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Updated: May 17, 2025
Marcus and Dada allowed themselves to be carried onward by the throng which was tending towards the city-walls and the Canopic gate.
The curse that rested on Dada was that of her position; she herself was pure as pure as a lily, as pure as the heart of a child, as pure as the blue of her eyes and the ring of her voice. He would obey the angel's behest! He could and he must save her! In the greatest excitement he went out of the house, through the great gate, into the Canopic way, and walked on.
You can do it I know, and if you do well, I make no promises; but on the day when all Alexandria is talking of that woman's son as wandering out, night after night, to watch under the window of the fair Dada, the heathen singer when he drives you out in the face of day and in his own chariot, down the Canopic Way and past his mother's door then child, ask, claim whatever you will, and old Damia will not refuse it."
I have told you before now how I went with our maid-servant into the Canopic way to the house of my aunt Archidike to look on at the great procession. I had not far to go for we lived near the Theatre, my father was stage-manager and yours was one of the chief singers in the chorus. We hurried along, but all sorts of people stopped us, and drunken men wanted to joke with me."
The girl would be left quite alone, and then. . . The picture rose before her anxious mind of Marcus appearing on the scene and tempting Dada on shore of her niece stealing away by herself even, if the young Christian failed to discover her present residence loitering alone along the Canopic way or the Bruclumn, where, at noon, all that was most disreputable in Alexandria was to be seen at this time of year she saw, shuddered, considered and suddenly thought of an expedient which seemed to promise an issue from the difficulty.
So we went out to take our places upon a stand, built of timber, that had been set up at the side of the great road which pierces through the city, to the Canopic Gate. For my uncle had already purchased a right to enter there, and that dearly.
She could have laughed aloud but that her throat was so dry, her tongue so parched; but her scornful triumph was expressed in every feature, as her fancy showed her Marcus riding along the Canopic street with that little heathen hussy Dada, the singing girl, while her much-hated daughter-in-law looked after them, beating her forehead in grief and rage.
The Biblical expression, "bowels of compassion," always came to her mind when she looked at canopic jars. These jars had their significance. A very good significance, too, she thought, for certainly our bowels are highly sensitive organs, responding and acting in complete sympathy with our mental condition.
At their command, a princely city rose from the sandhills and rushes of the Canopic mouth; stately temples uniting Greek proportion with Egyptian grandeur, long quays with sheltered docks, ingenious contrivances for purifying the Nile water and conducting a supply to every considerable house; in short, every product of a luxurious civilisation was found there, except the refreshing shade of green trees, which, beyond a few of the commoner kinds, could not be forced to grow on the shifting sandy soil.
A few weeks later Dada and Gorgo were both baptized, and both by the name of Cecilia; and then, at Mary's special entreaty, Marcus' marriage was solemnized with much pomp by the Bishop himself. Still, and in spite of the lavish demonstrations of more than motherly affection which the widow showered her daughter-in-law, Dada felt a stranger, and ill at ease in the great house in the Canopic way.
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