It was the time of vintage; all day songs had been echoing along the hill-sides around the pleasant Gulf of Naples.
In the favourite country of the Romans, at Baiæ, famous for its sulphur-baths, Baiæ of which the Augustan poets used to say,
Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amœnis,—
Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amœnis,—
idle folk were delighting in the country and Nature; there fairer and more voluptuous than man.
It was an inviolate corner of that charming country, where the imaginations of Horace, Propertius, and Tibullus lingered yet. Not a single shadow of the monkish age had yet dulled that sunny littoral between Vesuvius and Cape Misenum. Christianity it is true was not denied there; but it was smilingly put by. Feminine sinners there were not yet repentant. On the contrary honest women grew shy of virtue as old-fashioned. When news of the Sibyl's prophecies arrived, menacing the decrepit world with earthquake, or when came news of fresh crimes and bigotries of Constantius, or of Persians invading the East, or barbarians threatening the North, the lucky inhabitants of Baiæ, closing their eyes, inhaled their delicious breeze full of the odour of Falernian half-crushed in the wine-press, and consoled themselves with an epigram. To forget the misfortunes of Rome and soothsayabout the end of the world, all that they needed was to send each other gifts of pretty verses—
Calet unda, friget æthra,Simul innatat choreisAmathusium renidensSalis arbitræ et vaporis,Flos siderum Dione!
Calet unda, friget æthra,Simul innatat choreisAmathusium renidensSalis arbitræ et vaporis,Flos siderum Dione!
Calet unda, friget æthra,Simul innatat choreisAmathusium renidensSalis arbitræ et vaporis,Flos siderum Dione!
Calet unda, friget æthra,
Simul innatat choreis
Amathusium renidens
Salis arbitræ et vaporis,
Flos siderum Dione!
On the faces of the gayest Epicureans could be seen something at once senile and puerile. Neither the fresh salt water of the sea bath nor the warm sulphurous springs of Baiæ could completely cure the bodies of these withered and chilly young men, bald and old at twenty, not through their own debauches, but through sins of their ancestors; youths on whom women, wisdom, and literature had begun to pall; witty and impotent young men, in whose veins ran the blood of too late a generation.
In one of the most flowery and pleasant nooks between Baiæ and Puteoli and under the dark slopes of the Apennine, rose the white marble walls of a villa.
Near the wide window, opening directly on the sea, so that from the chamber sky and sea alone were visible, Myrrha was lying on a bed.
The doctors had not understood her malady; but Arsinoë, who watched her sister day by day losing strength and vitality, had brought her from Rome to the sea-coast.
Notwithstanding her illness Myrrha would clean and arrange her chamber with her own hands, in imitation of nuns and hermits; and would herself bring water, and attempt to wash linen, and do her own cookery. For weeks, and to the very last stage of her illness, she obstinately refused to go to bed, spending whole nightsin prayer. One day the terrified Arsinoë found a hair-shirt on the weak body of her sister. Myrrha had taken all articles of luxury from her little chamber, stripping it of curtains and ornaments, and leaving nothing but a bed and a coarse wooden crucifix. The bare-walled room was "her cell." She also fasted strictly and Arsinoë found it difficult to oppose the gentle obstinacy of her will.
From the life of Arsinoë all listlessness had disappeared. She wavered continually between hope of restoring Myrrha to health and despair at losing her. And although she could not love her sister more passionately than before, yet, dominated by the fear of their eternal separation, she understood her own love more clearly.
Sometimes, with motherly pity, Arsinoë would gaze upon that wasted face, and the little body in which so fierce a fire was burning. When the sick girl refused wine and food prescribed by the physician, Arsinoë would say in vexation—
"Do you think I am blind, Myrrha? Are you trying to kill yourself?"
"Are not life and death equal in our eyes?" answered the young girl, with such earnestness that Arsinoë could only reply—
"You do not love me!..."
But Myrrha used to say caressingly—
"Beloved, you do not know how much I love you! Oh, if you could only..."
The invalid would never finish the sentence, nor ask her sister if she held the faith. But in her sad glance at Arsinoë, as if not daring utterance, Arsinoë read reproach. Nevertheless, she was herself unwilling to speak about that faith, not having the courage tocommunicate her doubt, for fear of perhaps robbing her sister of the mad hope of immortality.
Myrrha weakened from day to day, waning like the wax of a taper; but from day to day grew more joyous and more calm.
Juventinus, who had quitted Rome lest his mother should follow him, was waiting at Naples with Didimus for the departure of the ship for Alexandria. He came to see the sisters every evening. He used to read aloud the Gospels and tell legends of the saints.... Oh, how Myrrha longed to journey to those dark caves and live near those great and holy lives! The desert to her appeared not dull and sterile, but flowery, a wondrous earthly paradise, lighted by a light such as shone on no other region. Indoors she grew stifled; and sometimes, fevered by the pains of sickness, and languishing after the Thebaïd, she used to watch the white sails of ships disappear in the distance and stretch out her pale hands towards them. Oh, to flee after them and breathe the pure air and silence of the desert! Many a time she would try to rise, declaring she felt better, would soon be well, and in secret kept hoping that they would allow her to set sail with Didimus and Juventinus, on the ship for Alexandria.
Anatolius, Arsinoë's faithful admirer, was also living at Baiæ. The young Epicurean used to organise delightful excursions in his gilded galley from the Bay to the Pæstan Gulf, with gay companions and pretty women. What he loved most was to see the purple sails bowing over the sleepy sea; hues of twilight melting on the cliffs of Capreæ and Ischia, looking like enormous amethysts lying in the water. It pleased him to ridicule his friends about their faith. The fragrance ofwines and the intoxicating kisses of courtesans pleased him also.
But every time he went into Myrrha's quiet little cell he would become aware that another side of life also lay open to him. The innocent grace and the pale countenance of the young girl touched him deeply. He longed to believe in anything in which she believed: the gentle Galilean, and the miracle of immortality. He would listen to the tales of Juventinus, and the life of desert anchorites he, too, thought sublime. Anatolius observed with surprise that for himself truth existed both in the intoxication of life and in its renunciation; both in the triumph of matter and in the triumph of soul; both in chastity and in voluptuousness. His intelligence remained clear, and his conscience without remorse.
Even doubt had for him its pleasure, like a kind of new game. These deep and gentle waves of opinion, transitions from Christianity to Paganism, lulled his soul rather than distressed it.
One evening Myrrha fell asleep before the open window. On awakening, she said to Juventinus with a bright smile—
"I've had a strange dream...."
"What was it?"
"I don't remember. But it was happy. Do you think that the whole world will gain salvation?"
"All the righteous; sinners will be punished."
"Righteous? sinners?... That is not my idea," answered Myrrha, still smiling, as if she was trying to remember the dream. "Do you know, Juventinus, that all, all shall be saved, and that God will not suffer one to be lost!"
"So the great master Origen believed. He used tosay, 'My Saviour cannot rejoice so long as I am in iniquity.' But that is a heresy...."
Myrrha, not listening, went on—
"Yes! yes! that must be so. I understand it at last. All shall be saved, to the very last. God will not allow one of His creatures to perish."
"I wish I too could believe it," murmured Juventinus, "but I should be afraid...."
"One must fear nothing; where there is love, fear is cast out. I do not fear anything."
"And He?" demanded Juventinus.
"Who?"
"He, the Unnameable, the Arch-rebel!"
"He also, He also!" cried Myrrha, with strong conviction. "So long as there shall be even a soul that has not gained salvation, no creature can enjoy full felicity. If there be no bounds to Love, if Love is infinite, then all shall be in God, and God in all. Friend, will not that be happiness? We have not yet taken full account of that. Every soul must be blessed, do you understand?"
"And Evil?"
"There is no evil, if there is no Death."
Through the open window came the echo of the Bacchic songs of the friends of Anatolius, making merry in their purple galleys on the blue twilight sea.
Myrrha pointed to them—
"And that is also beautiful, and that is also to be blest," she murmured.
"What? These vicious songs?" asked Juventinus, dreading her reply.
Myrrha shook her head—
"No! all is well, all is pure. Beauty comes from God. Friend, what are you afraid of? To love, one mustbe unspeakably free!... Fear absolutely nothing. You are still ignorant what happiness life can give!"
She drew a deep sigh and added—
"And what happiness death gives too!"
It was their last talk together. Myrrha lay in bed for several days, motionless and silent, without opening her eyes. She may have suffered much, for her brows would sometimes contract with pain; but a gentle smile of resignation would follow; not a groan, not a complaint escaped the closed lips.
Once, at midnight, she called Arsinoë, who was sitting beside her. The sick girl spoke with difficulty; she asked, without opening her eyes—
"Is it yet day?"
"No, night still," answered Arsinoë, "but the sun will soon rise."
"I cannot hear.... Who are you?" Myrrha murmured indistinctly.
"It is I, Arsinoë."
The invalid suddenly opened her wide luminous eyes and gazed fixedly on her sister.
"It seemed to me," said Myrrha with an effort, "it seemed to me that it was not you ... that I was utterly alone."
Then very slowly, with great difficulty, being scarcely able to move, she brought her transparent hands together, with an imploring look of fear. The corners of the lips trembled, the eyebrows moved.
"Do not abandon me! When I die, do not think that I am no more!"
Arsinoë leaned towards her, but Myrrha was too weak to kiss her, although she tried to do so. Arsinoë brought her cheek closer to the great eyes, and the young girl softly caressed her face with the long lashes.Arsinoë felt on her cheek a touch light as butterfly's velvety wings. It was a trick invented by Myrrha in childhood.
That last caress brought back to Arsinoë all their life together, all their mutual affection. She fell on her knees and, for the first time for years, sobbed irresistibly, as if the tears were melting her inmost heart.
"No, Myrrha," she said, "I will not abandon you.... I will stay with you always!"
Myrrha's eyes grew animated and joyous; she faltered—
"Then you——"
"Yes; I long to believe;I will believe!" exclaimed Arsinoë, and immediately wondered. Those words appeared a miracle to herself, and no deception. She had no wish to recall them.
"I will go into the desert, Myrrha; like you, instead of you," she continued in a transport of wild love; "and, if God exists, He must grant that there shall be no death between us; so that weshallbe always together."
Myrrha closed her eyes, listening to her sister. With a smile of infinite peace, she murmured—
"Now, I will go to sleep. I want nothing more. I am well."
She never opened her eyes or spoke again; her face was calm and severe as the face of the dead; and in this state she lived on several days longer.
When a cup of wine was brought near to her lips, she would swallow a few mouthfuls. If her breathing became nervous and irregular, Juventinus would chant a prayer or some divine hymn, and then, as if soothed, Myrrha began to breathe more easily.
One evening, when the sun had set behind Ischiaand Capreæ, while the motionless sea was melting into heaven, and the first dim star trembling, Juventinus was singing to the dying girl—
Deus creator omniumPolique rector vestiens,Diem decore lumineNoctem sopora gratia.
Deus creator omniumPolique rector vestiens,Diem decore lumineNoctem sopora gratia.
Deus creator omniumPolique rector vestiens,Diem decore lumineNoctem sopora gratia.
Deus creator omnium
Polique rector vestiens,
Diem decore lumine
Noctem sopora gratia.
Perhaps Myrrha's last sigh was breathed to the sound of that solemn hymn. None knew when she died. There seemed no change. Her life mingled painlessly with the impalpable, inviolable, the Eternal, as the warmth of a fair twilight melts into the coolness of night.
Arsinoë buried her sister in the catacombs, and with her own hand engraved on the slab, "Myrrha, vivis!" ("Myrrha, thou livest.")
She scarcely wept. But she bore in her heart contempt for the world, and the resolve to believe in God, or at least to do all she could to attain belief in Him. She desired to distribute her fortune to the poor, and to set out for the Thebaïd. On the very day Arsinoë informed her indignant guardian of these intentions she received from Gaul a curt and enigmatic letter from Cæsar Julian—
"Julian, to the most noble Arsinoë, happiness! Do you remember the matter about which we spoke together at Athens, in front of the statue of Artemis? Do you remember our alliance? Great is my hate, but greater yet is my love. It may be that the lion shall fling away the ass's skin soon. Meantime, let us be gentle as doves and wise as serpents, according to the counsel of the Nazarean Christ."