"You must and will survive me, my noble friend! The Tribune will soon
lie where he belongs: on his shield. But you still belong to Burdigala,
in your tasteful house filled with rare works of art (what hospitality
I enjoyed there the last time I was wounded!), or to Rome, in the
Senate; not here, in the marshy forests of these Alemanni. Why (you
always liked to accompany the Emperor to Vindonissa)--why did you, a
man of peace and of leisure, join this military campaign? It has no
attraction for you! What have you to obtain on the Barbarian shores of
this lake?"
"I? I am seeking for something here," replied Ausonius, after some
little hesitation.
"Laurels of Mars to add to those of Apollo?"
"Not at all; only--a memory!"
Herculanus cast a sharp glance full of meaning at his uncle.
"Or, if you prefer it, a dream, the fulfilment of a dream. I believe in
dreams."
"Of course," said the Tribune, smiling, "like all poets! I care more
for waking thoughts."
"When I reached the army over yonder in Vindonissa, a lovely charming
memory of a child rose vividly before me; a child equally bewitching in
mind and person, whom I knew and loved here several years ago."
"A boy?"
"No, a girl."
"Ho, ho, pedagogue of the Emperor!" cried the Tribune, laughing.
Herculanus did not enter into the jest; he was silently watching
Ausonius's every look.
"Oh, calm yourself! Bissula is a girl about twelve years old--that
is--she was in those days. She and a Sarmatian boy brought to Arbor
every week the fish her uncle had caught on the northern shore of the
lake. And how delightfully she talked! Even her Barbarian Latin sounded
sweetly from her cherry-red lips. We became the best of friends. I gave
her--she would accept neither money nor costly jewels--trifling
articles, especially seeds of fine Gallic fruit and flowers from
Garumna for her little garden. She told me strange stories of the gods
and fauns in the woods, the nymphs in the lakes and springs here in the
country,--but she gave them different names,--and the mountain giants
opposite, whose white heads glittered in the sunset light. And I--I--"
"You read the 'Mosella' to her, of course!" laughed Saturninus.
"Certainly. And the little Barbarian girl showed a better appreciation
of it than the great Roman general. It was not the fish that pleased
_her_ best--"
"I can easily believe it: she had better ones herself, you said just
now."
"But the descriptions of the vineyards and villas along the river. And
when I told her that in my home on the Garumna were far, far handsomer
and richer houses, full of marble, gold, bronze, and ivory, adorned
with brightly painted walls and mosaics; that I myself owned the most
beautiful palaces and magnificent gardens full of leaping water,
foreign stags and deer, and birds with sweet songs or brilliant
plumage; when I spoke of the deep blue of the sky and the golden light
of the sun in the glorious land of Aquitania where almost perpetual
summer reigned, she could not hear enough in prose and verse of the
splendor of our country and the magnificence and art of our life. Once
she clapped her little hands in surprise and delight, exclaiming: 'Oh,
father, I should like to see that too. Just one day!' But I had grown
so fond of the gay, sweet child that, with a thrill of joy at the
thought, I answered: 'Come, my little daughter, not for a day--forever.
If your guardian will consent, I will adopt you as my child and take
you to Burdigala. How gladly my wife will welcome you! My daughters
will treat you as a dear sister. You shall become a Roman maiden!'
"But, like a frightened deer, she sprang from my lap, ran off, leaped
into her boat, rowed swiftly across the lake, and did not return for
many days. I was full of anxiety lest I had driven her away forever. At
last--it was a time of complete peace--I had myself rowed across the
lake to its northern shore and guided to her hut in the forest. But she
had scarcely caught sight of me when, with a loud cry of terror, she
climbed into a huge oak as nimbly as a woodpecker and hid herself among
the branches. She would not come down again until I had solemnly
promised, in the presence of her uncle and her grandmother, not to take
her away and never even to say a word about it: 'For,' she said, with
tears in her eyes, 'in that hot country I should die of homesickness
for my own family, the neighbors, nay, even for the mountain, the
meadow, and lake, like the forest flowers transplanted from the marshy
soil into dry sand.'"
"A sensible child," remarked the Tribune thoughtfully, stroking his
beautiful brown beard. "So she is pretty?"
"I think so!" cried Herculanus: the voice sounded almost savage.
"Why, nephew, you have never seen her."
"But you have described her to us often enough! I could paint her, with
her bright red locks."
"And her name is Bissula?" Saturninus added.
"Yes, 'the little one,'" replied Ausonius, "for she is very slender and
delicate of limb. I then saw her regularly again, but kept my promise
not to ask her to go with me. When I bade her farewell, she wept with a
child's loving tears. 'With you,' she said 'I part from a warm, bright,
beautiful world, into which, as it were, I peeped, standing on tiptoe,
over a curtain.'
"Recently, on reaching Vindonissa--during my journey through the
country I had thought much of the charming child--I saw her before me
in a dream the first night, encircled by a poisonous serpent. Her eyes
were raised to mine, imploring help, I woke with a cry, and my heart
grew heavy at the thought of what might befall the lovely girl--for she
must have become beautiful--if our cohorts bring all the horrors of war
into the forests along the shore of the lake. And I confess, it was
principally to see that child again--perhaps to protect her until the
war should be over--that I entreated the Emperor to permit me to join
this expedition."