A Struggle For Rome Volume I Part 43

"AFTER US?" he asked in astonishment.

"What! You do not think that your Goths will endure for ever amongst the nations?"

"I don't know that," said Totila, walking on.

"My friend, Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Macedonians, and, as it seems, we Romans also, had their appointed time. They flourished, ripened, and decayed. Will it be otherwise with the Goths?"

"I do not know," answered Totila uneasily. "I never thought about it.

It has never occurred to me that a time might come when my nation----"

He hesitated, as if it were a sin even to express the thought. "How can one imagine such a thing? I think as little about it as I do about--death!"

"That is like you, my Totila."

"And it is like you, Julius, to tease yourself and others with such dreams."

"Dreams! You forget that for me and for my nation it has already become a reality. You forget that I am a Roman. I cannot deceive myself like most men; it is all over with us. The sceptre has gone from us to you.

It was not without much painful thought that I learned to forget that you, my bosom friend, are a barbarian, the enemy of my country."

"But it is not so, by the light of the sun!" interrupted Totila eagerly. "Do I find this harsh thought in you too? Look around you!

When, tell me, when has Italy ever flourished more than under our protection? Scarcely in the time of Augustus! You teach us science and art; we give you peace and protection. Can one imagine a finer correlation? Harmony amongst Romans and Goths may create an entirely new era, more splendid than has ever existed."

"Harmony! But it does not exist. You are to us a strange people, divided from us by speech and faith, by race and customs, and by centuries of hatred. Once we robbed you of your freedom; now you have robbed us of ours. Between us yawns a wide abyss."

"You reject my favourite idea."

"It is a dream!"

"No, it is truth. I feel it, and perhaps the time will come when I can prove it. I would build all the fabric of my life upon it."

"Then were it built upon a n.o.ble delusion. No bridge between Romans and barbarians!"

"Then," said Totila, with some heat, "I do not understand how you can live--how you could take me----"

"Do not complete your sentence," said Julius gravely. "It was not easy; it was most painful self-denial. Only after a sharp struggle with selfish feelings did I succeed. But at last I have ceased to live only in my nation. The faith which already unites Romans and barbarians as nothing else could; which more and more powerfully conquered my repugnant reason by grief and pain--pain which turned to joy--brought peace to me in the conflict of my soul. In this one thing I may already boast that I am a Christian; I live for mankind, not alone for my nation. I am a man, and no longer a mere Roman. Therefore I can love you, the barbarian, like a brother. Are we not brothers of one family--that of humanity? Therefore I can bear to live, even after seeing my nation die. I live for humanity; that is my people."

"No!" cried Totila vehemently; "that I could never do. I can, and will, live only for my nation. My nationality is the air in which alone my soul can breathe. Why should we not endure eternally, or as long as this earth endures? Persians and Greeks? We are of better stuff! Need we fall because they have decayed? We are still in the strength of our youth. Ah, no! If the day should ever come when the Goths fall, may I not live to see it! Oh, ye G.o.ds! let us not linger like these sickly Greeks, who cannot live and cannot die. No; if it must be, send a fearful tempest, and let us perish suddenly and gloriously all, all!

and I the foremost!"

He had excited himself to the warmest enthusiasm. He sprang up from the marble bench upon which they had been seated, and shook his lance in the air.

"My friend," said Julius, looking at him kindly, "how well this ardour becomes you! But reflect; such a conflict could only be kindled against _us_, against my nation, and should I----"

"If ever such a strife arose, you should cling to your nation, body and soul, that is clear. You think that would interfere with our friends.h.i.+p? Not in the least. Two heroes can cleave each other to the marrow, and yet remain the best friends. Ha! I should rejoice to meet you in battle, with spear and s.h.i.+eld."

Julius smiled: "My friends.h.i.+p is not of so grim a nature, my savage Goth! These doubts have tormented me for some time, and all my philosophers together could give me no peace. Only since I learned, in my sorrow, that I owe service to G.o.d in heaven alone, and must, on earth, live for humanity, and not for a nation----"

"Softly, friend," cried Totila, "where is this humanity of which you rave? I do not see it. I see only Goths, Romans, and Byzantines! I know of no humanity somewhere up in the sky, above the existing peoples. I serve humanity by serving my nation! I cannot do otherwise. I can not strip off the skin in which I was born. I speak like a Goth, in Gothic words, not in a language of general humanity: there is no such thing.

And as I speak like a Goth, so I feel like a Goth. I can appreciate strange nations certainly; I can admire your art, your science, and, in part, your state, in which everything is so strictly ordered. We can learn much from you; but I could not and would not exchange, even with a people of angels. Ah! my brave Goths! At the bottom of my heart their faults are dearer to me than your virtues!"

"How differently I feel, and yet I am a Roman."

"You are no Roman! Forgive me, friend, it is long since a Roman existed, else I could never be the Count of the Harbour of Neapolis. No one can feel as you do, whose nation yet exists; and all must feel as I do, who belong to a living people."

Julius was silent for a short time. "If it be indeed so, then happy I!

If I have lost the earth, I have gained heaven! What are nations, what are states, what is the earth? Not here below is the home of my immortal soul, which longs for a kingdom where all is divine and eternal!"

"Stop, Julius," said Totila, standing still, and striking his lance upon the ground. "Here upon earth have I a firm footing; here let me stand and live, doing good, and enjoying what is beautiful. I will not follow you into your heaven. I cannot. I honour your dreams and your longing for holiness; but I do not share your feelings. You know," he added, smiling, "that I am an inveterate heathen, like Valeria--my Valeria! I remember her at the right moment. Your earth-forsaking dreams make us forget the dearest things upon that earth! Look, we have reached the city again; the sun sinks rapidly here in the south, and before nightfall I must take some seeds to the garden of Valerius. A fine gardener," he laughed, "to forget his flowers. Farewell. I turn to the right."

"Farewell. Greet Valeria for me. I shall go home and read."

"What are you reading now? still Plato?"

"No, Augustinus. Farewell!"

CHAPTER XXI.

Totila, avoiding the more thickly populated parts of the inner town, hurried through the suburbs towards the Porta Capuana and the tower of Isaac, the Jewish gate-keeper.

This tower stood on the right of the gate, and had strong walls and a ma.s.sive arched roof. It was divided into different stories, each being smaller than the one below it. In the top story, close to the battlements, were two low but roomy chambers, intended for the dwelling of the gate-keeper.

There lived the old Jew, with Miriam, his beautiful daughter.

In the largest of these two rooms--where, against the walls, hung a row of heavy keys belonging to the princ.i.p.al and side doors of this important gate, a curved signal-horn, and the spear of the gate-keeper--sat Isaac, the aged warder, a tall, bony figure, with the hooked nose and arched and bushy eyebrows of his nation. He sat upon a reed mat, with his legs crossed, a long staff laid upon his knees, listening attentively to the words of a young, ill-favoured-looking man, evidently an Israelite, whose hard, sober features were expressive of all the cunning of his race.

"Look here, father Isaac," he was saying, in a thin, unpleasant voice, "my words are no vain words, and do not come only from the heart, which is blind, but from the mind, which is sharp to discern. I have brought letter and doc.u.ment for every word that I speak. Here is my appointment as architect of all the aqueducts in Italy; fifty gold solidi yearly, and ten more for every new undertaking. I have just reconstructed the half-ruined aqueduct for this city of Neapolis; in this purse are the ten solidi, money down. Thou seest I can keep a wife, and besides, I am thy cousin Rachel's son, so do not let me speak in vain, but give me Miriam, thy child, to wife, so that she may set my house in order."

But the old man stroked his long grey beard, and shook his head slowly.

"Jochem, son of Rachel, I say to thee, leave it alone, leave it alone."

"Why, what hast thou against me? Who in Israel can speak against Jochem?"

"No one. Thou art just and peaceful and industrious, and increasest thy substance, and thy work flourisheth before the Lord. But hast thou ever seen the nightingale mated with the sparrow, or the slender gazelle with the beast of burden? They do not suit each other; and now, look there, and tell me thyself if thou art fitted for Miriam?"

He softly pushed aside the curtain which shut off the outer chamber. At a large bow-window which commanded a view of the splendid city, the blue sea, and the distant mountains, stood a young girl, holding a strangely-shaped stringed instrument in her arms. The room was filled with the glowing light of the setting sun, which bathed the white garments and the n.o.ble features of the girl with a rosy l.u.s.tre. It played upon her s.h.i.+ning black hair, which, stroked back behind the small ears, exposed the delicate temples; and, like this suns.h.i.+ne, a poetical harmony seemed to envelop her whole figure, accompanying her every movement, and every dreamy look of her dark blue eyes, which, filled with gentle thoughts, gazed out over sea and city. Piso, the poet, had called these eyes "dark sea-blue."

As if in a half dream, her fingers touched the strings of her instrument softly, while from her half-open lips there breathed an old and melancholy song:

"By the waters of Babylon We sat down and wept.

When comes the day when Israel Shall cease to weep?"

"Shall cease to weep?" she repeated dreamily, and leaned her head upon her arm, which, enclosing the harp, she rested upon the window-sill.

"Look there!" said the old man in a low voice, "is she not as lovely as the rose of Sharon, or the hind upon the mountain, without spot or fleck?"

Before Jochem could answer, there sounded from below three knocks upon the small iron door. Miriam started from her reverie, and hurried down the narrow winding staircase. Jochem went to the window, and his face grew dark and frowning.