Chapter IV

As Sergius turned and entered the house, those who had seen him saluted as the favorite of the emperor and the idol of the crowd, and thence had believed unbounded happiness must be his never-varying lot, would have been astonished to know how many things there were which rankled painfully in his heart, and, for the moment, made him discontented and fretful.

Thoroughly jealous in respect to his military fame, he was suspicious that the cheers of the crowd upon his ovation had been elicited more by the perfection of the pageantry than by a proper appreciation of his own merits; while it was certain that the Senate, though meeting him with the customary congratulations, had delivered them with more form than enthusiasm. And though the emperor had given audience, he had bestowed no new honors upon him. To these disappointments was added the unhappy, self-accusing consciousness of having failed in duty to his own dignity, by having passed the night in wild revelry and among companions, many of whom were beneath him in every quality except their talent for ribald jesting and buffoonery. Moreover, though reputed wealthy, he was at present pressed for money, and had added to his embarrassments by losing at the gaming table during the past night more than he could well afford to part with; while, to add to all other vexations, the comedian Bassus had not only increased the loss by selecting the most valuable slave, but had performed the action in a cool and calculating manner, which was particularly exasperating.

'The low buffoon!' Sergius muttered to himself. 'Who would have thought that, half drunken as he was, he would have had the wit to select a slave worth double the sum which had been staked against him, and one whom I had obtained with such trouble, and for my own purposes? Can it be that he pretended his intoxication the more easily to outwit me? I had no fear, but believed that he would be sure to select some slim youth who could be taught to play the flute before him or act as cupbearer. What demon put it into his head so suddenly to look for bone and muscle rather than for girlish graces?'

This last suspicion of having been made the victim of artful dissimulation added fuel to his vexation, more especially as, turning his head and glancing into the courtyard, he saw the comedian slipping through a side passage, and the Rhodian obediently following at his heels. This filled up the measure of Sergius's wrath. To his excited fancy the actor bore upon his face an insultingly satisfied smirk of triumph, while the Rhodian appeared larger and stronger than ever. With an exclamation of unavailing anger, Sergius pushed open the door, and stood in the presence of his wife.

It was into the dining hall that he had plunged. Upon a small table was placed the wine and bread and fruits which formed the customary morning meal among the richer Romans; and beside the table stood Ænone, in an attitude in which hope and fear and surprise and disappointment were equally blended.

Clad in the manner which she knew had always best pleased his fancy, wearing the adornments which, as his gifts, he would most naturally prefer to see upon her, with her curling locks parted as in former days he had liked her to dress them, even striving to impart to her features the peculiar radiant expression which, in other times, had most won his heart—she had impatiently awaited his approach, with a vague fear whispering poisonous surmises to her soul, but yet with a joyful and hopeful assurance of good predominating over all. As soon as these friends of his had departed—she had said to herself—he would no longer delay coming to her. He would meet her with extended arms and the same joyous welcome as of old. He would utter kind and pleasant words expressive of his happiness, and would fold her to his heart. There would she nestle and forget her foolish fears and suspicions of the past night, and would only remember that she was loved. As, however, she now saw the frown upon his face, her heart and courage failed her; and in proportion as she had previously fortified her mind with hopeful confidence, a terrible reaction of apprehension overcame her. Could it be that the angry look was for her, and that it could be justified by any word that she had ever spoken or any duty that she had neglected? With one hand lightly resting upon the table, her right foot thrown forward in impulsive readiness to spring into his extended arms, but her whole form drooping and shrinking with dismay, her face pale, and the smile which she had called upon it now faintly and painfully flickering in a deathlike manner about her whitened lips, as it glided from her control and began to give place to an utter and undisguised fear, she stood awaiting his first word or action.

'Ha, Ænone!'

'My lord—'

Then remembering what was due to her upon their first meeting, he smoothed the frown from off his face, held out his arms, and tenderly embraced her, uttering kind and loving words. It was the same gesture with which he had parted from her when, six months before, the state had called upon him to arouse from the ease and tranquility of his wedded life and do new service upon the field. Those were the same gentle and affectionate words which he had been wont to utter. And yet to her quickened apprehension, urged on by some secret instinct, it seemed as though the soul of the tender greeting was gone, leaving but the mere form behind. Could it be that during those few months of absence he had learned to think less dearly of her? At the thought, the last faint gleams of the flickering smile died away from her face; while he, unobservant of her distress, and still goaded by the remembrance of his losses, released her from his embrace and threw himself heavily down upon the nearest lounge.

'I am thirsty,' he said. 'Give me some drink.'

She poured some wine into a goblet, and timidly presented it to his lips. The liquid, cooled with snow from the mountains, was refreshing to his palate, and he drank it to the last drop. As he parted with the goblet—rather tossing it away than setting it down—he noticed how she stood before him with whitened face and frightened features, and with the attitude of a shrinking slave rather than of a wife joyous to be of service. His heart smote him for his negligent greeting, and he rose up from the lounge and placed his arm about her.

'Not with you, Ænone, am I vexed,' he said, partly comprehending the cause of her emotion. And drawing her nearer, he commenced toying with her waving locks, telling her how for months he had been longing to meet her, and how her looks more than ever delighted him, and otherwise uttering such pleasant and reassuring words as soonest came into his mind. As she began to perceive that it was not for any fault of hers that he had displayed anger, her face gradually lost its expression of dread. But still she could not fail to notice that the words which he spoke were not such as are commonly prompted by a true and unpremeditated affection; but were rather the labored and soulless result of a mere good-natured desire to make atonement for a neglect, and were uttered in all the careless spirit with which one tries to soothe an improperly aggrieved child; and the old smile but feebly played upon her features, struggle with it as earnestly as she would.

'Nay, not at your sweet face is my anger excited, Ænone,' he said; 'but at that scurvy dog, Bassus. He should himself be a slave and the companion of slaves, were his true station meted out to him.'

'He with whom you passed the night?' suggested Ænone.

'Ay, he was one of us,' Sergius answered, taking a position nearer the table, and commencing to pick off a crumb of bread as the incentive to a more extended repast. 'He was with us, as there always will be some rude and unmannerly intruder in every company; but there were also others, the associates of Emilius. There was Sotus, the Egyptian, a learned astronomer, and Cyope, the renowned Greek dramatist, and Spoletius, who is now writing a history of the empire, and, if what he says is true, has already brought his work down to the time of the Emperor Nero—'

'And will carry it on until he reaches the present day! And will then, in their proper place, tell about your achievements, my lord!' exclaimed Ænone, a flush of expectation glowing upon her face, as she thought that here were her conjectures of the preceding evening about to be realized.

'Ay!' responded Sergius; 'I presume that he will speak of me and of what you dignify as my achievements, foolishly fond child; and therefore it was meet that I should not neglect the opportunity of being in his presence, in order that he might speak well of me rather than the reverse. Otherwise, you well know that I would have preferred to let revelling have the go-by, and to have come at once to gather you to my heart. But we men, whom the world calls celebrated, must be watchful, and learn to resign pleasure to duty, and guard our fame, or else it may go out like a wasted lamp, and leave it in the darkness of oblivion. We cannot spare our time to give free scope to our love, as though we were poor and unknown.'

Ænone reproached herself for her suspicions. Surely she had done wrong in distrusting him for the coldness of his greeting. He may have meant nothing but love and kindness, and have been weighed down by cares and anxieties which she could not comprehend. Had he not said that something had made him angry? He, the great imperator, to have been ruffled by the conduct of a low comedian, whose company his interest obliged him to tolerate! She would yet be patient and wait.

'And not only Spoletius, the historian, but also others, poets and philosophers, whose good will it is proper to secure, and whose conversation would be improving to the gods themselves,' continued Sergius, almost blushing as he remembered how little philosophy had been spoken during the past night, excepting that shallow doctrine which inculcates full enjoyment of the passing pleasure of the world, lest death might come and too suddenly end them; and how little poetry had been recited, except as roared forth in the form of bacchanalian choruses. 'And even this Bassus it were worth my while to condescend to, lest the notion might seize him to satirize me upon the public stage. And it was to conciliate him that I lost to him twenty sestertia and a well-favored slave. May it not be that I paid too high a price for his friendship, and hence have a right to be angry?'

'But let my lord reflect that he has many slaves—more than he well can find use for; and that, therefore, one less may not be of great consequence to him.'

'Nay, but such a slave!' responded Sergius; 'tall, almost, as my armor bearer, and strong as an elephant! A man who was worth to me all those others, thrice over, for the use to which I could have put him. The rest will doubtless be of good account in their way. Some of them will go and dig in my quarries, and a few will be exposed in the market, and will bring their proper price. But this Rhodian—listen! You know that in a few weeks the new amphitheatre of our emperor will be opened with grand spectacles lasting many days. At my audience with him last evening he spoke thereupon, and of the wild beasts he had sent for to give dignity to the occasion; but of this anon. You know that for months all Rome has been preparing for that time?'

Ænone nodded assent. Even had she desired, she could not have remained ignorant that the great colossus of all amphitheatres was approaching completion, since, from her window, she could look down the Appian Way and watch every stone being laid, while, in all societies, the magnitude and magnificence of the approaching games were the theme of universal conversation.

'Well,' continued Sergius, 'months ago—I hardly remember how many—I wagered with the proconsul Sardesus that I would furnish for the games the superior gladiator of the two. Fifteen purses of a hundred sestertia each; a large sum, but the larger the better, since I had my armor bearer in my mind, and felt certain to win. But since then I have become attached to this Drumo. The dog has twice saved my life, and hence has become too precious to be risked; for though he would most likely win the day, yet a chance thrust might destroy him at the end. I therefore looked around for a substitute, and found him—this Rhodian slave. Day after day I marked him in the opposite ranks, fighting against us, and I gave orders to capture him alive. Twice we thought we had secured him, and as often did he break away, killing many of our men. But at last the commander of one of my cohorts obtained possession of his wife and five children, and sent him word that each day, until he delivered himself up, one of them should be put to death.'

'Surely that thing was not done?' exclaimed Ænone, horror struck.

'As I live, it was not ordered by me, nor did I learn of the scheme until it was too late to arrest it,' responded Sergius; 'else would I have forbidden it. But what would you expect? War has its practices, and mercy is not exactly one of them. And cruelties will happen, do what we may. Whatever transpired, therefore, was the work of the commander of my first cohort, to whom I had given directions to take the man alive, and who knew that it must be done, and without troubling me about the process. Perhaps you do not care to hear the rest?'

'Go on,' said Ænone, shuddering with a sickening apprehension of what was to come.

'Well, the first day his oldest child was slain, and the body sent to him; and the next day the second one slain, and in like manner sent to him; and so on until but his wife and one child were left. Then he came in and gave himself up.'

'And this brave man—fighting for his country—you have made a slave of!' exclaimed Ænone, impetuously. 'He has been stripped of his family one by one, and now you would place him in the arena, to be the victim of wild beasts, or at the best, of other slaves!'

'What else would you wish? The man is of a warlike nature; and it were better for him to bravely contend for his life in the presence of the emperor himself, than ignominiously to wear it out in the base labor of the quarries. And I will tell you what I meant to have done. I know where are his wife and remaining child, with whom he yesterday entered Rome; and if in the amphitheatre he had won the victory for me, I would have restored them to him and given him his freedom besides. But all that is past now. In the heat of the moment I forgot him, and suffered this drunken dog, Bassus, to take his choice; and he has had too good an eye for what is valuable not to select the Rhodian. Strange, indeed, that I should have been so careless. But throughout all, I never dreamed that his taste would lead him to do more than choose some slight-built boy, who could assist him in his trade. Once, indeed, I feared for the moment that he would select amiss, and take a rarely precious dwarf, whom, both for his appearance and for his knowledge of armor, I had reserved as a gift for your father; and when that danger was past, I breathed freer, not calculating upon any further mischance.'

Ænone remained silent. Ready as she was at all times to give her utmost sympathy to her husband for the slightest annoyance which he might experience, it seemed to her now that his complaining was puerile and unjust, so utterly had the sense of his disappointment been swallowed up, in her thoughts, by the real and tragic woe of the Rhodian captive. Finding day after day his dead children laid at his very door—then separated rudely from all who were left—and in the end brought chained into the arena, and obliged to fight to the death for the pleasure of his conquerors, and perhaps against his own countrymen: why should such things be? Ænone was no nerveless creature to faint at the sight of blood. The education of all Romans of that day was adapted to a far different result, and she could look with enjoyment upon the contests of wild beasts, or even view without disapprobation the struggles of gladiators trained to their work as to a profession, and, of their own free will and with full knowledge, taking its risks upon themselves. And yet, for all that, she could not but feel that every hour there were being enacted around her, and as a part of the daily workings of the social system, abuses of power, which, like the present, nothing could justify; and she wondered whether it would last forever, or whether, on the contrary, the outraged gods would not some day arise and pour down upon this imperial Rome the vengeance due to the oppressed.

Sergius partially read her thoughts, and set himself to work to reverse their current and turn it into a more cheerful channel. Drawing his seat closer to her, he began to speak to her of more pleasant topics, telling of the enlivening incidents of his campaign, rehearsing the exploits of those about him, and dwelling upon the few occasions in which, by some unusual departure from martial customs, mercy had been shown to the weak and helpless, and captives who were not fit for slaves had not been crucified. The gift of fascination was one of his distinguishing traits; and when he chose, he could charm, with his winning speech, the most obdurate and unloving. Therefore, as he now softly whispered these narrations into Ænone's ears, mingling gentle words of endearment with them, it was not long before she began to yield to the pleasant influence, and was almost ready to believe that she had judged rashly, and that everything upon earth was not so very wrong. Why, after all, should she presume to criticize matters which did not arouse the discontent of the wisest of men? And if the gods felt really outraged, why did they let their thunders sleep so long? At the least, it was not the duty of herself, a weak girl, to strive to right the world. Her only domain must be her lord's heart—her only rule of life, his will.

Leaning upon his shoulder, and looking up into his face as she listened, she thought upon the old times, when she had first met him, and how he had then, as now, so successfully exerted his powers of charming, that it had seemed as though no mere earthly love could be good enough reward for him. Could it be that in her distrust she had been the victim of a momentary delusion, and that he would always exert himself hereafter, as now, to please her? Might it not be, after all, that this great happiness, with its tender whisperings and caresses, would ever continue unbroken, as in past times?

'But, aha!' he suddenly exclaimed, in the tone of one newly awakened to the existence of a fact whose comparative unimportance had led to its forgetfulness by him. 'Let not my own losses make me indifferent to your pleasure, love, for I have not been so. For you, and you alone, I have reserved a gift fit for the palace of the Cæsars.'

'A gift, my lord? And for me?'

'Yes; but ask me no questions now. You shall see it to-morrow. A few hours only of mystery and waiting must yet elapse before I will bring it to you. Until then you can enjoy a woman's pleasure and nurse your greedy curiosity—hopeless of solving the enigma until I myself choose to give the clew.'