In Neapolis, that Italian city over which the tempest then gathering at
Byzantium was soon to burst in its first violence, no presentiment of
the coming danger was felt.
On the charming declivities of Posilippo, or on the shore to the
south-east of the city, there wandered, day by day, two handsome
youths, exchanging confidences with all the enthusiasm of youthful
friendship. They were the "Dioscuri," Julius and Totila.
Oh, happy time! when the uncorrupted soul, breathing the fresh morning
air of life, as yet untired and undeceived, and drunk with the ecstasy
of ambitious dreams, is urged to impart to an equally young, equally
rich and equally enthusiastic nature its overflowing sentiments!
The noblest resolves are strengthened, and imagination wings its way to
the very gates of heaven, in the happy certainty that he who listens
will understand.
When the wreath upon our brows is faded, and the harvest of our life is
ripe, we may smile at these dreams of youth and youthful friendship;
but it is no smile of mockery; it is tinged with the melancholy with
which we think of the sweet, exhilarating airs of spring, while
inhaling the breath of decay in autumn.
The young Goth and the young Roman had met at the age most favourable
to the formation of the bond of friendship. Totila's sunny soul had
preserved all the dewy bloom of youth; with smiling eyes he looked
forth into the smiling future. He loved his fellow-creatures, and won
all hearts by his amiability and the joyous frankness of his
disposition. He believed in the complete victory of good over evil.
Where meanness and wickedness met him in his path, he trod them into
the dust with the holy anger of an archangel; from the depths of his
gentle nature the latent heroic strength broke forth, and he did not
rest until the hated elements were destroyed. But the disturbance was
forgotten as soon as overcome, and life and the world again appeared to
him as harmonious as his own soul. He walked through the crowded
streets of Neapolis with a song upon his lips, the idol of the girls,
the pride of his brothers in arms.
With such a nature Totila was the favourite of all who knew him,
receiving and imparting happiness. Even his quiet friend imbibed
somewhat of the charm of his temperament.
Julius Montanus, of a sensitive and thoughtful disposition, of an
almost feminine nature, had been early left an orphan, and, awed by the
immense superiority of his guardian Cethegus, had grown up shy, lonely
and studious. More oppressed than elevated by the cheerless science of
his time, he was apt; to look upon life as earnest and almost sad. He
was inclined to subject all things to the severe test of superhuman
perfection, and his natural self-distrust might easily have darkened
into melancholy.
At a happy moment Totila's friendship shone into the inmost depths of
his heart, and penetrated it with such a sunny warmth that his noble
nature was thereby enabled to rise with elasticity from a severe shock
which it received by means of this very friendship.
Let us hear what he himself wrote about this circumstance to the
Prefect.
"To Cethegus the Prefect, Julius Montanus.
"The cold-hearted reply to my enthusiastic report of my newly-formed
friendship to Totila, at first--surely contrary to your wish--hurt me
sorely, but later it was the means of enhancing the happiness of this
friendship in a manner, however, which you could neither foresee nor
wish. Sorrow caused by you was soon changed into sorrow for _you_.
Though at first I felt hurt because you treated my deepest feelings
as the mere enthusiasm of a sickly boy, and tried to assail my
profoundest convictions with bitter mockery--only _tried_, for they are
unassailable--this feeling was soon changed into one of compassion for
you. It is sad that a man like you, so rich in intellect, should be
so poor in heart. It is sad that you do not know the happiness of
self-denial, or of that unselfish love, which is called in the language
of a belief--more laughed at than credited by you, but to which each
day of pain draws me closer--_caritas_! Forgive the freedom of my
words. I know I have never yet addressed such to you, but I have only
lately become _what_ I am. Perhaps it was not wholly with injustice
that, in your last letter, you blamed the traces of childishness which
you found in me. I believe that they have disappeared since then, and I
speak to you now as a _man_. Your 'medicine' has certainly accelerated
my development, but not in your sense of the word and not according to
your wish. It has brought me pain, holy and refining; it has put my
friendship to a severe test, and, God be thanked, the fire has not
destroyed it, but hardened it for ever. Read on and you will wonder at
the manner in which Heaven has carried out your plans! Though pained at
your letter, I very soon, with my habitual obedience, sought your
friend, Valerius Procillus, the trader in purple. He had already left
the town for his charming villa. There I followed him, and found a man
of much experience, and a zealous friend of freedom and of his country.
His daughter Valeria is a jewel! You prophesied truly. My intention of
being extremely reserved melted at her sight like mist before the sun.
It seemed to me as if Electra or Cassandra, Cl[oe]lia or Virginia,
stood before me! But still more than by her great beauty, I was charmed
by the grace of her mind as it unfolded itself before me. Her father at
once invited me to remain as his guest, and under his roof I have spent
the happiest days of my life. Valeria lives in the poetry of the
ancients. How her melodious voice lent splendour to the choruses of
AEschylus, and melancholy to Antigone's lament! We read together for
hours, and when she rose from her chair in her enthusiasm, when her
dark hair waved freely over her shoulders and her eyes flashed with an
almost unearthly fire, she looked indeed wonderfully beautiful. Her
character gains an additional charm from a circumstance which may cause
her much future grief, and which runs through her life like a cruel
rent. You will guess what I mean, for you know the history of her
family. You know better than I how it happened that her mother
dedicated Valeria at her birth to a lonely virgin life, passed in works
of piety, but that her rich father, more worldly than heavenly-minded,
bought her release from this vow at the cost of a church and a
cloister. But Valeria believes that Heaven will not accept dead gold
for a living soul; she does not feel released from this vow, of which
she thinks not with love but with fear. For you were right when you
wrote that she is a true child of the ancient heathen world. Not only
that, but she is the true child of her father, yet still she cannot
altogether renounce the pious Christianity of her mother; it lives
within her, not as a blessing, but as an overpowering curse; as the
inevitable fetter of that fatal vow. This strange conflict of feeling
tortures her, but it ennobles her also. Who knows how the struggle will
be ended? Heaven alone which will decide her fate. This inward strife
attracts me. You know that Christian faith and atheistic philosophy
struggle for the victory in my soul. To my astonishment, faith has
increased during these days of sorrow, and it almost seems to me that
happiness leads to heathen wisdom, and pain and misfortune to Christ.
But you have still to learn the cause of my suffering. When I became at
first aware of my growing passion, I was full of joyful hope. Valerius,
perhaps already influenced by you, observed my attention to Valeria
with no dislike; perhaps the only thing he disapproved in me was, that
I did not sufficiently share in his dreams of a renewed Roman Republic,
or his in hatred of the Byzantines; in whom he sees the deadly enemies,
not only of his family, but of Italy. Valeria, too, soon bestowed her
friendship upon me, and who knows if at that time this friendship and
her reverence to her father's wishes would not have sufficed to induce
her to accept my love. But I thank--shall I say God or Fate?--that this
did not happen. To sacrifice Valeria to a married life of indifference
would have been a sacrilege. I do not know what strange feeling
prevented me from speaking the word, which, at that time, would have
made her mine. I loved her deeply; but each time that I was about to
take courage and sue to her father for her hand, a feeling crept over
me as if I were trespassing on another's property; as if I were not
worthy of her, or not intended for her; and I was silent and controlled
my beating heart. One day, at the sixth hour--it was sultry and the sun
scorched both land and sea--I went to seek coolness and shade in the
grotto of the garden. I entered through the oleander-bushes. There
Valeria reposed upon a soft, mossy bank, one hand resting upon her
gently-heaving bosom, the other placed beneath her head, which was
still crowned with a wreath of asphodels worn during the evening meal.
I stood before her trembling; she had never looked so lovely. I bent
over her, lost in admiration; my heart beat quickly. I bent still
lower, and would have kissed her delicate rosy mouth, but all at once a
thought oppressed me: what you are about to do is a robbery! Totila! my
whole soul cried within me, and as gently as I had come I left her.
Totila! why had I never thought of him before? I reproached myself for
having almost forgotten the brother of my heart in my new happiness.
The next day I returned to Neapolis to fetch him. I praised the beauty
of the maiden, but I could not prevail on myself to tell him of my
love. I preferred that he should come and find it out for himself. On
our arrival at the villa we did not find Valeria in the house. So I led
Totila into the garden--Valeria is passionately fond of flowers--and as
we issued from an avenue, she appeared before us in all her dazzling
beauty. She was standing before a statue of her father and crowning it
with freshly-plucked roses, which she held heaped up in a fold of her
tunic.
"It was a surprisingly beautiful picture--this lovely girl, framed in
the dark green of the taxus-bushes, her right hand uplifted to the
white marble statue, the other pressing the corner of her robe to her
bosom--and the effect upon Totila was overpowering. With a cry of
astonishment, he remained rooted to the ground before her. She looked
up and started. The roses fell from her dress to the ground; she did
not notice it. Their eyes had met, and her cheeks were covered with
blushes. At a glance I saw that her and my fate was decided. They loved
each other at first sight! This certainly pierced my soul like a
burning arrow. But only for a moment did I feel this unmixed pain. The
next, as I looked at the two, I felt unselfishly glad that they had
found each other; for it seemed as if the Power which creates the souls
and bodies of mortals, had formed them of one material for each other.
They belonged to each other, like morning sunshine and morning flowers.
Now I knew what mysterious feeling had kept me apart from Valeria, and
caused me to pronounce his name. By the wisdom of God, or in the course
of the stars, it had been decided that Valeria should be Totila's, and
that I should not step in between them.
"Permit me to leave the rest untold; for my nature is still so selfish,
the holy precept of self-denial has still so little power over me,
that--I am ashamed to confess it--my heart often fails me, instead of
beating with happiness at the good fortune of my friends. As two flames
mingle inseparably together, so their hearts were united. They love
each other, and are as happy as the immortal gods. To me remains the
joy of witnessing their bliss, and helping them to conceal it from the
eyes of their father, who will scarcely give his child to the barbarian
as long as he sees in Totila _only_ the barbarian. But I keep my love
and its sacrificial death a secret from my friend; he does not guess,
nor shall he ever learn, that which would only disturb his happiness.
You see now, Cethegus, how far from your aim a god has turned your
plan. You would have given to me this jewel of Italy, and instead it is
laid at Totila's feet. You would have destroyed my friendship, and
have, instead, freed it, in the furnace of self-immolation, from all
earthly dross, and made it immortal. You would have made me a man
through the joy of love, and I have become a man through love's pain.
Farewell, and revere the guidance of Heaven!"