Domitia

“Wife,” said he, “I pray you desist. It was for this that I sent you back from Antioch. You ever twanged one string, and I felt that your words, if overheard, might endanger us all.”

“I speak but into thine ear.”

“A brimming vessel overflows on all sides,” said Corbulo.

“Ah well! some men make themselves by grasping at what the Gods offer them. Others lose themselves by disregarding the favors extended by the Immortals.”

“I deny that any such offer was made me,” said the general in a tone of annoyance.

“What!” exclaimed Longa Duilia, “art thou so blind as not to see what is obvious to every other eye, that the Roman people are impatient at having a buffoon, a mimic, a fiddler wearing the purple?”

“Nevertheless, he wears it, by favor of the gods.”

“For how long? Domitius, believe me. In the heart of every Roman citizen rage is simmering, and the wound of injured pride rankles. He has insulted the majesty of eternal Rome. After having acted the buffoon in Italy, running up and down it like a jester on a tight-rope mouthing at the people, and with his assassins scattered about below to cut them down if they do not applaud – then he comes here also into Greece, to act on stages, race chariots, before Greeks – Greeks of all people! To me this is nothing, for all princes are tyrants more or less, and so long as they do not prick me, I care not. But here it does come close. In every army, in the breast of every soldier, rebellion springs up. Every general is uneasy and looks at the face of every other and asks, Who will draw the sword and make an end of this? O Morals! it makes me mad to see you alone quiescent.”

“When the Gods will a change, then the change will be granted.”

“You speak like a philosopher and not a man of action. If you do not draw, others will forestall you, and then – instead of my being up at the top – I shall be down in Nowhere.”

“Never will I be a traitor to Rome, and go against my oath.”

“Pshaw! They all do it, so why not you?”

“Because my conscience will not suffer me.”

“Conscience! The haruspices have never found it yet. They can discover and read the liver and the kidneys, but no knife has yet laid bare a conscience as big as a bean. You were the darling of the soldiery in Germany. You are still the idol of those who have fought under you in Parthia and Armenia. I am sure I did my best to push your cause. I was gracious to the soldiery – sent tit-bits from the table to the guard. I tipped right and left, till I spent all my pocket-money, and smiled benignantly on all military men till I got a horrible crumple here in my cheek, do you see?”

“Yes, shocking,” said Corbulo, indifferently.

“How can you be so provoking!” exclaimed Duilia pettishly. “Of course there is no wrinkle, there might have been, I did so much smiling. Really, Corbulo, one has to do all the picking – as boys get winkles out of their shells with a pin – to extract a compliment from you. And out comes the pin with nothing at the end. Plancus would not have let that pass.”

“Do you say that Nero is here?”

“Yes, here, in Greece; here at our elbow, at Corinth. He has for once got a clever idea into his head and has begun to cut a canal through the isthmus. It has begun with a flourish of trumpets and a dinner and a dramatic exhibition – and then I warrant you it will end.”

“The Prince at Corinth!”

“Yes, at Corinth; and you are here with all the wide sea between you and your troops. And docile as a lamb you have come here, and left your vantage ground. What it all means, the Gods know. It is no doing of mine. I warned and exhorted at Antioch, but you might have been born deaf for all the attention you paid to my words.”

“Never would I raise my sacrilegious hand against Rome – my mother.”

“Nay – it is Rome that cries out to be rid of a man that makes her the scorn of the world.”

“She has not spoken. She has not released me of my oath.”

“Because her mouth is gagged. As the Gods love me, they say that the god Caius (Caligula) named his horse Consul. Rome may have a monkey as her prince and Augustus for aught I care, were it not that by such a chance the handle is offered for you to upset him and seat yourself and me at the head of the universe.”

“No more of this,” said the general. “A good soldier obeys his commander. And I have an imperator,” he touched his breast; “a good conscience, and I go nowhere, undertake nothing which is not ordered by my master there.”

“Then I wash my hands of the result.”

“Come hither!” Corbulo called, and signed to his daughter who, with a flush of pleasure, left her kid and ran to him.

He took both her hands by the wrists, and holding her before him, panting from play, and with light dancing in her blue eyes, he said, “Domitia, I have not said one grave word to thee since we have been together. Yet now will I do this. None can tell what may be the next turn up of the die. And this that I am about to say comes warm and salt from my heart, like the spring hard by, at the Bath of Helene.”

“And strong, father,” said the girl, with flashes in her speaking eyes. “So strong is the spring that at once it turns a mill, ere rushing down to find its rest in the sea.”

“Well, and so may what I say so turn and make thee active, dear child, – active for good, though homely the work may be as that of grinding flour. When you have done a good work, and not wasted the volume of life in froth and cascade, then find rest in the wide sea of – ”

“Of what?” sneered Duilia, “say it out – of nobody knows what.”

“That which thou sayest, dearest father, will not sleep in my heart.”

“Domitia, when we sail at sea, we direct our course by the stars. Without the stars we should not know whither to steer. And the steering of the vessel by the stars, that is seamanship. So in life. There are principles of right and wrong set in the firmament – ”

“Where?” asked Duilia. “As the Gods love me, I never saw them.”

“By them,” continued Corbulo, disregarding the interruption, “we must shape our course, and this true shaping of our course, and not drifting with tides, or blown hither and thither by winds – this is the seamanship of life.”

“By the Gods!” said Duilia. “You must first find your stars. I hold what you say to be rank nonsense. Where are your stars? Principles! You keep your constellations in the hold of your vessel. My good Corbulo, our own interest, that we can always see, and by that we ought ever to steer.”

“Father,” said the girl, “I see a centurion and a handful of soldiers coming this way – and, if I mistake not, Lamia is speeding ahead of them.”

“Well, go then, and play with the kid. Hear how the little creature bleats after thee.”

She obeyed, and the old soldier watched his darling, with his heart in his eyes.

Presently, when she was beyond hearing, he said: —

“Now about the future of Domitia. I wish her no better fortune than to become the wife of Lucius Ælius Lamia, whom I love as my son. He has been in and out among us at Antioch. He returns with me to Rome. In these evil times, for a girl there is one only chance – to be given a good husband. This I hold, that a woman is never bad unless man shows her the way. If, as you say, there be no stars in the sky – there is love in the heart. By Hercules! here comes Lamia, and something ails him.”

Lucius was seen approaching through the garden. His face was ashen-gray, and he was evidently a prey to the liveliest distress.

He hastened to Corbulo, but although his lips moved, he could not utter a word.

“You would speak with me,” said the old general rising, and looking steadily in the young man’s face.

Something he saw there made him divine his errand.

Then Corbulo turned, kissed his wife, and said —

“Farewell. I am rightly served.”

He took a step from her, looked towards Domitia, who was dancing to her kid, above whose reach she held a bunch of parsley.

He hesitated for a moment. His inclination drew him towards her; but a second thought served to make him abandon so doing, and instead, he bent back to his wife, and said to her, with suppressed emotion —

“Bid her from me – as my last command – Follow the Light where and when she sees it.”