The second dawn Meranes came in sight of the city and, running toward the sea, his gleaming palace, in sight, too, of the column of welcome and triumph winding forth to meet him. Meranes’s eyes shone, wine-colourglowed in his cheek. He stroked the beautiful steed that he rode. “Well is the world, and I am prime in it!” thought Meranes.
The day went in pomp. Evening drew on, and Meranes, in the round room of the silver palms, a throng about him, listened to Artaxias, pressing close, hastily whispering. “Meranes, drive these people back. Send for Cyaxeres and the Faithful Guard. There is a plot. I tell you the bow is bent and the arrow ready to sing!”
Meranes frowned. He looked at Sadyattes, coming toward him, richly dressed and smiling. “I think that the magus Artaxias plots against peace of mind and well enough!—I have never seen those I rule more truly welcoming.—Be still, for I hear the nightingale singing in the garden!”
“You are going to the seraglio?”
“Now.”
“Go not, Meranes!”
But Meranes thrust him from him and beckoned Sadyattes.
“Lord,” said Sadyattes, “even this room fills with rich perfume and song! The Pearl of the Deep awaits you, and the Flower of Egypt and many a lesser gem and blossom.”
“See that the palace is well guarded,” said Meranes. “A raven has been croaking—croaking—”
“It is guarded well,” answered Sadyattes, “though hardly does it need guarding! All is at peace, Meranes, owning you lord.”
Meranes passed through the cedar doors, very thick, well-made, strongly watched on either side. Eunuchs welcomed him, knees and forehead to the ground, then bands of fair women.... All the place was decorated, fragrant,musical, coloured, warm, voluptuous. All was for the satrap, all was for the warrior home, for the rich man, the powerful.... Meranes made to turn in that swimming, coloured mist towards the Room of the Fountain ... then suddenly there seemed a straight road in the world to the flower that sprang in Egypt. He saw Nitetis, standing between pillars, robed in red gauze, with blue-black hair, with eyes that allured and lips that smiled, “Come!” She stood at a distance; when he moved toward her, she moved from him. He followed—here was a great room that was hers, set with moon-like white flowers, the light coming through glass like jewels. She turned, all her form was seen through her red dress, she lifted her arms, touched her hands together above her eyes, sank down and kissed the earth before Meranes.... And all the many moving figures, the eunuchs, the slaves, the human gems and blossoms, seemed to vanish, fade, and sink away. Here was only a garlanded room and Egypt. Meranes made the sign to leave them alone.
There was an eunuch, Bagios, chief of eunuchs, who held for Meranes the secret hatred of a slave for a master, a worm for a trampling foot. Bagios looked to Sadyattes for freedom and wealth and the sweetness of revenge. Bagios might time much, arrange much in the seraglio, direct those bands of welcomers, appearances, disappearances, give clear stage for happenings.... He might now go to the Room of the Fountain and speak of the Room of the White Flowers.
Meranes and Nitetis lay embraced. “Lord, lord,” said Nitetis, “you might have thought, while you were away, that Aryenis was satrap! See you not how she has stolen my beauty?”
Looking at her he thought her the most beautiful thing in the world. “Lord, lord,” she said, “and know you what she said of your son Smerdis, in whom men say they see you when you were boy? ‘The ugly wretch!’ she said. ‘When Meranes sleeps for good and Alyattes is satrap, he shall be blinded!’”—Nitetis was starry-eyed, Nitetis was sugar-lipped, Nitetis bloomed like the rose.—“Lord, lord,” said Nitetis, “she thinks always of Alyattes as satrap! At heart she is mother-woman, only a little, a little is she wife-woman!”
Meranes pressed his lips against the lips of Nitetis. The Egyptian sank her head upon his breast, curved her arm around his neck. “Lord, lord, would you have Smerdis humbled and blinded—Smerdis that is your image as Alyattes is not?... Lord, lord, here is the child, dark and lovely as angels are—”
Smerdis, all richly dressed, came from among the flowers. He carried a platter heaped with fruit—grape and pear and plum and nectarine. He kneeled and placed these beside Meranes. “They are for you, my father, shining like god!”
The plants, the flowers, led off in this direction and in that, leaf walls hung with white bloom, and, between, narrow paths with space for subtile movement.... The flames behind the jewelled lantern glass seemed suddenly to tremble and leap. The Room of the Fountain came into the Room of the White Flowers.
Meranes, yet in the arms of Nitetis, bent and caressed the boy with the fruit. “By the fire! We are alike—”
Nitetis’s body stiffened. She spoke in a rattling voice. “Look—look!”
Aryenis stood over them, her body, her lifted armcurved. They saw her, grey and purple, spangled, with eyes that glittered, in her hand a poniard, wavy-lined and poisoned, wrought to a keen and piercing touch. It rose and fell—rose and fell—against the three entangled on the golden couch. It stung Egypt first. She sank aside, slipped like water from the couch to the floor. “Look—the serpent!” she said, and lay with her eyes upon her own blood. The boy Smerdis clung to Meranes, preventing him from rising from the golden bed. The quick dagger touched him next, and so deeply that life passed out almost at once. He lay among the tumbled fruit, rival no longer to Alyattes.—Meranes, rising, seized Aryenis, but she twisted from him, and struck the dagger into his breast. “May your heart know my woe!” She drew out the blade, let it fall upon the floor. “Meranes—Meranes!”
Meranes fell across the golden bed.... The Room of the White Flowers filled with those lesser blossoms and gems of the place, and with slaves and eunuchs. They made loud outcry, Bagios leading. Musk and sandal and smell of blood, and over the floor the scattered fruit, grape and pear and plum and nectarine, and in the centre the three fallen and Aryenis. Then Alyattes came running into the Room of the White Flowers and to his mother. Aryenis sat upon the bed and put her arms about him. “Child—child—child!” She hid her eyes against him. Nitetis stirred, raised herself upon her hand and looked around. The dagger lay in the light. The Egyptian put out her hand and took it, then, drawing herself up to that mother and son, struck Alyattes with it between the shoulders. Aryenis lifting her eyes, straining him to her, saw the Egyptian fall and die. “Alyattes! Alyattes!”
Above the wild outcry of the place was heard the entry at the cedar doors of Sadyattes and armed men. The gems and the blossoms wildly scattered, the bands of eunuchs, conspirators or dully innocent, stood there, stood there, Bagios well in front, dressed in red and yellow, with mad action of his arms, with explanatory torrents of words. Slaves, wailing with reason, for they all might be scourged to death, brought fresh lamps so that there might be more light upon evil. Through the windows poured in the night air, and droves of moths came to the lamps. When Sadyattes entered the Room of the White Flowers Aryenis was sitting upon the couch, her limbs beneath her, and in her lap the dead Alyattes.
“I crept through and stung,” she said to Sadyattes the diver, “but the fire has charred me black.”
Zira, clad in a ragged, brown dress, sat beneath a clump of bamboo growing by the stream that ran past Gângya’s house, and cleaned the copper cooking-pots. For three years Zira had been called widow. When you are young and fortunate, beloved and happy, three years is not a great space of time. When you are young but unfortunate, abused and wretched, it may be long indeed. Zira was young in years, but quite old in misery.
Her head showed shaven, the ragged shawl that covered it being pushed back since none was by saving the monkeys in the banyan tree and the lizards on the rock wall. She was thin, for she was never given enough to eat and steadily overworked. Upon her arms were black bruises, for her mother-in-law was subject to hot rages and yesterday had shaken Zira until her teeth chattered in her head, and the blood stood still under the griping fingers. Across her shoulders ran a weal from the stick with which she had been struck because she had broken an earthern lamp. Zira looked, and was, forlorn, ill-treated, poorly lodged and fed, abused, struck with tongue and hand, a menial and pariah, a widow in the house of her husband’s parents.
Zira scoured, dully, a huge red copper pan. There were many vessels to be cleaned, for Gângya was a rich man as riches went in the village by the Jumuna. The earth swam in heat; it was so hot that even the monkeys were quiet, and the lizards themselves might seem less active. Zira,drawing a sigh, put her head on her arms and her arms on her knees. She must have a little rest, no matter what the consequences! A change to looking on pleasurable things from things so sadly unpleasurable becomes now and then a necessity, even to the old in woe. Zira must have a little colour and fragrance and music, and went to the only place where she knew she might get them, and that was down the steps into Memory. The ache might seem worse after being there, but let it seem!
Madhava’s caste and her caste had beenVaisya, merchants, husbandmen. As a child and a girl she was not without teaching. Her own mother strictly taught her many things, though not, of course, the high things in which the priest instructed her father and elder brother. But she knew, sitting by the stream, with her head in her arms, that she had been born many times and would be born many times again. But she was not one of those strong ones who could stray at will in Memory. She could go down the steps a little way, but then there arose, as it were, mist and a roaring in the ears. She had imagination, had it, indeed, in bulk, but it did not occur to her particularly to connect imagination and her own history—not yet did that occur. She made pictures with which to lighten unhappiness, but often the pictures were bitter, and gave her no entertainment.... But now, down in Memory, she was re-living small happinesses of childhood and girlhood—toys and adornments and days and moods and happenings—and then again, again, for the ten thousandth time again, her marriage to Madhava.
Her marriage to Madhava. Ah!... Ah! She sat under the bamboo, under the teak tree, and forgot the pots and pans, the bruises upon her arms and how sore were hershoulders—how dull and slow-beating and sore was her heart!... Village lights—village lights, and the gongs in the temple—lights carried in procession, and flowers and flowers; spices and cakes and fruits burned in sacrificial fires.... How she, Zira, was dressed by her mother and sisters and the neighbours, and how she met Madhava and they walked hand in hand.... All the rites—oblation to Agni and prayers for long life, kind kindred, many children, right wealth—all the rites, and the marriage pledge,
“That heart of thine shall be mine, and this heart of mine shall be thine.”
“That heart of thine shall be mine, and this heart of mine shall be thine.”
“That heart of thine shall be mine, and this heart of mine shall be thine.”
How bright was that day—and the village shouting and laughing—and all so friendly, even the children friendly—children that now stoned her and cried “Widow, widow! Madhava must have died because of you!”
Oh, the marriage, how sweet it was, and the feasting and the well-wishing—and now all the sweetness long gone by, long, long gone by.... That was the trouble with going down into Memory—the swords were so sharp beside the flowers!
Zira raised her head and looked at two darting lizards beside her, then at a painted butterfly upon a red flower, then up into the boughs of the tree. A monkey there threw down a sizable twig. It struck upon the wall and sent the lizards into crannies. “Tree-folk, you do not suffer like me!” said Zira.
“Boom!—Boom!” went the temple gong, some sacrifice being toward. Zira threw herself upon the ground and wept.
Blurred and aching pictures still came through. The days after the wedding danced by—then Madhava, ill, pale, and shaking, then red with fever, bright-eyed, talking,talking, talking!—Madhava lying upon the great bed and Zira and his mother and sisters nursing him—the priest coming, gazing, speaking—and the hot still days with the rains beginning—and the nights velvet black with the clouds gathering—and all the verses of the sacred writings that they said ... but Madhava only burned the more with fever and cried the more wildly—and the mother and sisters said to Zira, “Unhappy one! Do not all people know that if the husband dies it is the wife who slays him!”
Zira dug her fingers into the earth. Memory now was not fair and warm and dear, no indeed it was not! but it held her—it held her—away down the stair! It poured over her again, it made her feel the hot days with the rains beginning, the nights velvet black without a star. It made her hear again the dogs that howled by night, the sounds that went stealthily through the village, the jungle murmur that the winds brought over the fields, over the village wall. She heard again, mind-brought, the cry of a tiger a-roam. Memory made her hear and see and touch Madhava, talking, talking, talking, and hard to hold in bed, and the nursing women so tired and thirsty for sleep.... It brought her to a grey day with warm, large raindrops falling slowly—it brought her to a black, black night, and Madhava lying at last quiet, seeming to sleep.... Madhava lay so still, seeming as though he dreamed and were happy. Itura, his mother, and Jadéh, his sister, stole away to get a little sleep. Zira stayed, heavy-eyed, beside the bed. What happened then? She sat upon the floor, her head drooped against the foot of the bed; she did not mean to shut her eyes, or, if she shut them, meant at once to open.... Zira drew a moaning sigh, lyingupon the earth beneath the bamboo by the stream near Gângya’s house, three years and more from that night. What happened? Some demon entered surely to entice! but if she had not slept the demon might not have won in. So it was Zira’s fault—Zira’s fault—Zira’s fault—set to guard her lord, her husband, and sleeping, sleeping—Zira’s fault—Zira’s fault. The fever came back to Madhava. He opened his eyes, he sat up in bed, he looked around—and there was only the faithless wife sleeping. Madhava put his feet out of the bed; he stood up—and all the little bells and flower faces were calling! Madhava went out of the room and down the passage and out of the house door—all in the soft and black and muffled night. Zira, in the shadow of the teak tree, took up a handful of earth and strewed it over her sunken head. O woe, woe! death for Madhava, and for Zira such long woe, such long atonement, such long woe.... Down in Memory, she followed Madhava. Out of the house, into the village street, and the night so black and wordless with the rain at hand and all householders within doors, sleeping with their families. The street, the wall, the gate made for keeping out all jungle beasts, but not formed so that a man might not pass from within, knowing the opening’s trick—Madhava went out of the gate, and Zira who had not waked and followed that night, waked and followed now.... The beaten path across the black fields, and the hilly ground, and the little ravines, and in front the jungle growing higher, growing blacker, growing higher, growing blacker, growing nearer.... The jungle sounds growing louder.... Madhava the sick man, fevered and talking to himself, and walking the jungle path where no one went at night, before him thepool with the cane and the fallen trees, and the bank where the jungle came to drink.... Madhava, talking to himself, going to the jungle, and there, by the pool, red-eyed, and waiting, the tiger whose voice for a week the village had heard.... Zira stumbled up the stair from Memory, covering her eyes with her hands.
“My lord is gone, my head is shorn!”—
“My lord is gone, my head is shorn!”—
“My lord is gone, my head is shorn!”—
breathed Zira under the bamboo.
“Mine is death in life,The evil one!”
“Mine is death in life,The evil one!”
“Mine is death in life,The evil one!”
She took the greatest copper pot, set it between her knees, and with the rag that she held rubbed it clean. It blazed in the sun, it hurt her eyes. A quarrel sprang up between the monkeys in the teak tree. They chattered and screeched at one another, they showered twigs and leaves. Zira, drawing her hand around and around the copper vessel, saw with each circle some one of the hours that followed Itura’s return to the room, and the missing of Madhava. Around—the tracking him from the house—around—the rousing of the village, the finding without the wall his naked footprints—around—the following at dawn upon the jungle path—around—-the coming to the pool, the track of the tiger there, the end of all signs and of all hoping—around, around—the beginning of the unhappy life of Zira, a woman wedded, whose husband was dead!
The monkeys in the tree sulked after quarrelling. The lizards ran again over the wall, the water went past in sheets of diamonds, the brown earth swam in heat, boom! boom! sounded the temple gong. Zira gathered togetherall the pots and pans, clean now until they must be cleaned again. She weighted herself with them, her thin shoulders bending under the load. She drew the ragged veil over her head, and getting stumblingly to her feet because of her burden, faced Gângya’s house that was all her home. “What stupid and wicked lives were mine before I came here—before I came here?” asked Zira, and went on to the house and her midday piece of sessamum-cake.
Three years.... And all that time Madhava walked the earth as Madhava, though not by the banks of Jumuna. He walked in a forest back from Ganges, a forest standing from old time, a resort from old time of holy men. Madhava gathered firewood, dry branches from beneath the trees, dead and broken scrub. He carried the fuel to the hut of such a man. When that was done, he shouldered an earthern jar and went for water to a spring two bow-shots away. When the water was brought, he made cakes of millet flour and baked them upon a heated stone. When they were baked he ranged them upon a board; and when this was done he went out under the trees, looking for Narayana, the holy man. He found him seated, entranced, under a sandal-wood tree. Madhava, stepping backward, returned to the hut and seating himself by the fire which burned without doors, waited for the seer to retake the body and bring it to the hut for food. Madhava was the holy man’s one pupil, hischela.
Madhava looked through the grey and green and purple arches of the forest. He looked at one spot, and he said over thrice verses that he had been taught, and strove to still the waves of the mind that ran here and there in twenty different channels. Madhava always found it very hard to still the mind, though the holy man told him the methodtime and again.... This day, somehow, the waves sank of their own accord.
Madhava, sitting there in the forest back of Ganges, beside the jar of water and the millet cakes, with the blue wood smoke rising in a feather, very quietly and suddenly remembered how he had happened to enter the forest. He had not remembered it before.... He had come to the forest from long travelling to and fro in a land of towns and temples and villages and roads with people always upon them. There he was the servant of a horse-trader, and people thought him out of his head, and the children gathered around him in the villages, and he told them stories of the animals in the forest, and especially of one great tiger. The horse-trader treated him very cruelly. He suffered. In the night-time he wept for wretchedness. Then one day, going upon the road that touched this forest, his master the horse-trader began to beat him mercilessly. Madhava felt something terrible rise within him. He took an iron bar and killed the horse-trader, and then he ran into the forest—ran and ran and ran, until he caught his foot in the root of a tree and fell, striking his head.... Madhava, sitting by the sage’s hut and fire, drew a long breath. It was clear how he came into the forest.
The holy man lying under the sandal-wood tree came back to his body and brought it to the hut and the evening meal. The blue feather of smoke went up, the shadows stretched at immense length, the insect folk made their even song. The seer sat down and took from Madhava’s hands a cup of water and a millet cake.
“Master,” said Madhava, “I have remembered how I came into the forest.”
“It was written that that would come to pass.”
“I was with my master, a horse-trader, who treated me cruelly. One day he beat and cursed me. Something terrible rose within me and I took an iron bar and killed him. Then I ran into the forest and ran and ran until I caught my foot in a root and fell upon my head—”
“That was a year ago,” said Narayana. “I found you lying without sense. I carried you here and nursed you well. But you could not remember until now how you came into the forest.”
“That was how I came,” said Madhava.
“It is well that that veil has been taken away. Now will you learn with greater strength.”
“Can a man learn truth who is servant to horse-traders, and a murderer?”
“The soul does not know poverty, does not murder, is not man nor woman, Brahmin nor Sudra.”
Madhava stayed in the forest, brought firewood and water, and was taught by Narayana. Another year went by. There came a day when Madhava sat beneath a tree, pondering the universe. Suddenly he remembered how he came into the great river plain, and to be the servant of the horse-trader.... Again he drew himself from a pool of water, at the edge of the jungle. It was black night, with large, warm raindrops falling; there was a great beast coming out of the brush—a tiger surely. Madhava had gone to meet it—surely he was drunken or in a fever! The beast knew that there was something strange—turning aside, he had gone padding away. Madhava went on, walking very surely through the jungle. He went fast, with great strides, went through the night and into the day. Madhava, seated beneath the tree, remembered that going, remembered lying down and sleeping, rising and goingon again—and then days and nights of sleeping and wandering, eating fruits and nuts, struggling with, outwitting, or companioning jungle inhabitants, being as a wild man. He remembered, after many days of this, striking out of the jungle into a cultivated country. He remembered a road and travellers along it.... Men came by with horses—a man stood and talked to him.... That was the horse-trader.
Madhava told Narayana that evening. “I have remembered how I came into this country, and to be the servant of the horse-trader.”
“One day,” said Narayana, “you will remember all that is beyond north and south and east and west.”
“I seem to have been a man ill or mad or drunken.”
“That was one of thy little selves. The soul is not ill nor mad nor drunken.”
Madhava stayed in the forest, brought firewood and water, and was taught by Narayana. Another year went by.
Five years.... The village upon the Jumuna had bound into the great sheaf of village tales the story of the bridegroom who fell ill and strayed from his house in the black night, and by the pool at the edge of the jungle was taken by the great old tiger. It was put upon the legend shelf, for telling by old to young, for no one knew how long. It was become simply a story among stories. Wet season, dry season, seed time and harvest, the village went about its usual business.... Zira looked and felt an old woman. When she was regarded at all it was as a drudge who was justly paying. Women were not widowed unless they had sinned..... Gângya and Itura, their sons and daughters, ill-treated her because it was Retribution, and as theEternal Order of Things would have it. But now, long since, grief for Madhava had lost edge. No longer, as at first, did they load Zira with accusations, gross terms of blame. No longer did they make daily reference to her evil nature. They only put upon her heavy drudgery, abstinence from much food or sleep and from all pleasure. Bowed and silent, Zira worked her fingers to the bone.
Five years.... Zira washed clothes in the stream near the teak tree. Upon the opposite bank a child was playing with sticks and stones. It was a little child and sweet. It laughed to itself, building a hut to shelter a stone. Zira sat back upon her heels and watched the child. Something yearned within her, yearned and yearned, then mounted.
The child looked across to the woman for applause. “Pretty! Pretty!” called Zira. She had with her a cluster of fruit. She tossed this across to the child who caught it and laughed and danced about. “Something else! something else!” cried the child. Zira had a piece of bread that with the fruit was to have made her dinner. She threw this across also. The child caught it and ran away, looking back and laughing.
Zira, washing clothes with eyes that dazzled for weariness, with an aching and hungry body, felt within her being, away from the ache and glare, away from Gângya’s house, away from Zira washing clothes, the rise of something from level to level, power and faculty changing form....
In the forest, Madhava brought to Narayana’s hut firewood and water. He built the dawn fire, laying the sticks and the tinder, striking the flint and steel. All over the world was a mist, with a moist smell of earth and leaves. The mist began to part, showing ragged depths. Madhavastood up from the flame he had kindled. It crackled and sang, it made his garment shine, and his outstretched arm. Madhava remembered that he was Madhava, the son of Gângya, the husband of Zira. He remembered his childhood, his youth and manhood, in the village by the Jumuna. All that came back to him as though it were yesterday. Before him formed the face of Zira....
Narayana sat in contemplation under the sandal-wood. When the spirit returned, said Madhava to him, “Master, I fully remember this life. I am Madhava, son of Gângya, who lives in a village by the Jumuna. I was the bridegroom of Zira, but hardly were we married before I fell ill. In fever, I must have wandered from home. It all comes back to me.... Many to whom I am debtor think that I am dead. I must return to them.”
“Ropes unbroken,” said Narayana, “will bind and draw as is their nature to. You may not miss out your years as a householder. Go then, son, but put in a safe treasure room what you have learned.”
“I do not go,” said Madhava, “until comes one to take my place.”
In three months’ time there came a youth to take Madhava’s place. On the other side of the forest had lived a holy man who now laid down the body. The student who served him came, as the sage had directed, to attach himself to Narayana. “Now go!” said Narayana to Madhava. “As long as the ropes are there, answer to their drawing. But remember that there is a fire that you must feed with yourself.”
“I mean to remember,” said Madhava.
Madhava cut himself a staff and took a bottle for water, and said farewell to Narayana and to the chela from theother side of the forest, and became a traveller. As he went through the land he worked for food, and now he slept under some friendly roof, and now he slept by the roadside.
He had been given three years of clean living and of wisdom words, and that is enough to set the stalk to dreaming of flowers and fruit....
Nearly six years! Zira, drawing water from the stream, set down the jar, straightened her aching back, and shaded her eyes with her hand. There was a man standing under the teak tree. He seemed travel-worn, but a well-looking man for all that.
Zira made to lift the jar to her shoulder and go away. The man spoke. “Are the people friendly in this village?”
“That is as it is looked at,” said Zira. “To many they are friendly.”
The man came nearer. “Whose house is that among the trees?”
“Gângya’s.”
“Are Gângya and Itura living, and their sons and daughters?”
“You have been in the village before?—Gângya and Itura are living, and their daughters and all their sons save one.”
“Which one is that?”
“Madhava.”
“I remember him.—How did he die and when?”
“He had a fever. In the night time he rose from his bed and left the house and the village. He walked upon the jungle path—into the jungle—to the jungle pool. It was night, and there was a tiger hunting.... Madhava died nearly six years ago.”
“Madhava!—I heard that he was to be married.”
“He was married.”
“They said the woman was beautiful. Her name was Zira.”
“Yes. Zira.”
“Is she living?”
“Yes, she is living.”
“She was very beautiful.... All these years she has been named a widow.”
“All these years she has been widow,” said Zira. “She may live yet many years.”
“A widow has a miserable life,” said the man. “Is she yet beautiful?”
“No.”
“Ah,” said the man. Zira gazed at him, then again she turned to lift the water jar, then let it be. She went nearer to the man. She gazed again. “Who are you?”
“Whom am I like?”
“You are like Madhava.”
Zira’s voice came only from her lips. She loosed the fastening of her shawl that covered her head and shadowed her face. It fell. She stood against the rock wall. “I am Zira. Are you Madhava?”
Madhava buried his face in his arms. “The tiger should not have fled from me that night, nor I have wandered on—”
“You are Madhava ... Madhava!”
Her voice deepened, then rose in a loud and bitter cry, “Madhava!”
Madhava dropped his hands from his face. He rose and came to her. They stood by the running water. “Thou art not fair as thou wert.... Or art thou fairer?... Wehave suffered—we have learned.... When all is said, thou art deep in me!”
“When all is said, thou art deep in me!”
“It was broken—the beautiful tree! But now it grows again.”
“It grows again!”
From Gângya’s house came a calling. “Zira—Zira!” Zira turned, and Madhava with her. Hand in hand they went to Gângya’s house.
Theemperor, acting in his capacity as Pontifex Maximus, had confirmed as virgin priestess of Vesta, Flavia, a child of ten, daughter of Valerian and Valeria. To celebrate the event Valerian gave the people games. Held in the new Amphitheatre, the spectacle drew all Rome. The emperor honoured the donor by his presence. Gladiators contended, after strange fashions, with beasts of the wood and the plain and with one another. Valerian, a successful general, lately returned from the west, had brought prisoners, great flaxen-headed men, who now fought, divided into two bands, kin against kin, with freedom the prize for the surviving.
The Amphitheatre was huge, one oval, hollow wave of men and women. The people came early, struggling for good seats, desirous of being on hand for every important entrance,—the emperor, the senators, the prefect of the city, the vestals, the donors of the games, the famed, the rich, the knowing. Down streamed the sun, hot and bare upon the arena, broken elsewhere by awnings of rose and blue. Flowers withered in garlands, perfumes were burning in silver braziers. A sea of sound steadfastly beat against the ear, a vast blend of voices, male and female, of every quality.Vigileskept order. In the arena, in the sloping passways between the divisions of the benches, jugglers and buffoons and pantomimists kept the many amused until there should arrive the glittering few. Fruit and a kind ofcomfit were carried about and distributed. The people acclaimed Valerian the Generous.
The freedwoman Lais picked a great bunch of grapes for herself, and another for her daughter Iras, a child a year or so older than the little new vestal. “Valeria has a marble chair while I have a stone bench,” quoth Lais. “But she can eat no better grapes than these! Moreover, she has kissed her girl for the last time to-day, while I can kiss mine any day! Still the gods keep planting thistles with roses!”
“Mother, mother!” whispered Iras. “Is it over there that father will sit?”
“Hush, and eat your grapes!” answered Lais.
The oceanic voice of the place deepened to a roar. The great were coming. The buffoons, jugglers, pantomimists, passers to and fro stood still. Up and down the dizzy slopes the mass scrambled to its feet. “Hail, Cæsar! Hail, Cæsar!”
With pomp came the emperor, prætorians, and civic officers; with pomp came the six vestals, thevirgo vestalis maximaand her five sister priestesses, splendidly attended. The six were robed in white, stola and pallium, their hair bound with ribands of white wool. They took the seats of the vestals, over against the emperor. With them, to-day, came the newly chosen young vestal, the child of ten, daughter of Valerian and Valeria. She was dressed like the older priestesses, but her hair had been cut upon her taking the vows. She had an especial place; she sat stiffly, in view of all, a little figure all in white, with folded hands. Her vows were for thirty years. For ten of these she would be trained in the service of Vesta, for ten she would watch the sacred fire, bring the sacred water, offer the sacrificesof salt cakes, the libations of wine and oil, pray for the Roman State, guard the Palladium; for ten she would teach the youthful vestals. She would have enormous honour, great privileges.
The freedwoman and her daughter, leaning forward in their places, whispering each to the other, watched the child in white. “See the people look at her! Are the games for Flavia?” asked the child Iras, and she spoke with a child’s jealousy.
“Eat thy grapes, my poor babe! Thou wilt not have a great house and riches and honour like the vestals!” Lais gave her rich, chuckling laugh. “Neither, if thou lettest the fire go out at home, shalt thou be cruelly scourged! Nor, when thou art older, if thou slippest once—just once—just one little time—shalt thou be buried alive!”
The little, new vestal sat still, with her hands crossed before her. Her eyes filled with tears, they rolled down her cheeks. The attendants having her in charge whispered to her hastily. She must not weep! “Then turn me so that I cannot see my mother.”
Valerian with Valeria his wife had bowed before the emperor. Now they sat quietly, with a studied lack of state, as was fitting, about them friends of the soberer sort. Valerian talked with the Stoic Paulinus. Valeria sat still as a figure of ivory and gold, her long-fingered hands clasped in her lap, her eyes upon the garlanded place of the vestals, upon the little figure sitting so stiffly.... Down in the arena they were making ready, and in the meantime five hundred dancing fauns and nymphs gave entertainment.
Not till there began the struggle between man and beast and man and man would tense interest stop the voice of thehost. Up and down the sound was as of the sea, or of a high wind in those endless barbarian forests on the edge of empire where Valerian had been. Behind the freedwoman and her child crowded market men and women, provincials of low estate, half a dozen soldiers. Of these last it appeared that Valerian had been general. Their general figured in their talk, and they did not scant their praise. They called him brave and wary, good father to his cohorts. A provincial asked about the children of his body. Lais turned a little toward the speakers.—“All but this one died. He adopted a son so that his name should last—see, the young man standing up! But he has no own children save the little vestal.”
Lais, with a jerk of her head, went back to eating grapes and contemplating the fauns and nymphs.
“No lawful children, you mean?” said the provincial.
“Of course,” answered the soldier: “owned children. There are owned children and there are unowned children.—Ha! Watch them leap and dance!”
Lais ate the purple grapes, spitting out the seeds. Iras, leaning forward, watched the wreathing fauns and nymphs. “Mother, mother! When I am grown I will be a dancer!”
“Who is the old man talking to the general?”
“Paulinus the Stoic.—Once Valerian thought no more of his soul than another—”
“Ha! We begin!”
The five hundred dancing nymphs and fauns swirled from the arena like wind-blown coloured leaves and petals. A grating slid back, there came forth a hollow roar. Forth upon the sand walked a lion from Africa, a king among lions. Another gate opened; there stepped forth, naked, ayellow-headed giant. The games began.... Presently there were many beasts and many men.
Valeria sat with her hands in her lap, and for a long time had no thought save for the child that was going from her. Her will had bowed to that going. It was a great and honourable destiny, and many competed for the nomination for their daughters. Flavia did not pass from life. She, Valeria, would hear of her, see her, might visit her in the great, rich House of the Vestals. But the mother grieved that she would not see her every day, would no more lie beside her nor bear her in her arms. She was so sunken in the thought of the little one that she gave scant attention to the place in which she was, to the sloping wilderness where men and women took the place of trees, and down below, as in a vast pit, men fought with and like the beasts of the wood. Upon the slopes held breathlessness, a leaning forward and down as though bent by a wind. Down in the arena held heavy breathing, straining, bestial sounds of struggle, shouts, groans, cries of triumph and despair.... Flavia stepped aside in her mind. Out of mind went the other vestals, the emperor, all the great, and the massed people; aside stepped also Valerian. She had been to the games before, but she had not before felt woe and sadness like this. Her soul plunged into black depths, then rose. For the first time she hated the games; she found them smeared with guilt. It seemed to her that veils parted; she caught wider glimpses of life and its ways. How long she had lived, and how bent and crooked, here starved and here swollen, was living! These hateful games—Cæsar’s empurpled face—the multitude craving and lusting for the red, the loud, the suffering of another.... She felt for all a sick distaste. She wished to rise and go away, Flaviain her arms and beside her Valerian.... She went farther. Faint as first dawn in an old deep forest she experienced a sense of oneness with all within the range of perception, with the breathless tiers, with the panting, the groaning arena. Very faintly, she would have had all rise and go away, very faintly the whole rose and moved with her. But it was only like a breath of dawn; in a moment she thought again only of Flavia and Valerian. But it had been, and might be again. Down in the pit a man, struggling with a brute, gave a short cry of agony. A man and a woman, near her, leaning from marble seats, showed gloating faces, drew in their breath with a sound of delight. She felt again the wave of pain, resistance, the effort to lift and remove, the straining as against grave-clothes.
The day, short to the most but long and long to many, drew to an end. The huge spectacle given by Valerian closed with a final clanging feat, red colour and uproar. Forth went the emperor, forth the vestals, forth the prefect, senators, knights, the prætorians, the huge people. The Amphitheatre emptied by many ways, but without, in the columned space that fronted it, all orders blended. Patrician and plebeian pressed each against the other. In the seething colour and sound, Valerian and Valeria, with them many friends, came against a great knot and concourse of market-people. At cross-directions there occurred a momentary halting. The folk, recognizing Valerian, shouted his name. He, as donor of the show, must continue to exhibit good-will. What he showed he felt. He had been long in savage forests; returning, he felt Rome and the Romans warm about his heart. He greeted the folk as they greeted him, laughter and good words passed between them. Then Lais, the freedwoman, theflower-seller, pushed herself, or was pushed, toward the front. She had in her hand Iras her daughter. Together they came as fully as might be before Valerian and Valeria. Now Iras was a beautiful child. Valerian looked on Lais whom he remembered, but Valeria looked at Iras. “Hail, General!” chanted the flower-seller, and with deliberation pushed before her the child. “Hail, General! Did you see any fairer, out there among barbarians?”
If Valerian had or had not did not appear, for now others came between. In especial young men came, roisterers from the Palatine. These pushed against the market-folk, and one, curled and garlanded, threw his arms around Lais, who yet possessed beauty. When she released herself, Valerian and Valeria and their following had passed by.
That night was feasting in Valerian’s house in Rome. The next day was business in Cæsar’s house and elsewhere. The third day he went with Valeria to his country house in the Alban Hills.
At sunset the two paced the terrace, all the air sweet with flowers, spread beneath them the wide, darkling plain. They had not been alone together since the day of the games. Now they walked up and down in silence, husband and wife, in much understanding each the other, yet in much each to the other barbarian, loving much, yet at not a few points drawn widely apart. Outwardly, they were at rich, first prime, and both of them fair to the eye.
The west was crimson, their vineyards and olive trees caught the last bright light, white doves fluttered about a dovecote and walked the terrace with them.
Valerian drew deep breath. “How sweet it is to be at home!... Who first thought of home deserves well!”
“It is sweet.... Valerian, the captives, the miserable in the arena the other day! A kind of captivity and misery to be the watchers....”
“Have you felt that? I have felt it too. But not one man nor many men can change the world.... A man would be torn to pieces who said to the people, ‘The games are done with, things of the past!’”
“Yes.... Ill customs perhaps ignorantly begun, and we go on because we have gone on so long.... Yet are we never to end ill, begin better?”
“In the long, long run, perhaps, yes.... I suppose we all sleep, or are poisoned.... However, I said to myself, there in the Amphitheatre, ‘When needs must, I will go to these games, but not for pleasure. But not again, though I become thrice as rich as I am, shall I furnish them!’”
“I am glad of that.—See Flavia’s grey dove in the almond tree!”
They watched the dove. It rose, showed dark against the carmine sky, then passed into the black depths of a cypress.
“Cease now to mourn for Flavia,” said Valerian. “She will be happy.”
“Perhaps.... Men love children, I know, but hardly as women love them.”
“Nature allows that. But a man may do wisely by his children.”
“Oh, ofttimes!—and ofttimes unwisely! But whatever and however he does they lie in his hand. Utterly, utterly they lie in his hand! He makes all the laws for them. He puts them to death when he wills. O earth! The mother is in his hand and the child is in his hand, and we bow our heads and worship where he bids!”
“What ails thee, Valeria? Do not I, Valerian, love thee and love Flavia?”
“Yes, Valerian, yes!”
“Then—”
“There is much cause for wonder in this world.... How did it ever come that men made men fight with beasts upon the sands of an arena for show? How did it ever come that men have over women the whole power of law and the state? Oh, I answer myself! It came in many ways, here a little and there a little—”
“Nature and the gods—”
“Valerian, do you believe that?”
“Yes, I believe it.”
“It flatters your pride to believe it, and so you believe!... But I say, too, that women must have erred and erred.... Both you and I stray in a vast wood!”
“Rome and the parting with the child have fevered you.... But you were always subtle and thinking, thinking—”
“Look how the light sprinkles the plain!—Here is Faustus.”
A grey-headed man leaning upon a staff came to meet them. It was Faustus the philosopher to whom Valerian gave house-room.
“Hail, Valerian and Valeria! Good is the city, but good indeed is the country! How beautiful are the olive trees and the sea of gold!”
They paced the terrace up and down, by the marble statues and the flowering trees. “Faustus, I have read that Zeno said, ‘All men are by nature equal. In degree of virtue alone are they different.’”
“He said so, Valeria. And so do all Stoics, his followers.”
“And slaves and captives and strangers—”
“They also. Underneath and above they are one with the master and the victor and the Roman.”
“And women—and women, Faustus?”
Faustus leaned upon his staff. “They also, Valeria.”
Valerian made a movement of impatience. “O Faustus, where is that last said?”
“It follows, Valerian.”
“It is theory! It has never been, nor will it ever be. As we cannot free the slaves, so women cannot walk equal with men. But goodness to slaves, goodness and love to women I grant!”
Faustus was silent.
Said Valeria, “That is much to grant, but not enough.”
They were standing beneath a high-raised marble figure of Ceres. Valerian struck with his hand the base of the statue. His brow darkened. “O, Valeria, you and I have struggled together before now—struggled long, struggled hard! Now we are at peace. I value peace. Let us stay there!”
“You make a slavery and call it peace!”
He stamped with his foot. “Let it be! Let it be!”
The wife raised her arms to the skies, then let them drop. She could sing most sweetly. Now, suddenly, she broke into song, a wild folk-carol of sun and earth and gods and dæmons. She sang a charmed silence upon the terrace and the garden below. Tree, vine, and flower, bird upon the bough, light in the west, seemed to dream, listening. Faustus sat upon a bench, his hands crossed over his staff, his eyes upon the brightening evening star. Valerian sighed. He leaned against the wall and shadowed his face with his hand, and the inward light beat against theinward eye, but the eye was not yet strengthened enough to receive it strongly. The woman ceased to sing, the dusk thickened, the dank and chill of the evening were felt, they went into the house.
Later, in the great chamber, the house master and mistress being alone for the night, Valeria standing trimming the lamp that burned, fed by perfumed oil, before the little figures of the household deities, said suddenly, “She was your child—that lovely brown-haired one a woman thrust before us, leaving the Amphitheatre. She was so like you!—more like than is Flavia.”
Valerian came and stood beside her. “The woman was Lais the Greek. Five years since I freed her, and bought for her a flower shop. Then we became as strangers. Thou knowest that illness I had, five years ago, and how, recovering, I changed much in my life.... The freedwoman has her shop of flowers, and if I remember her aright will be ever warm and kind to the child.”
“What is her name—the child’s?”
“Her name?... I cannot,” said Valerian, “remember it.”
From the Rhine, from post to post, along the Roman roads, came with swiftness tidings that again the Marcomanni had risen in revolt. Back to his legion, encamped upon that river, hastened Valerian. Arrived, he made junction with an endangered legion stationed inland, and drove with twin eagles against the Marcomanni. These broke, these fled; a host was slain, a host taken. The brand of revolt, dashed against earth, had its fire put out. The auxiliaries who brought to Rome, over hundreds of leagues, over Roman roads, to slavery, to the games of the Amphitheatre, the huge many of prisoners, brought also praise of Valerian. The victory praised him, the safety of the legions praised him. The emperor nodded, looked aslant, made the sign that kept away evil. Said one under his breath to another in the house of Cæsar, “Do not win too much nor be liked too well, for that is the road to the Mamertine!”
Valerian, far from Rome and that savour of incense and look of danger, obeyed soldierly duty and something higher. Revolt subdued, he conciliated, organized, administered, and all was done well. It took time. Months rolled away in the northern forests, by the northern streams. The months became a year, the year two years, the two three. Valerian wrote to Rome, asking permission to return for a while to family and estate. Permission was denied. He had thought that it would be so, for letters told him that ever more and more Cæsar hated other men’s successes, and that, besides, certain foes of his worked against him in Rome. Upon the heels of that denial came an order to proceed to the command of a legion in Britain. That was to leave a famous legion for one not so famed. That was to leave captain and soldiers who engaged for victory wheresoever he led for others who knew him not. It was to leave a region that he knew for obscure struggles with the Caledonians at the edge of the world. Valerian sat with his chin in his hand, and pondered his own revolt—his own and the famed legion, drawing with it other legions. He shook his head; he consulted loyalty and the public good. Obeying the imperial word, he set his face to the west, he travelled long and far, and crossed the narrow sea and came to Britain and travelled the Roman road to the legion in the north. Here he stayed two years and did well, so well that at the end of that time he was sent to command not alegion, but auxiliary troops in a poor and drowsy corner of the empire where Opportunity might be expected never to show her face. Expectation was disappointed; in the third year Opportunity appeared with suddenness. Valerian took her by both hands. His name once more became sonorous. When he had been almost ten years from Rome he was summoned home. He was sure that it was to ruin.
There were lines in his forehead, a little silver in his hair and short beard. The rime, the breath of the fir wood clung about him. In Valeria’s hair there was silver. She met him alone, beneath the old olive tree, upon the slope before the villa in the Alban Hills. He had sent those with him another way; he came to her alone with, in his step, the eagerness of youth. She stood robed in white; she had for him who, in the wilderness, had increased in inward stature, a new beauty and majesty.
“Hail, Valerian!”
“Hail, Valeria!” Each held the other, embraced. “Long—long—long has it been!”
They climbed the hillside. “Are you safe, Valerian,—are you safe, here at Rome, where you should be so safe—”
“Not I! To-morrow, Cæsar may send to tell me, ‘Open your veins. Die, and ease me of a jealousy!’—Well, what odds? It comes one day. What matter which day?”
The old household slaves came about them. It was springtime and evening and loveliness. As they reclined at supper, as afterwards they walked the terrace, and at last in their chamber he watched Valeria. Love rekindled in him, but a graver love, a love that was beginning to think.
“We have changed,” he said.
“Yes. There is a worker, a sculptor, a musician dealing with us.”
“Life?”
“Life also is under its hand.... In these years that I have dwelled here, lonely but for it, I have felt it working. It works from a place that our places hide.”
“I learned something of that in those dark, northern woods, by those cold and deathly waters. There is something more than we know or feel.”
“There is a sky above the sky. But that is all I know. I do not yet breathe under it.”
Days and nights passed. Valerian rested with Valeria in the villa among the hills, unbidden to Rome, possibly unthought of, perhaps unthreatened. He began to feel in the peace about him that he had dreamed that there was lightning in the clouds and an ambush in the way. And then he was bidden, he with his wife, to a feast in Cæsar’s house.... When he came there, he saw that all the time the sky had been truly overcast.
Cæsar made a feast of phantasy and extravagance. The colours seemed all gold, or else the hue of wine. The emperor reclined, garlanded, and all the guests were garlanded, and beautiful slaves served the tables with drink and viands fantastically choice, and flower petals were shred upon them from above. Voluptuous music mixed with the silver fall of fountains. At intervals dwarfs or jugglers or gladiators made entertainment, or dancers came like snow or fire into the huge pillared room. There flowed talk and talk and laughter. Valerian and Valeria had their places where Cæsar might observe that general, too liked by soldiers and provincials! To an outcast looking in greatand fine might have seemed the feast, to an angel looking down it might have glittered evil, shouted evil.
There were many women. Valeria made to greet those with whom she had acquaintance—no great number, so shut away for so long had she lived. But they greeted back with the lips only, and very coldly. It was evident that none here wished to be called the friend of the wife of Valerian. She felt for Valerian a passion of sympathy. She sat, watching carefully her own words and smiles lest anywhere they might not serve his fortunes. She thought that now she could know no hurt save where he knew hurt.
For the most part the women here were patrician women whose minds lay rank earth for the growing of ill weeds. For the most part the men of the feast mated them well. Virtue there was in the empire, virtue even here, but here, in proportion, little virtue.... Valeria, regarding the women, saw Livia and Porcia and Lucilla, and others like the three.
They had riches, the energetic men of their houses gaining, long since, lands and honours and wealth. Slaves there were by the score and the hundred to take from them effort in behalf even of their own persons. They might make it if they chose, putting aside the offices of slaves. But it took virtue and hardness to make that effort, and from childhood they had had no training. One in blood and bone and force with their men, they might not be soldier, nor administrator, nor statesman, nor public official, nor trader, nor teacher, nor physician, nor orator, nor athlete, nor student in the schools. Where there were children there were slave nurses, slave tutors. The huge household, the “familia,” was largely managed by skilled slaves. Everywhere initiative, restless energy, came hardagainst the inner wall of law and the outer wall of custom, and they were walls to keep in prisoners! High and thick though they were, this age saw some breaking through toward freedom from that grasp of law, that backward clutch from equal standing in human rights. But the breaking through seemed futile because it went not all the way, went but the smallest portion of the way, and so could come into but weak relations with the whole.
But there was one road upon which initiative was not blocked. The patrician woman with youth, with fair youth, with beauty, with some beauty, with wit to make store gain more store, and sensual to match sensual men, might have power, power, power—illegitimate, indirect, useless and selfish power! The time was one of libertinism, and there were libertines, men and women, and they seemed to sit in the chairs of the Fates and to spin and cut the threads of destiny.
Valeria saw that Livia looked at her full, then with a laugh looked away. The man that was Livia’s lover was that one who desired Valerian’s command. And now Livia was placed near to Cæsar and had snared him with her thick eyelashes and the ivory tower of her throat. She saw Lucilla speaking to the man beside her, and he was that senator who most coveted Valerian’s land. She saw how many of Valerian’s foes were here, and that Cæsar looked blackly upon him. She thought that he had been commanded here in order that there might be snatched and perverted some word that he might drop.... She felt a depth of anger and despair.
Guests were yet entering. Now a movement showed beyond Cæsar a white-robed, honour-heaped figure—the figure of a priestess of Vesta, bidden to this feast....
Valeria felt a shock of delight, a glow from head to foot. Her hand touched Valerian’s. “Look! It is Flavia!”
“I see.... Show no love for anything here to-night save for Cæsar and those whom he loves.”
As best she might she obeyed. Every down-drifting rose-leaf, every throb of music touched her senses like a cry of danger. She had seen in a forest doe or hare quiver when twig rubbed against twig.... But the vestal her daughter, seeing her, gave an exclamation. “My mother and father—I did not know that they would be here!” She smiled upon them, down the long board—several noted it.... Flavia was brightly fair, and she loved lights and music and flowers and all these people. Cæsar sent her wine from his own flagon.
On, with a kind of ordered tumult, went the feast. To Valerian, aware of Damocles’ sword above him, to Valeria sharing that awareness, it was long—long!
Then came in a dancer. The clearing of a space for her alone, the fanfare of trumpets that brought her in, seemed to betoken her famed in her art. She came, beautiful, with brown, waving locks, half nude, dancing wonderfully. She was Iras the Greek, daughter of Lais the flower-seller.
Cæsar’s guests applauded her dancing. She came on twinkling feet to one and to the other. She carried a thyrsus tipped with a pine cone, wound with leaves and blossoms. This she dipped into fountain spray as she passed, then shook it above this one and that one, showering him with diamonds. This man and that man, drunken, turning, strove to clasp her by arm or waist, but she danced away from him, shaking the thyrsus, shaking her brown locks. She spoke familiarly to any she chose, moving from point to point as lightly as thistledown.
When she came to the vestal Flavia she touched her robe with the pine cone. “Hail, priestess! In what world might thou and I be sisters?”
Flavia answered, touching with her fingers the diamonds that the thyrsus showered, “In the grave, Iras the dancer!” and laughed herself because she had answered apropos.
The dancer, flashing on, came at last to Valerian. She lifted her thyrsus. “Who is it? Who is it? I have seen him before, but not at banquets—”
“The general Valerian,” said one behind her.
“Valerian!” Iras the dancer stood still, seemed with some kind of shock to receive the name, then with a laugh she raised the thyrsus and holding it in both hands, crosswise above her head, danced away on yet swifter feet. But she had stood beside Valerian, and that one who had spoken had looked from face to face. And Valerian, by one of his most few friends, had been warned against that man that he was of the host of delators, a spy and informer.
After the dancer came in gladiators. The feasting men and women sank lower. The room seemed unsteadily lit, smelled of wine and blood. The flowers withered, speech became confused, meaningless, save that always it menaced good. Cæsar sent wine to Valerian, more wine and more. He must drink, though he saw that they would have him drunken and his tongue loosened. Three came about him and drove the talk to the legions and what, given word, a mind-endowed general might do. Cæsar’s cup-bearer brought him more wine. He strove to be wary in talk, but at last came a mist and he saw only that he was talking.... Came the last viand, the last red and golden wine, outside rose the dawn. And then without, in the mistygarden of the Cæsars, the guests yet strayed, and yet there was revelling. But at last, with the rising sun, all might go home.
Two days and Valerian received an order to return to his country-house and there hold himself captive, while before the Senate was sifted a charge of betraying the Commonwealth. Valerian went and with him Valeria. It was the late summer, and the air was sultry and there were many thunder-storms with in between a sense of burdened waiting. Morn and eve, the two paced the terrace and looked to Rome afar in the plain. They had their slaves, but freedmen, clients of Valerian, came no more as they had done, obsequious, many as bees to a garden. And old friends did not come, and kindred did not come. Only two or three came privily, speaking not of their coming either before the visit or afterwards. Faustus the philosopher, now an old man, came more than once. And all who came and all who stayed away knew that bolts were being forged with which to slay Valerian. And they trembled for themselves who were his kin or acquaintance.
Valeria would have caught the bolts in her hands, directed them if she might to her bosom only, but there was no way. But all that knew knew that she, too, would be struck, blackened, and consumed. Always, Cæsar finally to ruin one ruined many.... When they had been at the country-house a month those who still had come came no more. They heard that kindred and friends were being thrown into prison. Faustus brought that news, and smiling said that hardly might he come again.
“Faustus, this world!”
“There are many things to be straightened. When we have straightened one, then must we straighten another....If with all our will we could reach the centre we might straighten much at once. But that is Wisdom and few are wise!”
He spent a day and night at the villa, looked cheerfully upon them, and went back to Rome where he had work to do. He came no more, and their hearts told them that he had been taken in the net.
A slave, the woman who had nursed her, brought the dire news of Flavia, Flavia in the House of the Vestals! The two were in the garden, seated upon a marble bench, gazing idly at the fish in the sunken marble basin.
Came the slave and threw herself at Valeria’s feet, clasping her knees. “Mistress! Mistress!”
“Ina! Ina! What is it?”
“I went to the foot of the vineyard. One I knew passed from the city. It is talking—it is talking—”
“Of what, Ina? Of what?”
“Oh, Flavia, mistress!—Flavia! Flavia!”
“Flavia!”
“Rome talks. It says that she, a vestal, has been unchaste! The proof has been gathered, even to-day she is judged and condemned!” Ina’s voice rose to a shriek. “It says that the earth will be opened and Flavia be buried living!”
Valerian beat his head against the marble, but Valeria sat like the marble’s self. When at last she spoke, moved her limbs, rose and went about through the place and the time and the small, slow events of existence, it was like a being drugged. In her eyes might be seen one bound down.... There was no help—what help was there in all Rome and the world?
It might be that the vestal was innocent, or it might bethat youth and fire in the blood and some untoward nearness and temptation had dragged her into that pit. Either way, she was to perish, seeing that certainly the people had been made to believe her guilty. Believing her so, there was no force to hold them from throwing her to the law which of old the Roman men had made. As though the two heard it with their ears, they heard the outcry of the thousands against sacrilege and broken law! They heard the outcry for Flavia’s death by the old, terrible way!
In the night-time, life came back to Valeria’s veins. The broken will rose and mended itself. Reason said no doing now would help, but something beyond reason yet resisted, because resistance must not be lost. She rose, she left Valerian sleeping, heavy with sorrow; she woke Ina and took from her a coarse dark mantle; she clad and sandalled herself, and silently passed from the house, and crossing the terrace, went down through the almond trees and the vineyard to the road. She had put a brown stain upon her face; stooping, in the slave’s mantle, she seemed an old woman. What throbbed in her brain was the intent to reach Cæsar, at least to cry to him of the wrath of the gods.
In an hour there overtook her a cart from the hills, bearing grapes and melons to market. She begged a lift, and the boy driving let her seat herself upon the cart floor among the baskets. When he asked she told him that she was a fortune-teller, come out to the hills to search for a certain herb.—No, she had not found it. Perhaps it did not grow anywhere any longer.—“What is its name?”—“Justice.”
She passed with the boy through the gates at dawn. Leaving him and his cart she stole afoot through the grey streets to the Palatine. There she found the stairway, cutin the rock, leading to the summit and the palace where dwelt Cæsar, and here at the foot in a broad space where were always beggars and petitioners she sat down, drew her mantle yet farther over her brow, and extended her hand as if for begging. When the day was here, surely at some hour, Cæsar would come by!
Much after sunrise, a portly, good-natured-looking personage approached, passed, and passing tossed her a small coin. She put out her hand and clasped his mantle and asked if Cæsar would that day leave the palace, come this way. “It is probable—it is probable!” said the good-natured personage and went on to climb the hill.
Noon came and afternoon. A stream went up the stair, a stream came down the stair, but never Cæsar.
When the sun was westering fast Valeria crossed to a legless man under an ilex tree. “Is Cæsar never coming down to throw us money?”
“Have you feet,” said the legless man, “and see not all that happens in the world?—Cæsar is not in the palace. He is at his villa on the Appian Way. He went there yesterday and with him a troop of those of the wilder sort—not sober children like you and me!”
It was twilight when she went by the House of the Vestals, and going, raised her arms to the darkening sky. Flavia was not in that house. She was away from the mercies of Vesta. She was in prison, and out by the gate of the Sabine road they opened the earth....