CHAPTER I

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

Veranilda

By

George Gissing

CONTENTS

I THE VANQUISHED ROMAN

II BASIL'S VISION

III THE DEACON LEANDER

IV TO CUMAE

V BASIL AND VERANILDA

VI THE EMPEROR'S COMMAND

VII HERESY

VIII THE SNARE

IX CHORSOMAN

X THE ANICIANS

XI SEEKING

XII HELIODORA

XIII THE SOUL OF ROME

XIV SILVIA'S DREAM

XV YOUNG ROME

XVI WHISPERS

XVII LEANDER THE POLITIC

XVIII PELAGIUS

XIX THE PRISONER OF PRAENESTE

XX THE ISLAND IN THE LIRIS

XXI THE BETRAYER BETRAYED

XXII DOOM

XXIII THE RED HAND

XXIV THE MOUNT OF THE MONK

XXV THE ABBOT'S TOWER

XXVI VIVAS IN DEO

XXVII THE KING OF THE GOTHS

XXVIII AT HADRIAN'S VILLA

XXIX ROME BELEAGUERED

XXX * * * *

CHAPTER I

THE VANQUISHED ROMAN

Seven years long had the armies of Justinian warred against the Goths

in Italy. Victor from Rhegium to Ravenna, the great commander

Belisarius had returned to the East, Carrying captive a Gothic king.

The cities of the conquered land were garrisoned by barbarians of many

tongues, who bore the name of Roman soldiers; the Italian people,

brought low by slaughter, dearth, and plague, crouched under the

rapacious tyranny of governors from Byzantium.

Though children born when King Theodoric still reigned had yet scarce

grown to manhood, that golden age seemed already a legend of the past.

Athalaric, Amalasuntha, Theodahad, last of the Amal blood, had held the

throne in brief succession and were gone; warriors chosen at will by

the Gothic host, mere kings of the battlefield, had risen and perished;

reduced to a wandering tribe, the nation which alone of her invaders

had given peace and hope to Italy, which alone had reverenced and

upheld the laws, polity, culture of Rome, would soon, it was thought,

be utterly destroyed, or vanish in flight beyond the Alps. Yet war did

not come to an end. In the plain of the great river there was once more

a chieftain whom the Goths had raised upon their shields, a king, men

said, glorious in youth and strength, and able, even yet, to worst the

Emperor's generals. His fame increased. Ere long he was known to be

moving southward, to have crossed the Apennines, to have won a battle

in Etruria. The name of this young hero was Totila.

In these days the senators of Rome, heirs to a title whose ancient

power and dignity were half-forgotten, abode within the City, under

constraint disguised as honour, the conqueror's hostages. One among

them, of noblest name, Flavius Anicius Maximus, broken in health by the

troubles of the time and by private sorrow, languishing all but unto

death in the heavy air of the Tiber, was permitted to seek relief in a

visit to which he would of his domains in Italy. His birth, his repute,

gave warrant of loyalty to the empire, and his coffers furnished the

price put upon such a favour by Byzantine greed. Maximus chose for

refuge his villa by the Campanian shore, vast, beautiful, half in ruin,

which had been enjoyed by generations of the Anician family; situated

above the little town of Surrentum it caught the cooler breeze, and on

its mountainous promontory lay apart from the tramp of armies. Here, as

summer burned into autumn, the sick man lived in brooding silence,

feeling his strength waste, and holding to the world only by one desire.

The household comprised his unwedded sister Petronilla, a lady in

middle age, his nephew Basil, and another kinsman, Decius, a student

and an invalid; together with a physician, certain freedmen who

rendered services of trust, a eunuch at the Command of Petronilla, and

the usual body of male and female slaves. Some score of glebe-bound

peasants cultivated the large estate for their lord's behoof.

Notwithstanding the distress that had fallen upon the Roman nobility,

many of whom were sunk into indigence, the chief of the Anicii still

controlled large means; and the disposal of these possessions at his

death was matter of interest to many persons--not least to the clergy

of Rome, who found in the dying man's sister a piously tenacious

advocate. Children had been born to Maximus, but the only son who

reached mature years fell a victim to pestilence when Vitiges was

camped about the City. There survived one daughter, Aurelia. Her the

father had not seen for years; her he longed to see and to pardon ere

he died. For Aurelia, widowed of her first husband in early youth, had

used her liberty to love and wed a flaxen-haired barbarian, a lord of

the Goths; and, worse still, had renounced the Catholic faith for the

religion of the Gothic people, that heresy of Arianism condemned and

abhorred by Rome. In Consequence she became an outcast from her kith

and kin. Her husband commanded in the city of Cumae, hard by Neapolis.

When this stronghold fell before the advance of Belisarius, the Goth

escaped, soon after to die in battle; Aurelia, a captive of the

Conquerors, remained at Cumae, and still was living there, though no

longer under restraint. Because of its strength, this ancient city

became the retreat of many ladies who fled from Rome before the

hardships and perils of the siege; from them the proud and unhappy

woman, ever held apart, yet she refused to quit the town when she would

have been permitted to do so. From his terrace above the Surrentine

shore, Maximus gazed across the broad gulf to the hills that concealed

Cumae, yearning for the last of his children. When at length he wrote

her a letter, a letter of sad kindness, inviting rather than beseeching

her to visit him, Aurelia made no reply. Wounded, he sunk again into

silence, until his heart could no longer bear its secret burden, and he

spoke--not to Petronilla, from whose austere orthodoxy little sympathy

was to be expected--but to his nephew Basil, whose generous mettle

willingly lent itself to such a service as was proposed. On his

delicate mission, the young man set forth without delay. To Cumae,

whether by sea or land, was but a short journey: starting at daybreak,

Basil might have given ample time to his embassy, and have been back

again early on the morrow. But the second day passed, and he did not

return. Though harassed by the delay, Maximus tried to deem it of good

omen, and nursed his hope through another sleepless night.

Soon after sunrise, he was carried forth to his place of observation, a

portico in semicircle, the marble honey-toned by time, which afforded

shelter from the eastern rays and commanded a view of vast extent.

Below him lay the little town, built on the cliffs above its

landing-place; the hillsides on either hand were clad with vineyards,

splendid in the purple of autumn, and with olives. Sky and sea shone to

each other in perfect calm; the softly breathing air mingled its

morning freshness with a scent of fallen flower and leaf. A rosy vapour

from Vesuvius floated gently inland; and this the eye of Maximus marked

with contentment, as it signified a favourable wind for a boat crossing

hither from the far side of the bay. For the loveliness of the scene

before him, its noble lines, its jewelled colouring, he had little

care; but the infinite sadness of its suggestion, the decay and the

desolation uttered by all he saw, sank deep into his heart. If his look

turned to the gleaming spot which was the city of Neapolis, there came

into his mind the sack and massacre of a few years ago, when Belisarius

so terribly avenged upon the Neapolitans their stubborn resistance to

his siege. Faithful to the traditions of his house, of his order,

Maximus had welcomed the invasion which promised to restore Italy to

the Empire; now that the restoration was effected, he saw with

bitterness the evils resulting from it, and all but hoped that this new

king of the Goths, this fortune-favoured Totila, might sweep the land

of its Greek oppressors. He looked back upon his own life, on the

placid dignity of his career under the rule of Theodoric, the offices

by which he had risen, until he sat in the chair of the Consul. Yet in

that time, which now seemed so full of peaceful glories, he had never

at heart been loyal to the great king; in his view, as in that of the

nobles generally, Theodoric was but a usurper, who had abused the

mandate intrusted to him by the Emperor Zeno, to deliver Italy from the

barbarians. When his own kinsmen, Boethius and Symmachus, were put to

death on a charge of treachery, Maximus burned with hatred of the Goth.

He regarded with disdain the principles of Cassiodorus, who devoted his

life to the Gothic cause, and who held that only as an independent

kingdom could there be hope for Italy. Having for a moment the ear of

Theodoric's daughter, Amalasuntha, when she ruled for her son, Maximus

urged her to yield her kingdom to the Emperor, and all but saw his

counsel acted upon. After all, was not Cassiodorus right? Were not the

senators who had ceaselessly intrigued with Byzantium in truth traitors

to Rome? It was a bitter thought for the dying man that all his life he

had not only failed in service to his country, but had obstinately

wrought for her ruin.

Attendants placed food beside him. He mingled wine with water and

soothed a feverish thirst. His physician, an elderly man of Oriental

visage, moved respectfully to his side, greeted him as Illustrious,

inquired how his Magnificence had passed the latter part of the night.

Whilst replying, as ever courteously--for in the look and bearing of

Maximus there was that _senatorius decor_ which Pliny noted in a great

Roman of another time--his straining eyes seemed to descry a sail in

the quarter he continually watched. Was it only a fishing boat? Raised

upon the couch, he gazed long and fixedly. Impossible as yet to be sure

whether he saw the expected bark; but the sail seemed to draw nearer,

and he watched.

The voice of a servant, who stood at a respectful distance, announced:

'The gracious Lady'; and there appeared a little procession. Ushered by

her eunuch, and attended by half a dozen maidens, one of whom held over

her a silk sunshade with a handle of gold, the sister of Maximus

approached at a stately pace. She was tall, and of features severely

regular; her dark hair--richer in tone and more abundant than her years

could warrant--rose in elaborate braiding intermingled with golden

threads; her waistless robe was of white silk adorned with narrow

stripes of purple, which descended, two on each side, from the

shoulders to the hem, and about her neck lay a shawl of delicate

tissue. In her hand, which glistened with many gems, she carried a

small volume, richly bound, the Psalter. Courtesies of the gravest

passed between her and Maximus, who, though he could not rise from his

couch, assumed an attitude of graceful deference, and Petronilla seated

herself in a chair which a slave had placed for her. After many

inquiries as to her brother's health, the lady allowed her eyes to

wander for a moment, then spoke with the smile of one who imparts rare

tidings.

'Late last night--too late to trouble you with the news--there came a

post from the reverend deacon Leander. He disembarked yesterday at

Salernum, and, after brief repose, hopes to visit us. Your Amiability

will, I am sure, welcome his coming.'

'Assuredly,' answered Maximus, bending his head, whilst his eyes

watched the distant sail. 'Whence comes he?'

'From Sicily. We shall learn, I dare say, the business which took him

there,' added Petronilla, with a self-satisfied softening of her lips.

'The deacon is wont to talk freely with me of whatever concerns the

interests of our holy Church, even as I think you remember, has now and

then deigned--though I know not how I have deserved such honour--to

ask, I dare not say my counsel, but my humble thoughts on this or that.

I think we may expect him before morning. The day will not be too warm

for travel.'

Maximus wore an anxious look, and spoke after hesitation.

'Will his reverend leisure permit him to pass more than one day with

us?'

'Earnestly I hope so. You, beyond doubt, dear lord, my brother, will

desire long privacy with the holy man. His coming at this time is

plainly of Heaven's direction.'

'Lady sister,' answered Maximus, with the faintest smile on his sad

features, 'I would not willingly rob you of a moment's conference with

the good deacon. My own business with him is soon despatched. I would

fain be assured of burial in the Temple of Probus where sleep our

ancestors.'

'Of that,' replied Petronilla, solemnly and not unkindly, 'doubt not

for a moment. Your body shall lie there, by the blessed Peter's

sanctuary, and your tomb be honoured among those of the greatest of our

blood. But there is another honour that I covet for you, an honour

above all that the world can bestow. In these sad times, Maximus, the

Church has need of strengthening. You have no children--'

A glance from the listener checked her, and, before she could resume,

Maximus interposed in a low voice:

'I have yet a daughter.'

'A daughter?' exclaimed Petronilla, troubled, confused, scarce subduing

indignation.

'It is better I should tell you,' continued her brother, with some

sternness, resulting from the efforts to command himself, 'that Basil

is gone to Cumae to see Aurelia, and, if it may be, to lead her to me.

Perhaps even now'--he pointed to the sea--'they are on the way hither.

Let us not speak of it, Petronilla,' he added in a firmer tone. 'It is

my will; that must suffice. Of you I ask nothing save silence.'

The lady arose. Her countenance expressed angry and bitter feeling, but

there was no danger of her uttering what she thought. Gravely, somewhat

coldly, she spoke good wishes for her brother's ease during the day,

and so retired with her retinue. Alone, Maximus sighed, and looked

again across the waters.

In a few minutes the servant who guarded his privacy was again heard

announcing the lord Decius. The Senator turned his eyes with a look of

good-humoured greeting.

'Abroad so early, good cousin? Did the oil fail you last night and send

you too soon to bed?'

'You have not chanced to remember, dear my lord, what day it is?'

returned Decius, when he had bestowed a kiss on his kinsman's cheek.

'Had I but vigour enough, this morning would have seen me on a

pilgrimage to the tomb.' He put out a hand towards Neapolis. 'I rose at

daybreak to meditate the Fourth Eclogue.'

'The ides of October--true. I take shame to myself for having lost the

memory of Virgil in my own distresses.'

Decius, whose years were scarce thirty, had the aspect and the gait of

an elderly man; his thin hair streaked with grey, his cheeks hollow,

his eyes heavy, he stooped in walking and breathed with difficulty; the

tunic and the light cloak, which were all his attire, manifested an

infinite carelessness in matters of costume, being worn and soiled.

Than he, no Roman was poorer; he owned nothing but his clothing and a

few books. Akin to the greatest, and bearing a name of which he was

inordinately proud--as a schoolboy he had once burst into tears when

reciting with passion the Lay of the Decii--felt content to owe his

sustenance to the delicate and respectful kindness of Maximus, who

sympathised with the great wrong he had suffered early in life. This

was no less than wilful impoverishment by his father, who, seeking to

atone for sins by fanaticism, had sold the little he possessed to found

a pilgrims' hospice at Portus, whither, accompanied by the

twelve-year-old boy, he went to live as monk-servitor In a year or two

the penitent died; Decius, in revolt against the tasks to which he was

subjected, managed to escape, made his way to Rome, and appealed to

Maximus. Nominally he still held the post of secretary to his

benefactor, but for many years he had enjoyed entire leisure, all of it

devoted to study. Several times illness had brought him to the

threshold of death, yet it had never conquered his love of letters, his

enthusiasm for his country's past. Few liked him only one or two

understood him: Decius was content that it should be so.

'Let us speak of it,' he continued, unrolling a manuscript of Virgil

some two hundred years old, a gift to him from Maximus. 'Tell me, dear

lord, your true thought: is it indeed a prophecy of the Divine Birth?

To you'--he smiled his gentle, beautiful smile--'may I not confess that

I have doubted this interpretation? Yet'--he cast his eyes down--'the

doubt is perhaps a prompting of the spirit of evil.'

'I know not, Decius, I know not,' replied the sick man with thoughtful

melancholy. 'My father held it a prophecy his father before him.--But

forgive me, I am expecting anxiously the return of Basil; yonder

sail--is it his? Your eyes see further than mine.'

Decius at once put aside his own reflections, and watched the oncoming

bark. Before long there was an end of doubt. Rising in agitation to his

feet, Maximus gave orders that the litter, which since yesterday

morning had been in readiness, should at once be borne with all speed

down to the landing-place. Sail and oars soon brought the boat so near

that Decius was able to descry certain female figures and that of a

man, doubtless Basil, who stood up and waved his arms shoreward.

'She has come,' broke from Maximus; and, in reply to his kinsman's face

of inquiry, he told of whom it was he spoke.

The landing-place was not visible from here. As soon as the boat

disappeared beneath the buildings of the town, Maximus requested of his

companion a service which asked some courage in the performance: it

was, to wait forthwith upon the Lady Petronilla, to inform her that

Aurelia had just disembarked, to require that three female slaves

should be selected to attend upon the visitor. This mission Decius

discharged, not without trembling; he then walked to the main entrance

of the villa, and stood there, the roll of Virgil still in his hand,

until the sound of a horse's hoofs on the upward road announced the

arrival of the travellers. The horseman, who came some yards in advance

of the slave-borne litter, was Basil. At sight of Decius, he

dismounted, and asked in an undertone: 'You know?' The other replied

with the instructions given by Maximus, that the litter, which was

closed against curious eyes, should be straightway conveyed to the

Senator's presence, Basil himself to hold apart until summoned.

And so it was done. Having deposited their burden between two columns

of the portico, the bearers withdrew. The father's voice uttered the

name of Aurelia, and, putting aside the curtains that had concealed

her, she stood before him. A woman still young, and of bearing which

became her birth; a woman who would have had much grace, much charm,

but for the passion which, turned to vehement self-will, had made her

blood acrid. Her great dark eyes burned with quenchless resentment; her

sunken and pallid face told of the sufferings of a tortured pride.

'Lord Maximus,' were her first words, as she stood holding by the

litter, glancing distrustfully about her, 'you have sworn!'

'Hear me repeat my oath,' answered the father, strengthened by his

emotion to move forward from the couch. 'By the blessed martyr

Pancratius, I swear that no harm shall befall you, no constraint shall

be put upon you, that you shall be free to come and to go as you will.'

It was the oath no perjurer durst make. Aurelia gazed into her father's

face, which was wet with tears. She stepped nearer to him, took his

thin, hot hand, and, as in her childhood, bent to kiss the back of the

wrist. But Maximus folded her to his heart.