A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 42

"Oh, Theodora!" cried Antonina quickly, "do not forget my request."

"No," answered Theodora, suddenly standing still, "certainly not! And that you may be quite sure, I will give the order into your own hands.

My wax-tablets and the stylus!"

Galatea brought them in haste.

Theodora wrote, and whispered to her friend:

"The Prefect of the harbour is one of my old friends. He blindly obeys me. Read what I write."

"To Aristarchus the Prefect, Theodora the Empress.

"When Severinus, the son of Boethius, is about to go on board the ship of Belisarius, keep him back, if necessary, by force; and send him to my rooms. He is appointed my chamberlain."

"Is that right, dear sister?" she whispered.

"A thousand thanks!" said Antonina, with beaming eyes.

"But," said the Empress suddenly, putting her hand to her neck, "have we forgotten the princ.i.p.al thing? My amulet! the Mercury. Please, Antonina; there it hangs."

Antonina turned hastily to fetch the little golden Mercury, which hung, by a silk cord, on the bed of the Empress.

Meanwhile Theodora quickly crossed out the word "Severinus," and wrote instead "Anicius." She closed the tablets, tied them, and fastened the string with her seal.

"Here is the amulet," said Antonina, returning.

"And here is the order," said the Empress, smiling. "You can give it to Aristarchus yourself at the moment of departure. Now," she cried, "let us go. To the church!"

CHAPTER XIX.

In Neapolis, that Italian city over which the tempest then gathering at Byzantium was soon to burst in its first violence, no presentiment of the coming danger was felt.

On the charming declivities of Posilippo, or on the sh.o.r.e to the south-east of the city, there wandered, day by day, two handsome youths, exchanging confidences with all the enthusiasm of youthful friendship. They were the "Dioscuri," Julius and Totila.

Oh, happy time! when the uncorrupted soul, breathing the fresh morning air of life, as yet untired and undeceived, and drunk with the ecstasy of ambitious dreams, is urged to impart to an equally young, equally rich and equally enthusiastic nature its overflowing sentiments!

The n.o.blest resolves are strengthened, and imagination wings its way to the very gates of heaven, in the happy certainty that he who listens will understand.

When the wreath upon our brows is faded, and the harvest of our life is ripe, we may smile at these dreams of youth and youthful friendship; but it is no smile of mockery; it is tinged with the melancholy with which we think of the sweet, exhilarating airs of spring, while inhaling the breath of decay in autumn.

The young Goth and the young Roman had met at the age most favourable to the formation of the bond of friendship. Totila's sunny soul had preserved all the dewy bloom of youth; with smiling eyes he looked forth into the smiling future. He loved his fellow-creatures, and won all hearts by his amiability and the joyous frankness of his disposition. He believed in the complete victory of good over evil.

Where meanness and wickedness met him in his path, he trod them into the dust with the holy anger of an archangel; from the depths of his gentle nature the latent heroic strength broke forth, and he did not rest until the hated elements were destroyed. But the disturbance was forgotten as soon as overcome, and life and the world again appeared to him as harmonious as his own soul. He walked through the crowded streets of Neapolis with a song upon his lips, the idol of the girls, the pride of his brothers in arms.

With such a nature Totila was the favourite of all who knew him, receiving and imparting happiness. Even his quiet friend imbibed somewhat of the charm of his temperament.

Julius Monta.n.u.s, of a sensitive and thoughtful disposition, of an almost feminine nature, had been early left an orphan, and, awed by the immense superiority of his guardian Cethegus, had grown up shy, lonely and studious. More oppressed than elevated by the cheerless science of his time, he was apt; to look upon life as earnest and almost sad. He was inclined to subject all things to the severe test of superhuman perfection, and his natural self-distrust might easily have darkened into melancholy.

At a happy moment Totila's friendship shone into the inmost depths of his heart, and penetrated it with such a sunny warmth that his n.o.ble nature was thereby enabled to rise with elasticity from a severe shock which it received by means of this very friendship.

Let us hear what he himself wrote about this circ.u.mstance to the Prefect.

"To Cethegus the Prefect, Julius Monta.n.u.s.

"The cold-hearted reply to my enthusiastic report of my newly-formed friendship to Totila, at first--surely contrary to your wish--hurt me sorely, but later it was the means of enhancing the happiness of this friendship in a manner, however, which you could neither foresee nor wish. Sorrow caused by you was soon changed into sorrow for _you_.

Though at first I felt hurt because you treated my deepest feelings as the mere enthusiasm of a sickly boy, and tried to a.s.sail my profoundest convictions with bitter mockery--only _tried_, for they are una.s.sailable--this feeling was soon changed into one of compa.s.sion for you. It is sad that a man like you, so rich in intellect, should be so poor in heart. It is sad that you do not know the happiness of self-denial, or of that unselfish love, which is called in the language of a belief--more laughed at than credited by you, but to which each day of pain draws me closer--_caritas_! Forgive the freedom of my words. I know I have never yet addressed such to you, but I have only lately become _what_ I am. Perhaps it was not wholly with injustice that, in your last letter, you blamed the traces of childishness which you found in me. I believe that they have disappeared since then, and I speak to you now as a _man_. Your 'medicine' has certainly accelerated my development, but not in your sense of the word and not according to your wish. It has brought me pain, holy and refining; it has put my friendship to a severe test, and, G.o.d be thanked, the fire has not destroyed it, but hardened it for ever. Read on and you will wonder at the manner in which Heaven has carried out your plans! Though pained at your letter, I very soon, with my habitual obedience, sought your friend, Valerius Procillus, the trader in purple. He had already left the town for his charming villa. There I followed him, and found a man of much experience, and a zealous friend of freedom and of his country.

His daughter Valeria is a jewel! You prophesied truly. My intention of being extremely reserved melted at her sight like mist before the sun.

It seemed to me as if Electra or Ca.s.sandra, Cl[oe]lia or Virginia, stood before me! But still more than by her great beauty, I was charmed by the grace of her mind as it unfolded itself before me. Her father at once invited me to remain as his guest, and under his roof I have spent the happiest days of my life. Valeria lives in the poetry of the ancients. How her melodious voice lent splendour to the choruses of aeschylus, and melancholy to Antigone's lament! We read together for hours, and when she rose from her chair in her enthusiasm, when her dark hair waved freely over her shoulders and her eyes flashed with an almost unearthly fire, she looked indeed wonderfully beautiful. Her character gains an additional charm from a circ.u.mstance which may cause her much future grief, and which runs through her life like a cruel rent. You will guess what I mean, for you know the history of her family. You know better than I how it happened that her mother dedicated Valeria at her birth to a lonely virgin life, pa.s.sed in works of piety, but that her rich father, more worldly than heavenly-minded, bought her release from this vow at the cost of a church and a cloister. But Valeria believes that Heaven will not accept dead gold for a living soul; she does not feel released from this vow, of which she thinks not with love but with fear. For you were right when you wrote that she is a true child of the ancient heathen world. Not only that, but she is the true child of her father, yet still she cannot altogether renounce the pious Christianity of her mother; it lives within her, not as a blessing, but as an overpowering curse; as the inevitable fetter of that fatal vow. This strange conflict of feeling tortures her, but it enn.o.bles her also. Who knows how the struggle will be ended? Heaven alone which will decide her fate. This inward strife attracts me. You know that Christian faith and atheistic philosophy struggle for the victory in my soul. To my astonishment, faith has increased during these days of sorrow, and it almost seems to me that happiness leads to heathen wisdom, and pain and misfortune to Christ.

But you have still to learn the cause of my suffering. When I became at first aware of my growing pa.s.sion, I was full of joyful hope. Valerius, perhaps already influenced by you, observed my attention to Valeria with no dislike; perhaps the only thing he disapproved in me was, that I did not sufficiently share in his dreams of a renewed Roman Republic, or his in hatred of the Byzantines; in whom he sees the deadly enemies, not only of his family, but of Italy. Valeria, too, soon bestowed her friendship upon me, and who knows if at that time this friendship and her reverence to her father's wishes would not have sufficed to induce her to accept my love. But I thank--shall I say G.o.d or Fate?--that this did not happen. To sacrifice Valeria to a married life of indifference would have been a sacrilege. I do not know what strange feeling prevented me from speaking the word, which, at that time, would have made her mine. I loved her deeply; but each time that I was about to take courage and sue to her father for her hand, a feeling crept over me as if I were trespa.s.sing on another's property; as if I were not worthy of her, or not intended for her; and I was silent and controlled my beating heart. One day, at the sixth hour--it was sultry and the sun scorched both land and sea--I went to seek coolness and shade in the grotto of the garden. I entered through the oleander-bushes. There Valeria reposed upon a soft, mossy bank, one hand resting upon her gently-heaving bosom, the other placed beneath her head, which was still crowned with a wreath of asphodels worn during the evening meal.

I stood before her trembling; she had never looked so lovely. I bent over her, lost in admiration; my heart beat quickly. I bent still lower, and would have kissed her delicate rosy mouth, but all at once a thought oppressed me: what you are about to do is a robbery! Totila! my whole soul cried within me, and as gently as I had come I left her.

Totila! why had I never thought of him before? I reproached myself for having almost forgotten the brother of my heart in my new happiness.

The next day I returned to Neapolis to fetch him. I praised the beauty of the maiden, but I could not prevail on myself to tell him of my love. I preferred that he should come and find it out for himself. On our arrival at the villa we did not find Valeria in the house. So I led Totila into the garden--Valeria is pa.s.sionately fond of flowers--and as we issued from an avenue, she appeared before us in all her dazzling beauty. She was standing before a statue of her father and crowning it with freshly-plucked roses, which she held heaped up in a fold of her tunic.

"It was a surprisingly beautiful picture--this lovely girl, framed in the dark green of the taxus-bushes, her right hand uplifted to the white marble statue, the other pressing the corner of her robe to her bosom--and the effect upon Totila was overpowering. With a cry of astonishment, he remained rooted to the ground before her. She looked up and started. The roses fell from her dress to the ground; she did not notice it. Their eyes had met, and her cheeks were covered with blushes. At a glance I saw that her and my fate was decided. They loved each other at first sight! This certainly pierced my soul like a burning arrow. But only for a moment did I feel this unmixed pain. The next, as I looked at the two, I felt unselfishly glad that they had found each other; for it seemed as if the Power which creates the souls and bodies of mortals, had formed them of one material for each other.

They belonged to each other, like morning sunshine and morning flowers.

Now I knew what mysterious feeling had kept me apart from Valeria, and caused me to p.r.o.nounce his name. By the wisdom of G.o.d, or in the course of the stars, it had been decided that Valeria should be Totila's, and that I should not step in between them.

"Permit me to leave the rest untold; for my nature is still so selfish, the holy precept of self-denial has still so little power over me, that--I am ashamed to confess it--my heart often fails me, instead of beating with happiness at the good fortune of my friends. As two flames mingle inseparably together, so their hearts were united. They love each other, and are as happy as the immortal G.o.ds. To me remains the joy of witnessing their bliss, and helping them to conceal it from the eyes of their father, who will scarcely give his child to the barbarian as long as he sees in Totila _only_ the barbarian. But I keep my love and its sacrificial death a secret from my friend; he does not guess, nor shall he ever learn, that which would only disturb his happiness.

You see now, Cethegus, how far from your aim a G.o.d has turned your plan. You would have given to me this jewel of Italy, and instead it is laid at Totila's feet. You would have destroyed my friendship, and have, instead, freed it, in the furnace of self-immolation, from all earthly dross, and made it immortal. You would have made me a man through the joy of love, and I have become a man through love's pain.

Farewell, and revere the guidance of Heaven!"

CHAPTER XX.

We will not attempt to describe the effect of this letter upon the Prefect, but will rather accompany the two friends upon one of their evening walks on the charming sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Neapolis.

After an early c[oe]na, they wandered through the city, and out of the Porta Nolana, which was still decorated with some half-ruined reliefs, ill.u.s.trating the victories of one of the Roman Emperors over the barbarians.

Totila stood still and admired the beautiful sculpture.

"Who can be that Emperor," he asked his friend, "on the car of victory, with the winged lightning in his hand, like a Jupiter Tonans?"

"That is Marcus Aurelius," said Julius, and would have walked on.

"Oh, stay a while! And who are those four prisoners in chains, with the long waving hair, who drag the car?"

"They are Germanic Kings."

"But of what family?" asked Totila. "Look there, an inscription--'_Gothi extincti!_'--the Goths annihilated!" and, laughing loudly, the young Goth struck the marble column with the palm of his hand, and walked quickly through the gate. "A lie in marble!" he cried, looking back. "That Emperor never thought that one day a Gothic Count in Neapolis would give his boast the lie!"

"Yes, nations are like the changing leaves upon the tree," said Julius thoughtfully. "Who will govern this land after you?"

Totila stood still.