up to Pollux, and said:

"Gently, fellow, if you value your life."

Pollux stepped back before the imposing personage that stood before him,
and, as it were scales, fell from his eyes. The marble statue of the
Emperor in the Caesareum represented the sovereign in this same attitude.
The architect, Claudius Venator, was none other than Hadrian.

The young artist turned pale and said with bowed head, and in low voice
as he turned to go:

"Right is always on the side of the strongest. Let me go. I am nothing
but a poor artist--you are some thing very different. I know you now; you
are Caesar."

"I am Caesar," snarled Hadrian, "and if you think more of yourself as an
artist than of me, I will show you which of us two is the sparrow, and
which the eagle."

"You have the power to destroy, and I only desire--"

"The only person here who has a right to desire is myself," cried the
Emperor, "and I desire that you shall never enter this palace again, nor
ever come within sight of me so long as I remain here. What to do with
your kith and kin I will consider. Not another word! Away with you, I
say, and thank the gods that I judge the misdeed of a miserable boy more
mercifully than you dared to do in judging the work of a greater man than
yourself, though you knew that he had done it in an idle hour with a few
hasty touches. Be off, fellow; my slaves will finish destroying your
image there, for it deserves no better fate, and because--what was it you
said just now? I remember--and because it enrages me."

A bitter laugh rang after the lad as he quitted the hall. At the
entrance, which was perfectly dark, he found his master, Papias, who had
not missed a word of what had passed between him and the Emperor. As
Pollux went into his mother's house he cried out:

"Oh mother, mother, what a morning, and what an evening. Happiness is
only the threshold to misery."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Happiness is only the threshold to misery
When a friend refuses to share in joys

THE EMPEROR

By Georg Ebers

Volume 7.

CHAPTER V.

While Pollux and his mother, who was much grieved, waited for Euphorion's
return, and while Papias was ingratiating himself with the Emperor by
pretending still to believe that Hadrian was nothing more than Claudius
Venator, the architect, Aurelius Verus, nicknamed by the Alexandrians,
"the sham Eros" had lived through strange experiences.

In the afternoon he had vi