The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 38

"The priest of Apollo?" asked Julian.

"I am he. I am called Gorgius. What do you want, good man?"

He smelt strongly of wine. Julian thought his behaviour indecent.

"You seem to be drunk, old man!"

Gorgius, in no wise dismayed, put down his basket and rubbed his bald head.

"Drunk? I don't think so. But I may have had four or five cups in honour of the celebration; and, as to that, I drink more through sorrow than mirth. May the Olympians have you in their keeping!"

"Where are the victims?" asked Julian. "Have many people been sent from Antioch? Are the choirs ready?"

"Victims! Small thanks for victims! Many's the long year, my brother, since we saw that kind of thing. Not since the time of Constantine. It is all over--done for! Men have forgotten the G.o.ds. We don't even get a handful of wheat to make a cake; not a grain of incense, not a drop of oil for the lamps. There's nothing for it but to go to bed and die....

The monks have taken everything.... Our tale is told.... And you say 'don't drink.' But it's hard not to drink when one suffers. If I didn't drink I should have hanged myself long ago."

"And no one has come from Antioch for this great feast day?" asked Julian.

"None but you, my son. I am the priest, you are the people! Together we will offer the victim to the G.o.d. It is my own offering. We've eaten little for three days, this lad and I, to save the necessary money.

Look; it is a sacred bird!"

He raised the lid of the basket. A tethered goose slid out its head, cackling and trying to escape.

"Have you dwelt long in this temple; and is this lad your son?"

questioned Julian.

"For forty years, and perhaps longer; but I have neither relatives nor friends. This child helps me at the hour of sacrifice. His mother was the great sibyl Diotima, who lived here, and it is said that he is the son of a G.o.d," said Gorgius.

"A deaf mute the son of a G.o.d?" murmured the emperor, surprised.

"In times like ours if the son of a G.o.d and a sibyl were not a deaf mute he would die of grief," said Gorgius.

"One thing more I want to ask you," said Julian. "Have you ever heard that the Emperor Julian desired to restore the worship of the old G.o.ds?"

"Yes, but ... what can he do, poor man? He will not succeed. I tell you--all's over. Once I sailed in a ship near Thessalonica, and saw Mount Olympus. I mused and was full of emotion at beholding the dwellings of the G.o.ds; and a scoffing old man told me that travellers had climbed Olympus, and seen that it was an ordinary mountain, with only snow and ice and stones on it. I have remembered those words all my life. My son, all is over; Olympus is deserted. The G.o.ds have grown weary and have departed. But the sun is up, the sacrifice must be performed. Come!"

They pa.s.sed into the temple alone.

From behind the trees came the sound of voices, a procession of monks chanting psalms. In the very neighbourhood of Apollo's temple a tomb had been built in honour of a Christian martyr.

_IV.--"Thou Hast Conquered, Galilean!"_

At the beginning of spring Julian quitted Antioch for a Persian campaign with an army of sixty-five thousand men.

"Warriors, my bravest of the brave," said Julian, addressing his troops at the outset, "remember the destiny of the world is in our hands. We are going to restore the old greatness of Rome! Steel your hearts, be ready for any fate. There is to be no turning back, I shall be at your head, on horseback or on foot, taking all dangers and toils with the humblest among you; because, henceforth, you are no longer my servants, but my children and my friends. Courage then, my comrades; and remember that the strong are always conquerors!"

He stretched his sword, with a smile, toward the distant horizon. The soldiers, in unison, held up their bucklers, shouting in rapture, "Glory, glory to conquering Caesar!"

But the campaign so bravely begun ended in treachery and disaster.

At the end of July, when the Roman army was in steady retreat, came the last battle with the Persians. The emperor looked for a miracle in this battle, the victory which would give him such renown and power that the Galileans could no longer resist; but it was not till the close of the day that the ranks of the enemy were broken. Then a cry of triumph came from Julian's lips. He galloped ahead, pursuing the fugitives, not perceiving that he was far in advance of his main body. A few bodyguards surrounded the Caesar, among them old General Victor. This old man, though wounded, was unconscious of his hurt, not quitting the emperor's side, and shielding him time after time from mortal blows. He knew that it was as dangerous to approach a fleeing enemy as to enter a falling building.

"Take heed, Caesar!" he shouted. "Put on this mail of mine!" But Julian heard him not, and still rode on, as if he, unsupported, unarmed, and terrible, were hunting his countless enemies by glance and gesture only from the field.

Suddenly a lance, aimed by a flying Saracen who had wheeled round, hissed, and grazing the skin of the emperor's right hand, glanced over the ribs, and buried itself in his body. Julian thought the wound a slight one, and seizing the double-edged barb to withdraw it, cut his fingers. Blood gushed out, Julian uttered a cry, flung his head back, and slid from his horse into the arms of the guard.

They carried the emperor into his tent, and laid him on his camp-bed.

Still in a swoon, he groaned from time to time. Oribazius, the physician, drew out the iron lance-head, and washed and bound up the deep wound. By a look Victor asked if any hope remained, and Oribazius sadly shook his head. After the dressing of the wound Julian sighed and opened his eyes.

Hearing the distant noise of battle, he remembered all, and with an effort, rose upon his bed. His soul was struggling against death. Slowly he tottered to his feet.

"I must be with them to the end.... You see, I am able-bodied still....

Quick, give me my sword, buckler, horse!"

Victor gave him the shield and sword. Julian took them, and made a few unsteady steps, like a child learning to walk. The wound re-opened; he let fall his sword and shield, sank into the arms of Oribazius and Victor, and looking up, cried contemptuously, "All is over! Thou hast conquered, Galilean!" And making no further resistance, he gave himself up to his friends, and was laid on the bed.

At night he was in delirium.

"One must conquer ... reason must.... Socrates died like a G.o.d.... I will not believe!... What do you want from me?... Thy love is more terrible than death.... I want sunlight, the golden sun!"

At dawn the sick man lay calm, and the delirium had left him.

"Call the generals--I must speak."

The generals came in, and the curtain of the tent was raised so that the fresh air of the morning might blow on the face of the dying. The entrance faced east, and the view to the horizon was unbroken.

"Listen, friends," Julian began, and his voice was low, but clear. "My hour is come, and like an honest debtor, I am not sorry to give back my life to nature, and in my soul is neither pain nor fear. I have tried to keep my soul stainless; I have aspired to ends not ign.o.ble. Most of our earthly affairs are in the hands of destiny. We must not resist her. Let the Galileans triumph. We shall conquer later on!"

The morning clouds were growing red, and the first beam of the sun washed over the rim of the horizon. The dying man held his face towards the light, with closed eyes.

Then his head fell back, and the last murmur came from his half-open lips, "Helios! Receive me unto thyself!"

PROSPER MeRIMeE

Carmen

Novelist, archaeologist, essayist, and in all three departments one of the greatest masters of French style of his century, Prosper Merimee was born in Paris on September 23, 1803. The son of a painter, Merimee was intended for the law, but at the age of twenty-two achieved fame as the author of a number of plays purporting to be translations from the Spanish. From that time until his death at Cannes on September 23, 1870, a brilliant series of plays, essays, novels, and historical and archaeological works poured from his fertile pen. Altogether he wrote about a score of tales, and it is on these and on his "Letters to an Unknown" that Merimee's fame depends. His first story to win universal recognition was "Colombo," in 1830. Seventeen years later appeared his "Carmen, the Power of Love," of which Taine, in his celebrated essay on the work, says, "Many dissertations on our primitive savage methods, many knowing treatises like Schopenhauer's on the metaphysics of love and death, cannot compare to the hundred pages of 'Carmen.'"

_I.--I Meet Don Jose_