III
Their lesson in doctrinal theology was taught to the lads in themorning by an Arian priest. Long and dry as a lath, he had green eyes,damp and bony hands. This monk, who was named Eutropius, had thedisagreeable habit of gently licking the hollow of his palm, smoothinghis grey hair, and immediately afterwards making his finger-jointscrack. Julian knew that one movement would inevitably follow theother, and used to get madly irritated.
Eutropius wore an old black cassock, full of stains and patches. Heused to say that he wore it out of humility, but, as a matter of fact,he did it from miserliness.
Such was the instructor chosen by Eusebius of Nicomedia, the religiousguardian of Julian.
This monk suspected in his pupil a certain yeast of moral perversity,which, unless cured, would draw upon Julian eternal damnation.
And Eutropius used to talk continually of the grateful feelings theboy should show towards his benefactor the Emperor Constantius.Whether he was explaining the text of the Bible, expounding Ariandogmas, or interpreting an apostolic parable, all lessons wereconducted to the same conclusion, the "root of holy obedience andfilial docility." And when the Arian monk spoke of the benefitsgranted to Julian by the Emperor, the child would fix upon him hisdeep glance; but although each knew the intimate thoughts of theother, never did pupil and professor exchange a word upon the subject.Only if Julian stopped, forgetting some text, or became confused inthe chronological list of Old Testament patriarchs, or repeated badlythe prayer he had learned by heart, Eutropius would silently gaze athim, take his ear caressingly between two fingers, and two long andsharp finger nails would slowly pierce the flesh.
Eutropius, despite his morose look, was endowed with a certainironical gaiety. He gave his pupils the most affectionate ofnicknames, while ridiculing their imperial origin. When, afterpinching Julian's ear, he saw him grow pale, not with pain but withrage, he would whisper in humility--
"Your Majesty does not deign to feel anger against Eutropius, hishumble and unlearned slave?" and, licking the palm of his hand, hewould smooth the grey locks of his temples, crack his long fingers,and add that it was wholesome sometimes to give naughty, idle littleboys a whipping; that form of instruction being often mentioned inHoly Writ as the most effective means of enlightening the souls of thedark and disobedient. He used only to say it to tame the diabolicpride of Julian, who, moreover, was well aware that Eutropius wouldnever dare to put his threat into execution. The monk himself wasconvinced that the child would rather die than undergo such ahumiliation. But the tutor, nevertheless, loved to discourse upon thetopic often and long.
At the end of the lesson, during the explanation of a text, Julianonce mentioned the earth's antipodes, about which he had heardMardonius speaking. He had done this with the secret intention ofannoying the monk, but Eutropius became jocular.
"Who's been talking to you about 'antipodes,' my angel? Little sinner,how you do make me laugh! That old fool of a Plato did, I know, writesomething about it. But are you actually wise enough to believe thatmen walk about on their heads?"
Eutropius would launch forth into accusations of heresy against thephilosophers. Was it not a scandal to imagine that mankind--createdafter the image of God--could walk about upside down, and so bringHeaven into contempt? And when Julian, insulted by insults to hisfavourite philosophers, argued that the earth was shaped like a globe,Eutropius became serious and lost his temper, purple with fury andstamping his feet--
"It's that heathen, Mardonius, who teaches you these godless lies!"
When he got angry he would splutter and shower the hearer with hisspittle, which Julian believed must be venomous. Exasperated, the monkwould savagely attack all the Greek sages. Wounded to the quick by thesuggestions of Julian, forgetting that his pupil was a mere child, heburst into serious harangues, accusing Pythagoras of being mad,impudent, audacious, affirming that the atrocious "Utopias" of Platowere not fit to read, and that the instruction of Socrates was cleanagainst reason.
"Read what Diogenes Laertius says of Socrates! You will see that notonly was he a money-lender, but that he practised vices which nodecent man can name."
Epicurus, above all, excited the whole of his rancour; the beastlinesswith which he plunged into pleasures of all kinds, the brutality withwhich he used to satisfy his sensual desires, were proof enough thathe was less than human.
Resuming something of his habitual calm, Eutropius on this particularday betook himself to explaining some hair-splitting scholasticdistinction of the Arian dogma, and waxed wroth with the same heatagainst the orthodox oecumenical Church, which he consideredheretical.
From the splendid and desolate garden a warm breeze came in throughthe open window. Julian feigned to listen to Eutropius. Really he wasdreaming of a very different person, his well-loved teacher Mardonius.He recollected his wise lectures; his readings of Homer andHesiod--how different from these monkish lessons!
Mardonius did not _read_ Homer; following the custom of the ancientrhapsodists, he used to chant the poems, to the great amusement ofLabda, who was wont to say that he bayed like a dog at the moon. Andin fact he did appear absurd to folk who heard him for the first time.The eunuch would punctiliously scan each foot of the hexameter,beating time with his hand. And while his yellow and wrinkled visageremained intensely rapt, his shrill feminine voice streamed on fromstrophe to strophe. Julian never remarked the ugliness of the old man,seeing only the throbbing passion of a soul thrilled by grandeur andbeauty.
His listener trembled, while the divine hexameters rose and shoutedlike waves. He saw the farewells of Andromache and Hector; thewanderings of Ulysses, weeping for Ithaca on the melancholy andsterile beach of Calypso's island. Delicious sorrow seized the heartof Julian; pains of yearning for Hellas, the country of the gods,eternally beautiful, land of all beauty-worshippers. Tears shook inthe voice of the teacher, and rolled down his withered cheeks.
Sometimes Mardonius would talk with the boy of goodness, of theausterity of virtue, of the death of heroes for freedom's sake. Littleindeed, oh! how little, did these lessons resemble those given byEutropius.
Mardonius used also to narrate the life of Socrates; and when he cameto the "Apology," delivered by the philosopher before his death to thepeople of Athens, the old master would rise, and triumphantly declaimthe speech from memory, a calm irony lighting his face. These wereless the phrases of a man accused, than the ringing tones of a judgeaddressing the people.
"Socrates does not ask for pardon. All the power, all the laws of agovernment are absolutely nothing beside the liberty of the soul ofman. Yes! the Athenians can kill a man without taking from him thefreedom and the happiness of his immortal soul." And when thisbarbarian, this ex-slave from the banks of the Borysthenes, pronouncedthe word "liberty" it seemed to Julian that the word contained suchsuperhuman power that beside it even the Homeric pictures lost lustre.Fixing on his master his great wide, haunting eyes, the lad shook withenthusiasm.
The cold touch of a hand at his ear drew Julian from his dreams. Thelesson of the catechist was finished. On his knees he recited theprayer of thanksgiving; then escaping from Eutropius he ran to hisroom, took down a book, and hastened to a solitary nook in the gardento read at ease the _Symposium_ of Plato, the pagan, a book forbiddenabove all others. On the stairs Julian met the monk, who wasdeparting--
"Wait, my dear boy! What book is your Majesty carrying?"
Julian stared at him and tranquilly tendered the volume. On theparchment binding Eutropius read the title, written in great capitals,"The Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle," and gave back the bookunopened.
"That's all right! Remember that I have to answer for your soul to Godand to the sublime Emperor. Don't read heretical books, especiallynone of those frivolous philosophers whom I have to-day condemned."
It was the habitual trick of the boy to wrap dangerous books ininnocent bindings. Julian from his infancy had learnt dissimulation,and even took pleasure in deceiving others, especially Eutropius. Hedissembled and
lied needlessly and habitually, prompted by deep-seatedanger and revenge. To Mardonius alone his behaviour was always openand gracious.
Intrigues, scandals, gossipings, suspicions continually arose atMacellum among the numberless idle servants. The whole pack ofvarletry, in the hope of Court favour, subjected the two disgracedyoung princes to espionage by night and day. Long as Julian couldremember, death was an hourly expectation. Little by little he hadaccustomed himself to perpetual fear, being quite aware that neitherin the house nor garden could he take a step or make a gestureunperceived by a thousand intent but invisible eyes. Hearing andunderstanding much of the toils about him, the boy was forced to feignignorance. At one time it was the conversation between Eutropius and aspy sent by the Emperor Constantius, in which the monk named Julianand Gallus "the imperial scourges"; at another time, in the galleryunder the kitchen windows, it was the meditation of a cook, furious atsome insolence on the part of Gallus. She was saying to the washer-upof the dishes, "God save my soul, Priscilla, but what I can't makeout is, why they haven't strangled them before!"
To-day, when Julian, after his lesson in theology, went out of thehouse and perceived the greenness of the trees, he breathed morefreely. The two peaks of Mount Argaeus, covered with snow, sparkledagainst blue sky. The neighbourhood of glaciers made the airrefreshingly cool; garden alleys stretched hither and thither into thedistance; glistening dark-green foliage of oaks formed thickvaultings; here and there a ray filtered through the branches ofplane-trees. Only one side of the garden was not walled in, for inthat direction lay a chasm. At the foot of the plateau on which thecastle stood, a dead plain stretched as far as Anti-Taurus, and fromthis plain fierce heat rose in mist, while in the garden fresh streamswere running and little waterfalls tinkling through thickets ofoleanders.
A century before the date of which we are speaking Macellum had beenthe favourite domain and pleasure-house of the luxurious and half-madAriarathes, king of Cappadocia.
Julian took his way towards an isolated grotto, hard by the precipice,in which a statue of the god Pan, playing the flute, stood over alittle sacrificial altar. Outside the grotto, a lion's mouth jettedwater into a stone basin, and a curtain of roses masked the entrancewhile letting through its branches a view of the undulating hills andthe plain, far down and drowned in misty blue. The perfume of rosesfilled the little cave, and the air there would have been oppressivehad it not been cooled by a stream channelled in the rocky floor.
The wind scattered the turf with yellow petals of roses, and flungthem floating on the water of the basin. From the dark and warm placeof shelter could be heard the humming of bees. There Julian,stretched on the moss, used to read the _Banquet_ of Plato,understanding nothing of many of the passages; but their beauty hadfor him a double relish because it was a fruit forbidden.
When his reading was done, Julian wrapped the book anew in the bindingof the "Epistles of the Apostle Paul," went up to the altar of Pan,gazed at the joyous god as at an old accomplice, and, thrusting hishand into a heap of dried leaves, drew from the interior of the altar,which was cracked and covered with a piece of board, a small objectcarefully enveloped in cloth. It was his own handiwork--a delightfullittle Liburnian trireme, or galley with three banks of oars. He setit swimming in the basin; the galley rocked on the miniature waves.The model was complete,--three masts, rigging, oars, gilded prow, andsails made of a fragment of purple silk, the gift of Labda. Nothingwas wanting but to fix the rudder, and the boy began the task.
From time to time, while planing a piece of board, he would look intothe distance, at the hills outlined in mist through the hedge ofroses. Beside his plaything Julian soon forgot all vexations, allhates, and the eternal fear of death. In this little cave he imaginedhimself a shipwrecked sailor. He was the wily Ulysses in some solitarycavern facing the ocean, building a ship in which he might win backagain to Ithaca. But down yonder, there among the hills, where thehouses of Caesarea shone white as the sea-foam, a little cross,glittering high above the roof of the basilica, irritated him still.That everlasting cross! Could he never be free of it, even here in hisown cave? He would resolve not to see it, and stooping, redoubled hisattention to the galley.
"Julian!" a voice cried; "Julian, Julian! Where in the world is he?Eutropius is looking for you to go to church with him."
The boy shivered, and nimbly hid his handiwork inside the altar ofPan. He smoothed his hair, shook his clothes, and when he came out ofthe grotto had resumed an expression of impenetrable Christianhypocrisy.
Eutropius, holding Julian's hand in his bony one, conducted him tochurch.
The Death of the Gods Page 4