Together the pair went down the alley of cypresses leading to the sea.
The moon-path of sensitive silver on the waters ran up to the horizon,
and waves were breaking against a chalk cliff. At the end of the alley
there was a semicircular seat. Above it the huntress Artemis, in short
tunic, with crescented hair, quiver on shoulder, and two deer-hounds
at her feet, looked down on the two young people.
They sat down together. Arsinoë pointed out the hill of the Acropolis,
so distant that the columns of the Parthenon could hardly be
distinguished; and took up the thread of conversations started at
their former meetings--
"See how beautiful it is!... And you would destroy that, Julian?"
Making no reply, he stared on the ground.
"I have thought much over what you said to me the last time we met,
concerning this humility of yours," continued Arsinoë gently. "Was
Alexander son of Philip of Macedon humble? And nevertheless is he not
great and splendid?"
Julian said nothing.
"And Brutus, Brutus the stabber of Cæsar! Had Brutus turned the left
cheek when struck on the right, do you think he would have been more
sublime? Or, indeed, perhaps you consider him a criminal, you
Galileans? Why can I not help thinking sometimes, Julian, that you are
a hypocrite; and that these black habiliments are not your body's
true raiment?"
She turned brusquely towards his moon-lit face and regarded him
steadfastly.
"Arsinoë, what do you want of me?" murmured Julian, whose cheek was
very pale.
"I want you to be frankly my foe!" exclaimed the young girl. "You must
not pass by like this, without telling me what you are. Sometimes I
dream that it would be better if Rome and Athens were utterly ruined!
Better burn a corpse than leave it unburied! And all our friends
here--grammarians, rhetoricians--poets who write Imperial
eulogies--all these are the rotting body of Greece and Rome. In their
company one grows afraid, as among the shroudless dead.... Oh, you may
triumph, Galileans! Soon corpses and ruins are all that will remain on
earth!... And you, Julian.... But no!... It is impossible! I do not
believe that you are with them and against Hellas--against me!..."
Julian sprang up before her, pale and mute, longing to burst away. She
held him back.
"Tell me that you are my enemy," she said with heart-broken challenge
in her voice.
"Arsinoë!... Why----"
"Tell me all!... I must know. Do you not feel how near we are? Or are
you indeed afraid to speak?"
"In two days I leave Athens," murmured Julian.
"Why?--Where are you going?"
"The Emperor has recalled me to Court--to die perhaps. I may now be
looking at you for the last time."
"Julian, you do not believe in Him?" cried Arsinoë, seeking to read
the eyes of the monk.
"Speak lower!"
He rose, and striding round cautiously explored the dusty road
silvered by the moon, the bushes, and even the sea, as if afraid to
see sudden-rising spies from the Emperor. Reassured, he returned and
sat down. Leaning one hand heavily on the marble he brought his lips
close to the ear of Arsinoë--so near that she felt his warm
breath--muttering rapidly--
"Believe in _Him_?... Listen, girl! I say to you now what I have never
dared to say even to myself. I hate the Galilean!... But I have lied
as long as I can remember. Lying has soaked into my soul, or clung to
it, as this black vestment clings to my body. You remember the
poisoned shirt of Nessus; Hercules snatched it off with pieces of his
own flesh and it slew him, all the same. I--I too shall perish wearing
this Galilean lie!"
He pronounced each word with painful effort. Arsinoë gazed at him. His
face, changed by suffering and hatred, became the face of a stranger.
"Be calm, friend!" she murmured. "Tell me all. I shall understand you
better than anyone else."
"I should like to be able to speak, but speech is a power I have
lost," sneered Julian. "I have kept silence too long. Do you
understand, Arsinoë? It is all over with him who has once fallen into
their clutches! These good and humble men deform him to such a
degree--teach him so thoroughly to lie and to dissimulate--that it
becomes impossible ever to stand erect and manful again!"
The blood rushed to his forehead, swelling the veins, and through
clenched teeth he muttered--
"Cowardice! Foul Galilean cowardice! this--to hate your enemy as I
hate Constantius, and to pardon him, to crouch at his feet, cringe
like a serpent, to supplicate him in the humble Christian manner: 'A
year, grant your weak-witted slave, Julian, another year; and then do
with him as it may please you and your counsellors, O well-beloved of
God!' What baseness!"
"No, Julian," protested Arsinoë, "you will conquer! Deception is your
strength.... Julian, do you remember Æsop's fable, The Ass in the
Lion's Skin? In this affair of yours the story is reversed; the lion
is in the ass's skin, and the hero in a monkish habit! And how they
will shrink affrighted when you suddenly show your talons! What joy
and what terror! Tell me, you long for power?"
"Power!" cried Julian, intoxicated at the sound of the word and
inhaling with deep breaths the fresh air of night--"power!... oh, only
for a year, a few months, a few days! And I would teach them, I would
teach all these crawling and venomous creatures what means their
Master's word, 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's'; I
swear by the Sun-god they should render to Cæsar what is his!"
He raised his head, his eyes flashing with rage and pride and renewed
youth. Arsinoë gazed on him with a smile. But his head soon fell. He
sank back on the bench and crossing his arms on his breast in monkish
fashion he faltered--
"No, no; why nurse empty dreams? That can never be. I shall perish.
Anger will stifle me. Listen; every night after passing the day on my
knees in churches, bowed over relics, I go home broken with fatigue; I
fling myself on the bed and sob; yes, bite my own flesh, to avoid
crying out with pain. Oh, you cannot know yet, Arsinoë, this Galilean
horror and infection in which I have agonised for twenty years
without escaping by death. We Christians take a deal of
killing,--worms that live on even when cut in pieces! At first I used
to seek consolation in the teachings of the diviners and philosophers.
It was hopeless. I follow neither the one nor the other. I am wicked
and I wish to be wickeder still. To be strong and terrible as the
Demon, my only brother.... But why, why can I not forget that there is
beauty in the world; why, O cruel one, did you dawn upon my life?"
With a quick spontaneous movement Arsinoë flung her bare arms round
Julian's neck, drew him to her so strongly, so closely, that he felt
the whole freshness of her body, murmuring--
"And if I did come towards you, O young man, what if it were as a
sibyl to prophesy you glory? You alone are alive among the dead!
Splendour is yours! What matters it to me that your wings are no
swan's wings, but wings of the black and lost, your talons, talons of
a bird of prey? My love is for all the revolted, the reprobate, the
rejected--you understand me, Julian? I love the proud and solitary
eagles better than any stainless swan. Only ... be prouder yet, be
wickeder yet! Dare up to the height of your ambition! Lie without
shame; better lie than be humiliated. Fear not hate; it is the impetus
of your wings. Come, shall we make an alliance? You shall give me
power, I will give you beauty. Are you willing, Julian?"
Again through the light folds of her antique peplum, as once in the
_palæstra_, he saw the breathing image of the huntress Artemis; it
seemed that divine body shone through, golden and tender.
His head reeled in the lunar shadow enveloping them. Those haughty
lips laughingly approached his own.
For the last time he mused. "I must tear myself away. She does not
love me. She will never love me. Her love is only for power."
But immediately he added to himself, with a faint smile: "Well, let it
be so! I consent to be duped!"
The chill of the strange and insatiate kiss of Arsinoë shot to his
heart like the chill of death. It seemed as if Artemis herself, in the
translucence of the moon, had descended towards him, embraced him, and
mocked him, and like a beam of moonlight fled away.
* * * * *
On the following morning Basil of Cæsarea and Gregory of Nazianzen
came across Julian in a basilica in Athens. He was kneeling in prayer.
The two friends gazed at him, surprised. Never had they seen upon his
features such an expression of rapt serenity.
"Brother," murmured Basil to Gregory, "we have sinned; he whom we
inwardly accused is a righteous man."
Gregory shook his head.
"May the Lord pardon me if I am deceived," he said slowly, his
piercing eye still on Julian. "But remember, Basil, how often the
Devil himself, the father of lying, has appeared to men in guise of an
angel!"