Melissa, too, had a sense of freedom when she found herself walking by
the side of Andreas.
In the garden of Hermes, where her father's house stood, there were few
signs of the excitement with which the citizens awaited Caesar's arrival.
Most of those who were out and about were going in the opposite
direction; they meant to await the grand reception of Caracalla at the
eastern end of the city, on his way from the Kanopic Gate to the Gate of
the Sun. Still, a good many--men, women and children--were, like
themselves, walking westward, for it was known that Caesar would alight
at the Serapeum.
They had scarcely left the house when Andreas asked the girl whether she
had a kerchief or a veil in the basket the slave was carrying behind her;
and on her replying in the affirmative, he expressed his satisfaction;
for Caracalla's soldiery, in consequence of the sovereign's weakened
discipline and reckless liberality, were little better than an unbridled
rabble.
"Then let us keep out of their way," urged Melissa.
"Certainly, as much as possible," said her companion. "At any rate, let
us hurry, so as to get back to the lake before the crowd stops the way.
"You have passed an eventful and anxious night, my child, and are tired,
no doubt."
"Oh, no!" said she, calmly; "I had some wine to refresh me, and some food
with the Christians."
"Then they received you kindly?"
"The only woman there nursed Diodoros like a mother; and the men were
considerate and careful. My father does not know them; and yet--Well,
you know how much he dislikes them."
"He follows the multitude," returned Andreas, "the common herd, who hate
everything exceptional, everything that disturbs their round of life, or
startles them out of the quietude of their dull dreams. Woe to those who
call by its true name what those blind souls call pleasure and enjoyment
as serving to hasten the flight of time--not too long at the most; woe to
those who dare raise even a finger against it!"
The man's deep, subdued tones were strongly expressive of the wrath
within him; and the girl, who kept close to his side, asked with eager
anxiety, "Then my father was right when he said that you are a member of
the Christian body?"
"Yes," he replied, emphatically; and when Melissa curiously inquired
whether it were true that the followers of the crucified God had
renounced their love for home and country, which yet ought to be dear to
every true man, Andreas answered with a superior smile, that even the
founder of the Stoa had required not only of his fellow-Greeks but of all
human beings, that they should regulate their existence by the same laws,
since they were brethren in reason and sense.
"He was right," added Andreas, more earnestly, "and I tell you, child, the
time is not far off when men shall no longer speak of Roman and Greek, of
Egyptian and Syrian, of free men and slaves; when there shall be but one
native land, but one class of life for all. Yea, the day is beginning to
dawn even now. The fullness of the time is come!"
Melissa looked up at him in amazement, exclaiming: "How strange! I have
heard those words once to-day already, and can not get them out of my
head. Nay, when you confirmed my father's report, I made up my mind to
ask you to explain them."
"What words?" asked Andreas, in surprise. "The fullness of the time is
come."
"And where did you hear them?"
"In the house where Diodoros and I took refuge from Zminis."
"A Christian meeting-house," replied Andreas, and his expressive face
darkened. "But those who assemble there are aliens to me; they follow
evil heresies. But never mind--they also call themselves Christians,
and the words which led you to ponder, stand to me at the very gate of
the doctrine of our divine master, like the obelisks before the door of
an Egyptian temple. Paul, the great preacher of the faith, wrote them to
the Galatians. They are easy to understand; nay, any one who looks about
him with his eyes open, or searches his own soul, can scarcely fail to
see their meaning, if only the desire is roused in him for something
better than what these cursed times can give us who live in them."
"Then it means that we are on the eve of great changes?"
"Yes!" cried Andreas, "only the word you use is too feeble. The old dull
sun must set, to rise again with greater glory."
Ill at ease, and by no means convinced, Melissa looked her excited
companion in the face as she replied:
"Of course I know, Andreas, that you speak figuratively, for the sun
which lights the day seems to me bright enough; and is not everything
flourishing in this gay, busy city? Are not its citizens under the
protection of the law? Were the gods ever more zealously worshiped?
Is my father wrong when he says that it is a proud thing to belong to the
mightiest realm on earth, before whose power barbarians tremble; a great
thing to feel and call yourself a Roman citizen?"
So far Andreas had listened to her with composure, but he here
interrupted, in a tone of scorn "Oh, yes! Caesar has made your father,
and your neighbor Skopas, and every free man in the country a Roman
citizen; but it is a pity that, while he gave each man his patent of
citizenship, he should have filched the money out of his purse."
"Apion, the dealer, was saying something to that effect the other day,
and I dare say it is true. But I can not be persuaded against the
evidence of my own eyes, and they light on many good and pleasant things.
If only you had been with us to the Nekropolis yesterday! Every man was
honoring the gods after his own manner. Some, indeed, were grave enough;
still, cheerfulness won the day among the people. Most of them were full
of the god. I myself, who generally live so quietly, was infected as the
mystics came back from Eleusis, and we joined their ranks."
"'Till the spy Zminis spoiled your happiness and imperiled your brother's
life for a careless speech."
"Very true!"
"And what your brother heedlessly proclaimed," Andreas went on, with
flashing eyes, "the very sparrows twitter on the house-tops. It is the
truth. The sovereign of the Roman Empire is a thousand times a murderer.
Some he sent to precede his own brother, and they were followed by all--
twenty thousand, it is said--who were attached to the hapless Geta, or
who even spoke his name. This is the lord and master to whom we owe
obedience whom God has set over us for our sins. And when this wretch in
the purple shall close his eyes, he, like the rest of the criminals who
have preceded him on the throne, will be proclaimed a god! A noble
company! When your beloved mother died I heard you, even you, revile the
gods for their cruelty; others call them kind. It is only a question of
how they accept the blood of the sacrificed beasts, their own creatures,
which you shed in their honor. If Serapis does not grant some fool the
thing he asks, then he turns to the altar of Isis, of Anubis, of Zeus,
of Demeter. At last he cries to Sabazios, or one of the new deities of
Olympus, who owe their existence to the decisions of the Roman Senate,
and who are for the most part scoundrels and villains. There certainly
never were more gods than there are now; and among those of whom the
myths tell us things strange enough to bring those who worship them into
contempt, or to the gallows, is the countless swarm of good and evil
daimons. Away with your Olympians! They ought to reward virtue and
punish vice; and they are no better than corruptible judges; for you know
beforehand just what and how much will avail to purchase their favors."
"You paint with dark colors," the girl broke in. "I have learned from
Philip that the Pythagoreans teach that not the sacrifice, but the spirit
of the offering, is what really matters."
"Quite right. He was thinking, no doubt, of the miracle-monger of Tyana,
Apollonius, who certainly had heard of the doctrine of the Redeemer. But
among the thousand nine hundred and ninety, who here bring beasts to the
altar, who ever remembers this? Quite lately I heard one of our garden
laborers ask how much a day he ought to sacrifice to the sun, his god.
I told him a keration--for that is what the poor creature earns for a
whole day's work. He thought that too much, for he must live; so the god
must be content with a tithe, for the taxes to the State on his earnings
were hardly more."
"The divinity ought no doubt to be above all else to us," Melissa
observed. "But when your laborer worships the sun, and looks for its
benefits, what is the difference between him and you, or me, or any of
us, though we call the sun Helios or Serapis, or what not?"
"Yes, yes," replied Andreas. "The sun is adored here under many
different names and forms, and your Serapis has swallowed up not only
Zeus and Pluto, but Phoebus Apollo and the Egyptian Osiris and Ammon, and
Ra, to swell his own importance. But to be serious, child, our fathers
made to themselves many gods indeed, of the sublime phenomena and powers
of Nature, and worshiped them admiringly; but to us only the names
remain, and those who offer to Apollo never think of the sun. With my
laborer, who is an Arab, it is different. He believes the light-giving
globe itself to be a god; and you, I perceive, do not think him wholly
wrong. But when you see a youth throw the discus with splendid strength,
do you praise the discus, or the thrower?"
"The thrower," replied Melissa. "But Phoebus Apollo himself guides his
chariot with his divine hands."
"And astronomers," the Christian went on, "can calculate for years to
come exactly where his steeds will be at each minute of the time. So no
one can be more completely a slave than he to whom so many mortals pray
that he will, of his own free-will, guide circumstances to suit them.
I, therefore, regard the sun as a star, like any other star; and worship
should be given, not to those rolling spheres moving across the sky in
prescribed paths, but to Him who created them and guides them by fixed
laws. I really pity your Apollo and the whole host of the Olympian gods,
since the world has become possessed by the mad idea that the gods and
daimons may be moved, or even compelled, by forms of prayer and
sacrifices and magic arts, to grant to each worshiper the particular
thing on which he may have set his covetous and changeable fancy."
"And yet," exclaimed Melissa, "you yourself told me that you prayed for
my mother when the leech saw no further hope. Every one hopes for a
miracle from the immortals when his own power has come to an end!
Thousands think so. And in our city the people have never been more
religious than they are now. The singer of the Ialemos at the feast of
Adonis particularly praised us for it."
"Because they have never been more fervently addicted to pleasure, and
therefore have never more deeply dreaded the terrors of hades. The great
and splendid Zeus of the Greeks has been transformed into Serapis here,
on the banks of the Nile, and has become a god of the nether world. Most
of the ceremonies and mysteries to which the people crowd are connected
with death. They hope that the folly over which they waste so many hours
will smooth their way to the fields of the blest, and yet they themselves
close the road by the pleasures they indulge in. But the fullness of
time is now come; the straight road lies open to all mankind, called as
they are to a higher life in a new world, and he who follows it may await
death as gladly as the bride awaits the bridegroom on her marriage day.
Yes, I prayed to my God for your dying mother, the sweetest and best
of women. But what I asked for her was not that her life might be
preserved, or that she might be permitted to linger longer among us,
but that the next world might be opened to her in all its glory."
At this point the speaker was interrupted by an armed troop which thrust
the crowd aside to make way for the steers which were to be slaughtered
in the Temple of Serapis at the approach of Caesar. There were several
hundred of them, each with a garland about its, neck, and the handsomest
which led the train had its horns gilded.
When the road was clear again, Andreas pointed to the beasts, and
whispered to his companion "Their blood will be shed in honor of the
future god Caracalla. He once killed a hundred bears in the arena with
his own hand. But I tell you, child, when the fullness of time is come,
innocent blood shall no more be shed. You were speaking with enthusiasm
of the splendor of the Roman Empire. But, like certain fruit-trees in
our garden which we manure with blood, it has grown great on blood, on
the life-juice of its victims. The mightiest realm on earth owes its
power to murder and rapine; but now sudden destruction is coming on the
insatiate city, and visitation for her sins."
"And if you are right--if the barbarians should indeed destroy the armies
of Caesar," asked Melissa, looking up in some alarm at the enthusiast,
"what then?"
"Then we may thank those who help to demolish the crumbling house!" cried
Andreas, with flashing eyes.
"And if it should be so," said the girl, with tremulous anxiety, "what
universal ruin! What is there on earth that could fill its place? If
the empire falls into the power of the barbarians, Rome will be made
desolate, and all the provinces laid waste which thrive under her
protection."
"Then," said Andreas, "will the kingdom of the Spirit arise, in which
peace and love shall reign instead of hatred and murder and wars. There
shall be one fold and one Shepherd, and the least shall be equal with the
greatest."
"Then there will be no more slaves?" asked Melissa, in growing
amazement.
"Not one," replied her companion, and a gleam of inspiration seemed to
light up his stern features. "All shall be free, and all united in love
by the grace of Him who hath redeemed us."
But Melissa shook her head, and Andreas, understanding what was passing
in her mind, tried to catch her eye as he went on:
"You think that these are the impossible wishes of one who has himself
been a slave, or that it is the remembrance of past suffering and
unutterable wrong which speaks in me? For what right-minded man would
not desire to preserve others from the misery which once crushed him to
earth with its bitter burden?--But you are mistaken. Thousands of free-
born men and women think as I do, for to them, too, a higher Power has
revealed that the fullness of time is now come. He, the Greatest and
Best, who made all the woes of the world His own, has chosen the poor
rather than the rich, the suffering rather than the happy, the babes
rather than the wise and prudent; and in his kingdom the last shall be
first--yea, the least of the last, the poorest of the poor; and they,
child, are the slaves."
He ended his diatribe with a deep sigh, but Melissa pressed the hand
which held hers as they walked along the raised pathway, and said:
"Poor Andreas! How much you must have gone through before Polybius set
you free!"
He only nodded, and they both remained silent till they found themselves
in a quiet side street. Then the girl looked up at him inquiringly, and
began again:
"And now you hope for a second Spartacus? Or will you yourself lead a
rebellion of the slaves? You are the man for it, and I can be secret."
"If it has to be, why not?" he replied, and his eyes sparkled with a
strange fire. But seeing that she shrank from him, a smile passed over
his countenance, and he added in a soothing tone: "Do not be alarmed, my
child; what must come will come, without another Spartacus, or bloodshed,
or turmoil. And you, with your clear eyes and your kind heart, would you
find it difficult to distinguish right from wrong, and to feel for the
sorrows of others--? Yes, perhaps! For what will not custom excuse
and sanctify? You can pity the bird which is shut into a cage too small
for it, or the mule which breaks down under too heavy a load, and the
cruelty which hurts them rouses your indignation. But for the man whom
a terrible fate has robbed of his freedom, often through the fault of
another, whose soul endures even greater torments than his despised body,
you have no better comfort than the advice which might indeed serve a
philosopher, but which to him is bitter mockery: to bear his woes with
patience. He is only a slave, bought, or perhaps inherited. Which of
you ever thinks of asking who gave you, who are free, the right to
enslave half of all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, and to rob them
of the highest prerogative of humanity? I know that many philosophers
have spoken of slavery as an injustice done by the strong to the weak:
but they shrugged their shoulders over it nevertheless, and excused it as
an inevitable evil; for, thought they, who will serve me if my slave is
regarded as my equal? You only smile at this confusion of the meditative
recluses, but you forget"--and a sinister fire glowed in his eyes--"that
the slave, too, has a soul, in which the same feelings stir as in your
own. You never think how a proud man may feel whose arm you brand, and
whose very breath of life is indignity; or what a slave thinks who is
spurned by his master's foot, though noble blood may run in his veins.
All living things, even the plants in the garden, have a right to
happiness, and only develop fully in freedom, and under loving care; and
yet one half of mankind robs the other half of this right. The sum total
of suffering and sorrow to which Fate had doomed the race is recklessly
multiplied and increased by the guilt of men themselves. But the cry of
the poor and wretched has gone up to heaven, and now that the fullness of
time is come, 'Thus far, and no farther,' is the word. No wild
revolutionary has been endowed with a giant's strength to burst the bonds
of the victims asunder. No, the Creator and Preserver of the world sent
his Son to redeem the poor in spirit, and, above all, the brethren and
the sisters who are weary and heavy laden. The magical word which shall
break the bars of the prisons where the chains of the slaves are heard is
Love. . . . But you, Melissa, can but half comprehend all this,"
he added, interrupting the ardent flow of his enthusiastic speech.
"You can not understand it all. For you, too, child, the fullness of
time is coming; for you, too, freeborn though you are, are, I know, one
of the heavy laden who patiently suffer the burden laid upon you. You
too--But keep close to me; we shall find it difficult to get through this
throng."
It was, in fact, no easy matter to get across the crowd which was pouring
noisily down the street of Hermes, into which this narrow way led. How
ever, they achieved it, and when Melissa had recovered her breath in a
quiet lane in Rhakotis, she turned to her companion again with the
question, "And when do you suppose that your predictions will be
fulfilled?"
"As soon as the breeze blows which shall shake the overripe fruit from
the tree. It may be tomorrow, or not yet, according to the long-
suffering of the Most High. But the entire collapse of the world in
which we have been living is as certain to come as that you are walking
here with me!"
Melissa walked on with a quaking heart, as she heard her friend's tone of
conviction; he, however, was aware that the inmost meaning of his words
was sealed to her. To his inquiry, whether she could not rejoice in the
coming of the glorious time in store for redeemed humanity, she answered,
tremulously:
"All you hope for is glorious, no doubt, but what shall lead to it must
be a terror to all. Were you told of the kingdom of which you speak by
an oracle, or is it only a picture drawn by your imagination, a vision,
and the offspring of your soul's desire?"
"Neither," said Andreas, decidedly; and he went on in a louder voice:
"I know it by revelation. Believe me, child, it is as certainly true as
that the sun will set this night. The gates of the heavenly Jerusalem
stand open, and if you, too, would fain be blessed--But more of this
later. Here we are at our journey's end."
They entered the Christian home, where they found Diodoros, on a
comfortable couch, in a spacious, shady room, and in the care of a
friendly matron.
But he was in an evil case. The surgeon thought his wound a serious one;
for the heavy stone which had hit him had injured the skull, and the
unhappy youth was trembling with fever. His head was burning, and it was
with difficulty that he spoke a few coherent words. But his eyes
betrayed that he recognized Melissa, and that it was a joy to him to see
her again; and when he was told that Alexander had so far escaped, a
bright look lighted up his countenance. It was evidently a comfort to
him to gaze on Melissa's pretty face; her hand lay in his, and he
understood her when she greeted him from her father, and spoke to him
of various matters; but the lids ere long closed over his aching eyes.
Melissa felt that she must leave him to rest. She gently released his
hand from her grasp and laid it across his breast, and moved no more,
excepting to wipe the drops from his brow. Solemn stillness had reigned
for some time in the large, clean house, faintly smelling of lavender;
but, on a sudden, doors opened and shut; steps were heard in the
anteroom, seats were moved, and a loud confusion of men's voices became
audible, among them that of Andreas.
Melissa listened anxiously to the heated discussion which had already
become a vehement quarrel. She longed to implore the excited wranglers
to moderate their tones, for she could see by her lover's quivering lips
that the noise hurt him; but she could not leave him.
The dispute meanwhile grew louder and louder. The names of Montanus and
Tertullian, Clemens and Origen, fell on her ear, and at last she heard
Andreas exclaim in high wrath: "You are like the guests at a richly
furnished banquet who ask, after they have well eaten, when the meat will
be brought in. Paraclete is come, and yet you look for another."
He was not allowed to proceed; fierce and scornful contradiction
checked his speech, till a voice of thunder was heard above the rest:
"The heavenly Jerusalem is at hand. He who denies and doubts the calling
of Montanus is worse than the heathen, and I, for one, cast him off as
neither a brother nor a Christian!"
This furious denunciation was drowned in uproar; the anxious girl heard
seats overturned, and the yells and shouts of furious combatants; the
suffering youth meanwhile moaned with anguish, and an expression of acute
pain was stamped on his handsome features. Melissa could bear it no
longer; she had risen to go and entreat the men to make less noise, when
suddenly all was still.
Diodoros immediately became calmer, and looked up at the girl as
gratefully as though the soothing silence were owing to her. She could
now hear the deep tones of the head of the Church of Alexandria, and
understood that the matter in hand was the readmission into this
congregation of a man who had been turned out by some other sect. Some
would have him rejected, and commended him to the mercy of God; others,
less rigid, were willing to receive him, since he was ready to submit to
any penance.
Then the quarrel began again. High above every other voice rose the
shrill tones of a man who had just arrived from Carthage, and who boasted
of personal friendship with the venerable Tertullian. The listening girl
could no longer follow the connection of the discussion, but the same
names again met her ear; and, though she understood nothing of the
matter, it annoyed her, because the turmoil disturbed her lover's rest.
It was not till the sick-nurse came back that the tumult was appeased;
for, as soon as she learned how seriously the loud disputes of her
fellow-believers were disturbing the sick man's rest, she interfered
so effectually, that the house was as silent as before.
The deaconess Katharine was the name by which she was known, and in a few
minutes she returned to her patient's bedside.
Andreas followed her, with the leech, a man of middle height, whose
shrewd and well-formed head, bald but for a little hair at the sides,
was set on a somewhat ungainly body. His sharp eyes looked hither and
thither, and there was something jerky in his quick movements; still,
their grave decisiveness made up for the lack of grace. He paid no heed
to the bystanders, but threw himself forward rather than bent over the
patient, felt him, and with a light hand renewed his bandages; and then
he looked round the room, examining it as curiously as though he proposed
to take up his abode there, ending by fixing his prominent, round eyes on
Melissa. There was something so ruthlessly inquisitive in that look that
it might, under other circumstances, have angered her. However, as it
was, she submitted to it, for she saw that it was shrewd, and she would
have called the wisest physician on earth to her lover's bedside if she
had had the power.
When Ptolemaeus--for so he was called--had, in reply to the question,
"who is that?" learned who she was, he hastily murmured: "Then she can do
nothing but harm here. A man in a fever wants but one thing, and that is
perfect quiet."
And he beckoned Andreas to the window, and asked him shortly, "Has the
girl any sense?"
"Plenty," replied the freedman, decisively.
"As much, at any rate, as she can have at her age," the other retorted.
"Then it is to be hoped that she will go without any leave-taking or
tears. That fine lad is in a bad way. I have known all along what might
do him good, but I dare not attempt it alone, and there is no one in
Alexandria. . . . But Galen has come to join Caesar. If he, old
as he is--But it is not for the likes of us to intrude into Caesar's
quarters--Still--"
He paused, laying his hand on his brow, and rubbing it thoughtfully with
his short middle finger. Then he suddenly exclaimed: "The old man would
never come here. But the Serapeum, where the sick lie awaiting divine or
diabolical counsel in dreams--Galen will go there. If only we could
carry the boy thither."
"His nurse here would hardly allow that," said Andreas, doubtfully.
"He is a heathen." replied the leech, hotly. "Besides, what has faith to
do with the injury to the body? How many Caesars have employed Egyptian
and Jewish physicians? The lad would get the treatment he needs, and,
Christian as I am, I would, if necessary, convey him to the Serapeum,
though it is of all heathen temples the most heathen. I will find
out by hook or by crook at what time Galen is to visit the cubicles.
To-morrow, or next day at latest; and to-night, or, better still,
to-morrow morning before sunrise, I will have the youth carried there.
If the deaconess refuses--"
"And she will," Andreas put in.
"Very well.--Come here, maiden," he beckoned to Melissa, and went on loud
enough for the deaconess to hear: "If we can get your betrothed to the
Serapeum early to-morrow, he may probably be cured; otherwise I refuse to
be responsible. Tell your friends and his that I will be here before
sunrise to-morrow, and that they must provide a covered litter and good
bearers."
He then turned to the deaconess, who had followed him in silence, with
her hands clasped like a deserter, laid his broad, square hand on her
shoulder, and added:
"So it must be, Widow Katharine, Love endures and suffers all things, and
to save a neighbor's life, it is well to suffer in silence even things
that displease us. I will explain it all to you afterwards. Quiet, only
perfect quiet--No melancholy leave-taking, child! The sooner you are out
of the house the better."
He went back again to the bed, laid his hand for a moment on the sick
man's forehead, and then left the room.
Diodoros lay still and indifferent on the couch. Melissa kissed him on
the brow, and withdrew without his observing it, her eyes full of tears.
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For what will not custom excuse and sanctify?