Chapter XI

At the interruption, Ænone hastily reseated herself; while Cleotos, in obedience to a quick and significant motion of her finger, remained in the room, and, resuming his position at the table, prepared to continue his writing. The poet Emilius could not, of course, fail to notice this somewhat confused alteration of posture, but no suspicion of having intruded upon an embarrassing scene crossed his mind. He merely saw a proudly erect mistress and a cowering slave; and it was no unusual thing to interrupt a Roman lady in the act of giving even corporeal correction to her attendant, nor did the stranger's entrance always cause the punishment to cease.

'Has the caitiff been insolent?' he exclaimed, in gallant tone, as he approached and seated himself before her. 'Has he dared to look too rebelliously upon so charming a mistress? If so, permit that I may chastise him for you. It is not fit that such fair hands should be obliged to wield the rod.'

'Nay, it is nothing,' she said. 'Nothing, indeed, needing much reproof; and it is all past now. And wherefore have we lately seen so little of you?'

'Commands of court—the claims of Parnassus—all these, fair lady, have withheld me from heretofore giving to beauty its proper meed of admiration and worship. To speak more plainly, I have undertaken, by order of our emperor, the not ungrateful task of weaving a few poetical sentiments to be recited at the opening of our new amphitheatre. And in order that the results of my labor might not lessen my already acquired fame, I judged it most prudent to seclude myself for the past few days from the gayeties of the world, and give myself up to study and meditation. Though, after all, I could not deny, if closely questioned, that my seclusion was but little productive of results; for, upon being tempted out one evening, sorely against my judgment, to a feast at the house of the comedian Bassus, the true poetic inspiration overtook me at the end of my third goblet, and, calling for parchment, I there accomplished, in one short hour, the greater portion of my task.'

'Then, I presume that your ode, unlike your other works, will be of a cheerful and lively character, more especially as it is written for such a festive occasion.'

'Scarcely, perhaps, what the world would call altogether lively, though here and there a thread of playful thought may gleam upon the more sober texture of the basis. I have rather judged it proper that, for the due celebration of an event of such wondrous magnificence, I should give utterance to deeper and more lasting sentiments, so as to fit the minds of the spectators for a higher comprehension of its true significance. But, if you wish, I will read aloud a few of my thoughts; and be assured that so far no eye has seen the scroll, not even the august eye of the emperor Titus himself.'

Ænone inclined her head in assent, and he drew from the breast of his tunic a small roll of parchment, carefully wrapped in a covering of embroidered silk.

'I commence, of course, by an address to the emperor, whom I call the most illustrious of all the Cæsars, and liken unto Jove. I then congratulate the spectators not only upon living in his time, but also upon being there to bask in the effulgence of his majesty; his countenance being the sight most to be desired, and the games and combats being merely accessory thereto. After which, I speak to the gladiators and captives; and prove to them how grateful they should be to the gods for allowing them the privilege of dying in such an august presence.'

'Is it such a privilege, do you think?' inquired Ænone.

'Perhaps not a privilege, but certainly no great hardship. The trained gladiators surely cannot complain, for they have voluntarily assumed the risks; and as for the captives, the most of them will some day die a violent death of some kind or another, and, therefore, why not now, attended by the decent observances of the games and the applause of all the Roman people? But to proceed. From thence I speak of death—its pleasures and its recompenses; showing that, if there be a future life, the gods have done wisely to withhold its exact nature from us, and that, whatever uncertainties may exist in other respects, nothing can be more true than that those who now die in the arena will, in another world, find their highest felicity in the privilege of looking up from a distance at the loved emperor in whose honor they perished, and beholding him enjoying, through adoption, the society of the inhabitants of Olympus. I then—but it is useless to detail all the argument. I will read the poem itself; or rather, if you so permit, I will let this scribe of yours read it for me. Perhaps, upon hearing it from another's mouth, I may be led to make still further corrections.'

Handing the manuscript with all care to Cleotos, the poet leaned back with eyes closed in delicious revery, now and then arousing himself to correct some defective emphasis or unsatisfactory intonation, the tolerance of which, he imagined, would mar the proper effect of the production, or, with persistent desire for praise, momentarily calling closer attention to such passages as appeared to him deserving of especial commendation—and generally omitting no opportunity of exacting that entire admiration to which he believed his genius entitled him. Apart from a somewhat extravagant display of high-strained metaphor, the poem had merit, being bold in scope, sonorous and well rounded in tone, and here and there gracefully decked with original and pleasing thoughts. Throughout the whole, however, the singular propensity of the author for indulgence in morbid and gloomy reflection found its usual development, while every line was laden with lofty maxims of moral philosophy, mingled with urgent incentives to the adoption of a virtuous career;—all, in themselves, both unexceptionable and praiseworthy, but, nevertheless, having a strange sound in the ears of those who recognized them as the utterances of one whose conversation was always flippant and puerile, and whose daily life, in the enormity and uninterrupted persistency of its profligacy, rendered him the acknowledged leader of all that was most disreputable and contaminating in Roman society.

At length, the reading having been fully completed, and the listener's powers of flattery exhausted, the author carefully rewrapped his poem in its silken cover and carried it away, to read it, in turn, to other noble ladies, with the same transparent pretence of giving exclusive hearing of it to each. For a few moments Ænone remained in thoughtful silence, with her head bowed upon her hand; recalling the scattered fragments of the sonorous verses, and wondering why it was that, when each line had seemed so perfect in itself, and every thought so pure and noble in its purport and conception, the whole should have left upon her mind such an undefinable impress of dissatisfaction.

Cleotos, with unobtrusive scrutiny, seemed to read her thoughts, for, at the first intimation of her perplexity, he said:

'It is because the author of those verses has not sincerely felt the full meaning of what he has there written. For, with whatsoever display of ingenious and artistic skill fair sounding maxims of morality may be expressed, yet, if they come not from the heart, their utterance must seem hollow and unreal. I do not know this author—how or where he lives. It may be that in his daily life he is outwardly all that could be desired. But I know this—that he has written about virtue and death, not because he loves the one and fears not the other, but simply because, by a display of well-toned periods, he may more surely hope to gain the applause of the arena and the smiles of the court.'

'But why should not these sentiments, though called into being by personal ambition alone, give equal pleasure as if springing directly from the heart? Are they not, after all, as true?'

'Nay, honored mistress, neither are they true. This is again where they fail to please; for in your soul there is an instinct, though you may not know of it, which forbids that such cold and unsatisfactory reasoning should bring you comfort. He speaks of death: is it cheering to be told that, though the gods have appointed death to every person, they have given it, not as a veiled mercy, but rather as a dreadful fate—that there is no certainty about our future condition, but that, if we are destined to live again, it may be with the same evils encompassing us which bind us now—and that the slave may then still be a slave, destined forever to look up to and worship the high and mighty ones who trampled on him here?'

'That is, in truth, no comfort,' said Ænone. And she bowed her head upon her hands, and sadly thought how worthless to her would be the gift of eternal life, if her present sorrows were to follow her. 'But what can we do? If it were possible to discover and believe in some other fate, telling us that death, instead of being a dreaded pang, is a boon and relief to the sick and weary and oppressed—'

'There is a book,' said Cleotos—and for a moment he hesitated, as though fearful of proceeding—'there is a book which I have read, and which tells us all this. It says that death is not merely a fate, but is a source of blessing; since it leads to a world where the sufferings of this life shall be recompensed with abundant joy, not to the rich merely, but more especially to the poor and lowly.'

'Where is that book?' cried Ænone, with sudden energy, as the wondrous depth and power of the sentiment flashed upon her. 'Where can I see and read it? He who can talk like that, must surely have said still more?'

'I have not that book,' answered Cleotos. 'I have only this little copy of a small portion of it;' and he hesitatingly drew from beneath his tunic a single small leaf of discolored parchment, closely filled with Greek characters. 'But being at Corinth, a year ago, I was permitted to see the book itself, and to hear portions of it read. It was written to a Christian church there, by one Paul, a leader of that sect.'

At the word 'Christian' the first impulse of Ænone was to shrink back, not knowing but that even the presence of one who had ever come into contact with any of that despised sect might be injurious to her. For at once she began to recall many of the tales which she had heard to its discredit—its members hiding as outcasts in the caves and dens of the earth—their repeated insults to the gods—their proud and unaccountable worship of a malefactor—their sacrifice of infants—and other exaggerations and calumnies, begotten in malice or ignorance, and thence widely spread, making it not hard to believe that the only fate fit for those to whom they related was a life of persecution and a cruel death in the arena.

But only for a moment did this instinctive horror control her. The single doctrine which she had just heard advanced already began to bear its fruits. It seemed, indeed, not unlikely that one who could write such truths, and those, his disciples, who could so gratefully treasure them up, might not, after all, be wantonly wicked, but, at the worst, might be merely victims of mistaken zeal. And then, in turn, she thought of much that had been related to her in their favor. During her life at Rome, indeed, she had heard no mention of the Christian sect, unless accompanied with sneers or contempt. But she remembered how that in Ostia, while she was yet a very young girl, she had heard it sometimes whispered that the Christians were kind and loving to all the world, and free from many sins in which other men openly exulted, and that, through their great love for their founder, they organized charities which had never before been even thought of—and how that once, when she had been very sick, a strange woman had nursed her into health and refused all payment for it, alleging that her religion bade her give herself up to such tasks—and how that she had once seen pass by, one who was pointed out to her as a holy man among the sect—whose name indeed she could not remember, but whose mild and serene expression yet lived in her recollection. It was hardly possible that one whose face was so radiant with universal love and benevolence as to impress itself thus lastingly upon the heart of a young child could have been very wicked. Nor did it seem likely that Cleotos, whose greatest weakness was that his life had been almost too innocent and trusting, could speak well of a sect which worthily ought to be persecuted. And then again she thought upon that little book to the sect at Corinth, and she bade Cleotos to read a verse or two. He did so. At another time she might have listened as she had listened to the moral maxims of the poet Emilius—judging well of it, perhaps, for the beauty of its words, but, beyond that, regarding it simply as some new and more original expression of long-accepted philosophy. But now, in her trouble, she felt that there was something in it beyond all known philosophy—a new development of faith, appealing to the heart, and speaking comfort to all who were in misery. It surely could not be that such words were the emanations of an evil influence.

'Art thou—answer me, Cleotos—art thou one of the sect of Christians?' she inquired.

'How can I tell?' he responded. 'I have so often asked that question of my heart, and yet have not been able to understand what it has said to me. There are times when I think that I must pray only to the gods of Olympus, and that all I have heard or read about other gods must be untrue. And again, when I read this little parchment of mine, and remember other like things that have been told to me, and see how they all speak of death as a relief to the sorrowing, and of another life in which the down trodden and the captive shall be recompensed for what they have suffered here, and know that I am one of those who need such recompense—then I think that perhaps the only true God is the God of the Christians. But I can learn so little about it all, that I cannot, from my own judgment, determine which must be right.'

'Perhaps,' thoughtfully responded Ænone, 'it may be that if you tell me all you know about it, I may be able to assist your conclusions. Who knows what light I myself need, or how much of good we may borrow from this new religion? It cannot be wrong to examine for one's self, and the gods will not be angry if we gain good doctrine even from wrong sources, so long as it may make us better. To-morrow, therefore, let us begin.'

Upon the morrow, therefore, and for many succeeding days, the mistress and the slave spent stolen moments in groping after the truth of that faith which makes the high and the low equal. It was a blind search, for neither of them had any definite comprehension of the history and doctrine upon which the new religion had been founded. Cleotos had enjoyed the best opportunities of acquainting himself with it, having naturally, in his wanderings about the East, and in his contact with the poor and enslaved of many lands, heard much respecting the Christian churches and their belief; but having had no instructor, a great portion of what he had thus received came to him in but distorted and puzzling array. And Ænone could not comprehend how, when the gods ruled Rome, and Rome had scattered the Jews, one whom the Jews had had the power to slay could be greater than all. But between them, for their study, lay the leaf of parchment, closely covered with writing, beside which the proudest and choicest philosophy of Rome seemed mockery; and though they could not understand its full meaning, they knew that it spoke such good words that, at the least, though it may have come from erring men, it was no less worthy to have come from a God. Whatever the real nature of the faith itself, here was certainly a proof that among its attributes were mercy and peace and brotherly love toward all.

What might have been the consequences if Ænone had been free to pursue the investigation as far as she wished—to send for other books to aid her—to consult more learned teachers, who, though perhaps hiding in secret shelter, were yet attainable with proper search, cannot be known. It is not improbable that, in the end, one more might have been added to the list of those few Roman women of high degree who even then gave up all their rank and state in order to share the persecutions of the Nazarenes. But it was otherwise ordered. Already indications, each slight in itself, but altogether of important bearing, began to present themselves before her, warning her that jealous eyes were watching her, and that, if she would avoid the consequences of misconstruction, she must bring her feeble investigations to a close.

Until now, Leta, in her struggle to alienate the husband from the wife, had been actuated simply by the exigencies of her ambitious policy. Bearing in her heart no especial hatred toward her mistress, she would willingly have spared her, had not the circumstances of the case seemed to require the ruin of the one preliminary to the exaltation of the other. But now, other incentives to her efforts were added. First in her mind came jealousy of Cleotos; for though she had cast him off, and bade him stifle the yearnings of his heart, and, by the cool exercise of intellect and craft alone, seek a better fortune for himself, it was hardly natural that she should feel pleased to have him so soon appear to take her at her word. She would have better liked to see him display more prolonged sorrow for her loss. Then came jealousy of Ænone, who had apparently been able to console him so early. And mingled with all this, there began to press upon her a startling thought—one which she at first contemned as unlikely and absurd—but which, though continually driven away, so obstinately returned and commended itself to her attention with newer plausibility, that at last she began to give bitter and anxious heed to it. What if this constant communication between Ænone and Cleotos were to result in a mutual love? It was no uncommon thing in those days for the high-born lady to cast her eyes upon the slave. How mortifying to herself, then, if, while she had been exerting all her powers of fascination, taxing the utmost resources of her intellect, and making of her whole existence one labored study for the purpose of gaining an undue influence over the lord, Cleotos, without art or disguise or apparent effort, or any advantage other than that afforded by his simple-hearted, trusting nature, should have quietly won from the other side of the house a victory of almost equal importance? And further than this—what if the lord were to perish in some brawl or by the hired assassin of a rival house; and Ænone, released from her thraldom, and despising conventional scruples—as again was not uncommon among the Roman ladies of that day—were to exalt her favorite with legal honors, and thus make herself, Leta, his slave? This, to be sure, was an improbable chance; but a mind as active as her own did not disdain to foresee and provide against all contingencies.

Then, in addition to everything else, she became absorbed in the one overwhelming and bitter reflection, that after all her sacrifice and labor, the anticipated success might be escaping her. It is true that, thanks to her efforts, the distance between Sergius and Ænone had widened, until it seemed that there could never be a perfect reunion; but all this, if the state of partial neglect which had existed in the beginning could be relied upon as an indication, was a consequence which might easily, in time, have come of itself. It is true that Sergius had yielded himself a willing victim to the unlawful fascinations thrown around him; but yet Leta could not avoid seeing that he regarded her not with the deep, earnest love which she had hoped to inspire, but rather with the trifling carelessness of one giving himself up to the plaything of the hour. Not having, from the very first, been chary of the sidelong glance and the winning smile, and whatever grace of style or manner could tempt him to pursuit, as an illusive appearance of success seemed to beckon her onward, her heart at times grew desperate with the apprehension that all had been in vain. For Sergius, content that the wife whom he neglected did not disturb his repose with idle complaints, had no thought of inflicting any deeper injury upon her, being well satisfied to have her remain and confer honor upon him by the grace with which she maintained the dignity of his house. And though well pleased to sun himself in Leta's smile, there never came to him the thought that the slave could be worthy of any exaltation, or that her highest ambition could prompt her to desire more than a continuance of the companionship with which he honored her. All this Leta began to dimly see; and there were times when, strive to hide it from her heart as she would, it seemed as though he might be even growing weary of her.

Thus tormented with doubt and jealousy and the constantly increasing suspicion of baffled ambition, how was she to act? To accept her situation as a decree of fate, to fawn upon the mistress like a patient slave, and, if the lord were to tire of her in the end and give himself up to other captivations, to submit unmurmuringly to the unavoidable necessity? All this some might consent to do; but surely not one like herself, gifted with indomitable will, and stung to desperation with the sense of great and irreparable sacrifices. To her there could be but one course. She must abandon her slow and cautious policy, and seek the earliest opportunity to urge the matter to its crisis. If, by sparing no watchfulness or ingenuity, or by the exercise of bold and vigorous manœuvring, she could produce a quarrel and final separation between Sergius and his wife, it might not be impossible for her to impress upon him how much she was necessary to his happiness, and thereby elevate herself into the vacant place. And if unsuccessful, at the least she would be but sharing a ruin which would fall like an avalanche upon all alike.