The Death of the Gods

by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

  XVII

  It was the sixteenth of June, and the first bivouac on the night ofthe retreat. The army had refused to go farther. Neither prayers,commands, nor threats of the Emperor had brought them to reason.Celts, Romans, Pagans, Christians, brave men and cowards, all hadanswered in the same words--

  "Let us go back to our own country!"

  The chiefs rejoiced in secret; the Tuscan augurs openly triumphed.After the burning of the ships there had been a general insurrection.And now not only the Galileans but the Olympians and Hellenists werepersuaded that a curse was on the Emperor's head, and that the Furieswere pursuing him. When he walked through the camp talk would ceaseand people edge away from him in fear. Sibylline books and the Book ofRevelation, Tuscan wizards, Christian prophecies, gods, and angels,joined forces to crush the common foe. The Emperor then announced thathe would lead his men homewards northward through the fertileprovinces of Apolloniatis and Adiabene. According to this plan ofretreat, while retaining a hope of forming a junction with the troopsof Procopius and Sebastian, Julian consoled himself with the thoughtthat he was keeping within the borders of Persia, and that he mightstill encounter Sapor's army, deliver battle, and win a decisivevictory.

  The Persians were no longer visible. Desiring to weaken the Romansbefore a crushing attack, they set on fire their own rich champaignsof barley and wheat, and destroyed every store and granary in thecountry.

  Julian's soldiers marched through a black desert, still smoking withtraces of fire.

  Famine soon set in.

  In order to augment the invaders' distress the Persians had broken thecanal-dykes and flooded the fields, being aided in this endeavour bybrooks and torrents which had overflowed their courses owing to themelting of the snow on the Armenian mountains. The flood dried upquickly under the burning rays of the June sun, but left the warm soilcoated with slimy mud. Asphyxiating vapours and the bitter odour ofashes and of rotting vegetation loaded the air every night, andbefouled the drinking water, the food, and even the rags of thesoldiers. Myriads of insects rose from corrupted marshes. Mosquitoes,venomous horse-flies, rose in clouds round the beasts of burden andfastened themselves on the men. Their subtle hum went on night andday. Maddened by stings, the horses died or stampeded, the oxen broketheir traces and overturned the wagons. After exhausting marchesthrough defiles and fords the soldiers obtained no rest; tents were norefuge against the insects, and to get any sleep the men had to wraptheir heads in stifling cloaks, while the bites of a certain smalltransparent dung-coloured fly produced swellings and boils whichgradually became a horrible purulent plague. During the last days ofthe march the sun was invisible. The low, dense, stifling sky was awhite cloth of cloud; and its motionless glare still more painful tothe eyes than the naked sun.

  And so they kept marching, wasted, weak, with hung head and feeblestep, day after day, between the implacable sky and the black, burntearth.

  "Surely," they thought, "Anti-Christ, the man apostate from God, musthave intentionally led them into this accursed place, to leave them totheir doom." Some murmured, "Curse the generals!" but incoherently, asin a dream. Others kept praying and whining like sick children,begging a crust of bread or a mouthful of wine from their companions.Many from weakness dropped and died on the road.

  The Emperor ordered the last rations kept for himself and for hisstaff to be distributed among the famished rank and file. He contentedhimself with a thin soup of flour and suet, a fare from which themeanest soldier would have revolted. Thanks to extreme temperance, hefelt continually full of nervous excitement, and at the same time alightness of body, as if he had wings. This lightness sustained himand increased his strength tenfold. He attempted not to think of thefuture. But to return to Antioch or Tarsus, defeated, and to submit toGalilean ridicule, that he certainly would never endure.

  One night the soldiers were resting, the north wind having driven offthe flies. Oil, flour, and wine, from the last Imperial supply, hadassuaged their hunger. The hope of return gradually revived. The campbecame silent. Julian withdrew to his tent. Now he was wont almost todispense with sleep, or if he slept at all, it was towards daybreak.If by chance profound slumber overtook him, he would wake terrified,with drops of cold sweat on his forehead. He had need of fullpossession of consciousness to stifle the dull pain gnawing at hissoul.

  Entering his tent, he trimmed the lamp with a pair of snuffers. Rollsof parchment and the Gospels lay around him on the ground in disorder.He began to write his favourite work, _Against the Christians_, beguntwo months previously at the opening of the campaign. Reclining, withhis back turned to the tent door, Julian was re-reading themanuscript, when suddenly he heard a slight noise.

  He turned round, uttered a cry, and sprang to his feet. He thought hesaw a ghost. On the threshold stood a youth, clothed in a ragged browngarment of camel's hair; a dusty sheepskin, the "melotes" of theEgyptian anchorites, flung over his shoulders. His bare feet were shodin sandals of palmwood.

  The Emperor scanned him, waiting, unable to pronounce a word.

  "Do you remember," said a well-known voice. "Do you remember, Julian,how you came to me in the convent? Then I repulsed you. But I have notbeen able to forget you, because we are singularly like each other,singularly near each other...."

  The lad threw back his black hood, Julian saw the bright brown hair,and recognised Arsinoe.

  "Whence--why have you come? Why are you clad thus?"

  He still feared lest this might be some spirit, which would vanish asunexpectedly as it had appeared.

  In a few words Arsinoe narrated to him her fortunes since their lastparting.

  After leaving her guardian Hortensius and giving the greater part ofher wealth to the poor, she had long lodged with the anchorites to thesouth of Lake Mareotis, west of the Nile, among the sterile mountainsof Libya, in the terrible Nitrian and Sciathian deserts. She had beenaccompanied by the young Juventinus, the disciple of old Didimus. Theyhad been taught daily by the ascetics.

  "And then," asked Julian, not without a certain apprehension, "andthen, girl, did you find among them what you were seeking for?"

  She shook her head, and said sadly--

  "No. Flashes of light, allusions, hints, as always, elsewhere."

  "Speak on! Tell me all," implored the Emperor, his eyes brilliant withhope and gratitude.

  "How can I?" she answered slowly. "For, my friend, I was seeking thefreedom of the soul; but it has no existence here!"

  "Yes, yes! is not that true?" cried Julian, exultant. "That was what Itold you, Arsinoe."

  She seated herself on a stool covered with a leopardskin, andcontinued her tale calmly, with the same sad smile, Julian listeningin an avidity of joy....

  * * * * *

  "Tell me, how did you leave those unhappy desert-folk?" demandedJulian.

  "I was tempted once," replied Arsinoe; "once in the desert among therocks I found a fragment of white marble. I picked it up and longwondered at it, sparkling in the sun, and suddenly I rememberedAthens, my youth, my art, and you! I awoke, and I decided to return tothe world, to live and die as God had created me; as an artist. Atthat moment the old Didimus had a vision in which I was the means ofreconciling you with the Galilean...."

  "With the Galilean!" ejaculated the Emperor.

  His face darkened, his eyes lost their fire, the triumphant laugh diedon his lips.

  "Curiosity, too, drew me again towards you," continued Arsinoe. "Iwished to know if you had attained truth in the way you pursued, andwhat summit you had reached. I resumed the habit of a monk. BrotherJuventinus and I descended the Nile as far as Alexandria; then a shiptook us to Antioch; and we have journeyed with a great Syrian caravanthrough Apamea, Epiphania, and Edessa to the frontier. After athousand dangers, we crossed the Mesopotamian desert, abandoned by thePersians, and not far from the village of Abuzat, after the victory atCtesiphon, we saw your camp. And so I am here!... And you, Julian?"

  He sighed, and hung his head withou
t answering. Then scanning her, hedemanded--

  "And now you too detest Him, Arsinoe?"

  "No; why?" she answered simply. "Why detest Him? Did not the sages ofHellas come near, in their teaching, to the message of the Galilean?Those who in the desert martyrise soul and body are far from thehumble Son of Mary. He used to love children, freedom, cheerfulness,and the fair white lilies of the field. He loved beauty, Julian!... Wehave wandered from Him and become entangled and embittered. All callyou the Apostate, ... but it is they who are the apostates...."

  The Emperor knelt down before Arsinoe and raised upon her eyes full ofprayer; tears coursed slowly down his lean cheeks.

  "It must not be," he murmured. "Do not speak. Why? Why? Let be whathas been!... Do not again become mine enemy!"

  "No, no! I must say it all to you," exclaimed Arsinoe. "Listen! I knowthat you love Him! It is so, and that is the fatality upon you.Against whom have you revolted? What kind of enemy are you for Him?When your lips are cursing the Crucified, your heart is aspiringafter Him. When you are struggling against His name, you are closer toHim, closer to His spirit, than those who repeat with dead lips,'Lord, Lord'!... And it is they who are your enemies, and not He. Ah!why do you torture yourself more than the Galilean monks?"

  The Emperor tore himself from the clasp of Arsinoe, and stood up, paleas one dead. His face again grew restless, and in his eyes shone theold hatred. He muttered with sorrowful irony--

  "Away with you! Go from me! I know the devices of the Galileans!"

  Arsinoe gazed at him in fear and despair, as at one insane--

  "Julian!... Julian, what is the matter? Is it possible that a merename...."

  But he had regained cold self-possession. His eyes were lustreless,his air indifferent, almost contemptuous; the Roman Emperor wasspeaking to a Galilean.

  "Depart, Arsinoe. Forget all that I have said. It was a moment ofweakness which is over. I am tranquil. You see, we must remainstrangers. The shadow of the Crucified is always between us. You havenot renounced Him, and he who is not His enemy cannot be myfriend...."

  She fell on her knees before him--

  "Why? why? What are you doing? Have pity on me; have pity on yourself,before it is too late! For this is madness. Return, or you must...."

  She paused, and he completed the sentence for her with a haughtysmile--

  "Or I must perish, you mean, Arsinoe? Be it so. I shall follow my roadto the end, lead where it may! If, as you say, I have been unjusttoward the wisdom of the Galileans, remember what I have borne attheir hands. How numberless, how despicable were my enemies!... Theother day some Roman soldiers found before my eyes, in a Mesopotamianmarsh, a lion tortured by flies. They had buried themselves in histhroat, in his ears, in his nostrils, choking his breath, sealing hiseyes, and in their stinging myriads had mastered even his powers atlast! Such shall my death be, and such the victory of the Galileansover Caesar!"

  The girl still held out towards him her pale hands; but without aword, without a hope, like a friend towards a friend who is dead.Between the two lay still that abyss which is not to be crossed by theliving.

  * * * * *

  Towards the twentieth of July the Roman army, after a long journeyacross burnt plains, found a little grass which had escaped from thedevastators in the deep valley of the river Durous.

  A field of ripe wheat was found hard by. The soldiers reaped it andrested in the valley three days. Unspeakably happy, the legionariesthrew themselves down on the verdure, breathing the delightfulmoisture of the earth, and brushing the cool blades of grass againsttheir dusty faces.

  On the morning of the fourth day the Roman sentinels perceived a cloudof smoke or dust. Some supposed it to be the wild asses, which usuallyroamed in herds for safety against the attack of lions. Othersaffirmed that it was Saracens, attracted by the news of the siege ofCtesiphon. A few expressed their fears lest it should prove to be theprincipal army of King Sapor.

  The Emperor ordered the call to arms to be sounded on the bugles. Thecohorts in strict defensive order, sheltered by their locked shields,as by walls of metal, formed a camp half-circlewise on the river bank.The cloud of smoke or dust remained on the horizon until evening, norcould any divine with certainty what lurked behind it. The night wasdark and still, with not a star in the sky.

  The Romans did not sleep. They stood round huge bivouac-fires in muterestlessness, awaiting the dawn.