written, I know not; I only know that I often enough groaned in anguish
under my enforced and hated silence. I ventured as far as I by any means
dared. That letter written to an unnamed man in your camp, which
contained an account of the Emperor’s triumphal entry in Rome, and which
you found one morning on the march to Lutetia pushed under your
tent-flap——; you did find it, my lord?
JULIAN.
Yes, yes——?
SALLUST.
That was directed to me, and chance favoured me in bringing it into your
hands. I dared not speak. I longed to, but I could not; I put off from
day to day the confession of my shame. Oh, punish me, my lord; see, here
I lie!
JULIAN.
Stand up; you are dearer to me thus,—conquered without my will and
against your own. Stand up, friend of my soul; no one shall touch a hair
of your head.
SALLUST.
Rather take the life which you will not long have power to shield. You
say the Emperor is at death’s door. [_He rises._] My Caesar, what I have
sworn to conceal, I now reveal to you. There is no hope for you in the
Emperor’s decay. The Emperor is taking a new wife.
JULIAN.
Ah, what madness! How can you think——?
SALLUST.
The Emperor is taking a new wife, my lord! [_He hands him some papers._]
Read, read, noble Caesar; these letters will leave you no room for
doubt.
JULIAN.
[_Seizing the papers, and reading._] Yes, by the light and might of
Helios——!
SALLUST.
Oh that I had dared to speak sooner!
JULIAN.
[_Still reading._] He take a woman to wife! Constantius,—that dwindling
shadow of a man——! Faustina,—what is this?—young, scarcely nineteen,—a
daughter of——ah! a daughter of that insolent tribe. Therefore, of
course, a zealous Christian woman. [_He folds the papers together._] You
are right, Sallust; his decay gives no room for hope. What though he be
decrepit, dying,—what of that? Is not Faustina pious. An annunciating
angel will appear; or even——; ha-ha!—in short,—by some means or other,—a
young Caesar will be forthcoming, and thus——
SALLUST.
Delay means ruin.
JULIAN.
This move has long been planned in all secrecy, Sallust! Ah, now all the
riddles are solved. Helena——, ’twas not, as I conceived, her heedless
tongue that destroyed her——
SALLUST.
No, my lord!
JULIAN.
——they thought,—they believed that——! oh inscrutable, even-handed
retribution! that was why she had to die.
SALLUST.
Yes, that was the reason, I was the man they first pitched upon in Rome.
Oh, my lord, you cannot doubt that I refused to do it? I pleaded the
impossibility of finding an occasion; they assured me that the
abominable design was abandoned, and then——!
JULIAN.
They will not stop at—at the double corpse in the sarcophagus up yonder.
Constantius takes another wife. That is why I was to be disarmed in
Lutetia.
SALLUST.
One thing alone can save you, my Caesar: you must act before the Emperor
has recruited his forces.
JULIAN.
What if, of my own free will, I withdrew into solitude, devoting myself
to that wisdom which I have here been forced to neglect? Would the new
men in power leave me undisturbed? Would not the very fact of my
existence be like a sword hanging over their heads?
SALLUST.
The kinsmen of the Empress that is to be are the men who surrounded
Gallus Caesar in his last hours.
JULIAN.
The tribune Scudilo. Trust me, friend,—I have not forgotten that. And am
I to yield and fall before this bloodthirsty Emperor! Am I to spare him
who for long years has stumbled about among the corpses of my nearest
kin!
SALLUST.
If you spare him, in less than three months he will be stumbling among
the corpses of your adherents.
JULIAN.
Yes, yes; there you are right. It is almost my imperative duty to stand
up against him. If I do, ’twill not be for my own sake. Do not the weal
and woe of thousands hang in the balance? Are not thousands of lives at
stake? Or could I have averted this extremity? You are more to blame
than I, Sallust! Why did you not speak before?
SALLUST.
In Rome they made me swear a solemn oath of secrecy.
JULIAN.
An oath? Indeed! By the gods of your forefathers?
SALLUST.
Yes, my lord—by Zeus and by Apollo.
JULIAN.
And yet you break your oath?
SALLUST.
I wish to live.
JULIAN.
But the gods?
SALLUST.
The gods—they are far away.
JULIAN.
Yes, your gods are far away; they hamper no one; they are a burden to no
one; they leave a man elbow-room for action. Oh, that Greek happiness,
that sense of freedom——!
You said that the Emperor, vengeful as he is, will pour out the blood of
my friends. Yes, who can doubt that? Was Knodomar spared? Did not that
harmless captive pay with his life for an error of language? For—I know
it, Sallust—they killed him; that tale about the barbarian’s
home-sickness was a lie. Then what may not we expect? In what a hateful
light must not Decentius have represented matters in Rome?
SALLUST.
That you may best understand from the hasty flight of the court to
Antioch.
JULIAN.
And am I not my army’s father, Sallust?
SALLUST.
The soldiers’ father; their wives’ and children’s buckler and defence.
JULIAN.
And what will be the fate of the empire should I waver now? A decrepit
Emperor, and after him a helpless child, upon the throne; faction and
revolt; every man’s hand against his neighbour, in the struggle for
power.—Not many nights ago I saw a vision. A figure appeared before me,
with a halo round its head; it looked wrathfully upon me, and said:
“Choose!” With that it vanished away, like morning mist. Hitherto I had
interpreted it as referring to something far different; but now that I
know of the Emperor’s approaching marriage——
Yes, indeed, it is time to choose, ere misfortune overwhelms the empire.
I am not thinking of my own interest; but _dare_ I shirk the choice,
Sallust? Is it not my duty to the Emperor to defend my life? Have I a
right to stand with folded arms and await the murderers whom he, in his
mad panic, is bribing to hew me down? Have I a right to give this
unhappy Constantius an opportunity of heaping fresh blood-guiltiness
upon his sinful head? Were it not better for him—as the Scriptures
say—that he should suffer wrong rather than do wrong? If, therefore,
this that I do to my kinsman can be called a wrong, I hold that the
wrong is wiped out by the fact that it hinders my kinsman from
inflicting a wrong on me. I think that both Plato and Marcus Aurelius,
that crowned bridegroom of wisdom, would support me in that. At any
rate, it would be no unworthy problem for the philosophers, my dear
Sallust!—Oh that I had Libanius here!
SALLUST.
My lord, you are yourself so far advanced in philosophy, that——
JULIAN.
True, true; yet I would fain hear the views of certain others. Not that
I am vacillating. Do not think that! Nor do I see any reason to doubt a
favourable issue. For those omens should by no means discourage us. The
fact that I retained the handle, when my shield broke during the games,
may with ample reason, I think, be taken to mean that I shall succeed in
holding what my hand has grasped. And if, in vaulting upon my horse, I
overthrew the man who helped me to mount, may not this portend a sudden
fall to Constantius, to whom I owe my rise? Be this as it may, my
Sallust, I look forward to composing a treatise which shall most clearly
justify——
SALLUST.
Very good, my gracious lord; but the soldiers are impatient; they would
fain see you, and learn their fate from your own lips.
JULIAN.
Go, go and pacify them;—tell them that Caesar will presently show
himself.
SALLUST.
My lord, ’tis not Caesar, it is the Emperor himself they want to see.
JULIAN.
The Emperor is coming.
SALLUST.
Then he comes—though empty-handed—yet with the lives of thousands in his
hands!
JULIAN.
A barter, Sallust; the lives of thousands against the death of
thousands.
SALLUST.
Have your enemies the right to live?
JULIAN.
Happy you, whose gods are afar off. Oh, to possess this hardihood of
will——!
A VOICE.
[_Calling from deep in the galleries below._] Julian, Julian!
SALLUST.
Ah! What is that?
JULIAN.
Leave me, dear friend; go quickly!
THE VOICE.
Silence the psalm-singing, Julian!
SALLUST.
It calls again. Oh, then it is true!
JULIAN.
What is true?
SALLUST.
That you abide down here with a mysterious stranger, a soothsayer or a
magician, who came to you by night.
JULIAN.
Ha-ha; do they say that? Go, go!
SALLUST.
I conjure you, my lord,—have done with these noxious dreams. Come with
me; come up to the light of day!
THE VOICE.
[_Nearer, underneath._] All my labour is vain.
JULIAN.
[_Speaking down the passage to the right._] No sign, my brother?
THE VOICE.
Desolation and emptiness.
JULIAN.
Oh, Maximus!
SALLUST.
Maximus!
JULIAN.
Go, I tell you! If I leave this house of corruption, it will be as
Emperor.
SALLUST.
I implore you——; what seek you here in the darkness?
JULIAN.
Light. Go, go!
SALLUST.
If Caesar loiters, I fear he will find the way barred against him.
[_He goes by the passage on the left. A little while afterwards,
MAXIMUS THE MYSTIC ascends the steps; he wears a white
sacrificial fillet round his brow; in his hand is a long,
bloody knife._
JULIAN.
Speak, my Maximus!
MAXIMUS.
All my labour is vain, I tell you. Why could you not silence the
psalm-singing? It strangled all the omens; they would have spoken, but
could utter nothing.
JULIAN.
Silence, darkness;—and I can wait no longer! What do you counsel me to
do?
MAXIMUS.
Go forward blindly, Emperor Julian. The light will seek you out.
JULIAN.
Yes, yes, yes; that I, too, believe. I need not, after all, have sent
for you all this long way. Know you what I have just heard——?
MAXIMUS.
I will not know what you have heard. Take your fate into your own hands.
JULIAN.
[_Pacing restlessly up and down._] After all, what is he, this
Constantius—this Fury-haunted sinner, this mouldering ruin of what was
once a man?
MAXIMUS.
Be that his epitaph, Emperor Julian!
JULIAN.
In his whole treatment of me, has he not been like a rudderless
wreck,—now drifting to the left on the current of suspicion, now hurled
to the right by the storm-gust of remorse? Did he not stagger,
terror-stricken, up to the imperial throne, his purple mantle dripping
with my father’s blood? perhaps with my mother’s too?—Had not all my kin
to perish that he might sit secure? No, not all; Gallus was spared, and
I;—a couple of lives must be left wherewith to buy himself a little
pardon. Then he drifted into the current of suspicion again. Remorse
wrung from him the title of Caesar for Gallus; then suspicion wrung from
him Caesar’s death-warrant. And I? Do I owe him thanks for the life he
has hitherto vouchsafed me? One after the other; first Gallus, and
then——; every night I have sweated with terror lest the next day should
be my last.
MAXIMUS.
Were Constantius and death your worst terrors? Think.
JULIAN.
No, you are right. The priests——! My whole youth has been one long dread
of the Emperor and of Christ. Oh, he is terrible, that mysterious—that
merciless god-man! At every turn, wheresoever I wished to go, he met me,
stark and stern, with his unconditional, inexorable commands.
MAXIMUS.
And those commands—were they within you?
JULIAN.
Always without. Always “Thou shalt.” If my soul gathered itself up in
one gnawing and consuming hate towards the murderer of my kin, what said
the commandment: “Love thine enemy!” If my mind, athirst for beauty,
longed for scenes and rites from the bygone world of Greece,
Christianity swooped down on me with its “Seek the one thing needful!”
If I felt the sweet lusts of the flesh towards this or that, the Prince
of Renunciation terrified me with his: “Kill the body that the soul may
live!”—All that is human has become unlawful since the day when the seer
of Galilee became ruler of the world. Through him, life has become
death. Love and hatred, both are sins. Has he, then, transformed man’s
flesh and blood? Has not earth-bound man remained what he ever was? Our
inmost, healthy soul rebels against it all;—and yet we are to will in
the very teeth of our own will! Thou shalt, shalt, shalt!
MAXIMUS.
And you have advanced no further than that! Shame on you!
JULIAN.
I?
MAXIMUS.
Yes, you, the man of Athens and of Ephesus.
JULIAN.
Ah, those times, Maximus! ’Twas easy to choose then. What were we really
working at? A philosophic system; neither more nor less.
MAXIMUS.
Is it not written somewhere in your Scriptures! “Either with us or
against us”?
JULIAN.
Did not Libanius remain the man he was, whether he took the affirmative
in a disputation, or the negative? This lies deeper. Here it is action
that must be faced. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
In Athens I once made a game of that;—but it is no game. You cannot
grasp it, you, who have never been under the power of the god-man. It is
more than a doctrine he has spread over the world; it is an enchantment,
that binds the soul in chains. He who has once been under it,—I believe
he can never quite shake it off.
MAXIMUS.
Because you do not wholly _will_.
JULIAN.
How can I _will_ the impossible?
MAXIMUS.
Is it worth while to _will_ what is possible?
JULIAN.
Word-froth from the lecture-halls! You can no longer cram my mind with
that. And yet——oh no, no, Maximus! But you cannot understand how it is
with us. We are like vines transplanted into a new, strange soil;
transplant us back again, and we die; yet in the new soil we cannot
thrive.
MAXIMUS.
We? Whom do you call we?
JULIAN.
All who are under the terror of the revelation.
MAXIMUS.
A terror of shadows!
JULIAN.
Be that as it may. But do you not see that this paralysing terror has
curdled and coiled itself up into a wall around the Emperor? Ah, I see
very well why the great Constantine promoted such a will-binding
doctrine to power and authority in the empire. No bodyguard with spears
and shields could form such a bulwark round the throne as this benumbing
creed, for ever pointing beyond our earthly life. Have you looked
closely at these Christians? Hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked, flat-breasted,
all; they are like the linen-weavers of Byssus; they brood their lives
away unspurred by ambition; the sun shines for them, and they do not see
it; the earth offers them its fulness, and they desire it not;—all their
desire is to renounce and suffer, that they may come to die.
MAXIMUS.
Then use them as they are; but you yourself must stand without. Emperor
or Galilean;—_that_ is the alternative. Be a thrall under the terror, or
monarch in the land of sunshine and gladness! You cannot will
contradictions; and yet that is what you would fain do. You try to unite
what cannot be united,—to reconcile two irreconcilables; therefore it is
that you lie here rotting in the darkness.
JULIAN.
Show me light if you can!
MAXIMUS.
Are you that Achilles, whom your mother dreamed that she should give to
the world? A tender heel alone makes no man an Achilles. Arise, my lord!
Confident of victory, like a knight on his fiery steed, you must trample
on the Galilean, if you would reach the imperial throne——
JULIAN.
Maximus!
MAXIMUS.
My beloved Julian, look at the world around you! Those death-desiring
Christians you speak of are fewest of the few. And how is it with all
the others? Are not their minds falling away from the Master, one by
one? Answer me,—what has become of this strange gospel of love? Does not
sect rage against sect? And the bishops, those gold-bedecked magnates,
who call themselves the chief shepherds of the church! Do they yield
even to the great men of the court in greed and ambition and
sycophancy——?
JULIAN.
They are not all like that; think of the great Athanasius of
Alexandria——
MAXIMUS.
Athanasius stood alone. And where is Athanasius now? Did they not drive
him out, because he would not sell himself to serve the Emperor’s will?
Was he not forced to take refuge in the Libyan desert, where he was
devoured by lions? And can you name me _one_ other like Athanasius?
Think of Maris, the bishop of Chalcedon, who has now changed sides three
times in the Arian controversy. Think of old Bishop Marcus, of Arethusa;
him you know from your boyhood. Has he not lately, in the teeth of both
law and justice, taken all municipal property from the citizens, and
transferred it to the church? And remember the feeble, vacillating
Bishop of Nazianzus, who is the laughing-stock of his own community,
because he answers yes and no in the same cause, in the hope to please
both parties.
JULIAN.
True, true, true!
MAXIMUS.
These are your brothers in arms, my Julian; you will find none better
among them. Or perhaps you count upon those two great Galilean lights
that were to be, in Cappadocia? Ha-ha; Gregory, the bishop’s son, pleads
causes in his native town, and Basil, on his estate in the far east, is
buried in the writings of secular philosophers.
JULIAN.
Yes, I know it well. On all sides they fall away! Hekebolius, my former
teacher, has grown rich through his zeal for the faith, and his
expositions of it; and since then——! Maximus—it has come to this, that I
stand almost alone in earnestness.
MAXIMUS.
You stand _quite_ alone. Your whole army is either in headlong flight,
or lying slain around you. Sound the battle-call,—and none will hear
you; advance,—and none will follow you! Dream not that you can do
anything for a cause which has despaired of itself. You will be beaten,
I tell you! And where will you turn then? Disowned by Constantius, you
will be disowned by all other powers on earth,—and over the earth. Or
will you flee to the Galilean’s bosom? How stands the account between
you and him? Did you not own, a moment ago, that you are under the
terror? Have you his commands within you? Do you love your enemy,
Constantius, even if you do not smite him? Do you hate the lusts of the
flesh or the alluring joys of this world, even if you do not, like a
heated swimmer, plunge into their depths? Do you renounce the world,
because you have not courage to make it your own? And are you so very
sure that—if you die here—you shall live yonder?
JULIAN.
[_Pacing to and fro._] What has he done for me, he who exacts so much?
If he hold the reins of the world-chariot in his hands, it must have
been within his power to——
[_The psalm-singing in the church becomes louder._
Listen, listen! They call that serving him. And he accepts it as a
sweet-smelling sacrifice. Praise of himself,—and praise of her in the
coffin! If he be omniscient, how then can he——?
THE CHAMBERLAIN EUTHERIUS.
[_Coming hastily down through the passage on the left._] My Caesar! My
lord, my lord; where are you?
JULIAN.
Here, Eutherius? What would you with me?
EUTHERIUS.
You must come up, my lord;—you must see it with your own eyes;—the
Princess’s body is working miracles.
JULIAN.
You lie!
EUTHERIUS.
I do not lie, my lord! I am no believer in this foreign doctrine; but
what I have seen I cannot doubt.
JULIAN.
What have you seen?
EUTHERIUS.
The whole town is in a frenzy. They are bearing the sick and crippled to
the Princess’s bier; the priests let them touch it, and they go away
healed.
JULIAN.
And this you yourself have seen?
EUTHERIUS.
Yes, my lord; I saw an epileptic woman go forth from the church healed,
praising the Galileans’ God.
JULIAN.
Ah, Maximus, Maximus!
EUTHERIUS.
Hark, how the Christians exult;—some fresh miracle must have happened.
THE PHYSICIAN ORIBASES.
[_Calling out in the passage to the left._] Eutherius,—have you found
him? Eutherius, Eutherius, where is Caesar?
JULIAN.
[_Meeting him._] Here, here;—is it true, Oribases?
ORIBASES.
[_Coming forward._] Incredible, inexplicable,—and yet true; they touch
the bier, the priests read and pray over them, and they are healed; from
time to time a voice proclaims: “Holy, holy, is the pure woman!”
JULIAN.
A voice proclaims——?
ORIBASES.
The voice of one invisible, my Caesar; a voice high up under the
vaultings of the church——; no man knows whence it comes.
JULIAN.
[_Stands a moment immovable, then turns suddenly to MAXIMUS, and
cries_:] Life or the lie!
MAXIMUS.
Choose!
ORIBASES.
Come, come, my lord; the awe-stricken soldiers threaten you——
JULIAN.
Let them threaten.
ORIBASES.
They accuse you and me of the Princess’s death——
JULIAN.
I will come; I will satisfy them——
ORIBASES.
There is only _one_ way: you must turn their thoughts in another
direction, my lord;—they are wild with despair over the fate awaiting
them if you delay any longer.
MAXIMUS.
Now go to heaven, thou fool; now die for thy Lord and Master!
JULIAN.
[_Grasping him by the arm._] The Emperor’s empire for me!
MAXIMUS.
Achilles!
JULIAN.
What looses the covenant?
MAXIMUS.
[_Handing him the sacrificial knife._] This.
JULIAN.
What washes the water away?
MAXIMUS.
The blood of the sacrifice.
[_He tears off the fillet from his own brow, and fastens it
round Caesar’s._
ORIBASES.
[_Drawing nearer._] What is your purpose, my lord?
JULIAN.
Ask not.
EUTHERIUS.
Hark to the clamour! Up, up, my Caesar!
JULIAN.
First down,—then up. [_To MAXIMUS._] The sanctuary, my beloved
brother——?
MAXIMUS.
Straight below, in the second vault.
ORIBASES.
Caesar, Caesar,—whither are you going?
MAXIMUS.
To freedom.
JULIAN.
Through darkness to light. Ah——!
[_He descends into the lower galleries._
MAXIMUS.
[_Softly, looking after him._] So it has come at last!
EUTHERIUS.
Speak, speak; what mean these hidden arts?
ORIBASES.
And now, when every instant is precious——
MAXIMUS.
[_Whispering uneasily, as he shifts his place._] These gliding, clammy
shadows! Faugh! The slimy things crawling underfoot——!
ORIBASES.
[_Listening._] The turmoil waxes, Eutherius! It is the soldiers; listen,
listen!
EUTHERIUS.
It is the song in the church——
ORIBASES.
No, ’tis the soldiers!—here they come!
_The Knight SALLUST appears up in the gallery, surrounded by a
great crowd of excited soldiers. The Standard-Bearer MAURUS
is amongst them._
SALLUST.
Be reasonable, I entreat you——!
THE SOLDIERS.
Caesar has betrayed us! Caesar shall die!
SALLUST.
And what then, madmen!
MAURUS.
What then? With Caesar’s head we will buy forgiveness——
THE SOLDIERS.
Come forth, come forth, Caesar!
SALLUST.
Caesar,—my Caesar, where are you?
JULIAN.
[_Calling out, in the vault underneath._] Helios! Helios!
MAXIMUS.
Free!
THE CHOIR IN THE CHURCH ABOVE.
Our Father which art in heaven!
SALLUST.
Where is he? Eutherius, Oribases,—what is here afoot?
THE CHOIR.
[_In the church._] Hallowed be Thy name!
Julian.
[_Comes up the steps; he has blood on his forehead, on his breast, and
on his hands._] It is finished!
THE SOLDIERS.
Caesar!
SALLUST.
Blood-stained——! What have you done?
JULIAN.
Cloven the mists of terror.
MAXIMUS.
Creation lies in your hand.
THE CHOIR.
[_In the church._] Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!
[_The chant continues during what follows._
JULIAN.
Now Constantius has no longer a bodyguard.
MAURUS.
What say you, my lord?
JULIAN.
Ah! My faithful ones! Up into the daylight to Rome, and to Greece!
THE SOLDIERS.
Long live the Emperor Julian!
JULIAN.
We will not look back; all ways lie open before us. Up into the
daylight! Through the church! The liars shall be silenced——!
[_He rushes up the steps in the background._
The army mine, the treasure mine, the throne mine!
THE CHOIR.
[_In the church._] Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from
evil!
[_JULIAN throws wide the doors, revealing the brightly-lighted
interior of the church. The priests stand before the high
altar; crowds of worshippers kneel below, around the
Princess’s bier._
JULIAN.
Free, free! Mine is the kingdom!
SALLUST.
[_Calls to him._] And the power and the glory!
THE CHOIR.
[_In the church._] Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory——
JULIAN.
[_Dazzled by the light._] Ah!
MAXIMUS.
Victory!
THE CHOIR.
[_In the church._] ——For ever and ever, amen!
-----
-----
THE EMPEROR JULIAN
CHARACTERS
THE EMPEROR JULIAN.
NEVITA, _a general_.
POTAMON, _a goldsmith_.
CAESARIUS OF NAZIANZUS, _court physician_.
THEMISTIUS, _an orator_.
MAMERTINUS, _an orator_.
URSULUS, _treasurer_.
EUNAPIUS, _a barber_.
BARBARA, _a procuress_.
HEKEBOLIUS, _a theologian_.
_Courtiers and Officers of State._
_Citizens of Constantinople._
_People taking part in the procession of Dionysus,
flute-players, dancers, jugglers, and women._
_Envoys from Eastern Kings._
THE CHAMBERLAIN EUTHERIUS.
_Servants of the palace._