Chapter 15

Sallust.

Delay means ruin.

Julian.

This move has long been planned in all secrecy, Sallust! Ah, now all the riddles are solved. Helena——, ’twas not, as I conceived, her heedless tongue that destroyed her——

Sallust.

No, my lord!

Julian.

——they thought,—they believed that——! oh inscrutable, even-handed retribution! that was why she had to die.

Sallust.

Yes, that was the reason, I was the man they first pitched upon in Rome. Oh, my lord, you cannot doubt that I refused to do it? I pleaded the impossibility of finding an occasion; they assured me that the abominable design was abandoned, and then——!

Julian.

They will not stop at—at the double corpse in the sarcophagus up yonder. Constantius takes another wife. That is why I was to be disarmed in Lutetia.

Sallust.

One thing alone can save you, my Caesar: you must act before the Emperor has recruited his forces.

Julian.

What if, of my own free will, I withdrew into solitude, devoting myself to that wisdom which I have here been forced to neglect? Would the new men in power leave me undisturbed? Would not the very fact of my existence be like a sword hanging over their heads?

Sallust.

The kinsmen of the Empress that is to be are the men who surrounded Gallus Caesar in his last hours.

Julian.

The tribune Scudilo. Trust me, friend,—I have not forgotten that. And am I to yield and fall before this bloodthirsty Emperor! Am I to spare him who for long years has stumbled about among the corpses of my nearest kin!

Sallust.

If you spare him, in less than three months he will be stumbling among the corpses of your adherents.

Julian.

Yes, yes; there you are right. It is almost my imperative duty to stand up against him. If I do, ’twill not be for my own sake. Do not the weal and woe of thousands hang in the balance? Are not thousands of lives at stake? Or could I have averted this extremity? You are more to blame than I, Sallust! Why did you not speak before?

Sallust.

In Rome they made me swear a solemn oath of secrecy.

Julian.

An oath? Indeed! By the gods of your forefathers?

Sallust.

Yes, my lord—by Zeus and by Apollo.

Julian.

And yet you break your oath?

Sallust.

I wish to live.

Julian.

But the gods?

Sallust.

The gods—they are far away.

Julian.

Yes, your gods are far away; they hamper no one; they are a burden to no one; they leave a man elbow-room for action. Oh, that Greek happiness, that sense of freedom——!

You said that the Emperor, vengeful as he is, will pour out the blood of my friends. Yes, who can doubt that? Was Knodomar spared? Did not that harmless captive pay with his life for an error of language? For—I know it, Sallust—they killed him; that tale about the barbarian’s home-sickness was a lie. Then what may not we expect? In what a hateful light must not Decentius have represented matters in Rome?

Sallust.

That you may best understand from the hasty flight of the court to Antioch.

Julian.

And am I not my army’s father, Sallust?

Sallust.

The soldiers’ father; their wives’ and children’s buckler and defence.

Julian.

And what will be the fate of the empire should I waver now? A decrepit Emperor, and after him a helpless child, upon the throne; faction andrevolt; every man’s hand against his neighbour, in the struggle for power.—Not many nights ago I saw a vision. A figure appeared before me, with a halo round its head; it looked wrathfully upon me, and said: “Choose!” With that it vanished away, like morning mist. Hitherto I had interpreted it as referring to something far different; but now that I know of the Emperor’s approaching marriage——

Yes, indeed, it is time to choose, ere misfortune overwhelms the empire. I am not thinking of my own interest; butdareI shirk the choice, Sallust? Is it not my duty to the Emperor to defend my life? Have I a right to stand with folded arms and await the murderers whom he, in his mad panic, is bribing to hew me down? Have I a right to give this unhappy Constantius an opportunity of heaping fresh blood-guiltiness upon his sinful head? Were it not better for him—as the Scriptures say—that he should suffer wrong rather than do wrong? If, therefore, this that I do to my kinsman can be called a wrong, I hold that the wrong is wiped out by the fact that it hinders my kinsman from inflicting a wrong on me. I think that both Plato and Marcus Aurelius, that crowned bridegroom of wisdom, would support me in that. At any rate, it would be no unworthy problem for the philosophers, my dear Sallust!—Oh that I had Libanius here!

Sallust.

My lord, you are yourself so far advanced in philosophy, that——

Julian.

True, true; yet I would fain hear the viewsof certain others. Not that I am vacillating. Do not think that! Nor do I see any reason to doubt a favourable issue. For those omens should by no means discourage us. The fact that I retained the handle, when my shield broke during the games, may with ample reason, I think, be taken to mean that I shall succeed in holding what my hand has grasped. And if, in vaulting upon my horse, I overthrew the man who helped me to mount, may not this portend a sudden fall to Constantius, to whom I owe my rise? Be this as it may, my Sallust, I look forward to composing a treatise which shall most clearly justify——

Sallust.

Very good, my gracious lord; but the soldiers are impatient; they would fain see you, and learn their fate from your own lips.

Julian.

Go, go and pacify them;—tell them that Caesar will presently show himself.

Sallust.

My lord, ’tis not Caesar, it is the Emperor himself they want to see.

Julian.

The Emperor is coming.

Sallust.

Then he comes—though empty-handed—yet with the lives of thousands in his hands!

Julian.

A barter, Sallust; the lives of thousands against the death of thousands.

Sallust.

Have your enemies the right to live?

Julian.

Happy you, whose gods are afar off. Oh, to possess this hardihood of will——!

A Voice.

[Calling from deep in the galleries below.] Julian, Julian!

Sallust.

Ah! What is that?

Julian.

Leave me, dear friend; go quickly!

The Voice.

Silence the psalm-singing, Julian!

Sallust.

It calls again. Oh, then it is true!

Julian.

What is true?

Sallust.

That you abide down here with a mysterious stranger, a soothsayer or a magician, who came to you by night.

Julian.

Ha-ha; do they say that? Go, go!

Sallust.

I conjure you, my lord,—have done with these noxious dreams. Come with me; come up to the light of day!

The Voice.

[Nearer, underneath.] All my labour is vain.

Julian.

[Speaking down the passage to the right.] No sign, my brother?

The Voice.

Desolation and emptiness.

Julian.

Oh, Maximus!

Sallust.

Maximus!

Julian.

Go, I tell you! If I leave this house of corruption, it will be as Emperor.

Sallust.

I implore you——; what seek you here in the darkness?

Julian.

Light. Go, go!

Sallust.

If Caesar loiters, I fear he will find the way barred against him.

[He goes by the passage on the left. A little while afterwards,Maximus the Mysticascends the steps; he wears a white sacrificial fillet round his brow; in his hand is a long, bloody knife.

Julian.

Speak, my Maximus!

Maximus.

All my labour is vain, I tell you. Why could you not silence the psalm-singing? It strangled all the omens; they would have spoken, but could utter nothing.

Julian.

Silence, darkness;—and I can wait no longer! What do you counsel me to do?

Maximus.

Go forward blindly, Emperor Julian. The light will seek you out.

Julian.

Yes, yes, yes; that I, too, believe. I need not, after all, have sent for you all this long way. Know you what I have just heard——?

Maximus.

I will not know what you have heard. Take your fate into your own hands.

Julian.

[Pacing restlessly up and down.] After all, what is he, this Constantius—this Fury-haunted sinner, this mouldering ruin of what was once a man?

Maximus.

Be that his epitaph, Emperor Julian!

Julian.

In his whole treatment of me, has he not been like a rudderless wreck,—now drifting to the lefton the current of suspicion, now hurled to the right by the storm-gust of remorse? Did he not stagger, terror-stricken, up to the imperial throne, his purple mantle dripping with my father’s blood? perhaps with my mother’s too?—Had not all my kin to perish that he might sit secure? No, not all; Gallus was spared, and I;—a couple of lives must be left wherewith to buy himself a little pardon. Then he drifted into the current of suspicion again. Remorse wrung from him the title of Caesar for Gallus; then suspicion wrung from him Caesar’s death-warrant. And I? Do I owe him thanks for the life he has hitherto vouchsafed me? One after the other; first Gallus, and then——; every night I have sweated with terror lest the next day should be my last.

Maximus.

Were Constantius and death your worst terrors?Think.Think.

Julian.

No, you are right. The priests——! My whole youth has been one long dread of the Emperor and of Christ. Oh, he is terrible, that mysterious—that merciless god-man! At every turn, wheresoever I wished to go, he met me, stark and stern, with his unconditional, inexorable commands.

Maximus.

And those commands—were they within you?

Julian.

Always without. Always “Thou shalt.” If my soul gathered itself up in one gnawing and consuming hate towards the murderer of my kin,what said the commandment: “Love thine enemy!” If my mind, athirst for beauty, longed for scenes and rites from the bygone world of Greece, Christianity swooped down on me with its “Seek the one thing needful!” If I felt the sweet lusts of the flesh towards this or that, the Prince of Renunciation terrified me with his: “Kill the body that the soul may live!”—All that is human has become unlawful since the day when the seer of Galilee became ruler of the world. Through him, life has become death. Love and hatred, both are sins. Has he, then, transformed man’s flesh and blood? Has not earth-bound man remained what he ever was? Our inmost, healthy soul rebels against it all;—and yet we are to will in the very teeth of our own will! Thou shalt, shalt, shalt!

Maximus.

And you have advanced no further than that! Shame on you!

Julian.

Maximus.

Yes, you, the man of Athens and of Ephesus.

Julian.

Ah, those times, Maximus! ’Twas easy to choose then. What were we really working at? A philosophic system; neither more nor less.

Maximus.

Is it not written somewhere in your Scriptures!“Either“Eitherwith us or against us”?

Julian.

Did not Libanius remain the man he was, whether he took the affirmative in a disputation, or the negative? This lies deeper. Here it is action that must be faced. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” In Athens I once made a game of that;—but it is no game. You cannot grasp it, you, who have never been under the power of the god-man. It is more than a doctrine he has spread over the world; it is an enchantment, that binds the soul in chains. He who has once been under it,—I believe he can never quite shake it off.

Maximus.

Because you do not whollywill.

Julian.

How can Iwillthe impossible?

Maximus.

Is it worth while towillwhat is possible?

Julian.

Word-froth from the lecture-halls! You can no longer cram my mind with that. And yet——oh no, no, Maximus! But you cannot understand how it is with us. We are like vines transplanted into a new, strange soil; transplant us back again, and we die; yet in the new soil we cannot thrive.

Maximus.

We? Whom do you call we?

Julian.

All who are under the terror of the revelation.

Maximus.

A terror of shadows!

Julian.

Be that as it may. But do you not see that this paralysing terror has curdled and coiled itself up into a wall around the Emperor? Ah, I see very well why the great Constantine promoted such a will-binding doctrine to power and authority in the empire. No bodyguard with spears and shields could form such a bulwark round the throne as this benumbing creed, for ever pointing beyond our earthly life. Have you looked closely at these Christians? Hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked, flat-breasted, all; they are like the linen-weavers of Byssus; they brood their lives away unspurred by ambition; the sun shines for them, and they do not see it; the earth offers them its fulness, and they desire it not;—all their desire is to renounce and suffer, that they may come to die.

Maximus.

Then use them as they are; but you yourself must stand without. Emperor or Galilean;—thatis the alternative. Be a thrall under the terror, or monarch in the land of sunshine and gladness! You cannot will contradictions; and yet that is what you would fain do. You try to unite what cannot be united,—to reconcile two irreconcilables; therefore it is that you lie here rotting in the darkness.

Julian.

Show me light if you can!

Maximus.

Are you that Achilles, whom your mother dreamed that she should give to the world? A tender heel alone makes no man an Achilles. Arise, my lord! Confident of victory, like a knight on his fiery steed, you must trample on the Galilean, if you would reach the imperial throne——

Julian.

Maximus!

Maximus.

My beloved Julian, look at the world around you! Those death-desiring Christians you speak of are fewest of the few. And how is it with all the others? Are not their minds falling away from the Master, one by one? Answer me,—what has become of this strange gospel of love? Does not sect rage against sect? And the bishops, those gold-bedecked magnates, who call themselves the chief shepherds of the church! Do they yield even to the great men of the court in greed and ambition and sycophancy——?

Julian.

They are not all like that; think of the great Athanasius of Alexandria——

Maximus.

Athanasius stood alone. And where is Athanasius now? Did they not drive him out, because he would not sell himself to serve the Emperor’s will? Was he not forced to take refuge in the Libyan desert, where he was devoured by lions? And can you name meoneother like Athanasius?Think of Maris, the bishop of Chalcedon, who has now changed sides three times in the Arian controversy. Think of old Bishop Marcus, of Arethusa; him you know from your boyhood. Has he not lately, in the teeth of both law and justice, taken all municipal property from the citizens, and transferred it to the church? And remember the feeble, vacillating Bishop of Nazianzus, who is the laughing-stock of his own community, because he answers yes and no in the same cause, in the hope to please both parties.

Julian.

True, true, true!

Maximus.

These are your brothers in arms, my Julian; you will find none better among them. Or perhaps you count upon those two great Galilean lights that were to be, in Cappadocia? Ha-ha; Gregory, the bishop’s son, pleads causes in his native town, and Basil, on his estate in the far east, is buried in the writings of secular philosophers.

Julian.

Yes, I know it well. On all sides they fall away! Hekebolius, my former teacher, has grown rich through his zeal for the faith, and his expositions of it; and since then——! Maximus—it has come to this, that I stand almost alone in earnestness.

Maximus.

You standquitealone. Your whole army is either in headlong flight, or lying slain around you. Sound the battle-call,—and none will hear you; advance,—and none will follow you! Dream notthat you can do anything for a cause which has despaired of itself. You will be beaten, I tell you! And where will you turn then? Disowned by Constantius, you will be disowned by all other powers on earth,—and over the earth. Or will you flee to the Galilean’s bosom? How stands the account between you and him? Did you not own, a moment ago, that you are under the terror? Have you his commands within you? Do you love your enemy, Constantius, even if you do not smite him? Do you hate the lusts of the flesh or the alluring joys of this world, even if you do not, like a heated swimmer, plunge into their depths? Do you renounce the world, because you have not courage to make it your own? And are you so very sure that—if you die here—you shall live yonder?

Julian.

[Pacing to and fro.] What has he done for me, he who exacts so much? If he hold the reins of the world-chariot in his hands, it must have been within his power to——

[The psalm-singing in the church becomes louder.

Listen, listen! They call that serving him. And he accepts it as a sweet-smelling sacrifice. Praise of himself,—and praise of her in the coffin! If he be omniscient, how then can he——?

The Chamberlain Eutherius.

[Coming hastily down through the passage on the left.] My Caesar! My lord, my lord; where are you?

Julian.

Here, Eutherius? What would you with me?

Eutherius.

You must come up, my lord;—you must see it with your own eyes;—the Princess’s body is working miracles.

Julian.

You lie!

Eutherius.

I do not lie, my lord! I am no believer in this foreign doctrine; but what I have seen I cannot doubt.

Julian.

What have you seen?

Eutherius.

The whole town is in a frenzy. They are bearing the sick and crippled to the Princess’s bier; the priests let them touch it, and they go away healed.

Julian.

And this you yourself have seen?

Eutherius.

Yes, my lord; I saw an epileptic woman go forth from the church healed, praising the Galileans’ God.

Julian.

Ah, Maximus, Maximus!

Eutherius.

Hark, how the Christians exult;—some fresh miracle must have happened.

The Physician Oribases.

[Calling out in the passage to the left.] Eutherius,—have you found him? Eutherius, Eutherius, where is Caesar?

Julian.

[Meeting him.] Here, here;—is it true, Oribases?

Oribases.

[Coming forward.] Incredible, inexplicable,—and yet true; they touch the bier, the priests read and pray over them, and they are healed; from time to time a voice proclaims: “Holy, holy, is the pure woman!”

Julian.

A voice proclaims——?

Oribases.

The voice of one invisible, my Caesar; a voice high up under the vaultings of the church——; no man knows whence it comes.

Julian.

[Stands a moment immovable, then turns suddenly toMaximus, and cries:] Life or the lie!

Maximus.

Choose!

Oribases.

Come, come, my lord; the awe-stricken soldiers threaten you——

Julian.

Let them threaten.

Oribases.

They accuse you and me of the Princess’s death——

Julian.

I will come; I will satisfy them——

Oribases.

There is onlyoneway: you must turn their thoughts in another direction, my lord;—they are wild with despair over the fate awaiting them if you delay any longer.

Maximus.

Now go to heaven, thou fool; now die for thy Lord and Master!

Julian.

[Grasping him by the arm.] The Emperor’s empire for me!

Maximus.

Achilles!

Julian.

What looses the covenant?

Maximus.

[Handing him the sacrificial knife.] This.

Julian.

What washes the water away?

Maximus.

The blood of the sacrifice.

[He tears off the fillet from his own brow, and fastens it round Caesar’s.

Oribases.

[Drawing nearer.] What is your purpose, my lord?

Julian.

Ask not.

Eutherius.

Hark to the clamour! Up, up, my Caesar!

Julian.

First down,—then up. [ToMaximus.] The sanctuary, my beloved brother——?

Maximus.

Straight below, in the second vault.

Oribases.

Caesar, Caesar,—whither are you going?

Maximus.

To freedom.

Julian.

Through darkness to light. Ah——!

[He descends into the lower galleries.

Maximus.

[Softly, looking after him.] So it has come at last!

Eutherius.

Speak, speak; what mean these hidden arts?

Oribases.

And now, when every instant is precious——

Maximus.

[Whispering uneasily, as he shifts his place.] These gliding, clammy shadows! Faugh! The slimy things crawling underfoot——!

Oribases.

[Listening.] The turmoil waxes, Eutherius! It is the soldiers; listen, listen!

Eutherius.

It is the song in the church——

Oribases.

No, ’tis the soldiers!—here they come!

The KnightSallustappears up in the gallery, surrounded by a great crowd of excited soldiers. The Standard-BearerMaurusis amongst them.

Sallust.

Be reasonable, I entreat you——!

The Soldiers.

Caesar has betrayed us! Caesar shall die!

Sallust.

And what then, madmen!

Maurus.

What then? With Caesar’s head we will buy forgiveness——

The Soldiers.

Come forth, come forth, Caesar!

Sallust.

Caesar,—my Caesar, where are you?

Julian.

[Calling out, in the vault underneath.] Helios! Helios!

Maximus.

Free!

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