CHAPTER XV.
The town was out of danger; the fire was extinct. Pontius had taken no rest till noonday. Three horses had he tired out and replaced by fresh ones, but his sinewy frame and healthy courage had till now defied every strain. As soon as he could consider his task at an end he went off to his own house, and he needed rest; but in the hall of his residence he already found a number of persons waiting, and who were likely to stand between him and the enjoyment of it.
A man who lives in the midst of important undertakings cannot, with impunity, leave his work to take care of itself for several days. All the claims upon him become pent up, and when he returns home they deluge him like water when the sluice-gates are suddenly opened behind which it has been dammed up.
At least twenty persons, who had heard of the architect’s return, were waiting for him in his outer hall, and crowded upon him as soon as he appeared. Among them he saw several who had come on important business, but he felt that he had reached the farthest limit of his strength, and he was determined to secure a little rest at any cost. The grave man’s natural consideration, usually so conspicuous, could not hold out against the demands made on his endurance, and he angrily and peevishly pointed to his begrimed face as he made his way through the people waiting for him.
“To-morrow, to-morrow,” he cried; “nay, if necessary, to-day, after sunset. But now I need rest. Rest! Rest! Why, you yourselves can see the state I am in.”
All—even the master-masons and purveyors who had come on urgent affairs, drew back; only one elderly man, his sister Paulina’s house-steward, caught hold of his chiton, stained as it was with smoke and scorched in many places, and said quickly and in a low tone:
“My mistress greets you; she has things to speak of to you which will bear no delay; I am not to leave you till you have promised to go to see her to-day. Our chariot waits for you at the garden-door.”
“Send it home,” said Pontius, not even civilly; “Paulina must wait a few hours.”
“But my orders are to take you with me at once.”
“But in this state—so—I cannot go with you,” cried the architect with vehemence. “Have you no sort of consideration? And yet—who can tell—well, tell her I will be with her in two hours.”
When Pontius had fairly escaped the throng he took a bath; then he had some food brought to him, but even while he ate and drank, he was not unoccupied, for he read the letters which awaited him, and examined some drawings which his assistants had prepared during his absence.
“Give yourself an hour’s respite,” said the old housekeeper, who had been his nurse and who loved him as her own son.
“I must go to my sister,” he answered with a shrug. “We know her of old,” said the old woman. “For nothing, and less than nothing, she has sent for you be fore now; and you absolutely need rest. There—are your cushions right—so? And let me ask you, has the humblest stone-carrier so hard a life as you have? Even at meals you never have an hour of peace and comfort. Your poor head is never quiet; the nights are turned into day; something to do, always something to do. If one only knew who it is all for?”
“Aye—who for, indeed?” sighed Pontius, pushing his arm under his head, between it and the pillow. “But, you see, little mother, work must follow rest as surely as day follows night or summer follows winter. The man who has something he loves in the House—a wife and merry children, it may be, for aught I care—who sweeten his hours of rest and make them the best of all the day, he, I say is wise when he tries to prolong them; but his case is not mine—”
“But why is it not yours, my son Pontius?”
“Let me finish my speech. I, as you know full well, do not care for gossip in the bath nor for reclining long over a banquet. In the pauses of my work I am alone, with myself and with you, my very worthy Leukippe. So the hours of rest are not for me the fairest scenes, but empty waits between the acts of the drama of life; and no reasonable man can find fault with me for trying to abridge them by useful occupation.”
“And what is the upshot of this sensible talk? Simply this: you must get married.”
Pontius sighed, but Leukippe added eagerly:
“You have not far to look! The most respectable fathers and mothers are running after you and would bring their prettiest daughters into your door.”
“A daughter whom I do not know, and who might perhaps spoil the pauses between the acts, which at present I can at any rate turn to some account.”
“They say,” the old woman went on, “that marriage is a cast of the dice. One throws a high number, another a low one; one wins a wife who is a match for the busy bee, another gets a tiresome gnat. No doubt there is some truth in it; but I have grown grey with my eyes open and I have often seen it happen, that how the marriage turned out depended on the husband. A man like you makes a bee out of a gnat—a bee that brings honey to the hive. Of course a man must choose carefully.”
“How, pray?”
“First see the parents and then the child. A girl who has grown up surrounded by good habits, in the house of a sensible father and a virtuous mother—”
“And where in this city am I to find such a miracle? Nay, nay, Leukippe, for the present all shall be left to my old woman. We both do our duty, we are satisfied with each other and—”
“And time is flying,” said the housekeeper, interrupting her master in his speech. “You are nearly thirty-five years of age, and the girls—”
“Let them be! let them be! They will find other men! Now send Cyrus with my shoes and cloak, and have my litter got ready, for Paulina has been kept waiting long enough.”
The way from the architect’s house to his sister’s was long, and on his way he found ample time for reflection on various matters besides Leukippe’s advice to marry. Still, it was a woman’s face and form that possessed him heart and soul; at first, however, he did not feel inclined to feast his fancy on Balbilla’s image, lovely as it appeared to him; on the contrary, with self-inflicted severity he sought everything in her which could be thought to be opposed to the highest standard of feminine perfections. Nor did he find it difficult to detect many defects and deficiencies in the Roman damsel; still he was forced to admit that they were quite inseparable from her character, and that she would no longer be what she was, if she were wholly free from them. Each of her little weaknesses presently began to appear as an additional charm to the stern man who had himself been brought up in the doctrine of the Stoics.
He had learnt by experience that sorrow must cast its shadow over the existence of every human being; but still, the man to whom it should be vouchsafed to walk through life hand-in-hand with this radiant child of fortune could, as it seemed to him, have nothing to look forward to but pure sunshine. During his journey to Pelusium and his stay there he had often thought of her, and each time that her image had appeared to his inward eye he had felt as though daylight had shone in his soul. To have met her he regarded as the greatest joy of his life, but he dared not aspire to claim her as his own.
He did not undervalue himself and knew that he might well be proud of the position he had won by his own industry and talents; and still she was the grandchild of the man who had had the right to sell his grandfather for mere coin, and was so high-born, rich and distinguished that he would have thought it hardly more audacious to ask the Emperor what he would take for the purple than to woo her. But to shelter her, to warn her, to allow his soul to be refreshed by the sight of her and by her talk—this he felt was permissible, this happiness no one could deprive him of. And this she would grant him—she esteemed him and would give him the right to protect her, this he felt, with thankfulness and joy. He would, then and there, have gone through the exertions of the last few hours all over again if he could have been certain that he should once more be refreshed with the draught of water from her hand. Only to think of her and of her sweetness seemed greater happiness than the possession of any other woman.
As he got out of his litter at the door of his sister’s town-house he shook his head, smiling at himself; for he confessed to himself that the whole of the long distance he had hardly thought of anything but Balbilla.
Paulina’s house had but few windows opening upon the street and these belonged to the strangers’ rooms, and yet his arrival had been observed. A window at the side of the house, all grown round with creepers, framed in a sweet girlish head which looked down from it inquisitively on the bustle in the street. Pontius did not notice it, but Arsinoe—for it was her pretty face that looked out—at once recognized the architect whom she had seen at Lochias and of whom Pollux had spoken as his friend and patron.
She had now, for a week, been living with the rich widow; she wanted for nothing, and yet her soul longed with all its might to be out in the city, and to inquire for Pollux and his parents, of whom she had heard nothing since the day of her father’s death. Her lover was no doubt seeking her with anxiety and sorrow; but how was he to find her?
Three days after her arrival she had discovered the little window from which she had a view of the street. There was plenty to be seen, for it led to the Hippodrome and was never empty of foot-passengers and chariots that were proceeding thither or to Necropolis. No doubt it was a pleasure to her to watch the fine horses and garlanded youths and men who passed by Paulina’s house; but it was not merely to amuse herself that she went to the bowery little opening; no, she hoped, on the contrary, that she might once see her Pollux, his father, his mother, his bother Teuker or some one else they knew pass by her new home. Then she might perhaps succeed in calling them, in asking what had become of her friends, and in begging them to let her lover know where to seek her.
Her adoptive mother had twice found her at the window and had forbidden her, not unkindly but very positively, to look out into the street. Arsinoe had followed her unresistingly into the interior of the house, but as soon as she knew that Paulina was out or engaged, she slipped back to the window again and looked out for him, who must at every hour of the day be thinking of her. And she was not happy amid her new and wealthy surroundings. At first she had found it very pleasant to stretch her limbs on Paulina’s soft cushions, not to stir a finger to help herself, to eat the best of food and to have neither to attend to the children nor to labor in the horrible papyrus-factory; but by the third day she pined for liberty—and still more for the children, for Selene and Pollux. Once she went out driving with Paulina in a covered carriage for the first time in her life. As the horses started she had enjoyed the rapid movement and had leaned out at one side to see the houses and men flying past her; but Paulina had regarded this as not correct—as she did so many other things that she herself thought right and permissible—had desired her to draw in her head, and had told her that a well-conducted girl must sit with her eyes in her lap when out driving.
Paulina was kind, never was irritable, had her dressed and waited upon like her own daughter, kissed her in the morning and when she bid her good-night; and yet Arsinoe had never once thought of Paulina’s demand that she should love her. The proud woman, who was so cool in all the friendly relations of life, and who, as she felt was always watching her, was to her only a stranger who had her in her power. The fairest sentiments of her soul she must always keep locked up from her.
Once, when Paulina, with tears in her eyes had spoken to her of her lost daughter, Arsinoe had been softened and following the impulse of her heart, had confided to her that she loved Pollux the sculptor and hoped to be his wife.
“You love a maker of images!” Paulina had exclaimed, with as much horror as if she had seen a toad; then she had paced uneasily up and down and had added with her usual calm decision:
“No, no, my child! you will forget all this as soon as possible; I know of a nobler Bridegroom for you; when once you have learned to know Him you will never long for any other. Have you seen one single image in this house?”
“No,” replied Arsinoe, “but so far as regards Pollux—”
“Listen to me” said the widow, “have I not told you of our loving Father in Heaven? Have I not told you that the gods of the heathen are unreal beings which the vain imaginings of fools have endowed with all the weaknesses and crimes of humanity? Can you not understand how silly it is to pray to stones? What power can reside in these frail figures of brass or marble?
“Idols we call them. He who carves them, serves them and offers sacrifice to them; aye and a great sacrifice, for he devotes his best powers, to their service. Do you understand me?”
“No—Art is certainly a lofty thing, and Pollux is a good man, full of the divinity as he works.”
“Wait a while, only wait—you will soon learn to understand,” Paulina had answered, drawing Arsinoe towards her, and had added, at first speaking gently but then more sternly: “Now go to bed and pray to your gracious Father in Heaven that he may enlighten your heart. You must forget the carved image-maker, and I forbid you ever to speak in my presence again of such a man.”
Arsinoe had grown up a heathen, she clung with affection to the gods of her fathers and hoped for happier days after the first bitterness of the loss of her father and the separation from her brothers and sisters was past. She was little disposed to sacrifice her young love and all her earthly happiness for spiritual advantages of which she scarcely comprehended the value. Her father had always spoken of the Christians with hatred and contempt. She now saw that they could be kind and helpful, and the doctrine that there was a loving God in Heaven who cared for all men as his children appealed to her soul; but that we ought to forgive our enemies, to remember our sins, and to repent of them, and to regard all the pleasure and amusement which the gay city of Alexandria could offer as base and worthless—this was absurd and foolish.
And what great sins had she committed? Could a loving God require of her that she should mar all her best days because as a child she had pilfered a cake or broken a pitcher; or, as she grew older had sometimes been obstinate or disobedient? Surely not. And then was an artist, a kind faithful soul like her tall Pollux, to be odious in the eyes of God the Father of all, because he was able to make such wonderful things as that head of her mother, for instance? If this really was so she would rather, a thousand times rather, lift her hands in prayer to the smiling Aphrodite, roguish Eros, beautiful Apollo, and all the nine Muses who protected her Pollux, than to Him.
An obscure aversion rose up in her soul against the stern woman who could not understand her, and of whose teaching and admonitions she scarcely took in half; and she rejected many a word of the widow’s which might otherwise easily have found room in her heart, only because it was spoken by the cold-mannered woman who at every hour seemed to try to lay some fresh restraint upon her.
Paulina had never yet taken her with her to of the Christian assemblies in her suburban villa; wished first to prepare her and to open her soul to salvation. In this task no teacher of the congregation should assist her. She, and she alone, should win to the Redeemer the soul of this fair creature that had walked so resolutely in the ways of the heathen; this was required of her as the condition of the covenant that she felt she had made with Him, it was with the price of this labor that she hoped to purchase her own child’s eternal happiness. Day after day she had Arsinoe into her own room, that was decked with flowers and with Christian symbols, and devoted several hours to her instruction. But her disciple proved less impressionable and less attentive every day; while Paulina was speaking Arsinoe was thinking of Pollux, of the children, of the festival prepared for the Emperor or of the beautiful dress she was to have worn as Roxana. She wondered what young girl would fill her place, and how she could ever hope to see her lover again. And it was the same during Paulina’s prayers as during her instruction, prayers that often lasted more than hour, and which she had to attend, on her knees on Wednesday and Friday, and with hands uplifted on all the other days of the week.
When her adoptive mother had discovered how often she looked out into the street she thought she had found out the reason of her pupil’s distracted attention and only waited the return of her brother, the architect, in order to have the window blocked up.
As Pontius entered the lofty hall of his sister’s house, Arsinoe came to meet him. Her cheeks were flushed, she had hurried to fly down as fast as possible from her window to the ground floor, in order to speak to the architect before he went into the inner rooms or had talked with his sister, and she looked lovelier than ever. Pontius gazed at her with delight. He knew that he had seen this sweet face before, but he could not at once remember where; for a face we have met with only incidentally is not easily recognized when we find it again where we do not expect it.
Arsinoe did not give him time to speak to her, for she went straight up to him, greeted him, and asked timidly:
“You do not remember who I am?”
“Yes, yes,” said the architect, “and yet—for the moment—”
“I am the daughter of Keraunus, the palace-steward at Lochias, but you know of course!”
“To be sure, to be sure! Arsinoe is your name; I was asking to-day after your father and heard to my great regret—”
“He is dead.”
“Poor child! How everything has changed in the old palace since I went away. The gate-house is swept away, there is a new steward and there-but, tell me how came you here?”
“My father left us nothing and Christians took its in. There were eight of us.”
“And my sister shelters you all?”
“No, no; one has been taken into one house and others into others. We shall never be together again.” And as she spoke the tears ran down Arsinoe’s cheeks; but she promptly recovered herself, and before Pontius could express his sympathy she went on:
“I want to ask of you a favor; let me speak before any one disturbs us.”
“Speak, my child.”
“You know Pollux—the sculptor Pollux?”
“Certainly.”
“And you were always kindly disposed toward him?”
“He is a good man and an excellent artist.”
“Aye that he is, and besides all that—may I tell you something and will you stand by me?”
“Gladly, so far as lies in my power.”
Arsinoe looked down at the ground in charming and blushing confusion and said in a low tone:
“We love each other—I am to be his wife.”
“Accept my best wishes.”
“Ah, if only we had got as far as that! But since my father’s death we have not seen each other. I do not know where he and his parents are, and how are they ever to find me here?”
“Write to him.”
“I cannot write well, and even if I could my messenger—”
“Has my sister had any search made for him?”
“No—oh, no. I may not even let his name pass my lips. She wants to give me to some one else; she says that making statues is hateful to the God of the Christians.”
“Does she? And you want me to seek your lover?”
“Yes, yes, my dear lord! and if you find him tell him I shall be alone to-morrow early, and again towards evening, every day indeed, for then your sister goes to serve her God in her country house.”
“So you want to make me a lover’s go-between. You could not find a more inexperienced one.”
“Ah! noble Pontius, if you have a heart—”
“Let me speak to the end, child! I will seek your lover, and if I find him he shall know where you are, but I cannot and will not invite him to an assignation here behind my sister’s back. He shall come openly to Paulina and prefer his suit. If she refuses her consent I will try to take the matter in hand with Paulina. Are you satisfied with this?”
“I must need be. And tell me, you will let me know when you have found out where he and his parents have gone?”
“That I promise you. And now tell the one thing. Are you happy in this house?”
Arsinoe looked down in some embarrassment, then she hastily shook her head in vehement negation and hurried away. Pontius looked after her with compassion and sympathy.
“Poor, pretty little creature!” he murmured to himself, and went on to his sister’s room.
The house-steward had announced his visit, and Paulina met him on the threshold. In his sister’s sitting-room the architect found Eumenes, the bishop, a dignified old man with clear, kind eyes.
“Your name is in everybody’s mouth to-day,” said Paulina, “after the usual greetings. They say you did wonders last night.”
“I got home very tired,” said Pontius, “but as you so pressingly desired to speak to me, I shortened my hours of rest.”
“How sorry I am!” exclaimed the widow.
The bishop perceived that the brother and sister had business to discuss together, and asked whether he were not interrupting it.
“On the contrary,” cried Paulina. “The subject under discussion is my newly-adopted daughter who, unhappily, has her head full of silly and useless things. She tells me she has seen you at Lochias, Pontius.”
“Yes, I know the pretty child.”
“Yes, she is lovely to look upon,” said the widow. “But her heart and mind have been left wholly untrained, and in her the doctrine falls upon stony ground, for she avails herself of every unoccupied moment to stare at the horsemen and chariots that pass on the way to the Hippodrome. By this inquisitive gaping she fills her head with a thousand useless and distracting fancies; I am not always at home, and so it will be best to have the pernicious window walled up.”
“And did you send for me only to have that done?” cried Pontius, much annoyed. “Your house-slaves, I should think, might have been equal to that without my assistance.”
“Perhaps, but then the wall would have to be freshly whitewashed—I know how obliging you always are.”
“Thank you very much. To-morrow I will send you two regular workmen.”
“Nay, to-day, at once if possible.”
“Are you in such pressing haste to spoil the poor child’s amusement? And besides I cannot but think that it is not to stare at the horsemen and chariots that she looks out, but to see her worthy lover.”
“So much the worse. I was telling you, Eumenes, that a sculptor wants to marry her.”
“She is a heathen,” replied the bishop.
“But on the road to salvation,” answered Paulina. “But we will speak of that presently. There is still something else to discuss, Pontius. The hall of my country villa must be enlarged.”
“Then send me the plans.”
“They are in the book-room of my late husband.” The architect left his sister to go into the library, which he knew well.
As soon as the bishop was left alone with Paulina, he shook his head and said:
“If I judge rightly, my dear sister, you are going the wrong way to work in leading this child intrusted to your care. Not all are called, and rebellious hearts must be led along the path of salvation with a gentle hand, not dragged and driven. Why do you cut off this girl, who still stands with both feet in the world, from all that can give her pleasure? Allow the young creature to enjoy every permitted pleasure which can add to the joys of life in youth. Do not hurt Arsinoe needlessly, do not let her feel the hand that guides her. First teach her to love you from her heart, and when she knows nothing dearer than you, a request from you will be worth more than bolts or walled-up windows.”
“At first I wished nothing more than that she should love me,” interrupted Paulina.
“But have you proved her? Do you see in her the spark which may be fanned to a flame? Have you detected in her the germ which may possibly grow to a strong desire for salvation and to devotion to the Redeemer?”
“That germ exists in every heart-these are your own words.”
“But in many of the heathen it is deeply buried in sand and stories; and do you feel yourself equal to clearing them away without injury to the seed or to the soil in which it lies?”
“I do, and I will win Arsinoe to Jesus Christ,” said Paulina firmly.
Pontius interrupted the conversation; he remained with his sister some time longer discussing with her and with Eumenes the new building to be done at her country house; then he and the bishop left at the same time and Pontius proceeded to the scene of the fire by the harbor and in the old palace.
CHAPTER XVI.
Pontius did not find the Emperor at Lochias, for Hadrian had moved at mid-day to the Caesareum. The strong smell of burning in every room in the palace had sickened him and he had begun to regard the restored building as a doomed scene of disaster. The architect was waited for with much anxiety, for the rooms originally furnished for the Emperor in the Caesareum had been despoiled and disarranged to decorate the rooms at Lochias, and Pontius was wanted to superintend their immediate rehabilitation. A chariot was waiting for him and there was no lack of slaves, so he began this fresh task at once and devoted himself to it till late at night. It was in vain this time that his anteroom was filled with people waiting for his return.
Hadrian had retired to some rooms which formed part of his wife’s apartments. He was in a grave mood, and when the prefect Titianus was announced he kept him waiting till, with his own hand, he had laid a fresh dressing on his favorite’s burns.
“Go now, my lord,” begged the Bithynian, when the Emperor had finished his task with all the skill of a surgeon: “Titianus has been walking up and down in there for the last quarter of an hour.”
“And so he may,” said the monarch. “And if the whole world is shrieking for me it must wait till these faithful hands have had their due. Yes, my boy! we will wander on through life together, inseparable comrades. Others indeed do the same, and each one who goes through life side by side with a companion sharing all he enjoys or suffers, comes to think at last that he knows him as he knows himself; still the inmost core of his friend’s nature remains concealed from him. Then, some day Fate lets a storm come raging down upon them; the last veil is torn, under the wanderer’s eyes, from the very heart of his companion, and at last he really sees him as he is, like a kernel stripped of its shell, a bare and naked body. Last night such a blast swept over us and let me see the heart of my Antinous, as plainly as this hand I hold before my eyes. Yes, yes, yes! for the man who will risk his young and happy existence for a thing his friend holds precious would sacrifice ten lives if he had them, for his friend’s person. Never, my friend, shall that night be forgotten. It gives you the right to do much that might pain me, and has graven your name on my heart, the foremost among those to whom I am indebted for any benefit.—They are but few.”
Hadrian held out his hand to Antinous as he spoke. The boy, who had kept his eyes fixed on the ground in much confusion, raised it to his lips and pressed it against them in violent agitation. Then he raised his large eyes to the Emperor’s and said:
“You must not speak to me so kindly, for I do not deserve such goodness. What is my life after all? I would let it go, as a child leaves go of a beetle it has caught, to spare you one single anxious day.”
“I know it,” answered Hadrian firmly, and he went to the prefect in the adjoining room.
Titianus had come in obedience to Hadrian’s orders; the matter to be settled was what indemnification was to be paid to the city and to the individual owners of the storehouses that had been destroyed, for Hadrian had caused a decree to be proclaimed that no one should suffer any loss through a misfortune sent by the gods and which had originated in his residence. The prefect had already instituted the necessary inquiries and the private secretaries, Phlegon, Heliodorus and Celer, were now charged with the duty of addressing documents to the injured parties in which they were invited, in the name of Caesar, to declare the truth as to the amount of the loss they had suffered. Titianus also brought the information that the Greeks and Jews had determined to express their thankfulness for Caesar’s preservation by great thank-offerings.
“And the Christians,” asked Hadrian.
“They abominate the sacrifice of animals, but they will unite in a common act of thanksgiving.”
“Their gratitude will not cost them much,” said Hadrian.
“Their bishop, Eumenes, brought me a sum of money for which a hundred oxen might be bought, to distribute among the poor. He said the God of the Christians is a spirit and requires none but spiritual sacrifices; that the best offering a man can bring him is a prayer prompted by the spirit and proceeding from a loving heart.”
“That sounds very well for us,” said Hadrian. “But it will not do for the people. Philosophical doctrines do not tend to piety; the populace need visible gods and tangible sacrifices. Are the Christians here good citizens and devoted to the welfare of the state?”
“We need no courts of justice for them.”
“Then take their money and distribute it among the needy; but I must forbid their meeting for a general thanksgiving; they may raise their hands to their great spirit in my behalf, in private. Their doctrine must not be brought into publicity; it is not devoid of a delusive charm and it is indispensable to the safety of the state that the mob should remain faithful to the old gods and sacrifices.”
“As you command, Caesar.”
“You know the account given of the Christians by Pliny and Trajan?”
“And Trajan’s answer.”
“Well then let us leave them to follow their own devices in private after their own fashion; only they must not commit any breach of the laws of the state nor force themselves into publicity. As soon as they show any disposition to refuse to the old gods the respect that is due to them, or to raise a finger against them, severity must be exercised and every excess must be punished by death.”
During this conversation Verus had entered the room; he was following the Emperor everywhere to-day for he hoped to hear him say a word as to his observation of the heavens, and yet he did not dare to ask him what he had discovered from them.
When he saw that Hadrian was occupied he made a chamberlain conduct him to Antinous. The favorite turned pale as he saw the praetor, still he retained enough presence of mind to wish him all happiness on his birthday. It did not escape Verus that his presence had startled the lad; he therefore plied him at first with indifferent questions, introduced pleasing anecdotes into his conversation and then, when he had gained his purpose, he added carelessly:
“I must thank you in the name of the state and of every friend of Caesar’s. You carried out your undertaking well to the end, though by somewhat overpowering means.”
“I entreat you say no more,” interrupted Antinous eagerly, and looking anxiously at the door of the next room.
“Oh! I would have sacrificed all Alexandria to preserve Caesar’s mind from gloom and care. Besides we have both paid dearly for our good intentions and for those wretched sheds.”
“Pray talk of something else.”
“You sit there with your hands bound up and your hair singed, and I feel very unwell.”
“Hadrian said you had helped valiantly in the rescue.”
“I was sorry for the poor rats whose gathered store of provisions the flames were so rapidly devouring, and all hot as I was from my supper, I flung myself in among the men who were extinguishing the fire. My first reward was a bath of cold, icy-cold sea-water, which was poured over my head out of a full skin. All doctrines of ethics are in disgrace with me, and I have long considered all the dramatic poets, in whose pieces virtue is rewarded and crime punished, as a pack of fools; for my pleasantest hours are all due to my worst deeds; and sheer annoyance and misery, to my best. No hyena can laugh more hoarsely that I now speak; some portion of me inside here, seems to have been turned into a hedgehog whose spines prick and hurt me, and all this because I allowed myself to be led away into doing things which the moralists laud as virtuous.”
“You cough, and you do not look well. He down awhile.”
“On my birthday? No, my young friend. And now let me just ask you before I go: Can you tell me what Hadrian read in the stars?”
“No.”
“Not even if I put my Perseus at your orders for every thing you may require of him? The man knows Alexandria and is as dumb as a fish.”
“Not even then, for what I do not know I cannot tell. We are both of us ill, and I tell you once more you will be wise to take care of yourself.” Verus left the room, and Antinous watched him go with much relief.
The praetor’s visit had filled him with disquietude, and had added to the dislike he felt for him. He knew that he had been used to base ends by Verus, for Hadrian had told him so much as that he had gone up to the observatory not to question the stars for himself but to cast the praetor’s horoscope, and that he had informed Verus of his intention.
There was no excuse, no forgiveness possible for the deed he had done; to please that dissolute coxcomb, that mocking hypocrite, he had become a traitor to his master and an incendiary, and must endure to be overwhelmed with praises and thanks by the greatest and most keen-sighted of men. He hated, he abhorred himself, and asked himself why the fire which had blazed around him had been satisfied only to inflict slight injuries on his hands and hair. When Hadrian returned to him he asked his permission to go to bed. The Emperor gladly granted it, ordered Mastor to watch by his side, and then agreed to his wife’s request that he would visit her.
Sabina had not been to the scene of the fire, but she had sent a messenger every hour to inquire as to the progress of the conflagration and the well-being of her husband. When he had first arrived at the Caesareum she had met and welcomed him and then had retired to her own apartments.
It wanted only two hours of midnight when Hadrian entered her room; he found her reclining on a couch without the jewels she usually wore in the daytime but dressed as for a banquet.
“You wished to speak with me?” said the Emperor. “Yes, and this day—so full of remarkable events as it has been—has also a remarkable close since I have not wished in vain.”
“You so rarely give me the opportunity of gratifying a wish.”
“And do you complain of that?”
“I might—for instead of wishing you are wont to demand.”
“Let us cease this strife of idle words.”
“Willingly. With what object did you send for me?”
“Verus is to-day keeping his birthday.”
“And you would like to know what the stars promise him?”
“Rather how the signs in the heavens have disposed you towards him.”
“I had but little time to consider what I saw. But at any rate the stars promise him a brilliant future.”
A gleam of joy shone in Sabina’s eyes, but she forced herself to keep calm and asked, indifferently:
“You admit that, and yet you can come to no decision?”
“Then you want to hear the decisive word spoken at once, to-day?”
“You know that without my answering you.”
“Well, then, his star outshines mine and compels me to be on my guard against him.”
“How mean! You are afraid of the praetor?”
“No, but of his fortune which is bound up with you?”
“When he is our son his greatness will be ours.”
“By no means, since if I make him what you wish him to be, he will certainly try to make our greatness his. Destiny—”
“You said it favored him; but unfortunately I must dispute the statement.”
“You? Do you try too, to read the stars?”
“No, I leave that to men. Have you heard of Ammonius, the astrologer?”
“Yes. A very learned man who observes from the tower of the Serapeum, and who, like many of his fellows in this city has made use of his art to accumulate a large fortune.”
“No less a man than the astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus referred me to him.”
“The best of recommendation.”
“Well, then, I commissioned Ammonius to cast the horoscope for Verus during the past night and he brought it to me with an explanatory key. Here it is.”
The Emperor hastily seized the tablet which Sabina held out to him, and as he attentively examined the forecasts, arranged in order according to the hours, he said:
“Quite right. That of course did not escape me! Well done, exactly the same as my own observations—but here—stay—here comes the third hour, at the beginning of which I was interrupted. Eternal gods! what have we here?”
The Emperor held the wax tablet prepared by Aminonius at arm’s length from his eyes and never parted his lips again till he had come to the end of the last hour of the night. Then he dropped the hand that held the horoscope, saying with a shudder:
“A hideous destiny. Horace was right in saying the highest towers fall with the greatest crash.”
“The tower of which you speak,” said Sabina, “is that darling of fortune of whom you are afraid. Vouchsafe then to Verus a brief space of happiness before the horrible end you foresee for him.”
While she spoke Hadrian sat with his eyes thoughtfully fixed on the ground, and then, standing in front of his wife, he replied:
“If no sinister catastrophe falls upon this man, the stars and the fate of men have no more to do with one another than the sea with the heart of the desert, than the throb of men’s pulses with the pebbles in the brook. If Ammonius has erred ten times over still more than ten signs remain on this tablet, hostile and fatal to the praetor. I grieve for Verus—but the state suffers with the sovereign’s misfortunes.—This man can never be my successor.”
“No?” asked Sabina rising from her couch. “No? Not when you have seen that your own star outlives his? Not though a glance at this tablet shows you that when he is nothing but ashes the world will still continue long to obey your nod?”
“Compose yourself and give me time.—Yes, I still say not even so.”
“Not even so,” repeated Sabina sullenly. Then, collecting herself, she asked in a tone of vehement entreaty:
“Not even so—not even if I lift my hands to you in supplication and cry in your face that you and Fate have grudged me the blessing, the happiness, the crown and aim of a woman’s life, and I must and I will attain it; I must and I will once, if only for a short time, hear myself called by some dear lips by the name which gives the veriest beggar-woman with her infant in her arms preeminence above the Empress who has never stood by a child’s cradle. I must and I will, before I die, be a mother, be called mother and be able to say, ‘my child, my son—our son.’” And as she spoke she sobbed aloud and covered her face with her hands.
The Emperor drew back a step from his wife. A miracle had been wrought before his eyes. Sabina—in whose eyes no tear had ever been seen—Sabina was weeping, Sabina had a heart like other women. Greatly astonished and deeply moved he saw her turn from him, utterly shaken by the agitation of her feelings, and sink on her knees by the side of the couch she had quitted to hide her face in the cushions. He stood motionless by her side, but presently going nearer to her:
“Stand up, Sabina,” he said. “Your desire is a just one. You shall have the son for whom your soul longs.”
The Empress rose and a grateful look in her eyes, swimming in tears, met his glance. Sabina could smile too, she could look sweet! It had taken a lifetime, it had needed such a moment as this to reveal it to Hadrian.
He silently drew a seat towards her and sat down by her side; for some time he sat with her hand clasped in his, in silence. Then he let it go and said kindly:
“And will Verus fulfil all you expect of a son?” She nodded assent.
“What makes you so confident of that?” asked the Emperor. “He is a Roman and not lacking in brilliant and estimable gifts. A man who shows such mettle alike in the field and in the council-chamber and yet can play the part of Eros with such success will also know how to wear the purple without disgracing it. But he has his mother’s light blood, and his heart flutters hither and thither.”
“Let him be as he is. We understand each other and he is the only man on whose disposition I can build, on whose fidelity I can count as securely as if he were my favorite son.”
“And on what facts is this confidence based?”
“You will understand me, for you are not blind to the signs which Fate vouchsafes to us. Have you time to listen to a short story?”
“The night is yet young.”
“Then I will tell you. Forgive me if I begin with things that seem dead and gone; but they are not, for they live and work in me to this hour. I know that you yourself did not choose me for your wife. Plotina chose me for you—she loved you, whether your regard for her was for the beautiful woman or for the wife of Caesar to whom everything belonged that you had to look for—how should I know?”
“It was Plotina, the woman, that I honored and loved—”
“In choosing me she chose you a wife who was tall and so fitted to wear the purple, but who was never beautiful. She knew me well and she knew that I was less apt than any other woman to win hearts; in my parents’ house no child ever enjoyed so slender a share of the gifts of love, and none can know better than you that my husband did not spoil me with tenderness.”
“I could repent of it at this moment.”
“It would be too late now. But I will not be bitter—no, indeed I will not. And yet if you are to understand me I must own that so long as I was young I longed bitterly for the love which no one offered me.”
“And you yourself have never loved?”
“No—but it pained me that I could not. In Plotina’s apartments I often saw the children of her relations, and many a time I tried to attract them to me, but while they would play confidently with other women they seemed to shun me. Soon I even grew cross to them—only our Verus, the little son of Celonius Commodus, would give me frank answers when I spoke to him, and would bring me his broken toys that I might mend their injuries. And so I got to love the child.”
“He was a wonderfully sweet, attractive boy.”
“He was indeed. One day we women were all sitting together in Caesar’s garden. Verus came running out with a particularly fine apple that Trajan himself had given him. The rosy-cheeked fruit was admired by every one. Then Plotina, in fun took the apple out of the boy’s hand and asked him if he would not give his apple to her. He looked at her with wide-open puzzled eyes, shook his curly head, ran up to me and gave me—yes, me, and no one else—the fruit, throwing his arms round my neck and saying, ‘Sabina you shall have it.’”
“The judgment of Paris.”
“Nay, do not jest now. This action of an unselfish child gave me courage to endure the troubles of life. I knew now that there was one creature that loved me, and that one repaid all that I felt for him, all that I was never weary of doing for him with affectionate liking. He is the only being, of whom I know, that will weep when I die. Give him the right to call me his mother and make him our son.”
“He is our son,” said Hadrian, with dignified gravity, and held out his hand to Sabina. She tried to lift it to her lips but he drew it away and went on:
“Inform him that we accept him as our son. His wife is the daughter of Nigrinus—who had to go, as I desired to stay and stand firm. You do not love Lucilla, but we must both admire her for I do not know another woman in Rome whose virtue a man might vouch for. Besides, I owe her a father, and am glad to have such a daughter; thus we shall be blessed with children. Whether I shall appoint Verus my successor and proclaim to the world who shall be its future ruler I cannot now decide; for that I need a calmer hour. Till to-morrow, Sabina. This day began with a misfortune; may the deed with which we have combined to end it prosper and bring us happiness.”