon, the credulous ministrant stole into the blind girl's chamber.
'Well, Sosia, and art thou prepared? Hast thou the bowl of pure water?'
'Verily, yes: but I tremble a little. You are sure I shall not see the demon? ”

“ What ministering angel should now come forth as a light out of darkness bearing, even in her blindness, the conditions of deliverance, but Nydia. From the slaves of Arbaces she learned the approaching fate of Glaucus. Working upon the superstition of her special guard Sosia, she manages to escape his vigilance for a time, and creeping along a dark passage she overhears the cries of the priest Calenus lately incarcerated in [Pg 85] an adjoining dungeon cell. From him she learns the circumstances of the crime of Arbaces for which the innocent Glaucus was doomed to die. ”

“ Arbaces, the dark, wily, revengeful Egyptian, is the demon of the tale. In profound earthly wisdom and diabolical depravity, "none but himself can be his parallel." The "Asiatic Journal," whose editors or reviewers we take to be much wiser than we are, asserts that the character of Nydia is not an original creation of Mr. Bulwer's; but that the dwarf Mignon in the Wilhelm Meister of Goethe, is the exact prototype not only of the blind flower girl, but of the fantastical Fenella in Scott's Peverill of the Peak. ”

“ A minute more, and Arbaces had lifted her into the litter. The bearers moved swiftly on, and the unfortunate Ione was soon borne from the sight of her weeping handmaids.
Chapter X
WHAT BECOMES OF NYDIA IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES. THE EGYPTIAN FEELS COMPASSION FOR GLAUCUS. COMPASSION IS OFTEN A VERY USELESS VISITOR TO THE GUILTY.
IT will be remembered that, at the command of Arbaces, Nydia followed the Egyptian to his home, and conversing there with her, he learned from the confession of her despair and remorse, that her hand, and not Julia's, had administered to Glaucus the fatal potion. ”

“ Her blindness, beauty, and pitiful condition appealed to the sympathies of Glaucus, a wealthy young Athenian, who purchased her. Arbaces, envious of her possession, and an enemy of Glaucus, captured and imprisoned her, and caused Glaucus to be accused of murder and condemned to fight a lion in the arena. The lion refused, however, to touch him, and Nydia, escaping from her prison at the time of the dreadful eruption of Vesuvius, found Glaucus, and conducted him and his fiancée to the sea. Finding that he loved another, she drowned herself. ”

“ She he imprisoned in his own house. Calenus, who had witnessed the deed, sought Arbaces with the intention of using his knowledge to his own profit. He, by a stratagem, was incarcerated in one of the dungeons of the Egyptian's dwelling. The law gave Ione into the guardianship of Arbaces. But, for a third time, Nydia was the means of frustrating the plans of Arbaces.
The blind girl, when vainly endeavouring to escape from the toils of the Egyptian, overheard, in his garden, the conversation of Arbaces and Calenus ”