"Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"--ST. JOHN I. 46.
Dea Flavia was standing beside a tall stool, on the top of which--on a
level with her hands--was a shapeless mass of clay. Her fingers buried
themselves in the soft substance or ran along the surface, as the
exigencies of her task demanded.
Now and then she paused in her work, drew back a step or two from the
stool, and with head bent on one side surveyed her work with an anxious
frown.
Some few paces from her, at the further end of the room, a young girl
sat on an elevated platform, with shoulders bare and head straight and
rigid, the model for the proposed statue. Dea Flavia, in a simple
garment of soft white stuff falling straight from her shoulders, looked
peculiarly young and girlish at this moment, when she was free from all
the pomp and paraphernalia of attendants that usually surrounded her
wherever she went.
The room in which she indulged her artistic fancy was large and bare,
with stuccoed walls on which she herself had thrown quaint and fantastic
pictures of goddesses and of beasts, and groups of charioteers and
gladiators, drawn with a skilful hand. The room derived its light solely
from above, where, through a wide opening in the ceiling, came a peep of
cloud-covered sky. There was little or no furniture about, and the floor
of iridescent mosaic was innocent of carpet. Only in the corners
against the wall stood tall pots of earthenware filled with flowers,
with a profusion of late summer lilies and roses and with great branches
of leaves on which the coming autumn had already planted its first kiss
that turns green to gold.
"Hold thy head up, girl, a little higher," said Dea Flavia impatiently;
"thou sittest there like a hideous misshapen bunch of nothing-at-all.
Dost think I've paid a high price for thee that thou shouldst go to
sleep all day upon that trestle?"
And the girl, roused from semi-somnolence, would pull herself together
with a little jerk, would straighten her shoulders and lift her chin,
whilst a quickly smothered sigh of weariness would escape her lips.
The air was heavy both within and without, with the presage of a coming
storm. It had been terribly hot the last few days. The weather-wise--for
there were many such at this time in Rome--had prophesied that Jupiter
would send his thunders roaring before very long, and the feeling of
thunder in the air caused the model to feel very sleepy, and on the
forehead of Dea Flavia beads of perspiration would appear at the roots
of tiny fair curls.
She was working with a will but with strange, fretful movements, like
one whose mind seems absent from the present task. Short sighs of
impatience escaped her parted lips at intervals and a frown appeared and
disappeared fitfully between her brows.
"Chin up, girl ... shoulders straight!" came in curt admonitions once or
twice to the drowsy model.
Whereupon from the furthest corner of the room Licinia would emerge, rod
in hand, to emphasise the necessity of keeping awake when a beloved
mistress so desired it.
"Let her be, Licinia," said Dea Flavia with angry impatience when for
the fifth time now the model fell in a huddled heap, with nose almost
touching her knees, and heavy lids falling over sleepy eyes. "It's no
use ... there is something in the air to-day. I cannot work.... Phew!...
methinks I feel the approach of thunder."
She threw down her modelling tools with a fretful gesture and then
nervily began to destroy her morning's work, patting the clay aimlessly
here and there until once more it became a shapeless mass.
"That lazy baggage hath spoilt thy pleasure," said Licinia gruffly; "but
I'll teach her----"
"No, no, good Licinia!" interposed the young girl with a weary smile.
"Teach her nothing to-day.... The air is too heavy for serious lessons.
Send her away and bring me water for my hands."
Then as Licinia--muttering various dark threats--drove the frightened
girl before her, Dea Flavia breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands were
covered with clay, so she stood quite still waiting for the reappearance
of Licinia with the water; and all the while the frown on her face grew
darker and the look of trouble in her eyes more pronounced.
Soon the old woman returned with a basin full of water in her hands and
a white cloth over her arm. With her wonted loving care she washed Dea's
hands between her own and dried them on the towel. Dea allowed her to
perform this kindly office for her, standing quite still and gazing
absently out into vacancy.
"What can I do now for thee, my precious?" asked Licinia anxiously.
"Nothing, Licinia, nothing," replied Dea with a sigh. "Just leave me in
peace.... I have a desire for solitude and silence."
It was the old woman's turn to sigh now, for she did not like this
unwonted mood of her beloved. Dea Flavia, when in the privacy of her own
house, was always gay and cheerful as a bird, prattling of all sorts of
things, telling amusing anecdotes to her old nurse and playing
light-heartedly with her young slaves, whenever she was not occupied
with her artistic work. This frown upon the smooth, white brow was very
unusual, and the fretful, impatient gestures were as unwonted as was
that dreamy, absent gaze which spoke of anxious, troubled thoughts.
Dea Flavia herself could not understand her own mood. She could not have
confided in the faithful old woman, even had she been so minded, for
truly she would not have known what to confide.
Her thoughts worried her. They were so insistent, dwelling obstinately
on one moment which had flitted by yesterday--the moment when she stood
facing the praefect of Rome, and looking into his deep, dark eyes, which
then and there had reminded her of a stormy sea suddenly lulled to rest.
It seemed as if nothing now or ever hereafter would chase from her mind
the memory of his look and of his rugged voice, softened to infinite
gentleness as he said: "I told thee that He died upon the Cross."
She could hear that voice now, even as at this moment from afar a
muffled sound of thunder went echoing over the hills, and, strive as she
might, wherever she looked her eyes were haunted by the vision which he
had conjured up of a man with arms outstretched upon a cross, whose
might was yet greater than that of Rome.
At the time she had been greatly angered. The praefect had spoken
traitorous words, and she had hated him--she hated him still--for that
allegiance which he seemed to have given to another. Then, with a quick,
elusive trick, memory showed her the massive shoulders bent humbly at
her feet, tying the strings of her shoe--a simple homage due to the
daughter of Cæsar--and the sharp pang of wrath once more shot through
her heart with the remembrance that he had not deigned to press his lips
against her foot.
The man's face and figure haunted her for it was the face and the figure
of one whom she had learnt to hate. Yes! She hated him for his treason
to Cæsar, for his allegiance to that rebel from Galilee; she hated every
word which he had spoken in that arrogant, masterful way of his, when he
smiled upon her threats and calmly spoke of immortality. She hated the
voice which perpetually rang in her ear, the voice with which he spoke
of his own soul being in the keeping of God--of One Whose Empire is
mightier than that of Rome.
Yet vaguely still--for she was but a girl--the woman in her was stirred;
the power and desire which exists in every woman's soul to conquer that
which seems furthest from her reach. She hated the man, and yet within
her inmost heart there had sprung the desire to curb and possess his; to
disturb the perfect serenity that dwelt in his deep-set eyes, to kindle
in them a passion which would make of that proud spirit a mere slave to
her will.
There was in her just now nothing but the pagan desire to rule, and to
break a heart if need be, if she could not otherwise subdue it.
Memory had fanned her wrath. She saw him now as she had seen him
yesterday, arrogantly thwarting her will, his bitter tongue lashing her
with irony; and now, as yesterday, the blush of humiliation burned her
cheeks, and her pride and dignity rose up in passionate revolt against
the one man who had ever defied her and who had proudly proclaimed his
allegiance to a man who was not the Cæsar.
That allegiance belonged to Cæsar and to his might alone; beyond that
there was the House of Cæsar, and failing that, nothing but rebellious
treachery. And the troubled look grew deeper in Dea Flavia's face, and
now she buried her hot cheeks in her hands, for the humiliation which
she had endured yesterday from one man seemed to shame her even now.
"I'll break thy will," she murmured, whilst angry tears rose, burning,
to her eyes. "I'll shame thy manhood and never rest until I see thee
crawling--an abject slave--at the feet of Cæsar, who shall kick thee in
the face. Cæsar and the House of Cæsar brook no rivalry in the heart of
a Roman patrician."
Her hands dropped from before her face. She threw back her head, and
looked straight before her into the darkest corner of the room.
"Jesus of Nazareth, he called thee!" she said slowly and as if speaking
to an invisible presence. "And he said at thy call he would give up the
world, and suffer death and torture and shame for thee!... Then so be
it! And I do defy thee, O man of Galilee! even I, Dea Flavia Augusta, of
the imperial House of Cæsar! For that man whom I hate and despise, for
that man who has defied and shamed me, for that man whose heart and
allegiance thou hast filched from Cæsar, for him will I do thee battle
... and that heart will I conquer; and it shall be Cæsar's and
mine--mine--for I will break it and crush it first and then wrest it
from thee!"
And even as she spoke, from far away over the hills and beyond the
Campania the thunder rolled dully in response.