Kitabı oku: «Domitia», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX.
SHEATHED

According to an Oriental legend, the dominion of Solomon over the spirits resided in the power of his staff on which he stayed himself. So long as he wielded that, none might disobey.

But the Jins sent a white ant up through the floor, that ate out the heart of the rod, so that when he leaned on it, it gave way and resolved itself into a cloud of fine powder. Solomon fell, and his authority was at an end forever.

The termites that consumed the core of the sceptre of Nero were his own vices and follies. Its power was at an end and his fall as sudden as in the case of Solomon, and as unexpected.

In March he was possessed of dominion over the world, and was at the head of incalculable forces. In June all was dissolved in the dust of decay; he was prostrate, helpless, bereft of the shadow of authority, unable to command a single slave. The first token of what was about to take place was this.

In Rome the rabble was kept in good humor by the Cæsars distributing among them bread gratis, and entertaining them with shows free of charge.

During the winter, contrary winds had delayed the corn-ships from Egypt, and the amount of bread distributed was accordingly curtailed. Games were, indeed, promised, but these would serve as condiments to the bread and not as substitutes. Then a vessel arrived in port, and the hungry people believed that she was laden with the wished-for corn. When, however, they learned that her cargo was white sand for strewing the arena at the sports, they broke into a storm of discontent and swept, howling insulting words, under Nero’s windows.

Next day all Rome heard that Galba, at the head of the legions of Spain and Gaul, was marching into Italy, and that none of the troops of Nero sent to guard the frontier of the Alps would draw a sword in his defence.

The prince, now only seriously alarmed, bade his household guard conduct him to Ostia, where he would mount the vessel that had discharged its load of sand, and escape to Egypt. They contemptuously refused, and disbanded. Then, in an agony of fear, Nero left the Palatine, and fled across the river to the Servilian mansion that adjoined the racecourse, to light which he had burned Christians swathed in tarred wraps.

There he found none save his secretary Epaphroditus, whom he had sent there to be chained at the door, and to act as porter because he had offended him. Guards, freedmen, courtiers, actors, all had taken to their heels, but not before they had pillaged the palace.

He wandered about the house, knocking at every door, and nowhere meeting with an answer.

Night by this time had settled in, murk and close, but at intervals electric flashes shivered overhead.

Then suddenly the earth reeled, and there passed a sound as of chariot wheels rolling heavily through the streets; yet the streets were deserted. Trembling, despairing, Nero crouched on his bed, bit his nails till he had gnawed them to the quick, then started up and hunted for his jewel case. He would fly on foot, carrying that, hide in some hovel, till danger was past. But a thievish slave had stolen it.

Sick at heart, picking, then biting at his nails, shrinking with apprehension at the least noise, wrapping a kerchief about a finger where blood came, he looked with dazed eyes at the red flare of the heavenly fires pulsating through his open door.

He heard a step and ran out, to encounter a freedman, Phaon by name, who was coming along the passage, holding aloft a torch, attended by two slaves.

The wretched prince clung to him, and entreated that he might not be left alone; that Phaon would protect him, and contrive a means of escape.

“Augustus!” answered the freedman, “I am not ungrateful for favors shown me, but my assistance at this hour is unavailing. I am but one man, a stranger, a Greek, and all Rome, all Italy, the entire world, have risen against you.”

“I must fly. They will allow me to earn my livelihood on the stage. Of what value to any man is my life?”

“My lord, in what value have you held the lives of the thousands that you have taken? Each life cut off has raised against you a hundred enemies. All will pursue, like a pack of hounds baying for the blood of him who murdered their kinsfolk. Even now I passed one – Lucius Ælius Lamia, – and he stayed me to inquire where you might be found. In his hand he held an unsheathed sword.”

Nero shrieked out; then looked timidly about him, terrified at the sound of his own voice.

“Let us hide. Disguise me. Get me a horse. I cannot run, I am too fat; besides, I have on my felt slippers only.”

Phaon spoke to one of his slaves, and the man left.

“Master,” said the freedman, “Do not deceive yourself. There is no escape. Prepare to die as a man. Slay yourself. It is not hard to die. Better so fall than get into the hands of implacable enemies.”

“I cannot. I have not the courage. I will do it only when everything fails. I have many theatrical wigs. I can paint my face.”

“Sire! the people are so wont to see your face besmeared with color, that they are less likely to recognize a face bleached to tallow.”

“I have a broad-brimmed fisherman’s hat. I wear it against becoming freckled. That will shade my face. Find me an ample cloak. Here, at length, comes Sporus.”

An eunuch appeared in the doorway.

Breathless, in short, broken sentences, Nero entreated him to look out in his wardrobe for a sorry mantle, and to bring it him.

“But whither will – can you go?” asked Phaon. “The Senate has been assembled – it has been convoked for midnight to vote your deposition and death.”

“I will go before it. Nay! I will haste to the Forum, I will mount the Tribune. I will ask to be given the government of Egypt. That at least will not be refused me.”

“My lord, the streets are filling with people. They will tear you to pieces ere you reach the Forum.”

“Think you so! Why so? I have amused the people so well. Good Phaon, hire me a swift galley, and I will take refuge with Tiridates. I restored to him the crown of Armenia. He will not be ungrateful.”

“My lord, it will not be possible for you to leave Italy.”

“Then I will retire to a farm. I will grow cabbages and turnips. The god Tiberius was fond of turnips. O Divine Powers that rule the fate of men! shall I ever eat turnips again? Phaon, hide me for a season. Men’s minds are changeable. They are heated now. They will cool to-morrow. They cannot kill such a superlative artist as myself.”

“I have a villa between the Salarian and the Nomentane Roads. If it please you to go thither – ”

“At once. I think I hear horse-hoofs. O Phaon, save me!”

Sporus came up, offering an old moth-eaten cloak. The wardrobe had been plundered, only the refuse had been abandoned.

A voice was heard pealing through the empty corridors: “Horses! horses at the door!”

“Who calls so loud? Silence him. He will betray us!” said Nero. “Hah! It is Epaphroditus.”

At the entrance, chained to a cumbrous log, was the Greek, Epaphroditus, formerly a pampered favorite. But two days previously he had ventured to correct a false quantity in some verses by his master, and Nero, in a burst of resentment and mortified vanity, had ordered him to be fastened to a beam as doorkeeper to the Servilian Palace.

“The horses are here,” shouted the freedman. “May it please my lord to mount. Sporus and the slaves can run afoot.”

Nero unwound the kerchief from his hand and wrapped it about his throat, drew the broad-brimmed hat over his head, enveloped himself in the blanket cloak, and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

The chained Greek at once cried out: “Master! my chain has become entangled and is so knotted that I cannot stir. I have been thus since noon, and none have regarded me. I pray thee, let me go.”

“Thou fool! cease hallooing!” retorted Nero angrily. “Dost think I carry about with me the key of thy shackles?” Then to those who followed, “Smite him on the mouth and silence him, or he will call attention to me.”

“The gods smite thee!” yelled the scribe, striving to reach an upright posture, but falling again, owing to the tangle in the links. “May they blight thee as they have stricken Livia’s laurel!”³

Mounted on an old gray horse, Nero rode to the Ælian Bridge, where stands now that of St. Angelo, crossed it and began to traverse the Campus Martius.

Electric flashes quivered across the sky. Then again an earthquake made the city rock as if drunk; the buildings were rent, and masses of cornice fell down.

A glare of white lightning illumined the whole field and lighted up the mausoleum of Augustus, and the blank faces of such men as were abroad.

The horse trembled and refused to move. It was some time before the alarm of the brute could be allayed, and it could be coaxed to go forward and begin the ascent of the Quirinal. The advance was slow; and Nero’s fears became greater as the road approached the Prætorian Camp, and he expected recognition by the sentinels. Yet in the midst of his fear wild flashes of hope shot, and he said to Phaon:

“What think you, if I were to enter the camp? Surely the Prætorians would rally about me, and I might dissolve the Senate.”

“Sire, they have destroyed your images, and have proclaimed Galba. They would take off your head and set it on a pike.”

Nero uttered a groan, and kicked the flanks of his steed. At that moment a passer-by saluted him.

“By the Immortals! I am recognized.”

“We have but to go a little further.”

“Phaon, what if the Senate declare me an enemy of the State?”

“Then you will fare in the customary manner.”

“How is that?”

The prince put his trembling hand to his brow and in his agitation knocked off his hat.

The freedman picked it up.

“The customary manner, sire! your neck will be put in the cleft of a forked stick and you will be beaten, lashed, kicked to death. Better take the sword and fall on it.”

“Oh, Phaon! not yet! I cannot endure pain. I have a spring nail now – and it hurts! it hurts!”

“Ride on, my lord; at the cypress hedge we will turn our horses loose, and by a path through the fields reach my villa.”

Half an hour after Nero had left the Servilian palace, where now stands the Lateran, Lamia arrived followed by two servants. He found the secretary in a heap at the door, vainly writhing in his knotted chains. Lamia at once asked him about the prince, whether he was there.

“I will both answer and show you whither he is fled,” said Epaphroditus, “if you will release me. Otherwise my tongue is tied like my limbs.”

“Is he here?”

“Nay, he has been here, but is gone. Whither I alone can say. The price of the information is release.”

“Tell me where I can find tools.”

Epaphroditus gave the required information and Lamia despatched a servant to bring hammer and chisel. They were speedily produced; but some time was taken up in cutting through the links.

This, however, was finally effected, and the secretary gathered up a handful of the broken chain and clenched it in his fist.

“Now I will lead the way,” said he, stretching himself.

The wretched, fallen emperor had in the meanwhile scrambled through hedges and waded through a marsh, and had at last found a temporary shelter in a garden tool-house of the villa. Phaon feared to introduce him into his house.

Wearied out, he cast himself on a sort of bier on which the gardeners carried citron trees to and from the conservatory. The cloak had fallen from him and lay on the soil.

His feet were muddy and bleeding. He had tried to eat some oat-cake that had been offered him, but was unable to swallow.

He continued to be teased with, and to pick or bite at his spring nails.

“I hear steps!” he cried. “They will kill me!”

“Sire, play the man.”

Phaon offered him a couple of poniards.

Nero put the point of one to his breast, shrunk and threw it away.

“It is too blunt, it will not enter,” he said.

He tried the other and dropped it.

“It is over sharp. It cuts,” he said.

At that moment the door opened and Lamia and Epaphroditus entered.

Nero cried out and covered his face:

“Sporus! Phaon! one or both! kill yourselves and show me how to do it.”

“To do it!” said Lamia sternly. “That is not difficult. Do you need a sword? Here is one – the sword of Corbulo.”

He extended the weapon to the prince, who accepted it with tremulous hand, looking at Lamia with glassy eyes.

“Oh! a moment! I feel sick.”

Then Phaon said: “Sire – at once!”

Then Nero, with all power going out of his fingers, pointed the blade to his throat.

“I cannot,” he gasped, “my hand is numb.”

Immediately, Epaphroditus with his hand full of chain, brought the weighted fist against the haft, and drove the sword into the coward’s throat.

He sank back on the bier.

Then Lamia stooped, gathered up the moth-eaten cloak, and threw it over the face of the dying man.

CHAPTER X.
UBI FELICITAS?

“Push, my dear Domitia, Push. Of course. What else would you have, but Push?”

“But, sweetest mother, that surely cannot give what I ask.”

“Indeed, my child, it does. It occupies all one’s energies, it exerts all one’s faculties, and it fills the heart.”

“But – what do you gain?”

“Gain, child? – everything. The satisfaction of having got further up the ladder; of exciting the envy of your late companions, the admiration of the vulgar, the mistrust of those above you.”

“Is that worth having?”

“Of course it is. It is – that very thing you desire, Happiness. It engages all your thoughts, stimulates your abilities. You dress for it; you prepare your table for it, accumulate servants for it, walk, smile, talk, acquire furniture, statuary, bronzes, and so on – for it. It is charming, ravishing. I live for it. I desire nothing better.”

“But I do, mother. I do not care for this.”

The girl spoke with her eyes on a painting on the wall of the atrium that represented a young maiden running in pursuit of a butterfly. Beneath it were the words “Ubi Felicitas?”

“Because you are young and silly, Domitia. When older and wiser, you will understand the value of Push, and appreciate Position. My dear, properly considered, everything can be made use of for the purpose – even widowhood, dexterously dealt with, becomes a vehicle for Push. It really is vexatious that in Rome there should just now be such broils and effervescence of minds, proclamation of emperors, cutting of throats, that I, poor thing, here in Gabii run a chance of being forgotten. It is too provoking. I really wish that this upsetting of Nero, and setting up of Galba, and defection of Otho, and so on, had been postponed till my year of widowhood were at an end. One gets no chance, and it might have been so effective.”

“And when you have obtained that at which you have aimed?”

“Then make that the start for another push.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then, my dear, you have the gratification of being able to lay the blame on some one else. You have done your utmost.”

“When you have gained what you aimed at, you are not content.”

“That is just the beauty of Push. No, always go on to what is beyond.”

“Look at that running girl, mother, she chases a butterfly, and when she has caught the lovely insect she crushes it in her hand. The glory of its wings is gone, its life is at an end. What then?”

“She runs after another butterfly.”

“And despises and rejects each to which she has attained?”

“Certainly!”

After a pause Longa Duilia said, as she signed to Lucilla the slave to fan her, “That was the one defect in your dear father’s character, he had no Push.”

“Mother! can you say that after his splendid victories, over the Chauci, over the Parthians, over – ”

“I know all about them. They should have served as means, child, not as ends.”

“I do not understand.”

“Poor simple man, he fought the enemies of Rome and defeated them, because it was, as he said, his duty to his country, to Rome, to do so. But, by Ops and Portumna! that was talking like a child. What might he not have been with those victories? But he couldn’t see it. He had it not in him. Some men are born to squint; some have club feet; and your poor dear father had no ambition.”

After a pause the lady added: “When I come to consider what he might have done for me, had he possessed Push, it makes my spleen swell. Just consider! What is Galba compared with him? What any of these fellows who have been popping up their heads like carp or trout when the May flies are about? My dear, had your dear father been as complete a man as I am a woman, at this moment I might be Empress.”

“That would have contented you.”

“It would have been a step in that direction.”

“What more could you desire?”

“Why, to be a goddess. Did not the Senate pronounce Poppæa divine, and to be worshipped and invoked, after Nero had kicked her and she died? And that baby of his – it died of fits in teething – that became a goddess also. Nasty little thing! I saw it, it did nothing but dribble and squall, but is a god for all that. My dear Domitia, think! the Divine Duilia! Salus Italiæ, with my temples, my altars, my statues. By the Immortal Twelve, I think I should have tried to cut out Aphrodite, and have been represented rising from the foam. Oh! it would have been too, too lovely. But there! it makes me mad – all that might have been, and would have been to a certainty, had your dear father listened to me at Antioch. But he had a head.” She touched her brow. “Something wrong there – no Push.”

“But, dearest mother, this may be an approved motive for such as you and for all nobles. But then – for the artisan, the herdsman, the slave, Push can’t be a principle of life to such as they.”

“My child, how odd you are! What need we consider them? They may have their own motives, I can’t tell; I never was a herdsman nor a slave – never did any useful work in my life. As to a slave, of course Push is a motive – he pushes to gain his freedom.”

“And when he has got that?”

“Then he strives to accumulate a fortune.”

“And then?”

“Then he will have a statue or a bust of himself sculptured, and when he gets old, erect a splendid mausoleum.”

“And so all ends in a handful of dust.”

“Of course. What else would you have? – Remember, a splendid mausoleum.”

“Yes, enclosing a pot of ashes. That picture teaches a sad truth. Pursue your butterfly: when you have caught it, you find only dust between your fingers.”

“Domitia! as the Gods love me! I wish you would refrain from this talk. It is objectionable. It is prematurely oldening you, and what ages you reflects on me – it advances my years. I will listen to no more of this. If you relish it, I do not; go, chatter to the Philosopher Claudius Senecio, he is paid to talk this stuff.”

“I will not speak to him. I know beforehand what he will say.”

“He will give you excellent advice, he is hired to do it.”

“O yes – to bear everything with equanimity. That is the sum and substance of his doctrine. Then not to be too wise about the Gods; to aim to sit on the fulcrum of a see-saw, when I prefer an end of the plank.”

“Equanimity! I desire it with my whole soul.”

“But why so, mother? It is not running thought, but stagnation.”

“Because, my dear, it keeps off wrinkles.”

“Mother, you and I will never understand each other.”

“As the Gods love me, I sincerely hope not. Send me Plancus, Lucilla. I must scold him so as to soothe my ruffled spirits.”

“And, Euphrosyne, go, send the Chaldæan to me in the garden,” said the girl.

The slave obeyed and departed.

“Ubi Felicitas? Running, pursuing and finding nothing,” said Domitia as she went forth.

The sun was hot. She passed under an arched trellis with vines trained over it; the swelling bunches hung down within.

At intervals in the arcade were openings through which could be seen the still lake, and beyond the beautiful ridges of the limestone Sabine Mountains. The air was musical with the hum of bees.

Domitia paced up and down this walk for some while.

Presently the Magus appeared at the end, under the guidance of the girl Euphrosyne.

He approached, bowing at intervals, till he reached Domitia, when he stood still.

“Ubi Felicitas?” asked she. And when he raised his eyebrows in question, she added in explanation: “There is a picture in the atrium representing a damsel in pursuit of a butterfly, and beneath is the legend I have just quoted. When she catches the butterfly it will not content her. It will be a dead pinch of dust. It is now some months since you spoke on the Artemis, when I asked you a question, and then you were forced to admit that all your science was built up on conjecture, and that there was no certainty underlying it. But a guess is better than nothing, and a guess that carries the moral sense with it in approval, may come near to the truth. I recall all you then said. Do not repeat it, but answer my question, Ubi Felicitas? I asked it of my mother, and she said that it was to be found in Push. If I asked Senecio, he would say in Equanimity. Where say you that it is to be found?”

“The soul of man is a ray out of the Godhead,” answered the Magus, “it is enveloped, depressed, smothered by matter; and the straining of the spirit in man after happiness is the striving of his divine nature to emancipate itself from the thraldom of matter and return to Him from whom the ray emanated.”

“Then felicity is to be found – ?”

“In the disengagement of the good in man from matter, which presses it down, and which is evil.”

“Evil!” exclaimed Domitia, looking through one of the gaps in the arcade, at the lake; on a balustrade above the water stood a dreaming peacock, whilst below it grew bright flowers. Beyond, as clouds, hung the blue Sabine hills.

“The Divine ray,” said the girl, “seems rarely to delight in its incorporation in Matter, and to find therein its expression, much as do our thoughts in words. May it not be that Primordial Idea is inarticulate without Matter in which to utter itself?”

“Felicity,” continued the Chaldæan, disregarding the objection, “is sought by many in the satisfying of their animal appetites, in pleasing eye and ear and taste and smell. But in all is found the after-taste of satiety that gluts. True happiness is to be sought in teaching the mind to dispense with sensuous delights, and to live in absorption in itself.”

“Why, Elymas!” said Domitia. “In fine, you arrive by another method at that Apathy which Senecio the Stoic advocates. I grant you give a reason – which seems to me lame – but it is a reason, whereas he supplies none. But I like not your goal – Apathy is the reverse from Felicity. Leave me.”

The Magus retired, mortified at his doctrine being so ill received.

Then Euphrosyne approached timidly.

Domitia, who was in moody thought, looked up. The girl could not venture to speak till invited to do so by her mistress.

“Your lady mother has desired me to announce to you that Lucius Ælius Lamia hath ridden over from Rome.”

“I will come presently,” said Domitia; “I am just now too troubled in mind. You, child, tell me, where is the physician, Luke?”

“Lady, I do not know; he quitted us on reaching Rome.”

“Stay, Euphrosyne. Thine is a cheerful spirit. Where is felicity to be found?”

“My gracious mistress, I find mine in serving thee – in my duty.”

“Ah, child! That is the sort of reply my father might have made. In the discharge of what he considered his duty, he was of a wondrous sweet and equable temper. Is it so, that Felicity is only to be found in the discharge of duty? And those torpid flies, the young loafers of our noble families, whose only occupation is to play ball, and whose amusements are vicious; they have it not because none has set them tasks. The ploughman whistles as he drives his team; the vineyard rings with laughter at the gathering of the grapes. The galley-slaves chant as they bend over the oar, and the herdboy pipes as he tends the goats. So each is set a task, and is content in discharge thereof, and each sleeps sweetly at night, when the task is done. But what! is happiness reserved to the bondsman, and not for the master? And only then for the former when the duty imposed is reasonable and honest? – For there is none when such an order comes as to fall on the sword or to open the veins. How about us great ladies? And the noble loafers? No task is set us and them.”

“Surely, lady, to all God has given duties!”

“Nay – when, where, how? Look at me, Euphrosyne. When I was a little child here, we had a neighbor, Lentulus. He was a lie-abed, and a sot. He let his servants do as they liked, make love, quarrel, fight, the one lord it over the other, and all idle, because on none was imposed any duty. It was a villainous household, and the estate went to the hammer. It seems to me, Euphrosyne, as if this whole world were the estate of Lentulus on a large scale, where all the servants squabbled, and one by sheer force tyrannizes over the others, and none know why they are placed there, and what is their master’s will, and what they have to do. There is no day-table of work. There is either no master over such a household, or he is an Olympian Lentulus.”

“But, mistress, is that not impossible?”

“It would seem so, and yet – Where is the Day-Table? Show me that – and, by the Gods! it will be new life to me. I shall know my duty – and see Happiness.”