The arch-priest coughed, and finally said in a humble tone—
“Most merciful Cæsar, that is hard on us, for these relics have long rested here, in a place blessed by the will of Cæsar Gallus. But as it is a matter beyond our jurisdiction, we are forced to refer it to the bishop.”
A murmur ran through the crowd; an urchin hidden in a laurel bush shouted—
“The butcher comes
With a big, big knife!”
But he received such a buffet that he fled, howling.
The arch-priest, feeling that decency obliged him to defend the relics, coughed again and began—
“If it pleases your High Wisdom to give this order on account of the idol...” he quickly corrected himself.
“Of the Hellenic god, Helios....”
The Emperor’s eyes sparkled with rage.
“The ‘idol,’” he interrupted, “‘idol’ is your word. For what imbeciles do you take us, if you think that we worship the matter that represents our gods, metal, stone, or wood. All your preachers preach this, but it is a lie. We worship not these things, but the soul, the living soul of beauty in these models of the purest human beauty. It is not we, the idolaters, but you—you, who devour each other like wild beasts for the sake of an iota; you, who kiss the rotten bones of criminals punished for breaking the Roman laws; you, who call the fratricide Constantius an ‘Eternal Holiness!’ To deify the splendid sculptures of Phidias, which breathe Olympian beauty and goodness, is that less reasonable than to bow before two crossed beams of wood, a shameful instrument of torture? Must one blush for you, pity you, or hate you? It is the pitch of mad degradation for our country, to see sons of the Hellenes, who read Plato and Homer, rushing to an outcast tribe, a tribe almost blotted out by Vespasian and Titus, in order to deify a dead man!... And you still dare to accuse us of idolatry!”
The arch-priest imperturbably stroked his long beard, and looking at Julian askance, wiped the perspiration from his glistening forehead.
Then the Emperor said to Priscus the philosopher—
“My friend, accomplish the Delian mysteries with which you are familiar. We must purify the Temple of Apollo. He will return to his dwelling, and once we have taken away the stone which seals the spring, the oracle will speak again.”
The arch-priest terminated the interview with a deep bow and the same obsequious manner, in which an invincible tenacity could be felt—
“Let your will be done, Cæsar. We are the children, you are the father; but there is no power above the power of God.”
“Oh, you hypocrites, I know your obedience and your humility! Your humility is the serpent’s fang! Why not struggle against me at least like men?”
Julian turned round to depart, when a little old man and woman issued from the crowd and prostrated themselves at his feet. They were poorly but cleanly dressed, and bore a surprising resemblance to each other, reminding him of Philemon and Baucis.
“Protect us, just Cæsar,” whispered the old man. “We have a little house near Antioch at the foot of the Stavrinus. We’ve lived there twenty years, and now the town-senators, the decurions, are come....” The old man clasped his hands despairingly, and the old woman, imitating him, did the same.
“The decurions come and say, ‘This house does not belong to you!’—’What—the Lord be with you—we’ve been here twenty years!’—’Yes; but you had no right. The land belongs to the temple of the god Æsculapius, and your house is built with the temple-stones. It must return to Æsculapius.’ What does this mean?... Have mercy, all-powerful Augustus!”
The two old people, with their clear and childlike faces, were kneeling before him, and weeping, kissed his feet.
Julian perceived an amber cross on the woman’s neck.
“Are you Christians?” he asked, his brow growing sombre.
“Yes.”
“I should like to grant your prayer ... but how is it to be done? The land belongs to the god.... Nevertheless, your property shall be paid for.”
“No, no,” cried out the old people, “we’re rooted there by all our habits. We don’t ask for money. But there everything is ours; we know every blade of grass....”
“There everything is ours,” repeated the old woman like an echo. “The vine, the chickens, the cow, the olives, the pigs—everything is ours. And there’s the step too, on which in the evening we have warmed our old bones in the sun, side by side, for these twenty years.”
The Emperor, without listening, turned toward the startled crowd—
“Latterly the Galileans have overwhelmed me with demands for the return of lands belonging to the churches, and the Valentinians accuse the Arians of having robbed them of their properties. To cut short dispute I have given half of those lands to the Gallic warriors and the other half to the Imperial Treasury; and I am decided to act similarly in future. By what right, you ask? But is it not more easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? You glorify poverty, Galileans? Why murmur against me? In taking property which you yourselves have taken from your brother-heretics, or from Olympian temples, I am only restoring you to wholesome poverty and the narrow way into the heavenly kingdom.”
An evil smile curled his lips.
“We’re injured unjustly,” groaned the two old people.
“Well, suffer the injustice!” answered Julian. “You should rejoice in persecution. What are these sufferings to eternal bliss?”
The old man, unprepared for this deduction, stammered in dismay, as a forlorn hope—
“We are your faithful slaves, Augustus. My son serves on the military staff, in a distant fortress of the Roman frontier, and his superior officers think well of him....”
“Is he also a Christian?” interrupted Julian.
“Yes,” sighed the old man, and was immediately dismayed at the avowal.
“You have done well to warn me. As proved enemies of the Roman Augustus, Christians must not henceforth occupy high Imperial office, above all in the army. I am more of your Master’s opinion than you are yourselves. How should disciples of Jesus do justice according to the Roman law, when He has said, ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged‘? How should Christians rightly defend the Empire by the sword, when they were taught by Him ‘He who shall take up the sword shall perish by the sword‘; and again, ‘Resist not evil‘? Therefore, for the safety of your souls, we shall withdraw Christians from the law and from the army of Rome; that helpless, and disarmed, and free from frivolous earthliness, they may reach the kingdom of heaven!”
Smiling inwardly, and so robbing his hatred of still greater bitterness, the Emperor strode rapidly toward the Temple of Apollo.
The old people stretched their arms after him, sobbing—
“Cæsar, we did it unwittingly! Take our house, our land, all that we have, but have pity on our son!”
The philosophers wished to enter the temple, but the Emperor waved them back—
“I came to the festival alone. I alone will offer the sacrifice!”
“Let us go in,” he added, addressing Gorgius.
“Close the doors, and let none of the unconsecrated enter....”
And the doors were shut in the faces of his philosopher friends.
“‘Unconsecrated?’ How do you like that?” asked Garguillus moodily.
Libanius stood sulking in silence.
Mauricus, with a mysterious air, dragged his friends into a corner of the portico, and touching his forehead with a finger murmured—
“Do you understand?”
All were dumbfounded.
“Is it possible?”
Mauricus began to reckon—
“First, pallor, feverish appearance, disordered hair, irregular step, incoherent speeches; second, excessive harshness and nervousness; third, this stupid war against the Persians!... By Pallas, it clearly means madness!”
The friends drew closer, and began to tell each other all sorts of anecdotes. Sallustiu
s, who held aloof, contemplated the group with a bitter smile.
Within the temple Julian found Hepherion, who brightened on seeing him, and several times during the rite gazed into the Emperor’s face, as if the two had some secret in common. Shining in the sunlight, the colossal statue of Apollo stood in the midst of the temple, its body ivory and its garments golden, like those of the Zeus by Phidias at Olympia. The god, stooping slightly, was pouring the nectar of his cup to the Earth-Mother, praying her to restore him Daphne.
A slight cloud passed above the temple. Shadows ran over the time-yellowed ivory. It seemed to Julian that the god benignly stooped still lower, to receive the offering of the last adorers—the weak priest, the apostate Emperor, and the deaf-mute son of the sibyl.
“This is my reward,” thought Julian. “I wish for no other glory, nor guerdon, O Apollo! I thank thee for the curses of the crowd; and for thy grace, in making me live and die alone, like thyself! There, where the populace prays, there is no god! Thou art here, in this sanctuary profaned. O god, scorned by mankind, now art thou far more beautiful than of old when they adored thee! On the day marked for me by the Fates, let me be joined again to thee, O Radiant One! Let me die in thee, Sun, as the fire of the last offering dies in thy rays!”
So prayed the Emperor, tears streaming down his cheeks, and one by one the drops of the victim’s blood fell like tears on the half-consumed embers.
* * *
XIII
A profound obscurity enveloped the wood of Daphne on all sides. A hot wind was hunting the clouds along. For days not a drop of rain had fallen on the cracked and arid earth. The laurels were shaking their black branches to heaven. The low roar of the cypresses in their titanic alleys was like the murmur of a crowd of angry old men.
Two persons were gliding cautiously through the shadow towards the Temple of Apollo. The smaller, who had green eyes like a cat, saw clearly through the night, and was leading the more stalwart by the hand.
“Oh! oh! you scoundrel! we shall break our necks in some ditch!”
“There is no ditch here! What are you afraid of? Since you adopted the new religion you’ve become a regular old woman!”
“An old woman!... When I used to hunt the bear my heart had never a throb the quicker! But here ... this isn’t a job like that!... We shall swing for it, side by side, on the same gallows, my boy.”
“Nonsense! Be quiet, you great fool!”
The small man again began dragging along the bigger, who carried an enormous truss of hay and a pickaxe.
They arrived at a postern door of the temple.
“Here, use the pick!” muttered the little man, groping with his hands for cracks in the stone. “And you can cut the cross-timbers with the axe....”
Suddenly there came a cry, like the complaint of a sick child. The tall man trembled in all his limbs—
“What is it?”
“The Demon!” exclaimed the little one, his eyes staring with affright, clutching at the clothes of his companion—
“You won’t desert me, old fellow?”
“It’s an owl!... Well, he can plume himself on having scared us!”
The enormous night-bird, startled from his nest, flew away with a sobbing cry.
“Let’s give it up,” said the tall man. “That will never kindle.”
“Why not? The wood’s rotten, dry as tinder in the sun, and all worm-eaten.... A single spark will do. Come, work along!”
And the little man shoved the taller.
“Now, push the straw into the hole!... more, more, for the glory of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!”
“Why are you fidgeting about like an eel?” said the tall man, in annoyance. “And what is there to laugh at?”
“Ha, ha, ha! What? The angels of heaven must be rejoicing.... Only remember, uncle, if we’re taken, don’t deny what we’ve done. We’ll have a pretty little blaze!... Here, take the flint and steel!”
“Go to the devil!” answered the other. “You sha’n’t tempt me, cursed little snake! Pah! Kindle yourself!”
“Ah, you’re crying off...” and trembling with rage the little man seized the big man by the beard.
“I’ll be the first to denounce you; I shall be believed....”
“Leave me alone, damn you. Give me the flint.... I’ve had enough of this.”
The sparks sprang out. The smaller man, for greater comfort, or to complete his resemblance to a young snake, laid himself flat on his stomach. Thin tongues of flame ran through the straw, which had been soaked in pitch. Thick smoke arose. A mass of flame shone ruddily on the distressed face of the giant Aragaris, and the monkey-like visage of the little Syrian, Strombix, who began leaping and laughing like one drunk or mad—
“We’ll destroy it all, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Ho! ho! ho! A pretty little blaze, eh!”
There was something ferocious in his destructive glee.
Aragaris, pointing to the darkness, muttered—
“Don’t you hear something?”
Not a soul was in the wood, but the incendiaries, in the roaring of the wind and the moaning of the cypresses, imagined that they heard voices.
Aragaris began to run.
“Take me on your shoulders, comrade! You’ve long legs.”
Aragaris halted; Strombix sprang on the shoulders of the Sarmatian like a squirrel, and they fled away. The little Syrian dug his knees into his companion’s ribs, and put his arms round his neck to avoid falling. In spite of his fear he laughed and shouted with joy. The pair gained the open field. Between the clouds, the moon in its last quarter was shining, and the wind roared harshly. Strombix on the giant’s shoulders seemed an evil spirit riding his victim to hell. The idea in fact suddenly struck Aragaris that the Demon, in the shape of a great cat, was hunting him along with his claws to the abyss. The giant made desperate bounds to shake off his burden. The hair bristled on his head, and he yelled with terror. The black, double figure of the pair running, stooped towards the dry, hard earth, over the withered fields, was silhouetted against the pale horizon.
* * *
At the same hour, in his chamber in the palace at Antioch, Julian was having a secret interview with the prefect Sallustius Secundus—
“Where shall we obtain, well-beloved Cæsar, the necessary food for such an army?”
“I’ll send to Sicily, to Egypt, to Apulia, in all directions where the harvests are abundant,” answered the Emperor. “I can answer for it that there will be food enough....”
“And money?” asked Sallustius. “Would it not be better to postpone this campaign till next year? Wait a little?”
Julian strode up and down the room. Suddenly he halted before the other man.
“Wait!” he exclaimed angrily. “One would say the word was a kind of pass-word, it is repeated to me so often!... Wait? As if it were possible to wait now, to weigh, vacillate, hesitate! Are the Galileans waiting? Understand, Senator, I must achieve the impossible; I must return from Persia great and terrible ... or not return at all. No more conciliations, or half measures, are possible!... Why speak of reason? Did the Macedonian Alexander conquer the world by reason—the beardless young man who, with a mere handful of soldiers, went to fight the monarchs of Asia? Was he not mad, in the sight of reasonable men like you? What gave him victory?”
“I do not know,” responded the prefect evasively. “I suppose the valour of the hero....”
“No,” exclaimed Julian. “The gods! Understand, Sallustius, the Olympians can grant me the same grace, and a greater still, if it please them. I will cross the world from east to west, like the great Macedonian, like the god Dionysus. When I come back victorious from Asia we shall see what the Christians have to say, whether they will mock at the sword of the Roman Emperor as they mock at the plain robe of the philosopher.”
His eyes seemed glittering with madness; and Sallustius, seeing that further objection was useless, said nothing. But when Julian began to walk up and
down, the prefect shook his head and deep pity was expressed in the kindly gaze of the old man.
“The army must be ready to march,” continued Julian. “I desire it, do you hear? I will have no excuses nor delays. Arsaces, the Armenian king, has promised help. There is bread. What more is lacking? I must know that I can at any moment set out against the Persians. On this depends not only my glory, but the safety of the Roman Empire and the victory of the gods against the Galileans!...”
The warm wind, blowing into the chamber, agitated the three flames of the lampadary. A shooting-star scored the dark blue night-sky and vanished. Julian saw it, and was strangely thrilled.
Outside the door voices were heard. Someone knocked.
“Who is there? Come in!” said the Emperor.
They were his philosopher friends. Libanius, at their head, seemed more emphatic and sullen than usual.
“What is your desire?” asked Julian coldly.
Libanius knelt, still retaining his arrogant air—
“Let me depart, Augustus. I can no longer endure life at your Court. My patience is exhausted. Every day there is some new insult to put up with....” and he spoke at length of rewards, the moneys received by him no longer, of ingratitude in view of his services, and the splendid panegyrics with which he had glorified Cæsar.
But Julian, unheeding, gazed at the celebrated orator with disgust. Could this really be the same Libanius whose speeches he had admired so much in youth? What baseness! what vanity!
Then all the philosophers began speaking at once. Their voices rose, they mutually accused each other of impiety, debauchery, peculation, repeating the most fatuous scandals. The scene was a petty civil war, not of the wise, but between parasites waxed fat through prosperity, ready to fly at each other’s throats through pride, anger, and idleness.
At last the Emperor uttered a word which brought them back to their senses—
The Death of the Gods Page 27
