by Eugène Sue
And now, Sylvest, my son, you for whom I write this report, read slowly what is now about to follow. Aye, read slowly, to the end that every word may imbue your soul with its indelible hatred for the Romans — a hatred that I feel certain must some day, the day of vengeance, break out with terrific force. Read, my son, and you will understand how your mother, after having given life to you and your sister, after having heaped all her tenderness upon you, could in the end give you no stronger proof of her maternal love than by endeavoring to kill you, to the end that she might carry you hence, to return to life in the other world at her side and in the circle of our family. Alas! You survived her foresight!
This, my son, is what happened!
I had my eyes fixed on the cage in which I surmised you and your sister were imprisoned, when I saw an old man, richly dressed, enter the stall. It was the rich patrician Trymalcion, worn out as much by debauchery as by years. His dull, cold, corpse-like eyes seemed to look into vacancy. His hideously wrinkled visage was half hidden under a coat of thick paint. He wore a frizzled yellow wig, earrings blazing with precious stones, and in the girdle of his robe a large bouquet, of which his red plush mantle off and on allowed a glimpse. He painfully dragged his limbs after him, leaning on the shoulders of two young slaves fifteen or sixteen years of age, who were luxuriously dressed, but in such a style, and so effeminately, that it was impossible to tell whether they were young men or girls. Two other and older slaves followed. One carried under his arm his master’s thick cloak, the other a golden night-vessel.
The proprietor of the stall hastened to receive his patrician customer with tokens of reverence, exchanged a few words with him, and then moved forward a stool on which the old man let himself down. As the seat had no back, one of the young slaves immediately stationed himself motionless behind his master, to serve him as a support, while the other slave lay down on the ground at a sign from the patrician, lifted his feet, which were encased in rich sandals, and wrapping them in a fold of his own robe, held them to his breast to warm them.
Thus supported with his back and feet on the bodies of his slaves, the old man spoke some words to the merchant. The latter first pointed toward the three half-naked women. At sight of them, Trymalcion turned half way round and spat at them, as if to evince the most sovereign disdain.
At this indignity, the old man’s slaves and the Romans, assembled in the vicinity of the stall, broke into coarse laughter. Then the merchant pointed out to lord Trymalcion the two children playing on the straw. The senile debauchee shrugged his shoulders, while he uttered some horrible words. His words must have been horrible, because the laughter redoubled.
The merchant, hoping at last to please so fastidious a customer, went up to the cage, opened it, and brought out three children, draped in long white veils which hid their faces. Two of the children corresponded in height to my son and daughter; the other was smaller. The smallest one was the first to be unveiled to the eyes of the old man. I recognized her as the daughter of one of my relatives, whose husband was killed in the defense of the chariot; the mother had killed herself with the other women of the family, forgetting in that supreme moment, to kill the little one. The girl was sickly and without beauty. Patrician Trymalcion looked her over rapidly and made an impatient gesture with his hand, as if annoyed that they should dare to offer to his sight so unattractive an object. She was, accordingly, taken back to the cage by a keeper. The other two children remained, still veiled.
I was eagerly watching these events from the corner of the “horse-dealer’s” stall, my arms pinioned behind my back with double iron manacles, my legs chained and my feet fastened by fetters of enormous weight. I still felt under the influence of the sorcery that had been practiced upon me. Nevertheless, my blood, so long frozen in my veins, began to circulate more and more freely. A slight tremor occasionally went through my limbs. The spell was breaking. I was not the only one to tremble. The young Gallic women and the matron, forgetting their own shame and despair, experienced in their hearts of maid, of wife, or mother, a frightful horror at the fate of the children offered to that detestable old man.
Although half nude, they no longer thought of withdrawing themselves from the licentious looks of the spectators who were crowding at the entrance to the booth. Their eyes brooded with motherly terror upon the two veiled children, while the matron, bound to the post, her eyes glittering and her teeth set in impotent fury, raised her chained arms to heaven as if to call down the punishments of the gods upon such monstrosities.
At a sign from lord Trymalcion, the veils dropped — I recognized you both — you, my son Sylvest and your sister Syomara. You were both pale and wan; you were shivering with fear. Anguish was depicted in your tear-bathed faces. The long blonde hair of my little girl fell upon her shoulders. She dared not raise her eyes, neither did you; you held each other by the hand, closely clasped. Despite the terror that disfigured her face, I beheld my daughter in her singular and infantine beauty — accursed beauty! At sight of her Trymalcion’s dead eyes lighted up and glistened like glowing coals in the middle of his wrinkled, paint-covered visage. He stood up, stretched out his emaciated arms towards my daughter as if to seize his prey, while a shocking smile disclosed his yellow teeth. Terror-stricken, Syomara threw herself back and clung to your neck. The merchant quickly tore you from each other and brought Syomara to the old man. The latter impatiently pushed away with his foot the slave that crouched on the ground before him, and grabbing my little girl, took her between his knees. He easily subdued the efforts she made to escape, while she uttered piercing cries; he violently snapped the strings that fastened my little girl’s robe, and stripped her half naked in order to examine her chest and shoulders. While this was going on, the merchant was holding you back, my son, and I — the father of the two victims — I, loaded with chains, beheld the spectacle. At the sight of this crime of the patrician Trymalcion, outraging the chastity of a child, the three fettered Gallic women and the matron made a desperate but vain effort to break from their irons, and began to pour out a torrent of imprecations and groans.
Trymalcion finished complacently his disgusting examination, and said a few words to the merchant. Immediately a keeper replaced the robe on my girl, who was more dead than alive, wrapped her up in her long white veil, which he tied around her, and taking the slender burden under his arm, held himself in readiness to follow the old man, who was taking some gold from his purse to pay the merchant. At that moment of supreme despair — you and your sister, poor little ones bewildered with terror, cried out as if you believed you would be heard and succored:
“Mother! Father!”
Up to that moment I had witnessed the scene panting, almost crazy with grief and rage. Slowly my heart, struggling against the sorcery of the “horse-dealer,” was gaining the upper hand. But at that cry, uttered by you and your sister, the charm broke with a clap. All my intelligence, all my courage rushed back to me. The sight of you two gave me such a shock, it threw me into such a transport of rage that, unable to break my irons, I rose upon my feet, and, with my hands still pinioned behind me, my legs still loaded with heavy chains, I bounded out of my stall with two leaps, and fell like a thunderbolt upon the old patrician. The shock caused the old man to roll under me. In default of the liberty of my hands to strangle him, I bit him in the face, near the neck. The “horse-dealers” and their keepers threw themselves upon me; but bearing with all my weight upon the hideous old debauchee, who was howling at the top of his voice, I kept my teeth in his flesh. The monster’s blood filled my mouth — a shower of whip lashes and blows from sticks and stones rained upon me — yet I budged not. No more than our old war dog Deber-Trud the man-eater did I drop my prey. — No! — Like the dog, when I did let go, it was only to carry away between my teeth — a strip of flesh, a bleeding mouthful that I spat back into Trymalcion’s hideous, tortured face, as he had spat at the Gallic women.
“Father! Father!” you cried out to me through the tumult.
Wishing then to approach you two, my children, I stood up, an object of terror — aye, terror. For a moment a circle of fear surrounded the Gallic slave, with his load of irons.
“Father! Father!” you cried again, stretching out your little arms, in spite of the keepers who held you back. I made a bound toward you, but the merchant, from the top of the cage where you had been confined, suddenly threw a large piece of cloth over my head. At the same time I was seized by the legs, thrown down, and tied with a thousand bonds. The cloth, which covered my head and shoulders, was tied down around my neck, and through it they made a gap, which unfortunately permitted me to breathe — I had hoped to smother.
I felt myself being carried across to my own booth, where I was thrown on the straw, incapable of making the slightest motion. Quite a while later I heard the centurion, my new master, in a sharp altercation with the “horse-dealer” and the merchant who had sold Syomara to Trymalcion. Presently they all went out. Silence reigned around me. Some time later, the dealer returned; he approached me; he kicked me angrily; he tore off the cover from my face, and said to me in a voice trembling with rage:
“Scoundrel! Do you know what it has cost me, that mouthful of flesh you tore out of the face of the noble Trymalcion? Do you know, ferocious beast? That mouthful of flesh cost me twenty sous of gold! More than half of what I sold you for, for I am responsible for your misdeeds, wretch! while you are in my stall, double villain! So that it is I who have made a present of your daughter to the old man. She was sold to him for twenty gold sous, which I paid in his stead. He insisted upon it. And even so I got off cheaply. He demanded that indemnity.”
“That monster is not dead! Hena! he is not dead!” I cried in despair. “And my daughter is not dead either! Hesus, Teutates, take pity on my daughter!”
“Your daughter, gallows bird! Your daughter is in Trymalcion’s hands, and it is upon her he will wreak his revenge on you. He rejoices over the circumstance in advance. He sometimes is taken with savage caprices, and is rich enough to indulge them.”
I was unable to make answer to these words, save with long drawn out moans.
“And that is not all, infamous scoundrel! I have lost the confidence of the centurion to whom I sold you. He reproached me with having outrageously deceived him; with having sold him, instead of a lamb, a tiger who exercised his teeth upon rich patricians. He wanted to sell you right back. To sell you back, as if anyone would consent to buy — after such an exhibition! As well buy a wild beast. Luckily for me, I received the deposit before witnesses. The fierceness of your nature will not set aside the contract; the centurion has no choice but to keep you. He’ll keep you, I warrant, but he’ll make you pay dear for your criminal instincts. Oh, you don’t know the life that awaits you in the ergastula! You don’t know—”
“But my son,” I asked, interrupting the “horse-dealer,” well knowing that he would answer out of cruelty. “Is my son also sold? To whom?”
“Sold? And who do you think would still want him? Sold? Better say given away. You bring bad luck to everybody, double traitor. Did not your ragings and the shrieks of that mis-born limb teach everyone that he is of your beastly blood? No one offered even an obole for him! Who would buy a wolf’s whelp? Anyway, I was going to speak to you about that son of yours, to delight your father’s heart. Know that he was given to boot by my partner at the end of the sale, to the same purchaser to whom he sold the grey-haired matron, who will be good to turn a mill-wheel.”
“And that purchaser,” I enquired, “who is he? What is he going to do with my son?”
“That purchaser is the centurion — your master!”
“Hesus!” I exclaimed, hardly able to believe what I heard. “Hesus, you are kind and merciful. At least I shall have my son near me.”
“Your son near you! Then you are as stupid as you are scoundrelly. Ah, do you imagine that it is for your paternal contentment that your master has burdened himself with that wolf-cub? Do you know what your master said to me? ‘I have only one means of subduing that savage beast you sold me, you egregious cheat. — The chances are, that madman loves his little one. I’ll keep the wolf-whelp in a cage, and the son will answer to me for the father’s docility. — At the father’s first, and least offence, he will see the tortures which he will make his cub suffer, under my very eyes.’”
I paid no further attention to what the “horse-dealer” said — I was at least sure of seeing you, or of knowing that you were near me, my child. That will help me to bear the awful grief caused to me by the fate of my little daughter Syomara, who, two days later, was carried into Italy on board the galley of the patrician Trymalcion.
* * * * * * *
My father Guilhern was not granted time to finish his narrative.
Death — oh, what a death! — death overtook him the very day after he traced the above last lines. I preserve them together with the little brass bell that my father got from the “horse-dealer.”
The narrative of the sufferings of our race, I, Sylvest, shall continue in obedience to my father Guilhern, the same as he obeyed the behest of his father Joel the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.
Hesus was merciful to you, O, my father. — You died ignorant of the life of your daughter Syomara —
It is left to me to narrate my sister’s fate.
THE END
The Iron Collar
OR, FAUSTINE AND SYOMARA
Translated by Daniel de Leon
Following the conflict with the Romans, the Gallic warriors and their families have limited choices in the third story of The Mysteries of the People. Some of those who did not die in battle commit suicide to avoid the ‘frightful servitude’ of slavery with a Roman master, but others are not able to take this way out and so become enslaved. Guilhern and his two children, Sylvest and Syomara, survive the battles only to face the humiliation of slavery. Guilhern and Sylvest are sold to a Roman officer, who had won their home as a spoil of war. Sylvest’s sister, Syomara, is taken to Rome, as the property of a lecherous older man. Sylvest is locked in a cage whilst his father has to work the land that once belonged to him and if he commits any breach of discipline, Sylvest is the one to be punished.
This part of the story begins with the now adult Sylvest, living in the city of Orange, as the slave of a Roman, Diavolus. Sylvest wears an iron collar, the mark of his slave status, yet he secretly manages to attend dissident meetings with other slaves and has a secret wife, pregnant with his child. Unbeknown to him, Sylvest’s sister, Syomara also now lives in Orange and is now a free woman and a wealthy courtesan, desired not only by Diavolus, but by a famous gladiator. Sylvest finds out that his sister is nearby, but how can he, a mere slave, make contact with his sibling, who is now a wealthy and free woman?
CONTENTS
TRANSLATORS PREFACE.
THE AUTHOR TO HIS READERS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
TRANSLATORS PREFACE.
THE IRON COLLAR; or, Faustina and Syomara is the third of the series of historic novels published by Eugène Sue under the title The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family. Across the Ages. The story deals with the fate of the two children of Guilhern, the central character in the story that precedes it — The Brass Bell; or, The Chariot of Death.
Slavery among the Romans was an institution such as the world had never seen before, and has never seen since. It has been a subject of vast historic research, and often have novelists sought to reproduce at least some of its leading features by placing the theater of their story in the days of so-called Roman grandeur. Bulwer Lytto
n tried his hand at it; one of the boldest attempts in that field is Sienkiewicz’s “Quo Vadis.” The most favorable criticism that these efforts deserve is that they are imperfect. It was left for the genius of Sue to reproduce, in this story, that remarkable epoch in the annals of man with a truth of coloring and a width of sweep that present the era in all its vividness. The story told in this volume is one of Sue’s greatest achievements. The brilliant garb of fiction, in which history is here presented, cleaves so closely to the grand historic mold that the entrancing story develops with all the majesty of a Greek drama. The vast stores of Sue’s erudition, upon which the author drew, coupled with the enthusiasm that he brought to bear upon this at once instructive and entertaining series of historic novels, produced this story with the full consciousness, as indicated by him, in his prefatory words, of the deep significance of the period that he here describes, and which culminates with the period of the following story — The Silver Cross; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth.
There is no better treatise on the age that ushered in Christianity than this novel; nor is there extant any historic work of fiction, with its theater located in antiquity, at all comparable with this.
DANIEL DE LEON.
New York, October, 1908.
THE AUTHOR TO HIS READERS
DEAR READERS: —
Allow me in the first place to thank you for the growing interest which you are pleased to accord to this work. Then a few words as to the following story, “The Iron Collar.”
In “The Gold Sickle; or Hens, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen,” and in “The Brass Bell; or, the Chariot of Death,” it was my endeavor to paint for you, as faithfully, as historically as possible, the picture of our Gallic family, plebeian, free, happy, and living in plenty by its own labor. I strove to make you acquainted with its manners, its customs, its labors, its laws, its religious beliefs, its character — which has been preserved down to our own days.