A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 29

"Yes; if one is asked, then of course he must answer! The mistress has told you that Calpurnius is such a bad neighbour?"

"Yes; what about that?"

"But she did not tell you since when?"

"No; dost thou know?"

"Well, it was about half a year ago. About that time Calpurnius once met the mistress in the wood, alone as they both thought; but they were not alone. Some one lay in a ditch, and was taking his mid-day nap."

"Thou wert that sluggard!"

"Rightly guessed. And Calpurnius said something to the mistress."

"What did he say?"

"That I did not understand. But the mistress was not idle; she lifted her hand and struck him in the face with such a smack, that it resounded. And since then our neighbour is a bad neighbour, and I wanted to tell you, because I thought the mistress would not wish to vex you about the rascal; but still it is better that you know it. And see! there stands Calpurnius at his house door; do you see? and now farewell, dear master."

And with this he turned his horse and galloped home. But the blood rushed to Witichis' face.

He rode up to his neighbour's door. Calpurnius was about to retreat into the house, but Witichis called to him in such a voice, that he was obliged to remain.

"What do you want with me, neighbour Witichis?" he asked, looking up at him askance.

Witichis drew rein, and stopped his horse close to him. Then he held his clenched iron-gloved fist close before his neighbour's eyes.

"Neighbour Calpurnius," he said quietly, "if _I_ ever strike thee in the face, thou wilt never rise again."

Calpurnius started back in a fright.

But Witichis gave his horse the spur, and rode proudly and slowly upon his way.

CHAPTER VI.

In his study at Rome, comfortably stretched upon the soft cus.h.i.+ons of a lectus, lay Cethegus the Prefect.

He was of good cheer.

His examination had ended with full acquittal. Only in case of an immediate search in his house--such as the young King had ordered, but which his death had frustrated--could discovery have been apprehended.

He had succeeded in gaining permission to complete the fortifications of Rome, supplying the funds out of his own exchequer, which circ.u.mstance still more increased his influence in that city.

The evening before he had held a meeting in the Catacombs. All the reports were favourable; the patriots were increasing in number and means.

The greater oppression which since the late occurrences at Ravenna weighed upon the Italians, could but serve to add to the ranks of the malcontents; and, which was the main thing, Cethegus now held all the threads of the conspiracy in his own hands. Even the most jealous Republicans implicitly acknowledged the necessity of committing the conduct of affairs, until the day of deliverance, to the most gifted of men.

The feeling against the barbarians had made such progress amongst all Italians, that Cethegus could entertain the project of striking a blow without the help of the Byzantines, as soon as ever Rome was sufficiently fortified.

"For," he repeatedly told himself, "all foreign liberators are easily summoned, but with difficulty discarded."

Musing thus, Cethegus reposed upon his lectus. He laid aside Caesar's "Civil Wars," the leaves of which he had been turning over, and said to himself:

"The G.o.ds must have great things in store for me; whenever I fall, it is like a cat--upon my feet and unhurt. Ah! when things go well with us, we like to share our content with others. But it is too dangerous a pleasure to put trust in another, and Silence is the only faithful G.o.ddess. And yet one is human, and would like----"

Here a slave entered--the old Ostiarius Fidus--and silently handed to Cethegus a letter upon a flat golden salver.

"The bearer waits," he said, and left the room.

Cethegus took up the letter. But as soon as he recognised the design upon the wax seal which secured the string twisted round the tablets--the Dioscuri--he cried eagerly, "From Julius--at a happy hour!" hastily untied the string, opened the tablets, and read, his cold and pale countenance flushed with a warmth of pleasure usually wholly strange to him:

"'To Cethegus the Prefect, from Julius Monta.n.u.s.

"'How long it is, my fatherly preceptor'--(by Jupiter! that sounds frosty)--'that I have delayed sending you the greeting which I owe you.

The last time I wrote from the green banks of the Ilissos, where I sought for traces of Plato in the desolated groves of the Akademia, but found none. I know well that my letter was not cheerful. The sad philosophers, wandering in the lonely schools, surrounded by the oppressions of the Emperor, the suspicion of the priests, and the coldness of the mult.i.tude, could only arouse my compa.s.sion. My soul was gloomy; I knew not wherefore. I blamed my ingrat.i.tude to you, the most generous of all benefactors.'

"He has never given me such intolerable names before," observed Cethegus.

"'For two years I have travelled, accompanied by your slaves and freedmen, endowed like a King of the Syrians with your riches, through all Asia and h.e.l.las; I have enjoyed all the beauty and wisdom of the ancients, and my heart is still unsatisfied, my life empty. Not the enthusiastic wisdom of Plato; not the gilded ivory of Phidias; not Homer and not Thucydides gave me what I wanted! At last, at last, here in Neapolis, in this blooming, G.o.d-endowed city; here I found what I had unconsciously missed and sought for everywhere. Not dead wisdom, but warm, living happiness.'--(He is in love! At last, thou coy Hippolyte! Thanks, Eros and Anteros!)--'Oh! my guardian, my father! do you know what happiness it is for the first time to call a heart that completely understands you, your own?'--(Ah, Julius!" sighed the Prefect, with a singular expression of softened sentiment, "as if I knew it not?)--'a heart to which one can freely open his whole soul?

Oh! if you have ever proved it, rejoice with me! sacrifice to Jupiter, the fulfiller! For the first time I have found a friend!'

"What does he say?" cried Cethegus indignantly; and starting up with a look of jealous pain, "The ungrateful boy!"

"'For thou wilt understand it well, until now I had no bosom friend.

You, my fatherly preceptor----'"

Cethegus threw the tablets upon the tortoise-sh.e.l.l table, and walked hastily up and down the room.

"Folly!" he then said quietly, took up the letter again, and read on:

"'You, so much older, wiser, better, greater than I--you had laid such a weight of grat.i.tude and reverence upon my young soul, that it could never unfold itself to you without reserve. I have also often heard with discouragement the biting wit with which you mocked at all warmth and softness of feeling; and a sharp expression about your proud and closely-compressed mouth has always killed such feelings in me, as the night-frost kills the first violets.'--(Well, at all events, he is sincere!)--'But now I have found a friend--frank, warm, young, and enthusiastic--and I feel a delight hitherto unknown to me. We are one in heart and soul; we wander together on sunny days and moonlight nights through the Elysian fields, and are never at a loss for winged words. But I must soon close this letter. He is a Goth'--(that too!"

cried Cethegus, angrily)--"'and is named Totila.'"

Cethegus let drop the hand which held the letter. He said nothing. He only shut his eyes for an instant, and then he quietly read on again:

"'And is named Totila. The day after my arrival in Neapolis, as I was lounging through the Forum of Neptune, and admiring some statues under the arches of a neighbouring house which had been exposed for sale by a sculptor, there suddenly rushed at me, out of the door of this house, a grey-haired man with a woollen ap.r.o.n, all over white with plaster, and holding in his hand a pointed tool. He grasped my shoulder and shouted, "Pollux, my Pollux! have I found thee at last!" I thought the old fellow was mad, and said, "You mistake, old man, I am called Julius, and come from Athens." "No," cried he; "thou art named Pollux, and come from Olympus!" And before I knew what had happened, he had pushed me into the house. There I gradually found out what was the matter. It was the sculptor who had exposed the statues. In the ante-chamber stood many half-finished works, and the sculptor explained to me that for years he had been thinking of a group of the Dioscuri. For the Castor he had found a charming model in a young Goth. "But in vain," he continued, "have I prayed to Heaven for an inspiration for my Pollux.

He must resemble the Castor; like him, a brother of Helena and a son of Jupiter. Complete similarity of feature and form must be there, and yet the difference must be as apparent as the resemblance; they must each be completely individual. In vain I sought in all the baths and gymnasiums of Neapolis. I could not find the Leda-twin. And now a G.o.d--Jupiter himself--has led thee to my door! It struck me like lightning when I saw thee, 'There stands my Pollux, just as he ought to look!' And I will never let thee depart living from my house until thou hast promised me thy head and thy body." I willingly promised the strange old man to come again the next day; and I did so the more gladly when I afterwards learnt that my violent friend was Xenarchus, the greatest sculptor in marble and bronze that Italia has known for a long time. The next day I went again, and found my Castor. It was Totila; and I cannot deny that the great resemblance surprised me, although Totila is older, taller, stronger, and incomparably more handsome than I. Xenarchus says that we are like a pale and a gold-coloured citron--for Totila has fairer hair and beard--and just in this manner, the master swears, were the two Dioscuri alike and unlike.

So we learnt to know and love each other amongst the statues of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses in the studio of Xenarchus; became, in truth, Castor and Pollux, inseparable and intimate as they; and already the merry populace of Neapolis calls us by these names when we wander arm in arm through the streets. But our new-made friends.h.i.+p was still more quickly ripened by a threatened danger, which might easily have nipped it in the bud. One evening, as usual, we had wandered out of the Porta Nolana to seek refreshment after the heat of the day in the Baths of Tiberius.

After the bath--in a mood of sportive tenderness--you will blame it--I had thrown my friend's mantle over me, and set his helmet, decorated with the swan's wings, upon my head. He entered into the joke, and, with a smile, threw my chlamys[4] around him; and, chatting peacefully, we went back through the pine grove in the gloom of approaching night to the city. All at once a man sprang upon me from a taxus-bush behind me, and I felt cold steel at my throat. But the next moment the murderer lay at my feet, Totila's sword in his breast. Only slightly wounded, I bent over the dying man, and asked him what reason he had to hate and murder me. But he stared in my face, and breathed out, "Not thee--Totila, the Goth!" and he gave a convulsive s.h.i.+ver and was dead.

By his costume and weapons, we saw that he was an Isaurian mercenary.'"

Again the hand which held the letter dropped, and Cethegus pressed the other to his forehead.

"Madness of chance!" he said; "to what mightest thou not have led!" And he read to the end. '"Totila said he had many enemies at Ravenna. We reported the incident to Uliaris, the Gothic Earl at Neapolis. He caused the corpse to be examined, and inst.i.tuted an inquiry--without result. But this grave event has cemented our youthful friends.h.i.+p and consecrated it with blood for ever. It has united us in an earnest and holy bond. The seal-ring of the Dioscuri, which you gave me at parting, was a friendly omen, and it has been pleasantly fulfilled; and when I ask myself to whom is owing all my happiness, it is to you, to you alone, who sent me to this city, where I have found all that I wanted!

So may the G.o.ds requite you for it! Ah, I see that my letter speaks only of myself and this friends.h.i.+p--write to me speedily, I beg, and let me know how things go with you.--_Vale_."

A bitter smile pa.s.sed across the Prefect's expressive mouth, and he again measured the room with rapid strides. At last he stopped, supporting his chin in his hand: