Their lesson in doctrinal theology was taught to the lads in the
morning 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 the
disagreeable habit of gently licking the hollow of his palm, smoothing
his grey hair, and immediately afterwards making his finger-joints
crack. Julian knew that one movement would inevitably follow the
other, and used to get madly irritated.
Eutropius wore an old black cassock, full of stains and patches. He
used 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 religious
guardian 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 the
boy should show towards his benefactor the Emperor Constantius.
Whether he was explaining the text of the Bible, expounding Arian
dogmas, or interpreting an apostolic parable, all lessons were
conducted to the same conclusion, the "root of holy obedience and
filial docility." And when the Arian monk spoke of the benefits
granted to Julian by the Emperor, the child would fix upon him his
deep glance; but although each knew the intimate thoughts of the
other, never did pupil and professor exchange a word upon the subject.
Only if Julian stopped, forgetting some text, or became confused in
the chronological list of Old Testament patriarchs, or repeated badly
the prayer he had learned by heart, Eutropius would silently gaze at
him, take his ear caressingly between two fingers, and two long and
sharp finger nails would slowly pierce the flesh.
Eutropius, despite his morose look, was endowed with a certain
ironical gaiety. He gave his pupils the most affectionate of
nicknames, while ridiculing their imperial origin. When, after
pinching Julian's ear, he saw him grow pale, not with pain but with
rage, he would whisper in humility--
"Your Majesty does not deign to feel anger against Eutropius, his
humble and unlearned slave?" and, licking the palm of his hand, he
would smooth the grey locks of his temples, crack his long fingers,
and add that it was wholesome sometimes to give naughty, idle little
boys a whipping; that form of instruction being often mentioned in
Holy Writ as the most effective means of enlightening the souls of the
dark and disobedient. He used only to say it to tame the diabolic
pride of Julian, who, moreover, was well aware that Eutropius would
never dare to put his threat into execution. The monk himself was
convinced that the child would rather die than undergo such a
humiliation. But the tutor, nevertheless, loved to discourse upon the
topic often and long.
At the end of the lesson, during the explanation of a text, Julian
once mentioned the earth's antipodes, about which he had heard
Mardonius speaking. He had done this with the secret intention of
annoying 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, write
something about it. But are you actually wise enough to believe that
men walk about on their heads?"
Eutropius would launch forth into accusations of heresy against the
philosophers. Was it not a scandal to imagine that mankind--created
after the image of God--could walk about upside down, and so bring
Heaven into contempt? And when Julian, insulted by insults to his
favourite philosophers, argued that the earth was shaped like a globe,
Eutropius became serious and lost his temper, purple with fury and
stamping 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 his
spittle, which Julian believed must be venomous. Exasperated, the monk
would savagely attack all the Greek sages. Wounded to the quick by the
suggestions of Julian, forgetting that his pupil was a mere child, he
burst into serious harangues, accusing Pythagoras of being mad,
impudent, audacious, affirming that the atrocious "Utopias" of Plato
were not fit to read, and that the instruction of Socrates was clean
against reason.
"Read what Diogenes Lærtius says of Socrates! You will see that not
only was he a money-lender, but that he practised vices which no
decent man can name."
Epicurus, above all, excited the whole of his rancour; the beastliness
with which he plunged into pleasures of all kinds, the brutality with
which he used to satisfy his sensual desires, were proof enough that
he was less than human.
Resuming something of his habitual calm, Eutropius on this particular
day betook himself to explaining some hair-splitting scholastic
distinction of the Arian dogma, and waxed wroth with the same heat
against the orthodox oecumenical Church, which he considered
heretical.
From the splendid and desolate garden a warm breeze came in through
the open window. Julian feigned to listen to Eutropius. Really he was
dreaming of a very different person, his well-loved teacher Mardonius.
He recollected his wise lectures; his readings of Homer and
Hesiod--how different from these monkish lessons!
Mardonius did not _read_ Homer; following the custom of the ancient
rhapsodists, he used to chant the poems, to the great amusement of
Labda, who was wont to say that he bayed like a dog at the moon. And
in 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 visage
remained intensely rapt, his shrill feminine voice streamed on from
strophe to strophe. Julian never remarked the ugliness of the old man,
seeing only the throbbing passion of a soul thrilled by grandeur and
beauty.
His listener trembled, while the divine hexameters rose and shouted
like waves. He saw the farewells of Andromache and Hector; the
wanderings of Ulysses, weeping for Ithaca on the melancholy and
sterile beach of Calypso's island. Delicious sorrow seized the heart
of Julian; pains of yearning for Hellas, the country of the gods,
eternally beautiful, land of all beauty-worshippers. Tears shook in
the voice of the teacher, and rolled down his withered cheeks.
Sometimes Mardonius would talk with the boy of goodness, of the
austerity of virtue, of the death of heroes for freedom's sake. Little
indeed, oh! how little, did these lessons resemble those given by
Eutropius.
Mardonius used also to narrate the life of Socrates; and when he came
to the "Apology," delivered by the philosopher before his death to the
people of Athens, the old master would rise, and triumphantly declaim
the speech from memory, a calm irony lighting his face. These were
less the phrases of a man accused, than the ringing tones of a judge
addressing the people.
"Socrates does not ask for pardon. All the power, all the laws of a
government are absolutely nothing beside the liberty of the soul of
man. Yes! the Athenians can kill a man without taking from him the
freedom and the happiness of his immortal soul." And when this
barbarian, this ex-slave from the banks of the Borysthenes, pronounced
the word "liberty" it seemed to Julian that the word contained such
superhuman power that beside it even the Homeric pictures lost lustre.
Fixing on his master his great wide, haunting eyes, the lad shook with
enthusiasm.
The cold touch of a hand at his ear drew Julian from his dreams. The
lesson of the catechist was finished. On his knees he recited the
prayer of thanksgiving; then escaping from Eutropius he ran to his
room, took down a book, and hastened to a solitary nook in the garden
to read at ease the _Symposium_ of Plato, the pagan, a book forbidden
above all others. On the stairs Julian met the monk, who was
departing--
"Wait, my dear boy! What book is your Majesty carrying?"
Julian stared at him and tranquilly tendered the volume. On the
parchment binding Eutropius read the title, written in great capitals,
"The Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle," and gave back the book
unopened.
"That's all right! Remember that I have to answer for your soul to God
and to the sublime Emperor. Don't read heretical books, especially
none of those frivolous philosophers whom I have to-day condemned."
It was the habitual trick of the boy to wrap dangerous books in
innocent bindings. Julian from his infancy had learnt dissimulation,
and even took pleasure in deceiving others, especially Eutropius. He
dissembled and lied needlessly and habitually, prompted by deep-seated
anger and revenge. To Mardonius alone his behaviour was always open
and gracious.
Intrigues, scandals, gossipings, suspicions continually arose at
Macellum among the numberless idle servants. The whole pack of
varletry, in the hope of Court favour, subjected the two disgraced
young princes to espionage by night and day. Long as Julian could
remember, death was an hourly expectation. Little by little he had
accustomed himself to perpetual fear, being quite aware that neither
in the house nor garden could he take a step or make a gesture
unperceived by a thousand intent but invisible eyes. Hearing and
understanding much of the toils about him, the boy was forced to feign
ignorance. At one time it was the conversation between Eutropius and a
spy sent by the Emperor Constantius, in which the monk named Julian
and Gallus "the imperial scourges"; at another time, in the gallery
under the kitchen windows, it was the meditation of a cook, furious at
some insolence on the part of Gallus. She was saying to the washer-up
of the dishes, "God save my soul, Priscilla, but what I can't make
out is, why they haven't strangled them before!"
To-day, when Julian, after his lesson in theology, went out of the
house and perceived the greenness of the trees, he breathed more
freely. The two peaks of Mount Argæus, covered with snow, sparkled
against blue sky. The neighbourhood of glaciers made the air
refreshingly cool; garden alleys stretched hither and thither into the
distance; glistening dark-green foliage of oaks formed thick
vaultings; here and there a ray filtered through the branches of
plane-trees. Only one side of the garden was not walled in, for in
that direction lay a chasm. At the foot of the plateau on which the
castle stood, a dead plain stretched as far as Anti-Taurus, and from
this plain fierce heat rose in mist, while in the garden fresh streams
were running and little waterfalls tinkling through thickets of
oleanders.
A century before the date of which we are speaking Macellum had been
the favourite domain and pleasure-house of the luxurious and half-mad
Ariarathes, 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 a
little sacrificial altar. Outside the grotto, a lion's mouth jetted
water into a stone basin, and a curtain of roses masked the entrance
while letting through its branches a view of the undulating hills and
the plain, far down and drowned in misty blue. The perfume of roses
filled the little cave, and the air there would have been oppressive
had it not been cooled by a stream channelled in the rocky floor.
The wind scattered the turf with yellow petals of roses, and flung
them floating on the water of the basin. From the dark and warm place
of 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 had
for him a double relish because it was a fruit forbidden.
When his reading was done, Julian wrapped the book anew in the binding
of 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 his
hand 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 object
carefully enveloped in cloth. It was his own handiwork--a delightful
little Liburnian trireme, or galley with three banks of oars. He set
it swimming in the basin; the galley rocked on the miniature waves.
The model was complete,--three masts, rigging, oars, gilded prow, and
sails made of a fragment of purple silk, the gift of Labda. Nothing
was 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 into
the distance, at the hills outlined in mist through the hedge of
roses. Beside his plaything Julian soon forgot all vexations, all
hates, and the eternal fear of death. In this little cave he imagined
himself a shipwrecked sailor. He was the wily Ulysses in some solitary
cavern facing the ocean, building a ship in which he might win back
again to Ithaca. But down yonder, there among the hills, where the
houses of Cæsarea 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 his
own cave? He would resolve not to see it, and stooping, redoubled his
attention 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 of
Pan. He smoothed his hair, shook his clothes, and when he came out of
the grotto had resumed an expression of impenetrable Christian
hypocrisy.
Eutropius, holding Julian's hand in his bony one, conducted him to
church.