Above the marble portico of the guest-house of Apollo, built for the poor, for pilgrims and the disabled, ran these letters in Homeric Greek along the pediment:
"Strangers and beggars are all sent by Zeus,And dear to them is the little we give."11
"Strangers and beggars are all sent by Zeus,And dear to them is the little we give."11
"Strangers and beggars are all sent by Zeus,And dear to them is the little we give."11
"Strangers and beggars are all sent by Zeus,
And dear to them is the little we give."11
The Emperor went into the inner court. A graceful Ionic colonnade ran round it. The hospice had formerly been a palæstra or wrestling-ground. It was a soft and sunny afternoon, before sunset, but a heavy atmosphere came to the portico from the inner rooms.
There, massed together, children and old men were crawling about, Christians and Pagans, the sound and the sick; folk disabled, deformed, enfeebled, dropsical, consumptive; folk bearing on their faces the stamp of every vice and every form of suffering.
A half-naked old woman, with a tanned skin like the colour of dead leaves, was rubbing her sore, pockmarked back against the pure marble of a pillar.
In the middle of the court stood a statue of the Pythian Apollo, bow in hand, quiver on shoulder. At the foot of the statue was seated a wrinkled monster who seemed neither young nor old. His arms were huddled round his knees, his head rested on one side; and swinging himself from right to left with a stupid air, he kept declaiming in a monotone—
"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy upon us, the lost, lost, lost!"
At last the principal inspector, Marcus Ausonius, appeared, pale and trembling—
"Most wise and merciful Cæsar, will you not deign to come into my house? The atmosphere is hurtful here ... there are contagious maladies...."
"No, I am not afraid. Are you the inspector?"
Ausonius, keeping in his breath in order not to breathe the vitiated air, bowed low.
"Are bread and wine distributed every day?"
"Yes, as you have ordered, divine Augustus...."
"What filth!"
"They are Galileans. To wash, is for them a sin. It's impossible to make them take baths."
"Bring me the account-books!" ordered Julian.
The inspector fell on his knees, and for long could not utter a word. Finally he faltered—
"Sire ... everything is in due order, ... but unfortunately ... the books have been burnt...."
The Emperor's brow clouded.
At that moment, cries arose from the crowd of sick persons—
"A miracle! A miracle!... Look, the paralytic can walk!"
Julian turned round, and saw a tall man, wild with joy, stretching out his hands towards him with a look full of simple faith.
"I believe! I believe!" cried the paralytic; "I believe thou art no man, but a god descended upon earth. Touch me, heal me, Cæsar!"
All the halt and maimed were shouting—
"A miracle! Glory to Apollo! Glory to the Healer!"
"Come to me," called the sick, "say a word, and I shall be cured!"
Julian turned, and looked at the god in the light of sunset, and for the first time all going on in the hospice seemed to him a sacrilege. The clear eyes of the Olympian should look down no more on these monstrosities. Julian felt a wild desire to purify the ancient palæstra, to rid it of all Pagan and Galilean vermin, to sweep out the whole human dunghill. Oh, had Apollo lived again, how his eyes would have lightened, his arrows flown and purged the place of the paralytic and infirm!
Julian left the hospice of Apollo in haste. The Emperor had understood perfectly that his information was correct and that the principal inspector was a peculator. But such fatigue and disgust rose in his heart that he had no courage to push further his investigation of the rascality.
It was late when he returned to the palace. He gave an order that he would receive no one, and withdrew to the terrace which looked out on the Bosphorus.
Previous to his visit to the guest-house, the whole day had worn away in wearisome details of business, legal decisions, and the audit of accounts. A great number of instances of peculation had been brought to light, and allowed the Emperor to see that even his best friends were deceiving him. All these philosophers, these rhetoricians, poets, panegyrists, were robbing the treasury, and robbing it just as much as had the eunuchs and Christian bishops in the reign of Constantius. Guest-houses, alms-houses for philosophers, inns of Apollo and Aphrodite, were so many pretexts for gain by the cunning, and the more so that not only to Galileans, but also to Pagans themselves, these institutionsseemed a fantastic notion, even a sacrilege, on the part of Cæsar.
Julian felt his body aching under ceaseless and profitless fatigue. Extinguishing the lamp, he lay down upon his narrow camp-bed.
"I must reflect in quiet," he said to himself, gazing at the nocturnal sky. But the power of reflection did not come. A great star was shining in the darkened ether and Julian through half-closed eyelids looked at it. Coldly, coldly, the star's image sank into his heart.