The Emperor. Complete

“No—who can learn Egyptian.”

“Then you do not know what she said?”

“I was to find out—she cried out ‘Dead!’ and again ‘Dead!’ and in the tomb which she was watching there were I know not how many persons attacked by the plague.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes, I had only heard of this disease till then. It is frightful, and quite answers to the descriptions I had read of it.”

“But Caesar!” cried Antinous reproachfully and in alarm.

“When we turned our backs on the tombs,” continued Hadrian, paying no heed to the lad’s exclamation, “we were met by an elderly man dressed in white and a strange-looking maiden. She was lame but of remarkable beauty.”

“And she was going to the sick?”

“Yes, she had brought medicine and food to them.”

“But she did not go in among them?” asked Antinous eagerly.

“She did, in spite of my warnings. In her companion I recognized an old acquaintance.”

“An old one?”

“At any rate older than myself. We had met in Athens when we still were young. At that time he was one of the school of Plato and the most zealous, nay, perhaps the most gifted of us all.”

“How came such a man among the plague-stricken people of Besa? Is he become a physician?”

“No. But at Athens he sought fervently and eagerly for the truth, and now he asserts that he has found it.”

“Here, among the Egyptians?”

“In Alexandria among the Christians.”

“And the lame girl who accompanied the philosopher—does she too believe in the crucified God?”

“Yes. She is a sick-nurse or something of the kind. Indeed there is something grand in the ecstatic craze of these people.”

“Is it true that they worship an ass and a dove?”

“Nonsense!”

“I did not want to believe it; and at any rate they are kind, and succor all who suffer, even strangers who do not belong to their sect.”

“How do you know?”

“One hears a great deal about them in Alexandria.”

“Alas! alas!—I never persecute an imaginary foe, as such I reckon the creeds and ideas of other men; still, I cannot but ask myself whether it can add to the prosperity of the state when citizens cease to struggle against the pressure and necessity of life and console themselves for them instead, by the hope of visionary happiness in another world which perhaps only exists in the fancy of those who believe in it.”

“I should wish that life might end with death,” said Antinous thoughtfully; “and yet—”

“Well?”

“If I were sure that in that other world I should find those I long to see again, then I might long for a future life.”

“And would you really like, throughout all eternity, to push and struggle in the crowd of old acquaintances which death does not diminish but rather multiplies?”

“Nay, not that—but I should like to be permitted to live for ever with a few chosen friends.”

“And should I be one of them?”

“Yes—indeed,” cried Antinous warmly and pressing his lips to Hadrian’s hand.

“I was sure of it—but even with the promise of never being obliged to part with you my darling, I would never sacrifice the only privilege which man enjoys above the immortals.”

“What privilege can you mean?”

“The right of withdrawing from the ranks of the living as soon as annihilation seems more endurable than existence and I choose to call death to release me.”

“The gods, it is true, cannot die.”

“And the Christians only to link a new life on to death.”

“But a fairer and a happier than this on earth. They say it is a life of bliss. But the mother of this everlasting life is the ineradicable love of existence in even the most wretched of our race, and hope is its father. They believe in a complete freedom from suffering in that other world because He whom they call their Redeemer, the crucified Christ, has saved them from all sufferings by His death.”

“And can a man take upon him the sufferings of others, think you, like a garment or a burden?”

“They say so, and my friend from Athens is quite convinced. In books of magic there are many formulas by which misfortunes may be transferred not merely from men to beasts, but from one human being to another. Very remarkable experiments have even been carried out with slaves, and to this day I have to struggle in several, provinces to suppress human sacrifices by which the gods are to be reconciled or propitiated. Only think of the innocent Iphigenia who was dragged to the altar; did not the gulf in the Forum close when Curtius had leaped into it? When Fate shoots a fatal arrow at you and I receive it in my breast, perhaps she is content with the chance victim and does not enquire as to whom she has hit.”

“The gods would be exorbitant indeed if they were not content with your blood for mine!”

“Life is life, and that of the young is of better worth than that of the old. Many joys will yet bloom for you.”

“And you are indispensable to the whole world.”

“After me another will come. Are you ambitious, boy?”

“No, my Lord.”

“What then can be the meaning of this: that every one wishes me joy of my son Verus excepting you. Do you not like my choice?”

Antinous colored and looked at the ground, and Hadrian went on:

“Say honestly what you feel.”

“The praetor is ill.”

“He can have but a few years to live, and when he is dead—”