The Death of the Gods

by Dmitry Merezhkovsky

  “Do you think I am blind, Myrrha? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  “Are not life and death equal in our eyes?” answered the young girl, with such earnestness that Arsinoë could only reply—

  “You do not love me!...”

  But Myrrha used to say caressingly—

  “Beloved, you do not know how much I love you! Oh, if you could only...”

  The invalid would never finish the sentence, nor ask her sister if she held the faith. But in her sad glance at Arsinoë, as if not daring utterance, Arsinoë read reproach. Nevertheless, she was herself unwilling to speak about that faith, not having the courage to communicate her doubt, for fear of perhaps robbing her sister of the mad hope of immortality.

  Myrrha weakened from day to day, waning like the wax of a taper; but from day to day grew more joyous and more calm.

  Juventinus, who had quitted Rome lest his mother should follow him, was waiting at Naples with Didimus for the departure of the ship for Alexandria. He came to see the sisters every evening. He used to read aloud the Gospels and tell legends of the saints.... Oh, how Myrrha longed to journey to those dark caves and live near those great and holy lives! The desert to her appeared not dull and sterile, but flowery, a wondrous earthly paradise, lighted by a light such as shone on no other region. Indoors she grew stifled; and sometimes, fevered by the pains of sickness, and languishing after the Thebaïd, she used to watch the white sails of ships disappear in the distance and stretch out her pale hands towards them. Oh, to flee after them and breathe the pure air and silence of the desert! Many a time she would try to rise, declaring she felt better, would soon be well, and in secret kept hoping that they would allow her to set sail with Didimus and Juventinus, on the ship for Alexandria.

  Anatolius, Arsinoë’s faithful admirer, was also living at Baiæ. The young Epicurean used to organise delightful excursions in his gilded galley from the Bay to the Pæstan Gulf, with gay companions and pretty women. What he loved most was to see the purple sails bowing over the sleepy sea; hues of twilight melting on the cliffs of Capreæ and Ischia, looking like enormous amethysts lying in the water. It pleased him to ridicule his friends about their faith. The fragrance of wines and the intoxicating kisses of courtesans pleased him also.

  But every time he went into Myrrha’s quiet little cell he would become aware that another side of life also lay open to him. The innocent grace and the pale countenance of the young girl touched him deeply. He longed to believe in anything in which she believed: the gentle Galilean, and the miracle of immortality. He would listen to the tales of Juventinus, and the life of desert anchorites he, too, thought sublime. Anatolius observed with surprise that for himself truth existed both in the intoxication of life and in its renunciation; both in the triumph of matter and in the triumph of soul; both in chastity and in voluptuousness. His intelligence remained clear, and his conscience without remorse.

  Even doubt had for him its pleasure, like a kind of new game. These deep and gentle waves of opinion, transitions from Christianity to Paganism, lulled his soul rather than distressed it.

  One evening Myrrha fell asleep before the open window. On awakening, she said to Juventinus with a bright smile—

  “I’ve had a strange dream....”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t remember. But it was happy. Do you think that the whole world will gain salvation?”

  “All the righteous; sinners will be punished.”

  “Righteous? sinners?... That is not my idea,” answered Myrrha, still smiling, as if she was trying to remember the dream. “Do you know, Juventinus, that all, all shall be saved, and that God will not suffer one to be lost!”

  “So the great master Origen believed. He used to say, ‘My Saviour cannot rejoice so long as I am in iniquity.’ But that is a heresy....”

  Myrrha, not listening, went on—

  “Yes! yes! that must be so. I understand it at last. All shall be saved, to the very last. God will not allow one of His creatures to perish.”

  “I wish I too could believe it,” murmured Juventinus, “but I should be afraid....”

  “One must fear nothing; where there is love, fear is cast out. I do not fear anything.”

  “And He?” demanded Juventinus.

  “Who?”

  “He, the Unnameable, the Arch-rebel!”

  “He also, He also!” cried Myrrha, with strong conviction. “So long as there shall be even a soul that has not gained salvation, no creature can enjoy full felicity. If there be no bounds to Love, if Love is infinite, then all shall be in God, and God in all. Friend, will not that be happiness? We have not yet taken full account of that. Every soul must be blessed, do you understand?”

  “And Evil?”

  “There is no evil, if there is no Death.”

  Through the open window came the echo of the Bacchic songs of the friends of Anatolius, making merry in their purple galleys on the blue twilight sea.

  Myrrha pointed to them—

  “And that is also beautiful, and that is also to be blest,” she murmured.

  “What? These vicious songs?” asked Juventinus, dreading her reply.

  Myrrha shook her head—

  “No! all is well, all is pure. Beauty comes from God. Friend, what are you afraid of? To love, one must be unspeakably free!... Fear absolutely nothing. You are still ignorant what happiness life can give!”

  She drew a deep sigh and added—

  “And what happiness death gives too!”

  It was their last talk together. Myrrha lay in bed for several days, motionless and silent, without opening her eyes. She may have suffered much, for her brows would sometimes contract with pain; but a gentle smile of resignation would follow; not a groan, not a complaint escaped the closed lips.

  Once, at midnight, she called Arsinoë, who was sitting beside her. The sick girl spoke with difficulty; she asked, without opening her eyes—

  “Is it yet day?”

  “No, night still,” answered Arsinoë, “but the sun will soon rise.”

  “I cannot hear.... Who are you?” Myrrha murmured indistinctly.

  “It is I, Arsinoë.”

  The invalid suddenly opened her wide luminous eyes and gazed fixedly on her sister.

  “It seemed to me,” said Myrrha with an effort, “it seemed to me that it was not you ... that I was utterly alone.”

  Then very slowly, with great difficulty, being scarcely able to move, she brought her transparent hands together, with an imploring look of fear. The corners of the lips trembled, the eyebrows moved.

  “Do not abandon me! When I die, do not think that I am no more!”

  Arsinoë leaned towards her, but Myrrha was too weak to kiss her, although she tried to do so. Arsinoë brought her cheek closer to the great eyes, and the young girl softly caressed her face with the long lashes. Arsinoë felt on her cheek a touch light as butterfly’s velvety wings. It was a trick invented by Myrrha in childhood.

  That last caress brought back to Arsinoë all their life together, all their mutual affection. She fell on her knees and, for the first time for years, sobbed irresistibly, as if the tears were melting her inmost heart.

  “No, Myrrha,” she said, “I will not abandon you.... I will stay with you always!”

  Myrrha’s eyes grew animated and joyous; she faltered—

  “Then you——”

  “Yes; I long to believe; I will believe!“ exclaimed Arsinoë, and immediately wondered. Those words appeared a miracle to herself, and no deception. She had no wish to recall them.

  “I will go into the desert, Myrrha; like you, instead of you,” she continued in a transport of wild love; “and, if God exists, He must grant that there shall be no death between us; so that we shall be always together.”

  Myrrha closed her eyes, listening to her sister. With a smile of infinite peace, she murmured—

  “Now, I will go to sleep. I want nothing more. I am well.”

  She never op
ened her eyes or spoke again; her face was calm and severe as the face of the dead; and in this state she lived on several days longer.

  When a cup of wine was brought near to her lips, she would swallow a few mouthfuls. If her breathing became nervous and irregular, Juventinus would chant a prayer or some divine hymn, and then, as if soothed, Myrrha began to breathe more easily.

  One evening, when the sun had set behind Ischia and Capreæ, while the motionless sea was melting into heaven, and the first dim star trembling, Juventinus was singing to the dying girl—

  Deus creator omnium

  Polique rector vestiens,

  Diem decore lumine

  Noctem sopora gratia.

  Perhaps Myrrha’s last sigh was breathed to the sound of that solemn hymn. None knew when she died. There seemed no change. Her life mingled painlessly with the impalpable, inviolable, the Eternal, as the warmth of a fair twilight melts into the coolness of night.

  Arsinoë buried her sister in the catacombs, and with her own hand engraved on the slab, “Myrrha, vivis!“ ("Myrrha, thou livest.")

  She scarcely wept. But she bore in her heart contempt for the world, and the resolve to believe in God, or at least to do all she could to attain belief in Him. She desired to distribute her fortune to the poor, and to set out for the Thebaïd. On the very day Arsinoë informed her indignant guardian of these intentions she received from Gaul a curt and enigmatic letter from Cæsar Julian—

  “Julian, to the most noble Arsinoë, happiness! Do you remember the matter about which we spoke together at Athens, in front of the statue of Artemis? Do you remember our alliance? Great is my hate, but greater yet is my love. It may be that the lion shall fling away the ass’s skin soon. Meantime, let us be gentle as doves and wise as serpents, according to the counsel of the Nazarean Christ.”

  * * *

  XX

  Composers of Court epigrams, who mockingly nicknamed Julian “Victorinus” or “the little Conqueror,” were astonished to receive, time after time, news of the Cæsar’s continual victories. The laughable gradually became the terrible. General discussion arose about witchcrafts and secret dæmonic forces backing the fortunes of the friend of Maximus of Ephesus.

  Julian had conquered and restored to the Roman Empire Argentoratum, Bracomagum, Tres Tabernæ, Noviomagus, Vangiones, Moguntiacum.

  The soldiers worshipped him as much as ever; and Julian became more and more convinced that the Olympians were protecting him and advancing his cause. But, for prudential reasons, he continued to attend Christian churches, and in the town of Vienna on the banks of the river Rhodanus he had been present at an especially solemn mass.

  In the middle of December the conquering Cæsar was returning after a long campaign to winter quarters in his beloved Parisis-Lutetia on the banks of the Seine.

  Night was closing in. The southern soldiers were marvelling at the pale green lights of the northern sky. New-fallen snow sounded crisply under the tread of the soldiers. Lutetia, built on a little island, was surrounded by wide river-channels. Two wooden bridges connected the town with steep banks. Its houses were built in the Gallo-Roman style, with broad glazed galleries, instead of the open porticoes of southern countries. The smoke of a multitude of chimneys hung over the town, and the trees were hoar with frost.

  Fig-trees carefully swaddled in straw, and brought by the Romans from the south, clung to the southward-facing walls of the gardens, like children dreading the cold.

  This year, in spite of occasional thawing winds from the south, the winter had been severe. Huge blocks of ice, crashing and grinding together, were floating down the Seine. The Greek and Roman soldiers used to watch these in surprise, and Julian too wondered at the beauty of the blue and green transparent masses, and compared them to Phrygian marble, with its emerald-hued veins.

  There was something in the sad beauty of the North which, like a distant remembrance, haunted and thrilled his heart, as now he and his troop arrived at the palace, of which the brick arcades and turrets rose in sharp black outline against the twilight sky.

  Julian went into the library. The cold was intense; a great fire was kindled on the hearth, and letters which had arrived at Lutetia during his absence were brought to him. One of these from Asia Minor came from Iamblicus. Julian thought that the fragrance of the East came with it.

  Outside a hurricane was raging, and the wind roaring by struck violent blows on the closed shutters. Shutting his eyes, Julian dreamed of marble porticoes and gleaming temples veiled in obscurity, sweeping away to the horizon to disappear like golden clouds.

  He shivered, rose, and noticed that the fire had gone out. He could hear a mouse gnawing the parchments in the library.

  Julian suddenly felt a longing to see a human face. With a half-humorous smile he remembered that he had a wife. She was a relative of the Empress Eusebia, named Helena, whom the Emperor had forced to marry Julian shortly before his departure for Gaul. Julian cared nothing for Helena. Although more than a year had elapsed since their marriage he had scarcely seen her; he knew nothing of her, and had never passed a night under the same roof. His wife had remained a virgin.

  From youth up, her dream had been to become the spouse of Christ. The idea of marriage filled her with disgust. At first she had thought all was lost, but, seeing afterwards that Julian asked from her no conjugal caresses, she grew calmer and lived in her apartment, morose, placid, dressed in black, the life of a nun. In her prayers Helena had vowed perpetual chastity.

  On this night a mischievous curiosity drove Julian to the tower in which his wife was praying. He opened the door without knocking, and went into the feebly lighted cell; the virgin was kneeling before a lectern above which hung a large crucifix.

  Julian approached, and screening the flame of the lamp with one hand, gazed at his wife for some minutes, frowning. She was so absorbed in devotion that she did not notice him. He said—

  “Helena!”

  She uttered a cry and turned her pale severe face towards Julian.

  “How you startled me!”

  He looked wonderingly at the great crucifix, the gospel, and the lectern, and murmured—

  “Are you always praying?”

  “Yes! I pray for you also, well-beloved Cæsar.”

  “For me? Really!... Confess that you believe me to be a great sinner?”

  She lowered her eyes without answering. His frown became deeper.

  “Do not be afraid; speak out. Don’t you believe that I am specially guilty, in some manner, before God?”

  She answered in a low voice—

  “Specially?... Yes, I think so. Do not be angry....”

  “I was sure of it.... Now tell me what it is? I must repent me of my crimes.”

  Helena resumed, in a yet lower voice, and more severely—

  “Do not laugh! I have to answer for your soul before the Eternal——”

  “You ... for mine?”

  “We are joined for ever.”

  “By what?”

  “The sacrament of marriage.”

  “Religious marriage? But up till now we are strangers to one another, Helena!”

  “I fear for your soul, Julian,” she repeated, fixing on him her innocent eyes.

  Placing his hand on her shoulder, he gazed mockingly at the pale face, so cold in its chastity. The small and lovely mouth, with its rosy lips half parted with an expression of fear and inquiry, was in strange contrast to the rest of the face. Julian leaned towards her, and before she had time to regain her presence of mind, kissed her on the lips.

  She started and rushed to a far corner of the room, hiding her face in her hands. Then gazing at Julian, her eyes wild with fear, she hastily crossed herself, murmuring—

  “Away, away, O evil one! I know thee; thou art not Julian, but the Devil. In the name of the most Holy Cross, I conjure thee ... disappear!”

  Anger seized Julian; he turned to the door and bolted it; then approaching Helena with a smile he said—

&nb
sp; “Be yourself, Helena; I am a man—I am your husband—and not the Devil! The Church has blessed our union.” He gazed upon her with strangely warring emotions. She slowly drew her hands from her eyes.

  “Forgive me ... it seemed to me ... you frightened me so, Julian.... I know that you desire nothing evil ... but I have had visions.... Just now I believed.... He haunts this place at night. Twice I have seen him.... He said to me ill things about you. Since then I have been afraid. He told me you bore on your face the mark of Cain.... Why do you look at me so, Julian?”

  She was trembling and leaning against the wall; he approached and put his arm round her waist.

  “What are you doing? Let me go, let me go!”

  She tried to cry out, to call the servant.

  “Eleutheria! Eleutheria!”

  “Why are you calling? Am I not your husband?”

  She began to weep bitterly.

  “Brother, this must not be.... I am the bride of Christ!... I believed that you....”

  “The bride of the Roman Cæsar cannot be the bride of Christ!”

  “Julian!... If you believe in Him....”

  He smiled.

  “I abhor the Galilean!”

  In a supreme effort she strove to repulse him, exclaiming, “Away, Devil!... Why hast thou abandoned me, Lord?”

  With his impious hands he tore off the black vestment. His soul was full of fear, but never before in his life had he known such intoxication in evil-doing. Ironically, with a smile of defiance, the Roman Cæsar gazed at the opposite corner of the cell, where in the feeble flicker of the lamp-light hung the great black crucifix....

  * * *

  XXI

  More than two years had elapsed since the victory of Argentoratum. Julian had delivered Gaul from the barbarians. At the beginning of spring, when still at Lutetia for his winter quarters, he had received an important letter from the Emperor Constantius brought by the tribune Decensius.

  Each new victory achieved in Gaul harried the soul of Constantius, and stabbed his vanity to the quick. This “street-urchin,” this “magpie,” this “monkey in the purple,” this “pocket conqueror,” to the indignation of Court scoffers had turned into a veritable victor.