Domitia

“Nay, lady, the fish brings the greatest happiness.”

“What is its meaning? It is a strange symbol. It must have some purport.”

The slave hesitated about answering.

Then, hearing steps on the pavement, and looking round, Domitia called – “Thou! Elymas! who pretendest to know all things, answer me this, I have an amulet – a fish – what doth it portend?”

“What? – the murex? That gives the imperial purple.”

“Bah! It is no murex, not a sea snail but a fish. What is the signification?”

“Lady, to one so high, ever-increasing happiness.”

“Away! you are all wrong. Happiness is not where you deem it. False thou art, false to thy creed. Thou speak of a divine ray in every man and woman! an emanation from the Father of Light, quivering, battling, straining to escape out of its earthly envelope and soar to its source! – thou speak of this, and in all thy doings and devisings seekest what is sordid and dark!”

The gloomy man folded his cloak about him, and looking at her from under his penthouse brows answered: —

“Thou launchest forth against me without reason. Knowest thou what is a comet? It is a star that circles about the sun and from it drinks in all the illumination it can absorb, like as the thirsty soil in summer sucks in the falling rain, or the fields the outflow of the Alban Lake; then it flies away into space, and as it flies it sheds its effulgence, becoming ever more dim till it reaches infinite darkness and is there black in the midst of absolute nigritude. Then it turns and comes back to replenish its urn.”

“Nay,” said Domitia, “that can never be. When all light is gone, then all desire for return goes likewise. I know that in myself – I – I am such a comet. When I was a child I longed, I hungered for the light, and in my days of adolescence it was the same, only stronger – it was as a famine. I was the poor comet sweeping up towards my sun; but where my sun was, that – in the vast abyss of infinity – I knew not. I sought and found not, I sought and shed my glory, till there was but a faint glimmer left in me; and now – now all light is extinguished, and with it desire to know, to love, to be happy, to return.”

“Madam, you, as the comet, are reaching your apogee, your extreme limit; you must shed all your light before you can return to the source of light.”

“What! is that your philosophy? The Father of Light sends forth his ray to expire in utter darkness, predestined this ray of light to extinction. If so – then He is not good. And yet,” she sighed, “it is so. I am such. In blackness of night. Look you, Elymas, when I was a child, I laughed and danced; I cannot dance, I can but force a laugh now. I once loved the flowers and the butterflies; I love them no more. My light is gone. The faculty of enjoyment is gone with it. Do I want to return? To what? To the source of light that launched me into this misery? No, not into that cold and cruel fate. Let me go on my inky way, I have no more light to lose – I look only to go out as a fallen star and leave nothing behind me.”

“What! when a great future is before you?”

“What future? you have none to offer me that I value. Away with your hints concerning the purple – it is the sable of mourning to me.”

She panted. The tears came into her eyes.

“It is you who have wrecked my life – you – you. It was you who devised that crime – when I was snatched away from the only man I loved – the only man with whom I could have been happy – whom I – ” she turned aside and hid her face. Then recovering herself, but with a cheek glistening with tears, she said: “I admit it, I love still, and ever shall love. And he loves me. He has taken none to wife, for he thinks on me. There, could darkness be deeper than my now condition? And you did it, you betrayed me into the hands – ” she had sufficient self-control not to say to whom, before this man and her slave.

“Lady, it is not I, but Destiny.”

“And you, with your tortuous ways, work to ends that you desire, and excuse it by saying, It is Destiny.”

“What, discussing the lore of emanations, little woman?” asked the Emperor, coming suddenly up.

Elymas stood back and assumed a deferential attitude. Titus waved him to withdraw, and was obeyed. Then he took Domitia by the hand.

“A philosopher, are you?”

“No, I ask questions, but get no answers that content me.”

“Ah! you asked a favor of me the other day and spiced it with a sneer – your jibes hit me.”

“I meant not to give pain.”

“I have come to you touching this very matter. I am not sure, child, that the scandal is not greater so long as you and Domitian remain linked together, and pulling opposite ways, than if you were parted. Your quarrels are now the talk of Rome, and many a cutting jest is put into your pretty mouth at our expense; invented by others, attributed to you.”

“You will have us divorced!” her breath came quick and short.

“Listen to what I propose. Domitia, I am not well. I have this accursed Roman fever on me.”

“Sire, I mark suffering in your face.”

“It has been vexing me for some days, and it is my intent to leave Rome and be free from business and take my cure at Cutiliæ – our old estate in the Sabine country. Perhaps the air, the waters of the old home, the nest of our divine family – ” his mouth twitched, but there was a sad expression in his face – “they may do me good. It is something, Domitia, to stand on the soil that was turned by one’s forbears, when they bent as humble farmers over the plough. They were honest men and happy; and when one is down at heart, there is naught like home – the old home where are the bones of one’s ancestors, though they may have been yeomen, and one a commissioner, and another an usurer, and so on. They were honest men. Aye! the rate-collector, he was an honest man. Here all is false, and unreal, and – Domitia – I feel that I want to stand on the soil where my worthy, humble, dear old people worked and worshipped, and laid them down to die.”

“You are downcast indeed,” said Domitia.

“And because downcast, I have been brooding over your troubles, little sister-in-law. Come! I did something for your poor Lamia, – I made him consul, and I will do more. Can you be patient and tarry till my strength is restored? I shall return from my family farm in rude health, I trust, and by the Gods! the first matter I will then take in hand will be yours. I know what my brother is. By Jupiter Capitolinus! if Rome should ever have him as its prince, it will weep tears of blood. I know his savage humor and his sullen mind. No, Domitia, you cannot be happy with him. A cruel wrong was done you, and when I return from Cutiliæ I will right it. You shall be separated!”

She threw herself at his feet.

He smiled, and withdrawing from her clasp, said: —

“I will do more than that for your very good friend, in whom you still take such a lively interest. I shall find means to advance him to some foreign post – he knows Antioch, I will give him the proconsulship of Syria and Cilicia, and so move him away from Rome. And then – ” he took a turn, looked smilingly at Domitia, and said, – “I do not see that you need mope at Gabii. You know Antioch; you were there for some years. It is, I believe, not well for a governor to take his wife with him; she has the credit of being a very horse-leech to the province. But I can trust thee, little woman! There, no thanks, I seek mine own interest, and to protect our divine images and the new gilding from the rasp of that tongue. That is the true motive of my making this offer. Do not thank me. On my return from Cutiliæ you may reckon on me.”

Then hastily brushing away her thanks, and evading her arms, extended to clasp him, he walked from the terrace.

“Euphrosyne!” cried Domitia, “did you hear! The comet has reached its extreme limit, it is turning – it is drawing to the light – to hope. Happiness is near – ah!”

In her excitement she had struck her jewel-case that stood on the marble balustrade, and sent it, with all its costly contents, flying down the precipice into the thronged lanes at the back of the forum in a glittering rain.

“Ye Gods!” gasped Domitia, “the omen! O ye Gods! the bad omen.”

“Lady,” said Euphrosyne, “all is not lost”

“What remains? Ah! the Fish!”

“Yes, mistress dear, when all else is lost, remember the Fish.”

CHAPTER III.

IN THE “INSULA.”

“Now, for a while I am as one who has cast off a nightmare,” said Domitia to herself. “He is away – why he has attended Titus to the Sabine land I know not, unless the Emperor could not trust him in Rome – or may be, in his goodness he has done it to relieve me of his presence. I will go see my mother.”

Domitia ordered her litter and bearers. She had no trinkets to put on, save the fish of cornelian. Her mother liked to see her tricked out, and usually when Domitia paid her a visit she adorned herself to please the old lady, – now she could not assume jewelry as she had lost all her articles of precious stones and metal. So she hung the cornelian amulet about her neck.

When a Roman lady went forth in palanquin, it was in some state. Before her went two heralds in livery, to clear the way and announce her coming at the houses where she purposed calling, then she had six bearers, and attendants of her own sex, carrying her scent bottles, kerchiefs, fans, and whatever she might think it possible she would require.

Domitia was impatient of display, but it had been imposed on her by the Emperor. “The Flavians,” said he smiling, “must make a show in public.”

A Roman lady was at this period expected to wear yellow hair, if she would be in the fashion. Under the Flavians, it was a compliment to the reigning princes to affect this color. It was true that the word flavus meant anything in color, from mud upwards to what might be termed yellow by courtesy. It was employed as descriptive of the Tiber, that was of the dingiest of drabs, and of the Campagna when every particle of vegetation was burnt up on it, and the tone was that of the dust-heaps. But now that the parsnip-haired Flavians were divine and all-powerful, the adjective was employed to describe the harvest field and gold. Ladies talked of their hair as “flavan” when it had been dyed with saffron and dusted with gold. Not to have yellow hair was expressive of disaffection to the dynasty – so every lady who would be in the fashion, and every husband who wanted office, first bleached and then dyed their hair, and as hair was occasionally thin, they employed vast masses of padding and borrowed coils from German “fraus” to make the utmost show of their loyalty to the august house of the divine Flavii.

Domitia dared not be out of fashion, and she was constrained to submit to having her chestnut hair dredged with gold-dust before she went forth on her visit. For her, conspicuously to wear her hair in its natural color would at once have provoked animadversion, and been interpreted as a publication, in most defiant manner, of the domestic discord that was a topic of gossip in the saloons of Rome.

When she had entered her palanquin, she gave her orders and was carried lightly down the sloping road into the Forum. This was crossed, and then, drawing back the curtains of her litter, she said: —

“Eboracus, tell the fellows not to go at once to the Carinæ. I have a fancy to see the wife of Paris the actor, in the Insula of Castor and Pollux.”

She was playing with the fish suspended on her bosom, as she was being conveyed down the hill, and the thought had come to her that she had not seen Glyceria for a long time, and that now was a good occasion as her husband – whom these visits annoyed, and who had in fact forbidden them – was absent from Rome.

The porters at once entered the narrow, tortuous lanes, where the lofty blocks of buildings cut off all sun and made twilight in midday.

As Domitia stepped out of her litter, she saw coming down the street, a man much in the company of Domitian, for whom she entertained a particular dislike. He was a very dark man, and blind; his face was pointed, and his nose long; he ran with projecting head, turning his sharp nose from side to side, like a dog after game. His name was Valerius Messalinus.

One of his slaves whispered something into his ear, and he twisted about his head, and then came trotting in the direction of the litter of Domitia.

“Quick,” said she, “I must go in; I will not speak with that man. If he asks for me, say I am out – out of the litter.”

She at once entered the block of lodgings, and impatiently waved back her heralds, who would have ascended the stairs before her and pompously announced her arrival.

Taking Euphrosyne along with her, Domitia made her way towards the apartments of the crippled woman. But already the news had spread that men in the imperial livery had entered the building, and there was a rush to the balustrade to see them.

When Domitia reached the first landing, she saw that the women and children, and such men as were there, had ranged themselves on either side, to give her passage, every face was smiling, and lit with pleasure, the men raised their forefingers and thumbs to their mouths, and the women and children strove to catch her hand, or kneeling to touch, raise and kiss the hem of her dress.

If, at one time it had caused surprise that she a rich lady, should enter a common haunt of the poor, it was now a matter of more than surprise, of admiration and delight – to welcome the sister-in-law of the Emperor, one who it was whispered would some day be herself Empress, Augusta, and an object of religious worship.

This sort of welcome always went to the heart of Domitia, and gave her a choke in the throat.

The great people never regarded the poor, save as nuisances. An emperor had said of the populace that it was a wolf he held by the ears. And it was wolf-like because brutally treated, pampered as to food given without pay, supplied with scenes of bloodshed, also without cost, in the arena, every encouragement to work taken from it, every demoralizing, barbarizing influence employed to degrade it.

The great people were supremely indifferent to the sufferings of the small, provided no hospitals for the poor who were sick, no orphanages for the homeless children – let them die – and the faster the better, – that was one wish of the great; – then shall we be alone on the earth with our slaves.

Had these poor people hopes, ambitions, cares, sorrows? Did they love their wives, and hold to their hearts their cubs of children? Did they have any desire that their children should grow up to be good men and virtuous women? Oh, no! such rabble were not of one blood with the rich. They had no fine feelings, they were like the beasts; they were without human souls; and so, when the poor died their bodies were rammed down wells contrived to contain a thousand corpses at a time, and then heaped over with a little earth.

But Domitia had learned that it was not as supposed. Amidst the falsity, barbarity of heart, and coarseness of mind of such as were of the noble Roman order, – the cultured, the rich, the philosophic – there was no sincerity, no truth. She felt happier and better after one of these visits to the Insula in the Suburra as though her lungs had inhaled a purer atmosphere. To the smiles and kisses and blessings lavished on her, she answered with kindly courtesy – and then stepped into the room of the paralyzed woman. Glyceria was as much a cripple as when first visited. She was more wasted – some time had passed – but she hardly seemed older, only more beautiful in her purity, a diaphanous lamp of mother-of-pearl through which shone a supernatural light.

Domitia drew a deep sigh.

“Glyceria,” she said, “when I come here, it is to me like seeing a glimpse of blue sky after a day of rain, or – like the scent of violets that came on me the first time I visited you.”

“And when you, lady, come to me, it is as though a sunbeam shone into my dark chamber.”

“Nay, nay – no flattery from thee, or I shall hate thee. I get that till it cloys. But tell me now, times have been better, and why has not Paris moved into superior quarters? Surely he is in better employ and pay than of old.”

“It is so, but only to a small degree,” answered the actor’s wife. “Paris performs in the grand old dramas in Greek only; in those of Æschylus and Eurypides and Sophocles, he is a tragic actor, – and – ” the poor woman smiled, “perhaps home troubles have taken the laughter out of him. He is a sad bungler in comedy. Now the taste of Rome is not for the masterpieces of the ancients. The people clamor to see an elephant dance on a tight-rope, and a man crucified who pours forth blood enough to swamp the stage – the Laureolus! that is the piece to bring down the house. Or some bit of buffoonery and indecency. To that the people crowd. However, we live; I hang as a log about my Paris’s neck, but thank God, he loves his log and would not be rid of it, so I am content.”

“But if you will suffer me to assist you,” said Domitia.

Glyceria shook her head. “No, dear lady, do not take it ill if I refuse your kind offer, made, not for the first time. I am very happy here, very – with these dear kind people about me, running in and out all the day, offering their gracious good wishes, lending their ready help. On my word, lady! I do believe that they would all be in tears and feel it as a slight if I were to go; and for myself, I could never be happy away from them.”

Domitia stood up and went to the door. Her heart swelled in her bosom.

“None but the poor know,” said the cripple, “how kind, how tender the poor are to one another. Poverty is a brotherhood – we are all of one blood, and one heart.”

“And I – ” said the great lady, looking out on the balcony with its swarm of people, some busy, some idle, most merry – “And I – ” said she, dreamily – “I love the poor.”

“Then,” said a low firm voice, “thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.”

She turned and started.

She recollected him, that stately man with deep, soft eyes. Luke, the Physician.

“I am not surprised,” he added, “if you be His disciple,” and he touched the cornelian fish.

It was not strange that in this splendid lady with golden hair he did not recognize the timid, crushed girl with auburn locks, he had seen on the Artemis.

But the recollection of that night came back with a rush like a tidal wave, over Domitia, and she threw forth the question, “Why did you cut the thong?”

He did not comprehend her. She saw it, and added, “You do not recollect me. Do you not recall when we nearly ran down the galley of that monster Nero? On that night, we would have sent him to the bottom of the sea, but for you, – you spoiled it all; you cut the thong of the rudder. Why did you prevent us from doing it?”

“Because,” answered the physician, “It is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. It was not for you to do it. You were not called to be the minister of His sentence.”

“I understand you not.”

“My daughter – ”

“Hold!” said Domitia, rearing herself up. “Dost thou know to whom thou addressest thyself? I – I thy daughter? I am Domitia Longina, daughter of the great Corbulo, and – ” but she would not add, “wife of the Cæsar Domitian.”

“Well, lady,” said Luke, “forgive me. I thought, seeing that sign on thy breast, and hearing thee say that thou didst love the poor, that thou wast one whom, whatever thy rank and wealth and position I might so address, not indeed as one of the Brethren, but as a hearer and a seeker – enough – I was mistaken.”

“What means this fish?” asked Domitia, her wounded pride oozing away at once. “I pray you forgive me. I spoke hastily.”

“The fish,” said he —

But before he could offer any explanation, Paris appeared, his face expressive of alarm; he had seen the servants in the imperial white below, and knew therefore whom to find in his wife’s lodgings.

He hastily saluted her and said: —

“Lady! I beseech thee to go at once. Something has occurred most grave. Return immediately to the palace.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

“Madam, I dare not name it, lest it be untrue. To speak of it if untrue were to be guilty of High Treason.”

“High Treason!” gasped Domitia. She knew what such a charge entailed.

“The Cæsar Domitian has passed at full gallop through the streets, his attendants behind him.”

“Whither has he gone?”

“To the Prætorian barracks.”

“Ye Gods!” spoke Domitia, she could not raise her voice above a whisper. “Then the worst has happened. My light is out once more.”

CHAPTER IV.

ANOTHER APPEAL

On reaching the street, Domitia saw at once that the aspect of the populace was changed. Instead of the busy hum of trade, the calls of hucksters, the laugh of the mirthful, a stillness had come on every one; no face smiled, no voice was raised, scarcely any person moved.

Those who had been bustling here and there stood motionless, trade had ceased. A sudden frost had arrested the flow of life and reduced all its manifestations to the lowest term. Such as had been running about collected in clusters, and conversed in whispers. Blank faces looked at Domitia as she entered her litter, with awed respect.

“Eboracus! What is the meaning of this?” asked the lady.

“Madam, I know not. None will confide what they seem to know or to suspect.”

“Go forward,” said she, “I will visit my mother in the Carinæ. She will know everything.”

In another moment her train was in movement, and as she passed along, all bowed and saluted with their hands; they had done as much previously, but without the earnestness that was now observable. In the heart of Domitia was as it were a blade of ice transpiercing it. She was in deadly alarm lest her surmise should prove true.

She would not draw the curtains of her litter, but looked at everything in the streets, and saw that all were in the same condition of stupefaction.

On reaching the entrance to the palace occupied by her mother, Domitia noticed another palanquin and attendants.

“The Vestal Abbess, Cornelia, is with the Lady Duilia,” said Eboracus.

“I will go in! – I know her well, and esteem her,” said Domitia.

She passed the vestibule, traversed the Atrium and entered the Tablinum. But Longa Duilia was not there. A slave coming up, said that she had entered with the Great Mother into a private apartment, where she might not be disturbed.

“Well! I am no stranger. Lead the way.”

In another instant she was ushered into her mother’s presence, and at once Duilia bowed to her with profound respect.

“Mother – what does this mean?”

“Here is the Lady Abbess, Cornelia, let me present her to your Highness.”

“Mother – I salute the Lady Cornelia – what is this that has cast a shadow over Rome and frightened the people as with an eclipse?”

“My dear, of course you have heard. It may be only rumor and yet, – he was suffering when he left Rome.”

“Ye Gods! do not say so! Mother, withdraw your words of bad omen. Naught has befallen him! It was but a slight fever.”

“So we esteemed it, but – ”

“But, mother – ” Domitia panted.

“The news are weighty, and concern you vastly, my daughter.”

“It is too horrible for me to think. Surely, surely, mother, it is false.”

“Hearken, my dear, – Lady Cornelia, come also to the top of the house. It is a fine situation for seeing and hearing, and out of all reach of eavesdroppers. I hear shouts, I hear horns blowing. Come – speedily! let us to the house-top.”

Laying hold of Domitia and the Vestal Superior by the wrists, she drew them with her to the roof.

The silence that had fallen on Rome had passed away, the town was now resonant with horns and trumpets pealing from the Prætorian camp, with the shouting of many voices from the same quarter. In the streets, messengers were running, armed with knotted sticks, and were hammering at the doors of Senators to summon them to an extraordinary meeting. The clash of arms resounded, so also the tramp of feet, as the city police marched in the direction of the Palatine. Here and there rose loud cries, but what they signified could not be judged.

In another moment Eboracus came out on the housetop, and hastening to his mistress, said: —

“Madam, the Augustus – Titus, has been. The Cæsar Domitian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops. The vigiles are hastening in cohorts to swear allegiance.”