The Death of the Gods

by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

  XI

  The old man had a coarse face, with high cheek-bones, bearded to theeyes. A patched piece of sacking served him as inner robe, and ahooded sheep's skin as cloak or chlamys. For twenty years, Pamva hadnever washed himself, considering cleanliness sinful, and believingthat a special fiend presided over any acts of care for the body. Hedwelt in a fearful desert, the Berean, round Chalybon, to the east ofAntioch, where serpents and scorpions swarmed at the bottom of thearid water-courses. His lodging was the deep sandy hollow of adried-up well, called _coubba_ in Syriac, where he used to feedhimself on five stalks a day of a sweet and flowery kind of reed. Hehad nearly died of starvation. His disciples descended to feed him bymeans of ropes. Then, during seven years, he lived on a half-measureof boiled lentils. His sight grew feeble; his skin became leprous andscurvy; he therefore added a little oil to his lentils, and accusedhimself of worship of the belly.

  Pamva, learning from his disciples that the Emperor Julian, the fierceAnti-Christ, was persecuting the Christians, left his retreat and cameto Antioch to strengthen weak-kneed believers--

  "Listen! listen!... he's going to speak."

  Pamva climbed the staircase of the baths and halted on a broadlanding. His eyes glittered with condensed ire. He stretched out hisarms, pointing out to the people palaces, pagan temples, baths, shops,courts of justice, all the monuments of Antioch.

  "Not a stone of these shall remain! All shall crumble and disappear.The holy fire shall burn up the universe. The heavens, like asmouldering palace, shall sink away! That shall be the terriblejudgment of Christ, the unimaginable spectacle. Whither shall I turnmine eyes, and what shall I wonder at, if it be not the groaning ofkings, cast down into darkness? If it be not the terror of Aphrodite,the goddess of love, shivering in her nakedness before the Crucified?If it be not the flight of Jupiter, and all the Olympians, before thethunders of the Most High?... Triumph, ye martyrs, and rejoice, yepersecuted! See your judges, the Roman proconsuls, seized by moreterrible flames than yours. Nor shall the syllogisms of Aristotle, northe demonstrations of Plato save you, philosophers, hurled into hell!And, on that stage, their actors shall roar, as the heroes ofSophocles and AEschylus never roared before! And their rope-dancers,trust, me, shall dance a quicker step in that fire! And we, the poorand ignorant, shall rejoice and say to the strong, wise, and thehaughty: Behold the Crucified, the son of the carpenter and thework-woman, the King of Judaea, crowned in purple and thorns! Beholdthe Sabbath-breaker, the Samaritan woman possessed of the devil! SeeHim, whom you led bound with cords into your praetorium, Him whosethirst you quenched with vinegar and hyssop! And we shall hear inanswer weepings and gnashings of teeth. We shall laugh, our heartsoverflowing with joy! Come, come, come, Lord Jesus!"

  Gluturius, the cleanser of sewers, fell on his knees, and blinking hisinflamed eyelids as if he saw Christ descending, stretched out hisarms. The metal-founder clenched his fists, collected his forces likea bull ready to charge. And the livid-faced weaver, trembling in allhis limbs, with an amazed smile was murmuring, "Lord, let me, too,suffer!"

  The animal faces of beggars and sharpers expressed the mischievoustriumph of the weak over the strong; of slaves over their masters. TheShe-wolf grinned in silence, and an insatiable thirst for vengeancetwinkled in her drunken eyes.

  Suddenly, the jingle of weapons and the heavy step of horses. TheRoman legionaries of the night-watch wheeled round the corner of theroad. At their head strode the prefect, Sallustius Secundus, a manwith aquiline nose, open face, and a look of calmness and kindlyintelligence. He wore the senatorial laticlave, and gave an impressionof self-confidence and patrician nobleness. Above the distantPantheon, erected by Antiochus Seleucus, slowly arose the greatreddish moon, and its rays were glittering on shields andbreastplates--

  "Disperse, citizens!" said Sallustius, addressing the crowd. "By orderof Augustus crowds are forbidden in the streets of Antioch by night."

  The populace groaned and murmured. Street-boys whistled, and oneaudacious voice sang--

  "Good-bye to the white cocks! Good-bye to the white ox! For Julian knocks them on the head To feed his devils and the dead!"

  There was a threatening clash of arms. The legionaries unsheathedtheir swords and prepared to charge. Old Pamva struck the marble flagswith his staff, and shouted--

  "Hail, gallant army of Satan! Hail, wise Roman dignitary! You'llprobably remember the time when you burned us, when you taught usphilosophy, and we prayed God to save your lost souls! Welcome toyou!"

  The legionaries gripped their swords, but the prefect with a gesturestopped them. He saw that the crowd was in his power.

  "What are you threatening us with, blockhead?" asked Pamva, addressinghimself to Sallustius. "What can you do? All we want for vengeance isa black night and two or three torches. You fear the Alemanni and thePersians. We are more terrible than they. We are everywhere in themidst of you, inviolable, innumerable! We have no boundaries, nofather-land; we recognise but one republic, the universal republic!Born but yesterday, already we are filling the world, filling yourcities, your fortresses, your islands, city councils, camps, palaces,senates, forums! We leave you your temples!... And but for ourhumility, our fraternity, choosing rather to die than to slay, weshould have blotted you out....

  "We want neither sword nor fire! So many are we, that if we withdrew,you would perish. Your cities would become solitudes, you would befrightened at your own loneliness, at the silence of the universe! Alllife would stop, at that death-touch! Remember the Roman Empire existsonly on sufferance, sustained by the mercy of us Christians!"

  All eyes being fixed on Pamva no one perceived a man clothed in theold chlamys of a wandering philosopher, with a lean yellow face,curling hair, and long black beard, quickly coming through the linesof legionaries, who respectfully made way for him. He was followed bya few companions, and, leaning towards Sallustius, whispered--

  "What are you waiting for?"

  "They will perhaps disperse of themselves," responded Sallustius. "TheGalileans have already too many martyrs for us to make any more ofthem. They fly towards death as bees to honey!"

  But the man in the philosopher's robe advanced and cried out with adistinct voice, like a captain accustomed to command--

  "Scatter the crowd. Seize the ringleaders!"

  Everybody wheeled round, and in alarm shouted--

  "Augustus! Augustus Julian!"

  The soldiers charged with drawn swords. The old rag-picker was knockeddown, struggling and shrieking under the feet of the legionaries. Manyfled, and Strombix was the first to take advantage of the generalconfusion. Stones hurtled through the air. The metal-founder,defending old Pamva, hurled a large jagged flint at a legionary. Itstruck the She-wolf, who fell with a slight cry, covered with blood,and convinced that she was dying a martyr.

  A legionary seized Gluturius; but the sewer-cleaner gave himself up soreadily (the prospect of becoming an admired martyr appearing soenviable in comparison with his present occupation), and his rags gaveoff such a stink, that the disgusted soldier immediately released hisprisoner.

  In the midst of the crowd there was a market-gardener who had chancedby, leading an ass laden with cabbages. Mouth agape, he had listenedto old Pamva from beginning to end. Noticing the danger, he now triedto flee, but his ass starkly refused. In vain was the beastbelaboured. Buttressed against his forefeet, with ears lowered andtail lifted, it uttered a deafening series of brays, drowning in itstriumphant stupidity the death-rattle of the dying, the oaths of thesoldiery, and the prayers of Galileans.

  Oribazius, who was among the companions of Julian, came up to theEmperor--

  "Julian, what are you doing? Is it worthy of your wisdom?..."

  The Emperor cast on him a stern look, and Oribazius was silent, notdaring to finish his protest.

  In the last few months Julian had not only changed but grown old. Hisworn face had the sad and terrible expression of those gnawed by somelong and incurable malady, or absorbed in some fixed id
ea akin tomadness. His powerful hands were unconsciously tearing to pieces aroll of papyrus. At last he said in a deep voice, with eyes keptsteadily on Oribazius--

  "Away! I know what I am doing.... With these scoundrels who have nofaith in the gods, one cannot deal as with human beings. They must bedestroyed like wild beasts. And for the matter of that, what harmwould be done if a dozen Galileans were slain by the hand of theHellenists?"

  Oribazius mused--

  "How like he is now, in his fury, to his cousin Constantius!"

  Julian spoke to the crowd, and his voice appeared to himself evenstrange and terrible--

  "By the grace of the gods I am still Emperor! Galileans, obey! You maymock at my beard and clothes, but not at the Roman law.... Remember, Iam punishing you for rebellion and not for religion. Chain thatrascal!"

  With a shaking hand he pointed to Pamva, who was promptly seized bytwo fair-haired Batavians.

  "Thou liest, atheist!" shouted Pamva triumphantly. "You are punishingus for our faith. Why do you not pardon me, as you did Maris the blindChalcedonian? Where is now your philosophy? Have the times changed?Have you overshot your mark? Brothers, fear not the Roman Caesar, butthe Almighty God!"

  The crowd gave up all idea of flight. All were infected by the feverof martyrdom. The Batavians and the Celts were startled by the sightof a mob rushing joyfully on death. Even children threw themseves onthe swords and lances. Julian wished to stop the massacre. He was toolate; the bees were making for the honey. He could only exclaim, inscorn and despair--

  "Unhappy people! If life weighs on you, is it so difficult for you toshorten it for yourselves?"

  And Pamva in bonds, lifted by sinewy arms, retorted with joy--

  "Exterminate us, Roman, we shall multiply the more! The dungeon is ourliberty; weakness, our strength: death, our victory!"