Antonina

by Wilkie Collins

  Against the upper part of the wall were fixed various small statues in bronze and marble, all representing the owner of the palace, and all hung with golden plates. Beneath these appeared the rent-roll of his estates, written in various colours on white vellum, and beneath that, scratched on the marble in faint irregular characters, was no less an object than his own epitaph, composed by himself. It may be translated thus:—

  Stop, Spectator!

  If thou has reverently cultivated the pleasures of the taste,

  pause amid these illustrious ruins of what was once

  a palace,

  and peruse with respect on this stone

  the epitaph of VETRANIO, a senator.

  He was the first man who invented a successful

  nightingale sauce;

  his bold and creative genius added much,

  and would have added more, to

  THE ART OF COOKERY;

  but, alas for the interests of science!

  he lived in the days when the Gothic barbarians besieged

  THE IMPERIAL CITY;

  famine left him no matter for gustatory experiment;

  and pestilence deprived him of cooks to enlighten!

  Opposed at all points by the force of adverse circumstances,

  finding his life of no further use to the culinary

  interests of Rome,

  he called his chosen friends together to assist him,

  conscientiously drank up every drop of wine remaining

  in his cellars,

  lit the funeral pile of himself and his guests,

  in the banqueting-hall of his own palace,

  and died, as he had lived,

  the patriotic CATO

  of his country's gastronomy!

  'Behold!' cried Vetranio, pointing triumphantly to the epitaph—'behold in every line of those eloquent letters at once the seal of my resolute adherence to the engagement that unites us here, and the foundation of my just claim to the reverence of posterity on the most useful of the arts which I exercised for the benefit of my species! Read, friends, brethren, fellow-martyrs of glory, and, as you read, rejoice with me over the hour of our departure from the desecrated arena, no longer worthy the celebration of the Games of Life! Yet, ere the feast proceeds, hear me while I speak—I make my last oration as the arbiter of our funeral sports, as the host of the Banquet of Famine!

  'Who would sink ignobly beneath the slow superiority of starvation, or perish under the quickly glancing steel of the barbarian conqueror's sword, when such a death as ours is offered to the choice?—when wine flows bright, to drown sensation in oblivion, and a palace and its treasures furnish alike the scene of the revel and the radiant funeral pile? The mighty philosophers of India—the inspired Gymnosophists—died as we shall die! Calanus before Alexander, Zamarus in the presence of Augustus, lit the fires that consumed them! Let us follow their glorious example! No worms will prey upon our bodies, no hired mourners will howl discordant at our funerals! Purified in the radiance of primeval fire, we shall vanish triumphant from enemies and friends—a marvel to the earth, a vision of glory to the gods themselves!

  'Is it a day more or a day less of life that is now of importance to us? No; it is only towards the easiest and the noblest death that our aspirations can turn! Among our number there is now not one whom the care of existence can further occupy!

  'Here, at my right hand, reclines my estimable comrade of a thousand former feasts, Furius Balburius Placidus, who, when we sailed on the Lucrine Lake, was wont to complain of intolerable hardship if a fly settled on the gilded folds of his umbrella; who languished for a land of Cimmerian darkness if a sunbeam penetrated the silken awnings of his garden-terrace; and who now wrangles for a mouthful of horseflesh with the meanest of his slaves, and would exchange the richest of his country villas for a basket of dirty bread! O Furius Balburius Placidus, of what further use is life to thee?

  'There, at my left, I discern the changed though still expressive countenance of the resolute Thascius, he who chastised a slave with a hundred lashes if his warm water was not brought immediately at his command; he whose serene contempt for every member of the human species by himself once ranked him among the greatest of human philosophers; even he now wanders through his palace unserved, and fawns upon the plebeian who will sell him a measure of wretched bran! Oh, admired friend, oh, rightly reasoning Thascius, say, is there anything in Rome which should delay thee on thy journey to the Elysian Fields?

  'Farther onward at the table, drinking largely while I speak, I behold, O Marcus Moecius Moemmius, thy once plump and jovial form!—thou, in former days accustomed to rejoice in the length of thy name, because it enabled thy friends to drink the more in drinking a cup to each letter of it, tell me what banqueting-hall is now open to thee but this?—and thus desolate in the city of thy social triumphs, what should disincline thee to make of our festal solemnity thy last revel on earth?

  'Thou, too, facetious hunchback, prince of parasites, unscrupulous Reburrus, where, but at this banquet of famine, will thy buffoonery now procure for thee a draught of reviving wine? Thy masters have abandoned thee to thy native dunghill! No more shalt thou wheedle for them when they borrow, or bully for them when they pay! No more charges of poisoning or magic shalt thou forge to imprison their troublesome creditors! Oh, officious sycophant, thy occupations are no more! Drink while thou canst, and then resign thy carcass to congenial mire!

  'And you, my five remaining friends, whom—little desirous of further delay—I will collectively address, think on the days when the suspicion of an infectious malady in any one of your companions was sufficient to separate you from the dearest of them; when the slaves who came to you from their palaces underwent long ceremonies of ablution before they approached your presence; and remembering this, reflect that most, perhaps all of us, now meet here plague-tainted already; and then say, of what advantage is it to languish for a life which is yours no longer?

  'No, my friends, my brethren of the banquet; feeling that when life is worthless it is folly to live, you cannot shrink from the lofty resolution by which we are bound, you cannot pause on our joyful journey of departure from the scenes of earth—I wrong you even by a doubt! Let me now, rather, ask your attention for a worthier subject—the enumeration of the festal ceremonies by which the progress of the banquet will be marked. That task concluded, that last ceremony of my last welcome to you these halls duly performed, I join you once more in your final homage to the deity of our social lives—the God of Wine!

  'It is not unknown to you—learned as you are in the jovial antiquities of the table—that it was, among some of the ancients, a custom for a master-spirit of philosophy to preside—the teacher as well as the guest—at their feasts. This usage it has been my care to revive, and, as this four meeting is unparalleled in its heroic design, so it was my ambition to bid to it one unparalleled, either as a teacher or a guest. Fired by an original idea, unobserved of my slaves, aided only by my singing-boy, the faithful Glyco, I have succeeded in placing behind that black curtain such an associate of our revels as you have never feasted with before, whose appearance at the fitting moment must strike you irresistibly with astonishment, and whose discourse—not of human wisdom only—will be inspired by the midnight secrets of the tomb. By my side, on this parchment, lies the formulary of questions to be addressed by Reburrus, when the curtain is withdrawn, to the Oracle of the Mysteries of other Spheres.

  'Before you, behold in those vases all that remains of my once well-stocked cellars, and all that is provided for the palates of my guests! We sit at the Banquet of Famine, and no coarser sustenance than inspiring wine finds admittance at the Bacchanalian board. Yet, should any among us, in his last moments, be feeble enough to pollute his lips with nourishment alone worthy of the vermin of the earth, let him seek the wretched and scanty table, type of the wretched and scanty food that covers it, placed yonder in obscurity behind me. There will he find (in all barely sufficient for one man'
s poorest meal) the last morsels of the vilest nourishment left in the palace. For me, my resolution is fixed—it is only the generous wine-cup that shall now approach my lips!

  'Above me are the ten lamps, answering to the number of my friends here assembled. One after another, as the wine overpowers us, those burning images of life will be extinguished in succession by the guests who remain proof against our draughts; and the last of these, lighting this torch at the last lamp, will consummate the banquet, and celebrate its glorious close, by firing the funeral pile of my treasures heaped yonder against my palace walls! If my powers fail me before yours, swear to me that whoever among you is able to lift the cup to his lips after it has dropped from the hands of the rest, will fire the pile! Swear it by your lost mistresses, your lost friends, your lost treasures!—by your own lives, devoted to the pleasures of wine and the purification of fire!'

  As, with flashing eyes and flushed countenance, Vetranio sank back on his couch, his companions, inflamed with the wine they had already drunk, arose cup in hand, and turned towards him. Their voices, discordantly mingled, pronounced the oath together; then, as they resumed their former positions, their eyes all turned towards the black curtain in ardent expectation.

  They had observed the sinister and sarcastic expression of Vetranio's eye as he spoke of his concealed guest; they knew that the hunchback Reburrus possessed, among his other powers of buffoonery, the art of ventriloquism; and they suspected the presence of some hideous or grotesque image of a heathen god or demon in the hidden recess, which the jugglery of the parasite was to gift with the capacity of speech. Blasphemous comments upon life, death, and immortality were eagerly awaited. The general impatience for the withdrawal of the curtain was perceived by Vetranio, who, waving his hand for silence, authoritatively exclaimed—

  'The hour has not yet arrived. More draughts must be drunk, more libations poured out, ere the mystery of the curtain is revealed! Ho, Glyco!' he continued, turning towards the singing-boy, who had silently entered the room, 'the moment is yours! Tune your lyre, and recite my last ode, which I have addressed to you! Let the charms of Poetry preside over the feast of Death!'

  The boy advanced, trembling; his once ruddy face was colourless and haggard; his eyes were fixed with a look of rigid terror on the black curtain; his features palpably expressed the presence within him of some secret and overwhelming recollection which had crushed all his other faculties and perceptions. Steadily, almost guiltily, averting his face from his master's countenance, he stood by Vetranio's couch, a frail and fallen being, a mournful spectacle of perverted docility and degraded youth.

  Still true, however, to the duties of his vocation, he ran his thin, trembling fingers over the lyre, and mechanically preluded the commencement of the ode. But during the silence of attention which now prevailed, the confused noises from the people in the street penetrated more distinctly into the banqueting-room; and at this moment, high above them all—hoarse, raving, terrible, rose the voice of one man.

  'Tell me not,' it cried, 'of perfumes wafted from the palace!—foul vapours flow from it!—see, they sink, suffocating over me!—they bathe sky and earth, and men who move around us, in fierce, green light!'

  Then other voices of men and women, shrill and savage, broke forth in interruption together:—'Peace, Davus! you awake the dead about you!' 'Hide in the darkness; you are plague-struck; your skin is shrivelled; your gums are toothless!' 'When the palace is fired you shall be flung into the flames to purify your rotten carcass!'

  'Sing!' cried Vetranio furiously, observing the shudders that ran over the boy's frame and held him speechless. 'Strike the lyre, as Timotheus struck it before Alexander! Drown in melody the barking of the curs who wait for our offal in the street!'

  Feebly and interruptedly the terrified boy began; the wild continuous noises of the moaning voices from without sounding their awful accompaniment to the infidel philosophy of his song as he breathed it forth in faint and faltering accents. It ran thus:—

  TO GLYCO

  Ah, Glyco! why in flow'rs array'd?

  Those festive wreaths less quickly fade

  Than briefly-blooming joy!

  Those high-prized friends who share your mirth

  Are counterfeits of brittle earth,

  False coin'd in Death's alloy!

  The bliss your notes could once inspire,

  When lightly o'er the god-like lyre

  Your nimble fingers pass'd,

  Shall spring the same from others' skill—

  When you're forgot, the music still

  The player shall outlast!

  The sun-touch'd cloud that mounts the sky,

  That brightly glows to warm the eye,

  Then fades we know not where,

  Is image of the little breath

  Of life—and then, the doom of Death

  That you and I must share!

  Helpless to make or mar our birth,

  We blindly grope the ways of earth,

  And live our paltry hour;

  Sure, that when life has ceased to please,

  To die at will, in Stoic ease,

  Is yielded to our pow'r!

  Who, timely wise, would meanly wait

  The dull delay of tardy Fate,

  When Life's delights are shorn?

  No! When its outer gloss has flown,

  Let's fling the tarnish'd bauble down

  As lightly as 'twas worn.

  'A health to Glyco! A deep draught to a singer from heaven come down upon earth!' cried the guests, seizing their wine-cups, as the ode was concluded, and draining them to the last drop. But their drunken applause fell noiseless upon the ear to which it was addressed. The boy's voice, as he sang the final stanza of the ode, had suddenly changed to a shrill, almost an unearthly tone, then suddenly sank again as he breathed forth the last few notes; and now as his dissolute audience turned towards him with approving glances, they saw him standing before them cold, rigid, and voiceless. The next instant his fixed features were suddenly distorted, his whole frame collapsed as if torn by an internal spasm—he fell back heavily to the floor. Those around approached him with unsteady feet, and raised him in their arms. His soul had burst the bonds of vice in which others had entangled it; the voice of Death had whispered to the slave of the great despot, Crime—'Be free!'

  'We have heard the note of the swan singing its own funeral hymn!' said the patrician Placidus, looking in maudlin pity from the corpse of the boy to the face of Vetranio, which presented for the moment an involuntary expression of grief and remorse.

  'Our miracle of beauty and boy-god of melody has departed before us to the Elysian fields!' muttered the hunchback Reburrus, in harsh, sarcastic accents.

  Then, during the short silence that ensued, the voices from the street, joined on this occasion to a noise of approaching footsteps on the pavement, became again distinctly audible in the banqueting-hall. 'News! news!' cried these fresh auxiliaries of the horde already assembled before the palace. 'Keep together, you who still care for your lives! Solitary citizens have been lured by strange men into desolate streets, and never seen again! Jars of newly salted flesh, which there were no beasts left in the city to supply, have been found in a butcher's shop! Keep together! Keep together!'

  'No cannibals among the mob shall pollute the body of my poor boy!' cried Vetranio, rousing himself from his short lethargy of grief. 'Ho! Thascius! Marcus! you who can yet stand! let us bear him to the funeral pile! He has died first—his ashes shall be first consumed!'

  The two patricians arose as the senator spoke, and aided him in carrying the body to the lower end of the room, where it was laid across the table, beneath the black curtain, and between the heaps of drapery and furniture piled up against each of the walls. Then, as his guests reeled back to their places, Vetranio, remaining by the side of the corpse, and seizing in his unsteady hands a small vase of wine, exclaimed in tones of fierce exultation: 'The hour has come—the Banquet of Famine has ended—
the Banquet of Death has begun! A health to the guest behind the curtain! Fill—drink—behold!'

  He drank deeply from the vase as he ceased, and drew aside the black drapery above him. A cry of terror and astonishment burst from the intoxicated guests as they beheld in the recess now disclosed to view the corpse of an aged woman, clothed in white, and propped up on a high, black throne, with the face turned towards them, and the arms (artificially supported) stretched out as if in denunciation over the banqueting-table. The lamp of yellow glass, which burnt high above the body, threw over it a lurid and flickering light; the eyes were open, the jaw had fallen, the long grey tresses drooped heavily on either side of the white hollow cheeks.