The Death of the Gods

by Dmitry Merezhkovsky

  “Flee, flee!” groaned indistinct voices. “The gates of Hell are opening; it is He, He, the Conqueror!”

  The wind hissed in Julian’s ears; legions upon legions seemed passing over him; suddenly there fell a dead calm; a heavenly breath filled the vast cavern and a voice murmured—

  “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

  It seemed to Julian that he had heard that voice before, in some far time of childhood. Gently it came again—

  “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

  And the sound faded away into the distance, so that there came at last but an imperceptible whisper: “Why, why, persecutest thou me?”

  When Julian awoke and raised his prostrate face he saw one of the initiating priests lighting a lamp. He felt giddy, but remembered exactly everything that had taken place. His eyes were blindfolded and, strengthened with spiced wine, he was enabled to climb the staircase, his hand gripped this time by the strong hand of Maximus. He felt as if an invisible force was lifting him on wings. The teacher of rites said to the lad—

  “Now ask what you will!”

  “Did you summon Him?” inquired Julian.

  “No. But when one chord of the lyre vibrates, another chord responds. Opposite answers opposite.”

  “Why is there such potency in His words if His words are only lies?”

  “His words are truth.”

  “What do you mean? Then it is the Titan and the Angel who lied?”

  “They also are the truth.”

  “Do you mean that there are two truths?”

  “Two truths.”

  “Ah! You are tempting me!...”

  “Not I, but the wholeness of the truth. If you are afraid, be silent.”

  “I am afraid of nothing. Say on; tell all! Are the Galileans right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why then should I have renounced them?”

  “There is, beside theirs, another truth.”

  “One higher?”

  “No, equal.”

  “But in what is one to believe? Where is the God whom I seek?”

  “Both here and yonder. Serve Ahriman,—serve Ormuzd, whichever pleases you! But forget not that both are equal,—the kingdom of Lucifer and the kingdom of God.”

  “Which way should I choose?”

  “Choose one of the two roads, and halt no more!”

  “But which?”

  “If you believe in Him, take up the cross. Follow Him according to His command; be humble, chaste. Be the lamb that was dumb between the hands of the shearers. Flee into the desert for salvation; give Him body, soul, and reason! Believe!... that is one way. And the Galilean martyrs attain the same liberty that Prometheus and Lucifer have attained.”

  “That way I cannot choose.”

  “Choose then the other path. Be puissant as your ancestors of old, the heroes—proud, pitiless, and haughty. No compassion! No love! No pardon! Arise and conquer all things! Let your body become hard as marble out of which the demigods are hewn! Take and give not! Taste of the forbidden fruit and repent not! Believe not, doubt not, and the world shall be thine! Thou shalt be the Titan—an angel revolted against God.”

  “But I can never forget that the words of the Galilean contain truth also. I cannot admit two beliefs.”

  “Then thou shalt be like all common mortals and hadst better never been born; but thou canst choose. Make the venture!... Thou shalt be emperor!”

  “I? Emperor?”

  “Thou shalt have between thy hands what Alexander never had.”

  Julian felt that they were issuing from the bowels of the earth, felt the morning sea-breeze bathing him. The hierophant unknotted the bandage over his eyes, and lo! they were standing on a high marble tower, the astronomical observatory of the great seer, built after the model of the ancient Chaldean towers, but upon a crag above the sea. Below stretched luxurious gardens, palaces, and cloisters, recalling the colonnades of Persepolis. In the distance the Artemision and Ephesus stood in clear relief against the mountains over which the sun was about to rise.

  Julian’s head almost gave way at the extent of the view; he had to lean upon the arm of Maximus; but then with a smile the youth closed his eyes, and the beams of the rising sun flushed his white vestments with rose-colour. The seer stretched out his arm.

  “Behold! all this is thine!”

  “Can I sustain it, Master? Assassination may strike me at any moment. I am weak and ill.”

  “The sun, the god Mithra, is crowning you with his purples—the purple of the Roman Empire. All this is thine. Dare!”

  “And what is it all to me, since truth unified does not exist, and since I cannot find the God for whom I seek?”

  “Ah! if thou canst make one the truth of the Titan and the truth of the Galilean, thou wilt be greater than any that have been born of women!...”

  * * *

  Maximus of Ephesus was the owner of marvellous libraries, quiet marble chambers, and spacious anatomical laboratories crowded with scientific apparatus. In one of the latter the young physicist, Oribazius, a doctor of the school of Alexandria, was vivisecting, scalpel in hand, a rare animal sent to Maximus from the Indies. The hall was circular and the walls loaded with rows of tin vessels, chafing dishes, retorts, apparatus like that of Archimedes, and fire machines like those of Ktesius and Geron. In the silence of the adjoining library drop after drop fell plashing from the water-clock, an invention of Apollonius. Globes were there also, geographical charts in metal, and models of the celestial spheres wrought by Hipparchus and Eratosthenes.

  In the clear and serene light falling through the glass ceiling, Maximus, clothed as a simple philosopher, was scrutinising the still-warm organs of the animal laid on the marble. Oribazius stooping over the liver of the animal was saying—

  “How can Maximus, the great philosopher, believe in these ridiculous miracles?”

  “I believe in them and I believe in them not,” answered the magian. “This Nature which you and I are studying, is not she most miraculous? Are not these blood-vessels, this nervous system, the admirable combination of organs which we are examining like augurs—are not these the most splendid of mysteries?”

  “You know my meaning,” interrupted the young doctor. “Why have you deceived this young man?”

  “Julian?”

  “Yes.”

  “He himself desired to be deceived.”

  The brows of Oribazius knitted into a frown.

  “Master, if you love me, tell me who you are. How can you endure lies like these? Do I not understand what magic means? You attach luminous fish-scales to the ceiling of a darkened chamber, and the pupil to be initiated believes that the skies are descending on him at the word of the hierophant. You manufacture with skin and wax a death’s head, into which you fit a stork’s neck; and through it you pronounce your predictions from beneath the floor. The pupil imagines that the skull uncurtains to him the secrets of the tomb; and when it is necessary that the head should vanish, you bring a chafing dish near it, the wax melts and the skull collapses. By skilful rays of coloured light playing on odorous smoke, you make the innocent believe that they have verily seen the gods! You display under water in a basin, of which the walls are stone and the bottom glass, a living Apollo (acted by an obliging slave), while some vulgar prostitute is played off as Aphrodite. This—this, you call the holy mysteries!”

  His habitual equivocal smile wandered over the compressed lips of the teacher, who answered—

  “Ah! our mysteries are deeper and finer than you suppose. Men have absolute need of enthusiasm. For him who has faith the harlot is Aphrodite really, and the luminous scales are the stars of heaven. You say that people weep and pray before semblances produced by a lamp and coloured glasses? Oribazius, Oribazius!... but this Nature which makes your science marvel, is she not herself a mirage, produced by senses as deceptive as the wizard’s lantern? Wherein does truth consist? Where does falsehood begin? You believe and you know, and I neither
wish to believe nor am skilled to know. Truth dwells for me in the same shrine as falsehood.”

  “Would Julian thank you, if he knew that you were deceiving him?”

  “He saw what he desired to see. I have given him enthusiasm, strength, and audacity. You say that I have deceived him. If that had been necessary I would have done so—I would have tempted him. I love the falsehood that contains a truth. I love temptation. Till I die I will never abandon Julian and shall allow him to taste all forbidden fruits. He is young; I shall live on a second life in him. I will unveil for him the mystery and charm even of crime; and perhaps through me he shall become great!”

  “Master, I do not understand you.”

  “And that is precisely why I speak thus to you,” responded Maximus, fixing on Oribazius his penetrating and impassive eyes.

  * * *

  XI

  Julian had an interview with his brother Gallus while the latter was on his way to Constantinople. He had found him surrounded by a troop of traitors in the pay of Constantius: the quæstor Leontinus, a wily courtier, famous for skill in eavesdropping and cross-examining servants; the tribune Baïnobadois, a taciturn barbarian, who gave the impression of an over-tragic actor playing the part of a headsman; the Emperor’s haughty Master of Ceremonies, comes domesticorum, Lucilian; and finally Marcus Scuda, the former tribune of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, who, thanks to the protection of certain old ladies, had attained the post he longed for.

  Gallus, now, as always, gay and giddy, had offered Julian an excellent supper, of which the chief feature was a plump pheasant stuffed with fresh Theban dates. He laughed like a child, and was calling up all sorts of reminiscences of old days together at Macellum, when suddenly Julian spoke to him about his wife Constantia.

  The face of Gallus fell; his eyes filled with tears, and he laid down on his plate the succulent piece of pheasant which he had been on the point of putting into his mouth.

  “Don’t you know, Julian, that Constantia is dead? She died unexpectedly after an attack of tertian ague, on the very journey to the Emperor which she had undertaken to absolve me from blame in his eyes. I wept for two whole nights when I heard that news.”

  He cast a timid glance at the door, put his hand on Julian’s shoulder, and whispered confidentially—

  “Since then, I have let things go to the devil! She alone might have saved me. Ah! she was an astonishing woman. Without her I am ruined. I can do, and I can learn, nothing.... ‘They’ do with me just as they please.”

  He tossed off a cup of wine at a gulp.

  Julian remembered Constantia, the sister of Constantius, a widow of ripe age, the evil genius of her brother, her who had incited him to commit numberless crimes, crimes which were frequently mere fatuous stupidities. Amazed, he asked, anxious to know by what quality this woman had tamed his brother—

  “She was beautiful?”

  “It is clear you never saw her.”

  “No. Was she ugly?”

  “Yes, very ugly. She was short, brown, thin, and had bad teeth, which I can’t bear in women. Nevertheless, being aware of this defect, she never laughed. People used to say she deceived me, that in disguise she used to go to the circus, as Messalina did, on visits to a young and handsome groom. Well, what of it? Did not I on my side deceive her? She never bothered me, and I used to take care in return never to worry her about these trifles. Folk used to say she was cruel! By God, Julian, she knew how to govern! Of course she didn’t like the authors of epigrams on her bad manners, comparing her to some kitchen-slave dressed as Cæsar’s wife! She loved revenge, admiration! And what a mind, what a mind, Julian! Why, I was as much at ease sheltered behind her, as behind a granite wall. Ah, the mad things we used to do together! We certainly never lacked amusement.”

  He smiled at some agreeable recollection and passed the tip of his tongue along his rosy upper lip between the sips of Chian wine.

  “There’s no denying we made the most of time,” he repeated, not without modest pride.

  When Julian was on his way to this interview with his brother, he had thought of waking in him some feeling of seriousness and remorse, had even prepared a little speech, in the style of Libanius, against the doings of irresponsible tyrants. He had expected to see a man bowed under the yoke of Nemesis, and not the tranquil fat and rosy visage of this comely athlete. Words died on Julian’s lips. He looked without blame or distaste upon this “docile animal"—for so he inwardly named his brother. Of what avail were sermons to a young stallion? Julian contented himself therefore with saying to Gallus in a grave tone—

  “Why are you going to Milan? Do you suspect nothing?”

  “Yes—hush—but it is too late!”

  And, sweeping his hand significantly round his neck, he added—

  “The slipnoose of death is already here! ‘He’ is tightening it little by little. Why, he would unearth me from a rabbit-burrow, Julian! No, no, best speak no more of it! All’s over! We’ve made the most of time, that’s all.”

  “But you have two legions left you at Antioch?”

  “Not one. ‘He’ has filched all my best soldiers, little by little, under colour of this pretext and that; and always, by Jove! for my own good! Why, everything he does is for my own good.... He thinks of nothing else! Now he’s in a hurry to see me simply to profit by my advice. Julian, that man is terrible! You don’t know yet, and God grant that you may never know, what that man is. He sees everything, knows my inmost thoughts, those that I wouldn’t mutter to my pillow; and he’s watching your mind also. Frankly, I am afraid of him!”

  “But can’t you escape?”

  “Hush, speak lower!”

  The features of Gallus took on an expression of boyish terror.

  “No, no; I tell you all is over! I am as neatly finished as a fish already hooked. ‘He’ is drawing in the line gently, so that it doesn’t break. A Cæsar, let him be who he will, is always a big fish to land. I know that it’s impossible to escape. He’ll take me one day or another.... And now I see the snare, and I am walking into it all the same out of fear. For six years, from the very first, I quaked before that man. Like a small boy, now however I’ve walked far enough. Brother, he’ll cut my throat as a cook cuts the throat of a fowl. But he will torture me first by a thousand stratagems and caresses. I should prefer to finish quicker.”

  The eyes of Gallus became suddenly brilliant, and he exclaimed—

  “Ah, if she had been here, at my side, she would certainly have saved me! She was such an astonishing woman!”

  The tribune Scuda, entering the triclinium where supper was laid, announced, with a profound salutation, that on the morrow, in honour of the arrival of Cæsar, there would be races in the hippodrome of Constantinople, and that the celebrated rider Korax would take part in them. Gallus was delighted at the news, and ordered a crown of bay-leaf to be prepared, that, in case of the victory of Korax, he might himself crown his favourite before the people. He launched into racing stories, boasting the skill of his charioteers.

  Gallus drank deeply, laughed like a man whose rakish conscience is at ease, with not a trace of his recent fears upon those handsome features. Only at the last moment of farewell he kissed Julian heartily, suddenly melting into tears.

  “May God help you! May God help you!” he blubbered. “You alone have stood my friend—you and Constantia!”

  Then he whispered into Julian’s ear—

  “I hope that you’ll save your skin, brother. You can wear a mask and keep your own counsel; I have always envied you that. May God succour you!”

  Julian sincerely pitied his brother; he knew that he would not escape Constantius.

  On the following morning Gallus left Constantinople with his former escort. At Adrianople he was only permitted to retain ten small chariots, and had to relinquish all his personal suite and baggage. The autumn was far advanced, the roads in fearful condition, rain falling continuously all day for a week. Peremptory messages reached Gallus to hurry on. He was
given no time to rest or sleep, and had taken no bath for a fortnight.

  One of his keenest discomforts was horror at close contact with dirt. All his life he had taken peculiar care to keep his body healthy and exquisitely groomed. It was with profound melancholy that he gazed at his uncut nails, and the purple of his travelling chlamys, befouled by dust and muddy roads. Scuda never quitted his side for an instant, and Gallus, not without reason, dreaded his assiduous companion. The tribune, years ago, had come as bearer of a despatch from the Emperor, and was but newly arrived in Antioch, when by an impudent remark he had offended Constantia, the wife of Gallus, who straightway in a fit of fury had ordered the Roman tribune to be flogged and afterwards thrown, like a slave, into a dungeon.

  Foreseeing the probable consequence, Constantia had quickly ordered the tribune to be set at liberty. He then presented himself at the palace of Gallus, as if nothing had occurred, and, pocketing the affront, had never even reported it to his master; perhaps through fear that so degrading a punishment might besmirch the prospects of his career as a courtier.

  During the whole journey from Antioch to Milan Scuda retained his seat in Cæsar’s chariot, never quitting him, inviting his confidences, and treating him like some wayward child, who, being out of sorts, was not to be left to himself for a moment by a servant so devoted and affectionate.

  Where, as in Illyria, there were dangerous river crossings to be made on frail wooden bridges, Scuda would put his arm around Gallus with the tenderest solicitude, and if the latter strove to free himself, swear that he preferred death to the risk of drowning his precious charge.

  The tribune wore an oddly thoughtful expression, especially when contemplating the neck of Gallus, smooth and white as a young girl’s. The Cæsar, feeling this attentive look, would fidget uneasily in his seat, and with difficulty restrain himself from striking the amiable tribune in the face. But the poor prisoner’s spirits quickly rose again. He contented himself with imploring (for despite everything his appetite remained healthy), that they might halt for a meal, were it never so scanty. At Petovio, in Norica, they were met by two fresh envoys from the Emperor, accompanied by a cohort of Court legionaries.