When he reached the Caesareum the high-chamberlain was waiting to
conduct him to Sabina who desired to speak with him notwithstanding
the lateness of the hour, and when Verus entered the presence of
his patroness, he found her in the greatest excitement. She was not
reclining as usual on her pillows but was pacing her room with strides
of very unfeminine length.
“It is well that you have come!” she exclaimed to the praetor. “Lentulus
insists that he has seen Mastor the slave, and Balbilla declares--but it
is impossible!”
“You think that Caesar is here?” asked Verus.
“Did they tell you so too?”
“No. I do not linger to talk when you require my presence and there
is something important to be told just now then--but you must not be
alarmed.”
“No useless speeches!”
“Just now I met, in his own person--”
“Who?”
“Hadrian.”
“You are not mistaken, you are sure you saw him?”
“With these eyes.”
“Abominable, unworthy, disgraceful!” cried Sabina, so loudly and
violently that she was startled at the shrill tones of her own voice.
Her tall thin figure quivered with excitement, and to any one else she
would have appeared in the highest degree graceless, unwomanly, and
repulsive: but Verus had been accustomed from his childhood to see her
with kinder eyes than other men, and it grieved him.
There are women who remind us of fading flowers, extinguished lights or
vanishing shades, and they are not the least attractive of their sex:
but the large-boned, stiff and meagre Sabina had none of the yielding
and tender grace of these gentle creatures. Her feeble health, which was
very evident, became her particularly ill when, as at this moment,
the harsh acrimony of her embittered soul came to light with hideous
plainness.
She was deeply indignant at the affront her husband had put upon her.
Not content with having a separate house established for her he kept
aloof in Alexandria without informing her of his arrival. Her hands
trembled with rage, and stammering rather than speaking she desired the
praetor to order a composing draught for her. When Verus returned she
was lying on her cushions, with her face turned to the wall, and said
lamentably:
“I am freezing; spread that coverlet over me. I am a miserable, ill-used
creature.”
“You are sensitive and take things too hardly,” the praetor ventured to
remonstrate.
She started up angrily, cut off his speech, and put him through as keen
a cross-examination as if he were an accused person and she his judge.
Ere long she had learnt that Verus also had encountered Mastor, that her
husband was residing at Lochias, that he had taken part in the festival
in disguise, and had exposed himself to grave danger outside the house
of Apollodorus. She also made him tell her how the Israelite had been
rescued, and whom her friend had met in his house, and she blamed Verus
with bitter words for the heedless and foolhardy recklessness with
which he had risked his life for a miserable Jew, forgetting the high
destinies that lay before him. The praetor had not interrupted her, but
now bowing over her, he kissed her hand and said:
“Your kind heart foresees for me things that I dare not hope for.
Something is glimmering on the horizon of my fortune. Is it the dying
glow of my failing fortunes, is it the pale dawn of a coming and more
glorious day? Who can tell? I await with patience whatever may be
impending--an early day must decide.”
“That will bring certainty, and put an end to this suspense,” murmured
Sabina.
“Now rest and try to sleep,” said Verus with a tender fervency, that was
peculiar to his tones. “It is past midnight and the physician has often
forbidden you to sit up late. Farewell, dream sweetly, and always be the
same to me as a man, that you were to me in my childhood and youth.”
Sabina withdrew the hand he had taken, saying:
“But you must not leave me. I want you. I cannot exist without your
presence.”
“Till to-morrow--always--forever I will stay with you whenever you need
me.”
The Empress gave him her hand again, and sighed softly as he again bowed
over it, and pressed it long to his lips.
“You are my friend, Verus, truly my friend; yes, I am sure of it,” she
said at last, breaking the silence.
“Oh Sabina, my Mother!” he answered tenderly. “You spoiled me with
kindness even when I was a boy, and what can I do to thank you for all
this?”
“Be always the same to me that you are to-day. Will you always--for all
time be the same, whatever your fortunes may be?”
“In joy and in adversity always the same; always your friend, always
ready to give my life for you.”
“In spite of my husband, always, even when you think you no longer need
my favor!”
“Always, for without you I should be nothing--utterly miserable.”
The Empress heaved a deep sigh and sat bolt upright on her couch. She
had formed a great resolve, and she said slowly, emphasizing every word:
“If nothing utterly unforeseen occurs in the heavens on your
birth-night, you shall be our son, and so Hadrian’s successor and heir.
I swear it.”
There was something solemn in her voice, and her small eyes were wide
open.
“Sabina, Mother, guardian spirit of my life!” cried Verus, and he fell
on his knees by her couch. She looked in his handsome face with deep
emotion, laid her hands on his temples, and pressed her lips on his dark
curls.
A moist brilliancy sparkled in those eyes, unapt to tears, and in a soft
and appealing tone that no one had ever before heard in her voice she
said:
“Even at the summit of fortune, after your adoption, even in the purple
all will be the same between us two. Will it? Tell me, will it?”
“Always, always!” cried Verus. “And if our hopes are fulfilled--”
“Then, then,” interrupted Sabina and she shivered as she spoke. “Then,
still you will be to me the same that you are now; but to be sure, to be
sure--the temples of the gods would be empty if mortals had nothing left
to wish for.”
“Ah! no. Then they would bring thank-offerings to the divinity,” cried
Verus, and he looked up at the Empress; but she turned away from his
smiling glance and exclaimed in a tone of reproof and alarm:
“No playing with words, no empty speeches or rash jesting! in the name
of all the gods, not at this time! For this hour, this night is among
its fellows what a hallowed temple is among other buildings--what the
fervent sun is among the other lights of heaven. You know not how I
feel, nay, I hardly know myself. Not now, not now, one lightly-spoken
word!”
Verus gazed at Sabina with growing astonishment. She had always been
kinder to him than to any one else in the world and he felt bound to her
by all the ties of gratitude and the sweet memories of childhood. Even
as a boy, out of all his playfellows he was the only one who, far from
fearing her had clung to her. But to-night! who had ever seen Sabina in
such a mood? Was this the harsh bitter woman whose heart seemed filled
with gall, whose tongue cut like a dagger every one against whom she
used it? Was this Sabina who no doubt was kindly disposed towards him
but who loved no one else, not even herself? Did he see rightly, or was
he under some delusion? Tears, genuine, honest, unaffected tears filled
her eyes as she went on:
“Here I he, a poor sickly woman, sensitive in body and in soul as if
I were covered with wounds. Every movement, and even the gaze and the
voice of most of my fellow-creatures is a pain to me. I am old, much
older than you think and so wretched, so wretched, none of you can
imagine how wretched. I was never happy as a child, never as a girl,
and as a wife--merciful gods!--every kind word that Hadrian has ever
vouchsafed me I have paid for with a thousand humiliations.”
“He always treats you with the utmost esteem,” interrupted Verus.
“Before you, before the world! But what do I care for esteem! I may
demand the respect, the adoration of millions and it will be mine. Love,
love, a little unselfish love is what I ask--and if only I were sure, if
only I dared to hope that you give me such love, I would thank you
with all that I have, then this hour would be hallowed to me above all
others.”
“How can you doubt me Mother? My dearly beloved Mother!”
“That is comfort, that is happiness!” answered Sabina. “Your voice is
never too loud for me, and I believe you, I dare trust you. This hour
makes you my son, makes me your mother.”
Tender emotion, the emotion that softens the heart, thrilled through
Sabina’s dried-up nature and sparkled in her eyes. She felt like a young
wife of whom a child is born, and the voice of her heart sings to her in
soothing tones: “It lives, it is mine, I am the providence of a living
soul, I am a mother.”
She gazed blissfully into Verus’ eyes and exclaimed, “Give me your hand
my son, help me up, for I will be here no longer. What good spirits I
feel in! Yes, this is the joy that is allotted to other women before
their hair is grey! But child--dear and only child--you must love me
really as a mother. I am too old for tender trifling, and yet I could
not bear it if you gave me nothing but a child’s reverence. No, no, you
must be my friend whose heart warns him of my wishes, who can laugh with
me to-day, and weep with me to-morrow--and who shows that he is happier
when his eye meets mine. You are now my son; and soon you shall have
the name of son; that is happiness enough for one evening. Not another
word--this hour is like the finished masterpiece of some great painter;
every touch that could be added might spoil it. You may kiss my
forehead, I will kiss yours; now I will go to rest, and to-morrow when I
wake I shall say to myself that I possess something worth living for--a
child, a son.”
When the Empress was alone she raised her hand in prayer but she could
find no words of thanksgiving. One hour of pure happiness she had indeed
enjoyed, but how many days, months, years of joylessness and suffering
lay behind her! Gratitude knocked at the door of her heart but it was
instantly met by bitter defiance; what was one hour of happiness in the
balance against a ruined lifetime?
Foolish woman! she had never sown the seeds of love, and now she blamed
the gods for niggardliness and cruelty in denying her a harvest of love.
And now, on what soil had the seed of maternal tenderness fallen?
Verus it is true had left her content and full of hope--Sabina’s altered
demeanor, it is true, had touched his heart--he purposed to cling to her
faithfully even after his formal adoption; but the light in his eye was
not that of a proud and happy son, on the contrary it sparkled like that
of a warrior who hopes to gain the victory.
Notwithstanding the late hour, his wife had not yet gone to bed. She had
heard that he had been summoned to the Empress on his return home, and
awaited him not without anxiety, for she was not accustomed to anything
pleasant from Sabina. Her husband’s hasty step echoed loudly from the
stone walls of the sleeping palace. She heard it at some distance, and
went to the door of her room to meet him. Radiant, excited, and with
flushed cheeks, he held out both his hands to her. She looked so fair
in her white night-wrapper of fine white material, and his heart was
so full that he clasped her in his arms as fondly as when she was his
bride; and she loved him even now no less than she had done then,
and felt for the hundredth time with grateful joy that the faithless
scapegrace had once more returned to her unchangeable and faithful
heart, like a sailor who, after wandering through many lands seeks his
native port.
“Lucilla,” he cried, disengaging her arms from round his neck.
“Oh, Lucilla! what an evening this has been! I always judged Sabina
differently from you, and have felt with gratitude that she really cared
for me. Now all is clear between her and me! She called me her son. I
called her mother. I owe it to her, and the purple--the purple is ours!
You are the wife of Verus Caesar; you are certain of it if no signs and
omens come to frighten Hadrian.”
In a few eager words, which betrayed not merely the triumph of a lucky
gambler, but also true emotion and gratitude, he related all that had
passed in Sabina’s room. His frank and confident contentment silenced
her doubts, her dread of the stupendous fate which, beckoning her, yet
threatening her, drew visibly nearer and nearer. In her mind’s eye she
saw the husband she loved, she saw her son, seated on the throne of the
Caesars, and she herself crowned with the radiant diadem of the woman
whom she hated with all the force of her soul. Her husband’s kindly
feeling towards the Empress and the faithful allegiance which had tied
him to her from his boyhood did not disquiet her; but a wife allows the
husband of her choice every happiness, every gift excepting only the
love of another woman, and will forgive her hatred and abuse rather than
such love.
Lucilla was greatly excited, and a thought, that for years had been
locked in the inmost shrine of her heart, to-day proved too strong
for her powers of reticence. Hadrian was supposed to have murdered
her father, but no one could positively assert it, though either he or
another man had certainly slain the noble Nigrinus. At this moment the
old suspicion stirred her soul with revived force, and lifting her right
hand, as if in attestation, she exclaimed:
“Oh, Fate, Fate! that my husband should be heir of the man who murdered
my father!”
“Lucilla,” interrupted Verus, “it is unjust even to think of such
horrors, and to speak of them is madness. Do not utter it a second time,
least of all to-day. What may have occurred formerly must not spoil the
present and the future which belong to us and to our children.”
“Nigrinus was the grandfather of those children,” cried the Roman mother
with flashing eyes.
“That is to say that you harbor in your soul the wish to avenge your
father’s death on Caesar.”
“I am the daughter of the butchered man.”
“But you do not know the murderer, and the purple must outweigh the life
of one man, for it is often bought with many thousand lives. And then,
Lucilla, as you know, I love happy faces, and Revenge has a sinister
brow. Let us be happy, oh wife of Caesar! Tomorrow I shall have much to
tell you, now I must go to a splendid banquet which the son of Plutarch
is giving in my honor. I cannot stay with you--truly I cannot, I have
been expected long since. And when we are in Rome never let me find you
telling the children those old dismal stories--I will not have it.”
As Verus, preceded by his slaves bearing torches, made his way through
the garden of the Caesareum he saw a light in the rooms of Balbilla, the
poetess, and he called up merrily:
“Good-night, fair Muse!”
“Good-night, sham Eros!” she retorted.
“You are decking yourself in borrowed feathers, Poetess,” replied he,
laughing. “It is not you but the ill-mannered Alexandrians who invented
that name!”
“Oh! and other and better ones,” cried she. “What I have heard and seen
to-day passes all belief!”
“And you will celebrate it in your poems?”
“Only some of it, and that in a satire which I propose to aim at you.”
“I tremble!”
“With delight, it is to be hoped; my poem will embalm your memory for
posterity.”
“That is true, and the more spiteful your verses, the more certainly
will future generations believe that Verus was the Phaon of Balbilla’s
Sappho, and that love scorned filled the fair singer with bitterness.”
“I thank you for the caution. To-day at any rate you are safe from my
verse, for I am tired to death.”
“Did you venture into the streets?”
“It was quite safe, for I had a trustworthy escort.”
“May I be allowed to ask who?”
“Why not? It was Pontius the architect who was with me.”
“He knows the town well.”
“And in his care I would trust myself to descend, like Orpheus, into
Hades.”
“Happy Pontius!”
“Most happy Verus!”
“What am I to understand by those words, charming Balbilla?”
“The poor architect is able to please by being a good guide, while to
you belongs the whole heart of Lucilla, your sweet wife.”
“And she has the whole of mine so far as it is not full of Balbilla.
Good-night, saucy Muse; sleep well.”
“Sleep ill, you incorrigible tormentor!” cried the girl, drawing the
curtain across her window.