His heart was like a huge stone. He wished to pray for the soul of his father, which was now wandering in some ghostly Elysian field, faintly clamoring and lonely. But he could think, even then, only of Rubria, the bright, the young, the tender and the adorable, who would soon travel that grievous path into the depths of death and be lost to him forever.
Chapter Eleven
Rubria recovered a little, enough to be carried out under a tree in the warm spring sunlight. The ghostly aspect of her face lightened into a faint color. Keptah had told Diodorus that young maidens frequently had these relapses into partial invalidism. The devoted father did not know that the long sleeves the girl wore, and the woolen garments in spite of the heat, were to hide from his eyes the dolorous bleeding under her thin skin, and to warm her failing body. It had been arranged between him and Aurelia that she and Rubria would not leave for Rome until the autumn. In the meantime heated letters passed between him and the senator in the matter of the dowry.
Cusa, as much as possible, and when Lucanus pleased him particularly, would permit Lucanus to bring his lessons into the garden near Rubria in order that the youth could be with the maiden. Rubria no longer studied; her waning strength, her languor, her sudden fallings into slumber prohibited all strain. But she would smile with infinite sweetness when Lucanus recited. She would laugh gently at some of Cusa’s sallies. He had always believed he was a wit; for the benefit of the girl Cusa often lay awake at night, inventing witticisms or gay stories. The heart of the crafty Greek had become like butter in the presence of Rubria. Believing only that all men were evil, that they were incapable of truly disinterested motives, that they were wolfish by nature and dissolute in all their thoughts, he marveled at himself. Before this girl one could be inspired only by love.
There were slave girls in this household more beautiful than this maiden. In comparison with Iris, old enough to be her mother, she was as a mortal compared with a shining goddess. Yet Cusa began to believe that never had there been born so perfectly lovely a creature. As her face thinned in its slender brownness, her dark eyes became enormous, shining, filled with a supernatural light, moist with dreams and love. Her mouth, Cusa would say to himself, was like a flower. Her long black hair seemed spun of glass, falling in a cascade over her young shoulders and girlish breast. She would lie back in her chair, her legs and feet covered with wool rugs even on the hottest day, and the outlines of her body took on an impalpable look, like the outlines of a spirit. When she slept she seemed not to breathe. She would awaken as suddenly as she had fallen into a doze, and would look about her with ardent shyness and affection. A Roman maiden, of a noble family, she treated slaves with the courtesy one extended to equals. She embraced life with dearness and reverence. As her mortal life declined her soul took on dimensions beyond the understanding of men.
When with her, one was convinced that all existence was good and full of meaning and poetry. Her favorite birds would light on her shoulder to eat of the bread or fruit she held in her lips for them. They would perch on her delicate finger and lean towards her eagerly, as if to learn from her some ineffable secret. Even the sun appeared to be brighter when she was present, and to shine more warmly upon her. If she were in pain, none knew it but Keptah. Tranquillity and serenity surrounded her like an aura; she was without fear. During the past months, since her sickness had seized her again, she had become a woman, and, in Cusa’s humble belief, a divinity.
He knew that she was dying; all knew it, except the passionately devoted father. Cusa suspected that Rubria knew also. Her sublime patience, her tenderness, her way of looking all about the garden and at every face with quiet intensity and delight assured him that she understood that she would leave here before the winter came. Yet she never complained; she only smiled as if possessed of some divine secret.
And daily Lucanus became sterner and colder, except when with Rubria. The austerity of his face seemed worn down to the bone. He grieved for his father, and this Rubria knew. She had rarely seen Aeneas, but she suffered for Iris and Lucanus. She did not speak of the dead man, but sometimes she would sigh, looking at her old playmate. It was at her specific request that Lucanus ate often with her and her parents, when she had the strength to appear in the dining hall. To spare her father anxiety, she would come, walking slowly and weakly, to her place at the table. When there, all her attention was for Diodorus, and he would look at her lovingly. He believed she was improving. Keptah evaded his sharpest questions in a soothing tone.
Diodorus, happy that Carvilius Ulpian had finally agreed to his terms of the dowry, was elated in his belief that his daughter was improving slowly and steadily. He was also elated that Aurelia would bear him a son. “Naturally,” he would say with fondness to his wife, “it will be a boy. Have I not sacrificed enough to the gods? Only yesterday I sacrificed a hecatomb, and the prices these Syrians charge, the thieves! I have dedicated the boy to Mars. He must be born in Rome, of course, not in this scurvy land.”
Aurelia would smile at him. When sometimes he found her in tears, she would say to him hastily, “You must remember that women have these vagaries during the time they are with child. Put your hand upon my belly, dearest; feel your son leap like a lamb. Ah, he is strong! He is almost worthy of his father.”
One day in late summer Rubria and Lucanus were alone together under the shade of a great green and glittering tree. Lucanus was sitting beside her as she drowsed, doing his lessons and unrolling his books for reference. Then all at once a fearful weariness came over him, and a sensation of overpowering despair. He put aside his tablets and his stylus. He looked at Rubria, at the long black lashes lying like shadows on her pale cheeks, at her folded hands, which were as transparent as alabaster. She had an aspect of death, of utter surrender, her breast hardly stirring. Then he knew, with absolute finality, in spite of his rebellion, in spite of his crying and sometimes blasphemous prayers, in spite of the pitting of his will against that of God, that she would die, and very soon. Her cheekbones were like ivory under her diminished flesh; her throat was a stalk. Lucanus let his head drop slowly against her knee, and he closed his eyes and gave himself up to sorrow.
When she dies, I will go away, he thought. I will become a vagabond on the face of the earth. I will leave in the night and go to the farthest corners of the world, and no one shall know my name. There is nothing without my heart’s darling, without all that I have truly loved.
The birds sang and chattered, and he did not hear them. The sun danced on every leaf and flower, and there was only darkness before his eyes. He was young and warm; he felt old and cold as death. All desire for all that lived had left him. When the darkness of the grave or the funeral pyre had devoured this girl it would devour him also. A weak numbness ran over his flesh, and he felt deathly ill, as if about to die himself. A faint groan escaped him.
A hand, as light as a leaf, touched the top of his golden head and he started and looked up. Rubria was smiling down at him with the tender wisdom of a woman. All love shone in her eyes, all understanding. He caught her hand and kissed it with despairing strength. He could feel its fragility, its chill, its almost spiritual tenuousness.
Then she spoke. “You must not grieve, dear Lucanus,” she said, and her voice was low and infinitely gentle.
The heart of Lucanus shook. Then the girl knew; it was possible that she had known a long time. He could not endure it, that one so young and beautiful had known the truth and had accepted it, without natural fear, without regret, and only with sublime courage. He cursed God inwardly, and thought, When she dies, then I will go with her, for there is nothing without her. A great stillness came to him then, and a quietude.
“Do not grieve,” she repeated, and her voice was even softer. “I am very happy. I will not be parted long from you and my father. The gods are good; they do not hate love between mortals.”
But God is evil, thought Lucanus. He put his head again at the knee of Rubria, and the beautiful garden about him became ghostl
y in his eyes, filled with the shapes of agony.
Rubria spoke again, and faintly. “I feel in my heart what you are thinking, dear one. You must not think so. God has a great destiny for you. He is our Father, and we are His children. Do you think He would inflict sorrow and pain on us for no purpose? He would have us come to Him.”
“No,” said Lucanus. “If He is as you say, Rubria, let Him raise you from that chair and put blood into your face and strength into your limbs.” His throat closed on a spasm of anguish.
The maiden sighed. “Surely He knows what is best. Surely the peace I feel is His mercy and His goodness. Today I have no pain. Last night I slept as an infant, and my dreams were lovely beyond imagining. I was full of joy, and the joy is with me today. The world is beautiful, but where I go it is more beautiful, and there will be no parting any longer.”
She lifted her head from her pillow and looked down at Lucanus, at his graven face, his still and rigid mouth, the bitter blue of his eyes. “Ah, you have forgotten,” she said. “When we were younger it was you who told me of all this.”
But it is a lie! thought Lucanus. He could not speak; he could not deprive this young girl of her last consolation, even if it were false.
Rubria watched him gravely. “It is true,” she said. “All that you told me when we were children is true. My soul tells me so, and there is no lie on the edge of the grave. I go to God.” She fumbled at her breast and brought out the golden cross which Keptah had given her, and she laid it in Lucanus’ palm. She then gazed at the sky.
“Keptah is a strange man, full of wisdom, Lucanus. He has told me that the One who will die on this Cross is living in the world with us now, hardly more than a Child. But where He is living no one knows, and who He is no one knows but His Mother. His birth was prophesied by the priests of Babylonia thousands of years ago, and He has come. He will lead us into life everlasting, and there will be no more death, but only rejoicing.”
Lucanus suddenly thought of the great white Cross he had seen in the hidden temple of the Chaldeans in Antioch. And he was overwhelmed with rage, self-ridicule, hatred, and disgust. Priests were notorious mountebanks, with their oracles, their prophecies, their conjuring, their delusions, their mysterious jargon. They laughed in secret at the naivete of those who believed them. They fattened on sacrifices. They committed abominations. They filled their coffers with the gold of the fatuous. In the face of the ultimate death their sly faces faded, their voices were silenced.
The golden cross glittered in Lucanus’ hand. He wanted to hurl it passionately from him, and to curse it for the bauble it was. But Rubria, leaning from her chair, gently closed his fingers around it.
“It is my gift to you.”
The sunset stood in the western sky, a sea of scarlet and gold filled with the green sails of drifting little clouds. The gentle breeze sank; the odor of flowers and fertile earth rose like incense. Rubria slept, and Lucanus sat beside her, his head on her knee, her hand on his golden hair. He did not know how long they had remained like this. The edges of the cross cut into his hand, and he did not feel it.
Then at last he lifted his head, and the hand of the maiden fell from it heavily. There was a smile upon her face, as if she had awakened to joy, serene and complete. Her cheeks and her lips had paled to absolute whiteness, and her brow glimmered. Her lashes lay upon her cheeks like the softest shadow.
Lucanus rose slowly to his feet, and the weight of age was upon him. He bent over Rubria, and he uttered one single loud and terrible cry.
Chapter Twelve
“The cypress trees still stand at the door of the house of Diodorus, and at this door,” said Iris to her son. “A desperate father weeps for his child, a brokenhearted mother is inconsolable. And I — I am but your mother — remember your father.
“But only you suffer! You hear no cry of bereavement but your own. When you were a child you lived as a child. But you are now a man, and should put aside childish things. Did you think the world all one dream of sweetness and happiness? That is the dream of fools, of those who would be children forever, of those who cower before the night, and would have nightingales, like Aedon, singing eternally so that they should never hear the voice of tragedy. Happiness! Those who say it exists, that it should exist, that men are entitled to it because they have merely been born, are like idiot children whose bumbling lips are smeared with honey.
“You have shut your door to that poor slave, your tutor, Cusa, and to the physician, Keptah. You have shut your door in my face. You will revenge yourself on the world because one you love has left you. You will revenge yourself on Diodorus, who loves you and cherishes you as a son. You will revenge yourself on the gods. You will wander away, and all then will be desolate, you believe. But I tell you that Diodorus will be comforted when his child is born, and he will forget you, or think of you with contempt. Your tutor will have another pupil. Only I will remember you, I, your mother, whom you have not seen as a woman without a husband and without a son.”
She trembled in her anger. Beyond the doors and the windows the autumnal rains and winds mourned. Iris had entered her son’s bedroom; the sad twilight showed him at his table, his head in his hands. But for the first time in a long while he was listening. Finally he lifted his head and looked at his mother and saw her. His haggard face became contorted with speechless pain.
“Oh, you who have been so blessed!” cried Iris. “You have been surrounded by love. You are not a slave. You are a free man, born free. What do you know of the world’s terrible sorrow and agony? You are young, you have been nurtured. But you will not lift up your pain and carry it like a man. Like Orpheus, you must weep forever.”
“I have seen suffering and death many times,” said Lucanus in the hoarse voice of one who has been silent too long. “I am not unfamiliar with them.” Now his sunken eyes glittered in the dusk, and he clenched his fists on the table. “Do you know what my thoughts have been these weeks? That God is a torturer, that the world is a circus where men and beasts are done to death savagely, without reason, without consolation.”
Iris rejoiced in herself that her son had finally shown some emotion. But she said, sternly, “It is an evil thing to blaspheme the gods.”
But Lucanus’ words poured from him like some released stream. “Why is a man born? He is born only to writhe in torment, and then to die as ignominiously as he has lived, and as darkly. He cries to God, and there is no answer. He appeals to God. He appeals to an Executioner. His days are short, and never free from trouble or pain. His mouth is extinguished with dust, and he goes down into the grave, and the awful enigma of his being remains. Who has returned from the grave with a message of comfort? What God has ever said, ‘Arise, and I will lighten your burden and lead you to life’? No, there has been no such God, nor will there ever be such a God. He is our Enemy.”
He looked at his fists, then opened them, then turned them over to contemplate his palms and his fingers. His face became harsh and stern with wrath. “I shall learn to defeat Him,” he muttered. “I shall snatch His victims from Him. I shall take away His pain from the helpless. When He stretches forth His hand for a child, I shall strike that hand down. Where He decrees death, I shall decree life. That will be my vengeance upon Him.”
He stood up. He was weak from little nourishment. He swayed and caught the edge of the table. He stood and looked at his beautiful mother, and he saw the tears in her eyes. He cried out and fell on his knees before her and wound his arms about her waist and laid his head against her body. She put her hands on his head and silently blessed him, then bent and kissed his forehead.
“Hippocrates has said that this vile thing is sometimes healed spontaneously,” said Keptah. “Once he remarked it was a visitation from the gods, who certainly in this event are no better than men. He recommends effusions and distillations of certain herbs to relieve the exquisite torment, and advises tampons soaked in wine and potions for the alleviation of women afflicted by the disease, which devours
them in their secret places. For men he advises cauterizations and castrations. He thinks of it as only a disease of the private parts, though he is troubled in some of his assertions. Is it a single disease or many? A pupil of his thought it akin to leprosy, when it attacks the skin. Is it the same thing when a mole enlarges and blackens, and kills quickly? Is it the white sickness also? The sickness that destroys the blood, and makes it sticky to the touch, like syrup? Is it that which decays the kidneys, the lungs, the spleen, the bowels? Hippocrates is not sure. But I am sure. It is the same evil, with different manifestations. And the worst of all evils, for it comes like a thief in the night and only at the last does the victim cry out and beg for death when the knife turns and turns in his parts.”
He and Lucanus were in the small hospital set aside for the slaves. Five beds were occupied by groaning and tossing men and women. Three slaves followed them with brazen bowls, oils, and strips of white linen. Another slave carried a tray of small vessels filled with liquid. The physician and Lucanus had paused beside the bed of a man who was gasping in the purest agony. The left side of his face was eaten away as by a monstrous maggot, the flesh raw and mangled, the lip swollen and oozing with blood. The slave looked up at the physician who contemplated him in sorrow. And Lucanus stood and gazed at him with bitter despair.
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