The traveller who so far departs from the ordinary track of tourists in
modern Italy as to visit the city of Ravenna, remembers with
astonishment, as he treads its silent and melancholy streets, and
beholds vineyards and marshes spread over an extent of four miles
between the Adriatic and the town, that this place, now half deserted,
was once the most populous of Roman fortresses; and that where fields
and woods now present themselves to his eyes the fleets of the Empire
once rode securely at anchor, and the merchant of Rome disembarked his
precious cargoes at his warehouse door.
As the power of Rome declined, the Adriatic, by a strange fatality,
began to desert the fortress whose defence it had hitherto secured.
Coeval with the gradual degeneracy of the people was the gradual
withdrawal of the ocean from the city walls; until, at the beginning of
the sixth century, a grove of pines already appeared where the port of
Augustus once existed.
At the period of our story--though the sea had even then receded
perceptibly--the ditches round the walls were yet filled, and the canals
still ran through the city in much the same manner as they intersect
Venice at the present time.
On the morning that we are about to describe, the autumn had advanced
some days since the events mentioned in the preceding chapter. Although
the sun was now high in the eastern horizon, the restlessness produced
by the heat emboldened a few idlers of Ravenna to brave the sultriness
of the atmosphere, in the vain hope of being greeted by a breeze from
the Adriatic as they mounted the seaward ramparts of the town. On
attaining their destined elevation, these sanguine citizens turned their
faces with fruitless and despairing industry towards every point of the
compass, but no breath of air came to reward their perseverance. Nothing
could be more thoroughly suggestive of the undiminished universality of
the heat than the view, in every direction, from the position they then
occupied. The stone houses of the city behind them glowed with a vivid
brightness overpowering to the strongest eyes. The light curtains hung
motionless over the lonely windows. No shadows varied the brilliant
monotony of the walls, or softened the lively glitter on the waters of
the fountains beneath. Not a ripple stirred the surface of the broad
channel, that now replaced the ancient harbour. Not a breath of wind
unfolded the scorching sails of the deserted vessels at the quay. Over
the marshes in the distance hung a hot, quivering mist; and in the
vineyards, near the town, not a leaf waved upon its slender stem. On
the seaward side lay, vast and level, the prospect of the burning sand;
and beyond it the main ocean--waveless, torpid, and suffused in a flood
of fierce brightness--stretched out to the cloudless horizon that closed
the sunbright view.
Within the town, in those streets where the tall houses cast a deep
shadow on the flagstones of the road, the figures of a few slaves might
here and there be seen sleeping against the walls, or gossiping
languidly on the faults of their respective lords. Sometimes an old
beggar might be observed hunting on the well-stocked preserves of his
own body the lively vermin of the South. Sometimes a restless child
crawled from a doorstep to paddle in the stagnant waters of a kennel;
but, with the exception of these doubtful evidences of human industry,
the prevailing characteristic of the few groups of the lowest orders of
the people which appeared in the streets was the most listless and utter
indolence. All that gave splendour to the city at other hours of the
day was at this period hidden from the eye. The elegant courtiers
reclined in their lofty chambers; the guards on duty ensconced
themselves in angles of walls and recesses of porticoes; the graceful
ladies slumbered on perfumed couches in darkened rooms; the gilded
chariots were shut into the carriage-houses; the prancing horses were
confined in the stables; and even the wares in the market-places were
removed from exposure to the sun. It was clear that the luxurious
inhabitants of Ravenna recognised no duties of sufficient importance,
and no pleasures of sufficient attraction, to necessitate the exposure
of their susceptible bodies to the noontide heat.
To give the reader some idea of the manner in which the indolent
patricians of the Court loitered away their noon, and to satisfy, at the
same time, the exigencies attaching to the conduct of this story, it is
requisite to quit the lounging-places of the plebeians in the streets
for the couches of the nobles in the Emperor's palace.
Passing through the massive entrance gates, crossing the vast hall of
the Imperial abode, with its statues, its marbles, and its guards in
attendance, and thence ascending the noble staircase, the first object
that might on this occasion have attracted the observer, when he gained
the approaches to the private apartments, was a door at an extremity of
the corridor, richly carved and standing half open. At this spot were
grouped some fifteen or twenty individuals, who conversed by signs, and
maintained in all their movements the most decorous and complete
silence. Sometimes one of the party stole on tiptoe to the door, and
looked cautiously through, returning almost instantaneously, and
expressing to his next neighbour, by various grimaces, his immense
interest in the sight he had just beheld. Occasionally there came from
this mysterious chamber sounds resembling the cackling of poultry,
varied now and then by a noise like the falling of a shower of small,
light substances upon a hard floor. Whenever these sounds were audible,
the members of the party outside the door looked round upon each other
and smiled--some sarcastically, some triumphantly. A few among these
patient expectants grasped rolls of vellum in their hands; the rest held
nosegays of rare flowers, or supported in their arms small statues and
pictures in mosaic. Of their number, some were painters and poets, some
orators and philosophers, and some statuaries and musicians. Among such
a motley assemblage of professions, remarkable in all ages of the world
for fostering in their votaries the vice of irritability, it may seem
strange that so quiet and orderly a behaviour should exist as that just
described. But it is to be observed that in attending at the palace,
these men of genius made sure at least of outward unanimity among their
ranks, by coming equally prepared with one accomplishment, and equally
animated by one hope: they waited to employ a common agent--flattery; to
attain a common end--gain.
The chamber thus sacred, even from the intrusion of intellectual
inspiration, although richly ornamented, was of no remarkable extent.
At other times the eye might have wandered with delight on the exquisite
plants and flowers, scattered profusely over a noble terrace, to which a
second door in the apartment conducted; but, at the present moment, the
employment of the occupant of the room was of so extraordinary a nature,
that the most attentive observation must have missed all the inferior
characteristics of the place, to settle immediately on its inhabitant
alone.
In the midst of a large flock of poultry, which seemed strangely
misplaced on a floor of marble and under a gilded roof, stood a pale,
thin, debilitated youth, magnificently clothed, and holding in his hand
a silver vase filled with grain, which he ever and anon distributed to
the cackling multitude at his feet. Nothing could be more pitiably
effeminate than the appearance of this young man. His eyes were heavy
and vacant, his forehead low and retiring, his cheeks sallow, and his
form curved as if with a premature old age. An unmeaning smile dilated
his thin, colourless lips; and as he looked down on his strange
favourites, he occasionally whispered to them a few broken expressions
of endearment, almost infantine in their simplicity. His whole soul
seemed to be engrossed by the labour of distributing his grain, and he
followed the different movements of the poultry with an earnestness of
attention which seemed almost idiotic in its ridiculous intensity. If
it be asked, why a person so contemptible as this solitary youth has
been introduced with so much care, and described with so much
minuteness, it must be answered, that, though destined to form no
important figure in this work, he played, from his position, a
remarkable part in the great drama on which it is founded--for this
feeder of chickens was no less a person than Honorius, Emperor of Rome.
It is the very imbecility of this man, at such a time as that we now
write on, which invests his character with a fearful interest in the eye
of posterity. In himself the impersonation of the meanest vices
inherent in the vicious civilisation of his period, to his feebleness
was accorded the terrible responsibility of liberating the long-prisoned
storm whose elements we have attempted to describe in the preceding
chapter. With just intellect enough to be capricious, and just
determination enough to be mischievous, he was an instrument fitted for
the uses of every ambitious villain who could succeed in gaining his
ear. To flatter his puerile tyranny, the infatuated intriguers of the
Court rewarded the heroic Stilicho for the rescue of his country with
the penalty of death, and defrauded Alaric of the moderate concessions
that they had solemnly pledged themselves to perform. To gratify his
vanity, he was paraded in triumph through the streets of Rome for a
victory that others had gained. To pander to his arrogance, by an
exhibition of the vilest privilege of that power which had been
intrusted to him for good, the massacre of the helpless hostages,
confided by Gothic honour to Roman treachery, was unhesitatingly
ordained; and, finally, to soothe the turbulence of his unmanly fears,
the last act of his unscrupulous councillors, ere the Empire fell, was
to authorise his abandoning his people in the hour of peril, careless
who suffered in defenceless Rome, while he was secure in fortified
Ravenna. Such was the man under whom the mightiest of the world's
structures was doomed to totter to its fall! Such was the figure
destined to close a scene which Time and Glory had united to hallow and
adorn! Raised and supported by a superhuman daring, that invested the
nauseous horrors of incessant bloodshed with a rude and appalling
magnificence, the mistress of nations was now fated to sink by the most
ignoble of defeats, under the most abject of tremblers. For this had
the rough old kingdom shaken off its enemies by swarms from its vigorous
arms! For this had the doubtful virtues of the Republic, and the
perilous magnificence of the Empire, perplexed and astonished the world!
In such a conclusion as Honorius ended the dignified barbarities of a
Brutus, the polished splendours of an Augustus, the unearthly atrocities
of a Nero, and the immortal virtues of a Trajan! Vainly, through the
toiling ages, over the ruin of her noblest hearts, and the prostitution
of her grandest intellects, had Rome striven pitilessly onward, grasping
at the shadow--Glory; the fiat had now gone forth that doomed her to
possess herself finally of the substance--Shame!
When the imperial trifler had exhausted his store of grain, and
satisfied the cravings of his voracious favourites, he was relieved of
his silver vase by two attendants. The flock of poultry was then
ushered out at one door, while the flock of geniuses was ushered in at
the other.
Leaving the emperor to cast his languid eyes over objects of art for
which he had no admiration, and to open his unwilling ears to
panegyrical orations for which he had no comprehension, we proceed to
introduce the reader to an apartment on the opposite side of the palace,
in which are congregated all the beauty and elegance of his Court.
Imagine a room two hundred feet long and proportionably broad. Its
floor is mosaic, wrought into the loveliest patterns. Its sides are
decorated with immense pillars of variegated marble, the recesses formed
by which are occupied by statues, all arranged in exquisite variety of
attitude, so as to appear to be offering to whoever approaches them the
rare flowers which it is the duty of the attendants to place in their
hands. The ceiling is painted in fresco, in patterns and colours
harmonising with those on the mosaic floor. The cornices are of silver,
and decorated with mottoes from the amatory poets of the day, the
letters of which are formed by precious stones. In the middle of the
room is a fountain throwing up streams of perfumed water, and surrounded
by golden aviaries containing birds of all sizes and nations. Three
large windows, placed at the eastern extremity of the apartment, look
out upon the Adriatic, but are covered at this hour, from the outside,
with silk curtains of a delicate green shade, which cast a soft,
luxurious light over every object, but are so thinly woven and so
skilfully arranged that the slightest breath of air which moves without
finds its way immediately to the languid occupants of the Court waiting-
room. The number of these individuals amounts to about fifty or sixty
persons. By far the larger half of the assemblage are women. Their
black hair tastefully braided into various forms, and adorned with
flowers or precious stones, contrasts elegantly with the brilliant
whiteness of the robes in which they are for the most part clothed. Some
of them are occupied in listlessly watching the movements of the birds
in the aviaries; others hold a languid and whispered conversation with
such of the courtiers as happen to be placed near them. The men exhibit
in their dresses a greater variety of colour, and in their occupations a
greater fertility of resource, than the women. Their garments, of the
lightest rose, violet, or yellow tints, diversify fantastically the
monotonous white robes of their gentle companions. Of their
employments, the most conspicuous are playing on the lute, gaming with
dice, teasing their lapdogs, and insulting their parasites. Whatever
their occupation, it is performed with little attention, and less
enthusiasm. Some recline on their couches with closed eyes, as if the
heat made the labour of using their organs of vision too much for them;
others, in the midst of a conversation, suddenly leave a sentence
unfinished, apparently incapacitated by lassitude from giving expression
to the simplest ideas. Every sight in the apartment that attracts the
eye, every sound that gains the ear, expresses a luxurious repose. No
brilliant light mars the pervading softness of the atmosphere; no
violent colour materialises the light, ethereal hues of the dresses; no
sudden noises interrupt the fitful and plaintive notes of the lute, jar
with the soft twittering of the birds in the aviaries, or drown the
still, regular melody of the ladies' voices. All objects, animate and
inanimate, are in harmony with each other. It is a scene of
spiritualised indolence--a picture of dreamy beatitude in the inmost
sanctuary of unruffled repose.
Amid this assemblage of beauty and nobility, the members of which were
rather to be generally noticed than particularly observed, there was,
however, one individual who, both by the solitary occupation he had
chosen and his accidental position in the room, was personally
remarkable among the listless patricians around him.
His couch was placed nearer the window than that of any other occupant
of the chamber. Some of his indolent neighbours--especially those of the
gentler sex--occasionally regarded him with mingled looks of admiration
and curiosity; but no one approached him, or attempted to engage him in
conversation. A piece of vellum lay by his side, on which, from time to
time, he traced a few words, and then resumed his reclining position,
apparently absorbed in reflection, and utterly regardless of all the
occupants, male and female, of the imperial apartment. Judging from his
general appearance, he could scarcely be twenty-five years of age. The
conformation of the upper part of his face was thoroughly intellectual--
the forehead high, broad, and upright; the eyes clear, penetrating, and
thoughtful;--but the lower part was, on the other hand, undeniably
sensual. The lips, full and thick, formed a disagreeable contrast to
the delicate chiselling of the straight Grecian nose; while the
fleshiness of the chin, and the jovial redundancy of the cheeks, were,
in their turn, utterly at variance with the character of the pale, noble
forehead, and the expression of the quick, intelligent eyes. In stature
he was barely of the middle size; but every part of his body was so
perfectly proportioned that he appeared, in any position, taller than he
really was. The upper part of his dress, thrown open from the heat,
partly disclosed the fine statuesque formation of his neck and chest.
His ears, hands, and feet were of that smallness and delicacy which is
held to denote the aristocracy of birth; and there was in his manner
that indescribable combination of unobtrusive dignity and unaffected
elegance, which in all ages and countries, and through all changes of
manners and customs, has rendered the demeanour of its few favoured
possessors the instantaneous interpreter of their social rank.
While the patrician was still occupied over his vellum, the following
conversation took place in whispers between two ladies placed near the
situation he occupied.
'Tell me, Camilla,' said the eldest and stateliest of the two, 'who is
the courtier so occupied in composition? I have endeavoured, I know not
how often, to catch his eye; but the man will look at nothing but his
roll of vellum or the corners of the room.'
'What, are you so great a stranger in Italy as not to know him!' replied
the other, a lively girl of small delicate form, who fidgeted with
persevering restlessness on her couch, and seemed incapable of giving an
instant's steady attention to any of the objects around her. 'By all
the saints, martyrs, and relics of my uncle the bishop!'
'Hush! You should not swear!'
'Not swear! Why, I am making a new collection of oaths, intended solely
for ladies' use! I intend to set the fashion of swearing by them
myself!'
'But answer my question, I beseech you! Will you never learn to talk on
one subject at a time?'
'Your question--ah, your question! It was about the Goths?'
'No, no! It was about that man who is incessantly writing, and will
look at nobody. He is almost as provoking as Camilla herself!'
'Don't frown so! That man, as you call him, is the senator Vetranio.'
The lady started. It was evident that Vetranio had a reputation.
'Yes!' continued the lively Camilla, 'that is the accomplished Vetranio;
but he will be no favourite of yours, for he sometimes swears--swears by
the ancient gods, too, which is forbidden!'
'He is handsome.'
'Handsome! he is beautiful! Not a woman in Italy but is languishing for
him!'
'I have heard that he is clever.'
'Who has not? He is the author of some of the most celebrated sauces of
the age. Cooks of all nations worship him as an oracle. Then he writes
poetry, and composes music, and paints pictures! And as for
philosophy--he talks it better than my uncle the bishop!'
'Is he rich?'
'Ah! my uncle the bishop!--I must tell you how I helped Vetranio to make
a satire on him! When I was staying with him at Rome, I used often to
see a woman in a veil taken across the garden to his study; so, to
perplex him, I asked him who she was. And he frowned and stammered, and
said at first that I was disrespectful; but he told me afterwards that
she was an Arian whom he was labouring to convert. So I thought I
should like to see how this conversion went on, and I hid myself behind
a bookcase. But it is a profound secret; I tell it you in confidence.'
'I don't care to know it. Tell me about Vetranio.'
'How ill-natured you are! Oh! I shall never forget how we laughed when
I told Vetranio what I had seen. He took up his writing materials, and
made the satire immediately. The next day all Rome heard of it. My
uncle was speechless with rage! I believe he suspected me; but he gave
up converting the Arian lady, and--'
'I ask you again--Is Vetranio rich?'
'Half Sicily is his. He has immense estates in Africa, olive-grounds in
Syria, and corn-fields in Gaul. I was present at an entertainment he
gave at his villa in Sicily. He fitted up one of his vessels from the
descriptions of the furnishing of Cleopatra's galley, and made his
slaves swim after us as attendant Tritons. Oh! it was magnificent!'
'I should like to know him.'
'You should see his cats! He has a perfect legion of them at his villa.
Twelve slaves are employed to attend on them. He is mad about cats, and
declares that the old Egyptians were right to worship them. He told me
yesterday, that when his largest cat is dead he will canonise her, in
spite of the Christians! And then he is so kind to his slaves! They
are never whipped or punished, except when they neglect or disfigure
themselves; for Vetranio will allow nothing that is ugly or dirty to
come near him. You must visit his banqueting-hall in Rome. It is
perfection!'
'But why is he here?'
'He has come to Ravenna, charged with some secret message from the
Senate, and has presented a rare breed of chickens to that foolish--'
'Hush! you may be overheard!'
'Well!--to that wise emperor of ours! Ah! the palace has been so
pleasant since he has been here!'
At this instant the above dialogue--from the frivolity of which the
universally-learned readers of modern times will, we fear, recoil with
contempt--was interrupted by a movement on the part of its hero which
showed that his occupation was at an end. With the elaborate
deliberation of a man who disdains to exhibit himself as liable to be
hurried by any mortal affair, Vetranio slowly folded up the vellum he
had now filled with writing, and depositing it in his bosom, made a sign
to a slave who happened to be then passing near him with a dish of
fruit.
Having received his message, the slave retired to the entrance of the
apartment, and beckoning to a man who stood outside the door, motioned
him to approach Vetranio's couch.
This individual immediately hurried across the room to the window where
the elegant Roman awaited him. Not the slightest description of him is
needed; for he belonged to a class with which moderns are as well
acquainted as ancients--a class which has survived all changes of
nations and manners--a class which came in with the first rich man in
the world, and will only go out with the last. In a word, he was a
parasite.
He enjoyed, however, one great superiority over his modern successors:
in his day flattery was a profession--in ours it has sunk to a pursuit.
'I shall leave Ravenna this evening,' said Vetranio.
The parasite made three low bows and smiled ecstatically.
'You will order my travelling equipage to be at the palace gates an hour
before sunset.'
The parasite declared he should never forget the honour of the
commission, and left the room.
The sprightly Camilla, who had overheard Vetranio's command, jumped off
her couch, as soon as the parasite's back was turned, and running up to
the senator, began to reproach him for the determination he had just
formed.
'Have you no compunction at leaving me to the dulness of this horrible
palace, to satisfy your idle fancy for going to Rome,' said she, pouting
her pretty lip, and playing with a lock of the dark brown hair that
clustered over Vetranio's brow.
'Has the senator Vetranio so little regard for his friends as to leave
them to the mercy of the Goths?' said another lady, advancing with a
winning smile to Camilla's side.
'Ah, those Goths!' exclaimed Vetranio, turning to the last speaker.
'Tell me, Julia, is it not reported that the barbarians are really
marching into Italy?'
'Everybody has heard of it. The emperor is so discomposed by the
rumour, that he has forbidden the very name of the Goths to be mentioned
in his presence again.'
'For my part,' continued Vetranio, drawing Camilla towards him, and
playfully tapping her little dimpled hand, 'I am in anxious expectation
of the Goths, for I have designed a statue of Minerva, for which I can
find no model so fit as a woman of that troublesome nation. I am
informed upon good authority, that their limbs are colossal, and their
sense of propriety most obediently pliable under the discipline of the
purse.'
'If the Goths supply you with a model for anything,' said a courtier who
had joined the group while Vetranio was speaking, 'it will be with a
representation of the burning of your palace at Rome, which they will
enable you to paint from the inexhaustible reservoir of your own
wounds.'
The individual who uttered this last observation was remarkable among
the brilliant circle around him by his excessive ugliness. Urged by his
personal disadvantages, and the loss of all his property at the gaming-
table, he had latterly personated a character, the accomplishments
attached to which rescued him, by their disagreeable originality in that
frivolous age, from oblivion or contempt. He was a Cynic philosopher.
His remark, however, produced no other effect on his hearers' serenity
than to excite their merriment. Vetranio laughed, Camilla laughed,
Julia laughed. The idea of a troop of barbarians ever being able to
burn a palace at Rome was too wildly ridiculous for any one's gravity;
and as the speech was repeated in other parts of the room, in spite of
their dulness and lassitude the whole Court laughed.
'I know not why I should be amused by that man's nonsense,' said
Camilla, suddenly becoming grave at the very crisis of a most attractive
smile, 'when I am so melancholy at the thought of Vetranio's departure.
What will become of me when he is gone? Alas! who will be left in the
palace to compose songs to my beauty and music for my lute? Who will
paint me as Venus, and tell me stories about the ancient Egyptians and
their cats? Who at the banquet will direct what dishes I am to choose,
and what I am to reject? Who?'--and poor little Camilla stopped
suddenly in her enumeration of the pleasures she was about to lose, and
seemed on the point of weeping as piteously as she had been laughing
rapturously but the instant before.
Vetranio was touched--not by the compliment to his more intellectual
powers, but by the admission of his convivial supremacy as a guide to
the banquet, contained in the latter part of Camilla's remonstrance.
The sex were then, as now, culpably deficient in gastronomic enthusiasm.
It was, therefore, a perfect triumph to have made a convert to the
science of the youngest and loveliest of the ladies of the Court.
'If she can gain leave of absence,' said the gratified senator, 'Camilla
shall accompany me to Rome, and shall be present at the first
celebration of my recent discovery of a Nightingale Sauce.'
Camilla was in ecstasies. She seized Vetranio's cheeks between her rosy
little fingers, kissed him as enthusiastically as a child kisses a new
toy, and darted gaily off to prepare for her departure.
'Vetranio would be better employed,' sneered the Cynic, 'in inventing
new salves for future wounds than new sauces for future nightingales!
His carcase will be carved by Gothic swords as a feast for the worms
before his birds are spitted with Roman skewers as a feast for his
guests! Is this a time for cutting statues and concocting sauces? Fie
on the senators who abandon themselves to such pursuits as Vetranio's!'
'I have other designs,' replied the object of all this moral
indignation, looking with insulting indifference on the Cynic's
repulsive countenance, 'which, from their immense importance to the
world, must meet with universal approval. The labour that I have just
achieved forms one of a series of three projects which I have for some
time held in contemplation. The first is an analysis of the new
priesthood; the second, a true personification, both by painting and
sculpture, of Venus; the third, a discovery of what has been hitherto
uninvented--a nightingale sauce. By the inscrutable wisdom of Fate, it
has been so willed that the last of the objects I proposed to myself has
been the first attained. The sauce is composed, and I have just
concluded on this vellum the ode that is to introduce it at my table.
The analysation will be my next labour. It will take the form of a
treatise, in which, making the experience of past years the groundwork
of prophecy for the future, I shall show the precise number of
additional dissensions, controversies, and quarrels that will be require
to enable the new priesthood to be themselves the destroyers of their
own worship. I shall ascertain by an exact computation the year in
which this destruction will be consummated; and I have by me as the
materials for my work an historical summary of Christian schisms and
disputes in Rome for the last hundred years. As for my second design,
the personification of Venus, it is of appalling difficulty. It demands
an investigation of the women of every nation under the sun; a
comparison of the relative excellences and peculiarities of their
several charms; and a combination of all that is loveliest in the
infinite variety of their most prominent attractions, under one form.
To forward the execution of this arduous project, my tenants at home and
my slave-merchants abroad have orders to send to my villa in Sicily all
women who are born most beautiful in the Empire, or can be brought most
beautiful from the nations around. I will have them displayed before
me, of every shade in complexion and of every peculiarity in form! At
the fitting period I shall commence my investigations, undismayed by
difficulty, and determined on success. Never yet has the true Venus
been personified! Should I accomplish the task, how exquisite will be
my triumph! My work will be the altar at which thousands will offer up
the softest emotions of the heart. It will free the prisoned
imagination of youth, and freshen the fading recollections on the memory
of age!'
Vetranio paused. The Cynic was struck dumb with indignation. A
solitary zealot for the Church, who happened to be by, frowned at the
analysation. The ladies tittered at the personification. The
gastronomists chuckled at the nightingale sauce; but for the first few
minutes no one spoke. During this temporary embarrassment, Vetranio
whispered a few words in Julia's ear; and--just as the Cynic was
sufficiently recovered to retort--accompanied by the lady, he quitted
the room.
Never was popularity more unalloyed than Vetranio's. Gifted with a
disposition the pliability of which adapted itself to all emergencies,
his generosity disarmed enemies, while his affability made friends.
Munificent without assumption, successful without pride, he obliged with
grace and shone with safety. People enjoyed his hospitality, for they
knew that it was disinterested; and admired his acquirements, for they
felt that they were unobtrusive. Sometimes (as in his dialogue with the
Cynic) the whim of the moment, or the sting of a sarcasm, drew from him
a hint at his station, or a display of his eccentricities; but, as he
was always the first soon afterwards to lead the laugh at his own
outbreak, his credit as a noble suffered nothing by his infirmity as a
man. Gaily and attractively he moved in all grades of the society of
his age, winning his social laurels in every rank, without making a
rival to dispute their possession, or an enemy to detract from their
value.
On quitting the Court waiting-room, Vetranio and Julia descended the
palace stairs and passed into the emperor's garden. Used generally as
an evening lounge, this place was now untenanted, save by the few
attendants engaged in cultivating the flower-beds and watering the
smooth, shady lawns. Entering one of the most retired of the numerous
summer-houses among the trees, Vetranio motioned his companion to take a
seat, and then abruptly addressed her in the following words:--
'I have heard that you are about to depart for Rome--is it true?'
He asked this question in a low voice, and with a manner in its
earnestness strangely at variance with the volatile gaiety which had
characterised him, but a few moments before, among the nobles of the
Court. As Julia answered him in the affirmative, his countenance
expressed a lively satisfaction; and seating himself by her side, he
continued the conversation thus:--
'If I thought that you intended to stay for any length of time in the
city, I should venture upon a fresh extortion from your friendship by
asking you to lend me your little villa at Aricia!'
'You shall take with you to Rome an order on my steward to place
everything there at your entire disposal.'
'My generous Julia! You are of the gifted few who really know how to
confer a favour! Another woman would have asked me why I wanted the
villa--you give it unreservedly. So delicate an unwillingness to
intrude on a secret reminds me that the secret should now be yours!'
To explain the easy confidence that existed between Vetranio and Julia,
it is necessary to inform the reader that the lady--although still
attractive in appearance--was of an age to muse on her past, rather than
to meditate on her future conquests. She had known her eccentric
companion from his boyhood, had been once flattered in his verses, and
was sensible enough--now that her charms were on the wane--to be as
content with the friendship of the senator as she had formerly been
enraptured with the adoration of the youth.
'You are too penetrating,' resumed Vetranio, after a short pause, 'not
to have already suspected that I only require your villa to assist me in
the concealment of an intrigue. So peculiar is my adventure in its
different circumstances, that to make use of my palace as the scene of
its development would be to risk a discovery which might produce the
immediate subversion of all my designs. But I fear the length of my
confession will exceed the duration of your patience!'
'You have aroused my curiosity. I could listen to you for ever!'
'A short time before I took my departure from Rome for this place,'
continued Vetranio, 'I encountered an adventure of the most
extraordinary nature, which has haunted me with the most extraordinary
perseverance, and which will have, I feel assured, the most
extraordinary results. I was sitting one evening in the garden of my
palace on the Pincian Mount, occupied in trying a new composition on my
lute. In one of the pauses of the melody, which was tender and
plaintive, I heard sounds that resembled the sobbing of some one in
distress among the trees behind me. I looked cautiously round, and
discerned, half-hidden by the verdure, the figure of a young girl, who
appeared to be listening to the music with the most entranced attention.
Flattered by such a testimony to my skill, and anxious to gain a nearer
view of my mysterious visitant, I advanced towards her hiding-place,
forgetting in my haste to continue playing on the lute. The instant the
music ceased, she discerned me and disappeared. Determined to behold
her, I again struck the chords, and in a few minutes I saw her white
robe once more among the trees. I redoubled my efforts. I played with
the utmost expression the most pathetic parts of the melody. As if
under the influence of a charm, she began to advance towards me, now
hesitating, now moving back a few steps, now approaching, half-
reluctantly, half willingly, until, utterly vanquished by the long
trembling close of the last cadence of the air, she ran suddenly up to
me, and falling at my feet, raised her hands as if to implore my
pardon.'
'Truly this was no common tribute to your skill! Did she speak to you?'
'She uttered not a word,' continued Vetranio. 'Her large soft eyes,
bright with tears, looked piteously up in my face; her delicate lips
trembled, as if she wished to speak, but dared not; her smooth round
arms were the very perfection of beauty. Child as she seemed in years
and emotions, she looked a woman in loveliness and form. For the moment
I was too much astonished by the suddenness of her supplicating action
to move or speak. As soon as I recovered myself I attempted to fondle
and console her, but she shrunk from my embrace, and seemed inclined to
escape from me again; until I touched once more the strings of the lute,
and then she uttered a subdued exclamation of delight, nestled close up
to me, and looked into my face with such a strange expression of mingled
adoration and rapture, that I declare to you, Julia, I felt as bashful
before her as a boy.'
'You bashful! The Senator Vetranio bashful!' exclaimed Julia, looking
up with an expression of the most unfeigned incredulity and
astonishment.
'The lute,' pursued Vetranio gravely, without heeding the interruption,
'was my sole means of procuring any communication with her. If I ceased
playing, we were as strangers; if I resumed, we were as friends. So,
subduing the notes of the instrument while she spoke to me in a soft
tremulous musical voice, I still continued to play. By this plan I
discovered at our first interview that she was the daughter of one
Numerian, that she was on the point of completing her fourteenth year,
and that she was called Antonina. I had only succeeded in gaining this
mere outline of her story, when, as if struck by some sudden
apprehension, she tore herself from me with a look of the utmost terror,
and entreating me not to follow her if I ever desired to see her again,
she disappeared rapidly among the trees.'
'More and more wonderful! And, in your new character of a bashful man,
you doubtless obeyed her injunctions?'
'I did,' replied the senator; 'but the next evening I revisited the
garden grove, and, as soon as I struck the chords, as if by magic, she
again approached. At this second interview I learned the reason of her
mysterious appearances and departures. Her father, she told me, was one
of a new sect, who imagine--with what reason it is impossible to
comprehend--that they recommend themselves to their Deity by making
their lives one perpetual round of bodily suffering and mental anguish.
Not content with distorting all his own feelings and faculties, this
tyrant perpetrated his insane austerities upon the poor child as well.
He forbade her to enter a theatre, to look on sculpture, to read poetry,
to listen to music. He made her learn long prayers, and attend to
interminable sermons. He allowed her no companions of her own age--not
even girls like herself. The only recreation that she could obtain was
the permission--granted with much reluctance and many rebukes--to
cultivate a little garden which belonged to the house they lived in, and
joined at one point the groves round my palace. There, while she was
engaged over her flowers, she first heard the sound of my lute. for many
months before I had discovered her, she had been in the habit of
climbing the enclosure that bounded her garden, and hiding herself among
the trees to listen to the music, whenever her father's concerns took
him abroad. She had been discovered in this occupation by an old man
appointed to watch her in his master's absence. The attendant, however,
on hearing her confession, not only promised to keep her secret, but
permitted her to continue her visits to my grove whenever I chanced to
be playing there on the lute. Now the most mysterious part of this
matter is, that the girl seemed--in spite of his severity towards her--
to have a great affection for her surly; for, when I offered to deliver
her from his custody, she declared that nothing could induce her to
desert him--not even the attraction of living among fine pictures and
hearing beautiful music every hour in the day. But I see I weary you;
and, indeed, it is evident from the length of the shadows that the hour
of my departure is at hand. Let me then pass from my introductory
interviews with Antonina, to the consequences that had resulted from
them when I set forth on my journey to Ravenna.'
'I think I can imagine the consequences already!' said Julia, smiling
maliciously.
'Begin then,' retorted Vetranio, 'by imagining that the strangeness of
this girl's situation, and the originality of her ideas, invested her
with an attraction for me, which the charms of her person and age
contributed immensely to heighten. She delighted my faculties as a
poet, as much as she fired my feelings as a man; and I determined to
lure her from the tyrannical protection of her father by the employment
of every artifice that my ingenuity could suggest. I began by teaching
her to exercise for herself the talent which had so attracted her in
another. By the familiarity engendered on both sides by such an
occupation, I hoped to gain as much in affection from her as she
acquired in skill from me; but to my astonishment, I still found her as
indifferent towards the master, and as tender towards the music, as she
had appeared at our first interview. If she had repelled my advances,
if they had overwhelmed her with confusion, I could have adapted myself
to her humour, I should have felt the encouragement of hope; but the
coldness, the carelessness, the unnatural, incomprehensible ease with
which she received even my caresses, utterly disconcerted me. It seemed
as if she could only regard me as a moving statue, as a mere
impersonation, immaterial as the science I was teaching her. If I spoke,
she hardly looked on me; if I moved, she scarcely noticed the action. I
could not consider it dislike; she seemed to gentle to nourish such a
feeling for any creature on earth. I could not believe it coldness; she
was all life, all agitation, if she heard only a few notes of music.
When she touched the chords of the instrument, her whole frame trembled.
Her eyes, mild, serious, and thoughtful when she looked on me, now
brightened with delight, now softened with tears, when she listened to
the lute. As day by day her skill in music increased, so her manner
towards me grew more inexplicably indifferent. At length, weary of the
constant disappointments that I experienced, and determined to make a
last effort to touch her heart by awakening her gratitude, I presented
her with the very lute which she had at first heard, and on which she
had now learned to play. Never have I seen any human being so
rapturously delighted as this incomprehensible girl when she received
the instrument from my hands. She alternately wept and laughed over it,
she kissed it, fondled it, spoke to it, as if it had been a living
thing. But when I approached to suppress the expressions of
thankfulness that she poured on me for the gift, she suddenly hid the
lute in her robe, as if afraid that I should deprive her of it, and
hurried rapidly from my sight. The next day I waited for her at our
accustomed meeting-place, but she never appeared. I sent a slave to her
father's house, but she would hold no communication with him. It was
evident that, now she had gained her end, she cared no more to behold
me. In my first moments of irritation, I determined to make her feel my
power, if she despised my kindness; but reflection convinced me, from my
acquaintance with her character, that in such a matter force was
impolitic, that I should risk my popularity in Rome, and engage myself
in an unworthy quarrel to no purpose. Dissatisfied with myself, and
disappointed in the girl, I obeyed the first dictates of my impatience,
and seizing the opportunity afforded by my duties in the senate of
escaping from the scene of defeated hopes, I departed angrily for
Ravenna.'
'Departed for Ravenna!' cried Julia, laughing outright. 'Oh, what a
conclusion to the adventure! I confess it, Vetranio, such consequences
as these are beyond all imagination!'
'You laugh, Julia,' returned the senator, a little piqued; 'but hear me
to the end, and you will find that I have not yet resigned myself to
defeat. For the few days that I have remained here, Antonina's image
has incessantly troubled my thoughts. I perceive that my inclination,
as well as my reputation, is concerned in subduing her ungrateful
aversion. I suspect that my anxiety to gain her will, if unremoved, so
far influence my character, that from Vetranio the Serene, I shall be
changed into Vetranio the Sardonic. Pride, honour, curiosity, and love
all urge me to her conquest. To prepare for my banquet is an excuse to
the Court for my sudden departure from this place; the real object of my
journey is Antonina alone.'
'Ah, now I recognise my friend again in his own character,' remarked the
lady approvingly.
'You will ask me how I purpose to obtain another interview with her?'
continued Vetranio. 'I answer, that the girl's attendant has voluntarily
offered himself as an instrument for the prosecution of my plans. The
very day before I departed from Rome, he suddenly presented himself to
my in my garden, and proposed to introduce me into Numerian's house--
having first demanded, with the air more of an equal than an inferior,
whether the report that I was still a secret adherent of the old
religion, of the worship of the gods, was true. Suspicious of the
fellow's motives (for he abjured all recompense as the reward of his
treachery), and irritated by the girl's recent ingratitude, I treated
his offer with contempt. Now, however, that my dissatisfaction is
calmed and my anxiety aroused, I am determined, at all hazards, to trust
myself to this man, be his motives for aiding me what they may. If my
efforts at my expected interview--and I will not spare them--are
rewarded with success, it will be necessary to obtain some refuge for
Antonina that will neither be suspected nor searched. For such a
hiding-place, nothing can be more admirably adapted than your Arician
villa. Do you--now that you know for what use it is intended--repent of
your generous disposal of it in aid of my design?'
'I am delighted to have had it to bestow on you,' replied the liberal
Julia, pressing Vetranio's hand. 'Your adventure is indeed uncommon--I
burn with impatience to hear how it will end. Whatever happens, you may
depend on my secrecy and count on my assistance. But see, the sun is
already verging towards the west; and yonder comes one of your slaves to
inform you, I doubt not, that your equipage is prepared. Return with me
to the palace, and I will supply you with the letter necessary to
introduce you as master to my country abode.'
*****
The worthy citizens of Ravenna assembled in the square before the palace
to behold the senator's departure, had entirely exhausted such innocent
materials for amusement as consisted in staring at the guards, catching
the clouds of gnats that hovered about their ears, and quarrelling with
each other; and were now reduced to a state of very noisy and unanimous
impatience, when their discontent was suddenly and most effectually
appeased by the appearance of the travelling equipage with Vetranio and
Camilla outside the palace gates.
Uproarious shouts greeted the appearance of the senator and his
magnificent retinue; but they were increased a hundred-fold when the
chief slaves, by their master's command, each scattered a handful of
small coin among the poorer classes of the spectators. Every man among
that heterogeneous assemblage of rogues, fools, and idlers roared his
loudest and capered his highest, in honour of the generous patrician.
Gradually and carefully the illustrious travellers moved through the
crowd around them to the city gate; and thence, amid incessant shouts of
applause, raised with imposing unanimity of lung, and wrought up to the
most distracting discordancy of noise, Vetranio and his lively companion
departed in triumph for Rome.
*****
A few days after this event the citizens were again assembled at the
same place and hour--probably to witness another patrician departure--
when their ears were assailed by the unexpected sound produced by the
call to arms, which was followed immediately by the closing of the city
gates. They had scarcely asked each other the meaning of these unusual
occurrences, when a peasant, half frantic with terror, rushed into the
square, shouting out the terrible intelligence that the Goths were in
sight!
The courtiers heard the news, and starting from a luxurious repast,
hurried to the palace windows to behold the portentous spectacle. For
the remainder of the evening the banqueting tables were unapproached by
the guests.
The wretched emperor was surprised among his poultry by that dreaded
intelligence. He, too, hastened to the windows, and looking forth, saw
the army of avengers passing in contempt his solitary fortress, and
moving swiftly onward towards defenceless Rome. Long after the darkness
had hidden the masses of that mighty multitude from his eyes, did he
remain staring helplessly upon the fading landscape, in a stupor of
astonishment and dread; and, for the first time since he had possessed
them, his flocks of fowls were left for that night unattended by their
master's hand.