Chapter III: Part 3

Very true. Milo ought to have sent a poem, or perhaps a well-polished speech, or a letter. Milo is a nobly-endowed man; all Milo’s family are nobly-endowed.

JULIAN.

Especially the two young men.

LIBANIUS.

No doubt, no doubt. For the sake of their beneficent and generous father, I pray the gods that they may fall into good hands. After all, then, you were right, my Julian; the ship brought real gold from Ephesus. For are not intellectual gifts the purest of gold? But I cannot rest; these young men’s welfare is, in truth, a weighty matter; so much depends on who first gains control of them. My young friends, if you think as I do, we will hold out a guiding hand to these two strangers, help them to make the wisest choice of teacher and abode, and——

SALLUST.

I will go with you!

THE SCHOLARS.

To the Piraeus! To the Piraeus!

SALLUST.

We will fight like wild boars for Milo’s sons!

[_They all go out, with LIBANIUS, to the right; only PRINCE
JULIAN and GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS remain behind in the
colonnade._

JULIAN.

[_Following them with his eyes._] See how they go leaping like a troop of fauns. How they lick their lips at the thought of the feast that awaits them this evening. [_He turns to GREGORY._] If there is one thing they would sigh to God for at this moment, it is that he would empty their stomachs of their breakfasts.

GREGORY.

Julian——

JULIAN.

Look at me; I am sober.

GREGORY.

I know that. You are temperate in all things. And yet you share this life of theirs.

JULIAN.

Why not? Do you know, or do I, when the thunderbolt will fall? Then why not make the most of the bright and sunlit day? Do you forget that I dragged out my childhood and the first years of my youth in gilded slavery? It had become a habit, I might almost say a necessity to me, to live under a weight of dread. And now? This stillness as of the grave on the Emperor’s part;—this sinister silence! I left Pergamus without the Emperor’s permission; the Emperor said nothing. I went of my own will to Nicomedia; I lived there, and studied with Nikokles and others; the Emperor gave no sign. I came to Athens, and sought out Libanius, whom the Emperor had forbidden me to see;—the Emperor has said nothing to this day. How am I to interpret this?

GREGORY.

Interpret it in charity, Julian.

JULIAN.

Oh, you do not know——! I hate this power without me, terrible in action, more terrible when at rest.

GREGORY.

Be frank, my friend, and tell me whether it is this alone that has led you into all these strange ways?

JULIAN.

What mean you by strange ways?

GREGORY.

Is the rumour true, that you pass your nights in searching out the heathen mysteries in Eleusis?

JULIAN.

Oh, pooh! I assure you there is little to be learnt from those riddle-mongering dreamers. Let us talk no more about them.

GREGORY.

Then it is true! Oh, Julian, how could you seek such shameful intercourse?

JULIAN.

I must live, Gregory,—and this life at the university is no life at all. This Libanius! I shall never forgive him the great love I once bore him! At my first coming, how humbly and with what tremors of joy did I not enter the presence of this man, bowing myself before him, kissing him, and calling him my great brother.

GREGORY.

Yes, we Christians all thought that you went too far.

JULIAN.

And yet I came here in exaltation of spirit. I saw, in my fancy, a mighty contest between us two,—the world’s truth in pitched battle against God’s truth.—What has it all come to? Libanius never seriously desired that contest. He never desired any contest whatever; he cares only for his own interest. I tell you, Gregory—Libanius is not a great man.

GREGORY.

Yet all enlightened Greece proclaims him great.

JULIAN.

A great man he is not, I tell you. Once only have I seen Libanius great: that night in Constantinople. Then he was great, because he had suffered a great wrong, and because he was filled with a noble wrath. But here! Oh, what have I not seen here? Libanius has great learning, but he is no great man. Libanius is greedy; he is vain; he is eaten up with envy. See you not how he has writhed under the fame which I—largely, no doubt, owing to the indulgence of my friends—have been so fortunate as to acquire? Go to Libanius, and he will expound to you the inward essence and the outward signs of all the virtues. He has them ready to hand, just as he has the books in his library. But does he exercise these virtues? Is his life at one with his teaching? He a successor of Socrates and of Plato—ha-ha! Did he not flatter the Emperor, up to the time of his banishment? Did he not flatter me at our meeting in Constantinople, that meeting which he has since attempted, most unsuccessfully, to present in a ludicrous light! And what am I to him now? Now he writes letters to Gallus, to Gallus Caesar, to the Emperor’s heir, congratulating him on his successes against the Persians, although these successes have as yet been meagre enough, and Gallus Caesar is not distinguished either for learning or for any considerable eloquence.—And this Libanius the Greeks persist in calling the king of the philosophers! Ah, I will not deny that it stirs my indignation. I should have thought, to tell the truth, that the Greeks might have made a better choice, if they had noted a little more closely the cultivators of wisdom and eloquence, who of late years——

BASIL OF CAESAREA.

[_Entering from the right._] Letters! Letters from Cappadocia!

GREGORY.

For me too?

BASIL.

Yes, here; from your mother.

GREGORY.

My pious mother!

[_He opens the paper and reads._

JULIAN.

[_To BASIL._] Is it your sister who writes to you?

BASIL.

[_Who has entered with his own letter open._] Yes, it is Makrina. Her news is both sad and strange.

JULIAN.

What is it? Tell me.

BASIL.

First of your noble brother Gallus. He rules sternly in Antioch.

JULIAN.

Yes, Gallus is hard.—Does Makrina write “sternly.”

BASIL.

[_Looking at him._] Makrina writes “bloodily”——

JULIAN.

Ah, I thought as much! Why did the Emperor marry him to that dissolute widow, that Constantina?

GREGORY.

[_Reading._] Oh, what unheard-of infamy!

JULIAN.

What is it, friend?

GREGORY.

[_To BASIL._] Does Makrina say nothing of what is happening in Antioch?

BASIL.

Nothing definite. What is it? You are pale——

GREGORY.

You knew the noble Clemazius, the Alexandrian?

BASIL.

Yes, yes; what of him?

GREGORY.

He is murdered, Basil!

BASIL.

What do you say? Murdered?

GREGORY.

I call it murdered;—they have executed him without law or judgment.

JULIAN.

Who? Who has executed him?

GREGORY.

Yes, who? How can I say who? My mother tells the story thus: Clemazius’s mother-in-law was inflamed with an impure love for her daughter’s husband; but as she could not move him to wrong, she gained some back-stairs access to the palace——

JULIAN.

What palace?

GREGORY.

My mother writes only “the palace.”

JULIAN.

Well? And then——?

GREGORY.

It is only known that she presented a very costly jewel to a great and powerful lady to procure a death-warrant——

JULIAN.

Ah, but they did not get it!

GREGORY.

They got it, Julian.

JULIAN.

Oh, Jesus!

BASIL.

Horrible! And Clemazius——?

GREGORY.

The death-warrant was sent to the governor, Honoratus. That weak man dared not disobey so high a command. Clemazius was thrown into prison and executed early next morning, without being suffered, my mother writes, to open his lips in his own defence.

JULIAN.

[_Pale, in a low voice._] Burn these dangerous letters; they might bring us all to ruin.

BASIL.

Such open violence in the midst of a great city! Where are we; where are we?

JULIAN.

Aye, you may well ask where we are! A Christian murderer, a Christian adulteress, a Christian——!

GREGORY.

Denunciations will not mend this matter. What do you intend to do?

JULIAN.

I? I will go no more to Eleusis; I will break off all dealings with the heathen, and thank the Lord my God that he spared me the temptations of power.

GREGORY.

Good; but then?

JULIAN.

I do not understand you——

GREGORY.

Then listen. The murder of Clemazius is not all, believe me. This unheard-of infamy has descended like a plague on Antioch. All evil things have awakened, and are swarming forth from their lairs. My mother writes that it seems as though some pestilent abyss had opened. Wives denounce their husbands, sons their fathers, priests the members of their own flock——

JULIAN.

This will spread yet further. The abomination will corrupt us all.—— Oh, Gregory, would I could fly to the world’s end——!

GREGORY.

Your place is at the world’s navel, Prince Julian.

JULIAN.

What would you have me do?

GREGORY.

You are this bloody Caesar’s brother. Stand forth before him—he calls himself a Christian—and cast his crime in his teeth; smite him to the earth in terror and remorse——

JULIAN.

[_Recoiling._] Madman, of what are you thinking?

GREGORY.

Is your brother dear to you? Would you save him?

JULIAN.

I once loved Gallus above all others.

GREGORY.

_Once_——?

JULIAN.

So long as he was only my brother. But now——; is he not Caesar? Gregory,—Basil,—oh, my beloved friends,—I tremble for my life, I draw every breath in fear, because of Gallus Caesar. And you ask me to defy him to his face, me, whose very existence is a danger to him?

GREGORY.

Why came you to Athens? You gave out loudly in all quarters that Prince Julian was setting forth from Constantinople to do battle with philosophy, falsely so called—to champion Christian truth against heathen falsehood. What have you done of all this?

JULIAN.

Ah, ’twas not here that the battle was to be.

GREGORY.

No, it was not here,—not with phrase against phrase, not with book against book, not with the idle word-fencing of the lecture-room! No, Julian, you must go forth into life itself, with your own life in your hands——

JULIAN.

I see it; I see it!

GREGORY.

Yes, as Libanius sees it! You mocked at him. You said he knew the essence and the outward signs of all the virtues, but his doctrine was only a doctrine to him. How much of _you_ belongs to God? How much may the Emperor demand?

JULIAN.

You said yourself it was unseemly——

GREGORY.

Towards whom? Towards God or the Emperor?

JULIAN.

[_Quickly._] Well then: shall we go together?

GREGORY.

[_Evasively._] I have my little circle; I have my family to watch over. I have neither the strength nor the gifts for a larger task.

JULIAN.

[_Is about to answer; suddenly he listens towards the right, and calls out._] To the bacchanal!

BASIL.

Julian!

JULIAN.

To the bacchanal, friends!

[_GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS looks at him a moment; then he goes off
through the colonnade to the left. A large troop of
scholars, with the newcomers among them, rushes into the
square, amid shouts and noise._

BASIL.

[_Coming nearer._] Julian, will you listen to me!

JULIAN.

See, see! They have taken their new friends to the bath, and anointed their hair. See how they swing their cudgels; how they yell and thump the pavement! What say you, Pericles? Methinks I can hear your wrathful shade——

BASIL.

Come, come!

JULIAN.

Ah, look at the man they are driving naked among them. Now come the dancing-girls. Ah, do you see what——!

BASIL.

Fie! Fie!—turn your eyes away!

[_Evening has fallen. The whole troop settles down in the square
beside the fountain. Wine and fruits are brought. Painted
damsels dance by torchlight._

JULIAN.

[_After a short silence._] Tell me, Basil, why was the heathen sin so beautiful?

BASIL.

You are mistaken, friend; beautiful things have been said and sung of this heathen sin; but it was not beautiful.

JULIAN.

Oh, how can you say so? Was not Alcibiades beautiful when, flushed with wine, he stormed at night like a young god through the streets of Athens? Was he not beautiful in his very audacity when he insulted Hermes and battered at the citizens’ doors,—when he summoned their wives and daughters forth, while within the women trembled, and, in breathless, panting silence, wished for nothing better than to——?

BASIL.

Oh listen to me, I beg and entreat you.

JULIAN.

Was not Socrates beautiful in the symposium? And Plato, and all the joyous revellers? Yet they did such things, as, but to be accused of them, would make those Christian swine out there call down upon themselves the curse of God. Think of Oedipus, Medea, Leda——

BASIL.

Poetry, poetry; you confound fancies with facts.

JULIAN.

Are not mind and will in poetry subject to the same laws as in fact? And then look at our holy scriptures, both the old and new. Was sin beautiful in Sodom and Gomorrah? Did not Jehovah’s fire avenge what Socrates shrank not from?—Oh, as I live this life of revel and riot, I often wonder whether truth is indeed the enemy of beauty!

BASIL.

And in such an hour can you sigh after beauty? Can you so easily forget what you have just heard——?

JULIAN.

[_Stopping his ears._] Not a word more of those horrors! We will shake off all thoughts of Antioch——

Tell me, what does Makrina write further? There was something more; I remember, you said——; what was it you called the rest of her news?

BASIL.

Strange.

JULIAN.

Yes, yes;—what was it?

BASIL.

She writes of Maximus in Ephesus——

JULIAN.

[_Eagerly._] The Mystic?

BASIL.

Yes; that inscrutable man. He has appeared once more; this time in Ephesus. All the region around is in a ferment. Maximus is on all lips. Either he is a juggler or he has made a baleful compact with certain spirits. Even Christians are strangely allured by his impious signs and wonders.

JULIAN.

More, more; I entreat you!

BASIL.

There is no more about him. Makrina only writes that she sees in the coming again of Maximus a proof that we are under the wrath of the Lord. She believes that great afflictions are in store for us, by reason of our sins.

JULIAN.

Yes, yes, yes!—Tell me, Basil: your sister is surely a remarkable woman.

BASIL.

She is, indeed.

JULIAN.

When you repeat to me passages from her letters, I seem to be listening to something full and perfect, such as I have long sighed for. Tell me, is she still bent on renouncing this world, and living in the wilderness?

BASIL.

That is her steadfast intent.

JULIAN.

Is it possible? She on whom all gifts seem to have been lavished? She who, ’tis known, is both young and beautiful; she, who has riches in prospect, and in possession such learning as is very rare in a woman! Do you know, Basil, I long to see her? What has _she_ to do in the wilderness?

BASIL.

I have told you how her affianced lover died. She regards him as her expectant bridegroom, to whom she owes her every thought, and whom she is pledged to meet unsullied.

JULIAN.

Strange how many feel the attraction of solitude in these times.—When you write to Makrina, you may tell her that I too——

BASIL.

She knows that, Julian; but she does not believe it.

JULIAN.

Why not? What does she write?

BASIL.

I pray you, friend, spare me——

JULIAN.

If you love me, do not hide from me one word she writes.

BASIL.

[_Giving him the letter._] Read, if you must—it begins there.

JULIAN.

[_Reads._] “Whenever you write of the Emperor’s young kinsman, who is your friend, my soul is filled with a great and radiant joy——” O Basil! lend me your eye; read for me.

BASIL.

[_Reading._] “Your account of the fearless confidence wherewith he came to Athens was to me as a picture from the ancient chronicles. Yes, I see in him David born again, to smite the champions of the heathen. God’s spirit watch over him in the strife, now and for ever.”

JULIAN.

[_Grasping his arm._] Enough of that! She too? What is it that you all, as with one mouth, demand of me? Have I sealed you a bond to do battle with the lions of power——?

BASIL.

How comes it that all believers look towards you in breathless expectation?

JULIAN.

[_Paces once or twice up and down the colonnade, then stops and stretches out his hand for the letter._] Give it to me; let me see. [_Reading._] “God’s spirit watch over him in the strife, now and for ever.”—

Oh, Basil, if I could——! But I feel like Daedalus, between sky and sea. An appalling height and an abysmal depth.—What sense is there in these voices calling to me, from east and west, that I must save Christendom? Where is it, this Christendom that I am to save? With the Emperor or with Caesar? I think their deeds cry out, “No, no!” Among the powerful and high-born;—among those sensual and effeminate courtiers who fold their hands over their full bellies, and quaver: “Was the Son of God created out of nothing?” Or among the men of enlightenment, those who, like you and me, have drunk in beauty and learning from the heathen fountains? Do not most of our fellows lean to the Arian heresy, which the Emperor himself so greatly favours?—And then the whole ragged rabble of the Empire, who rage against the temples, who massacre heathens and the children of heathens! Is it for Christ’s sake? Ha ha! see how they fall to fighting among themselves for the spoils of the slain.—Ask Makrina if Christendom is to be sought in the wilderness,—on the pillar where the stylite-saint stands on one leg? Or is it in the cities? Perhaps among those bakers in Constantinople who lately took to their fists to decide whether the Trinity consists of three individuals or of three hypostases!—Which of all these would Christ acknowledge if he came down to earth again?—Out with your Diogenes-lantern, Basil! Enlighten this pitchy darkness.—Where is Christendom?

BASIL.

Seek the answer where it is ever to be found in evil days.

JULIAN.

Hold me not aloof from the well of your wisdom! Slake my thirst, if you can. Where shall I seek and find?

BASIL.

In the writings of holy men.

JULIAN.

The same despairing answer. Books,—always books! When I came to Libanius, it was: books, books! I come to you,—books, books, books! Stones for bread! I cannot live on books;—it is life I hunger for,—face-to-face communion with the spirit. Was it a book that made Saul a seer? Was it not a flood of light that enveloped him, a vision, a voice——?

BASIL.

Do you forget the vision and the voice which that Agathon of Makellon——?

JULIAN.

An enigmatic message; an oracle I cannot interpret. Was _I_ the chosen one? The “heir to the empire,” it said. And what empire——? That matter is beset with a thousand uncertainties. Only this I know: Athens is not the lion’s den. But where, where? Oh, I grope like Saul in the darkness. If Christ would have aught of me, he must speak plainly. Let me touch the nail-wound——

BASIL.

And yet it is written——

JULIAN.

[_With a gesture of impatience._] I know all that is written. This “it is written” is not the living truth. Do you not feel disgust and nausea, as on board ship in a windless swell, heaving to and fro between life, and written doctrine, and heathen wisdom and beauty? There must come a new revelation. Or a revelation of something new. It must come, I say;—the time is ripe.—Ah, a revelation! Oh, Basil, could your prayers call down that upon me! A martyr’s death, if need be——! A martyr’s death—ah, it makes me dizzy with its sweetness; the crown of thorns on my brow——! [_He clasps his head with both hands,_ _feels the wreath of roses, which he tears off, bethinks himself long, and says softly_:] That! I had forgotten that! [_Casting the wreath away._] One thing alone have I learnt in Athens.

BASIL.

What, Julian?

JULIAN.

The old beauty is no longer beautiful, and the new truth is no longer true.

_LIBANIUS enters hastily through the colonnade on the right._

LIBANIUS.

[_Still in the distance._] Now we have him; now we have him!

JULIAN.

Him? I thought you would have had them both.

LIBANIUS.

Both of whom?

JULIAN.

Milo’s sons.

LIBANIUS.

Ah, yes, I have them too. But we have _him_, my Julian!

JULIAN.

Whom, dear brother?

LIBANIUS.

He has caught himself in his own net!

JULIAN.

Aha—a philosopher then?

LIBANIUS.

The enemy of all wisdom.

JULIAN.

Who, who, I ask?

LIBANIUS.

Do you really not know? Have you not heard the news about Maximus?

JULIAN.

Maximus? Oh, pray tell me——

LIBANIUS.

Who could fail to see whither that restless visionary was tending,—step by step towards madness——?

JULIAN.

In other words, towards the highest wisdom.

LIBANIUS.

Ah, that is a figure of speech. But now is the time to act, to seize the opportunity. You, our dearly-prized Julian, you are the man. You are the Emperor’s near kinsman. The hopes of all true friends of wisdom are fixed upon you, both here and in Nikomedia——

JULIAN.

Listen, oh excellent Libanius,—seeing I am not omniscient——

LIBANIUS.

Know, then, that Maximus has lately made open avowal of what lies at the bottom of his teaching.

JULIAN.

And do you blame him for that?

LIBANIUS.

He has averred that he has power over spirits and shades of the dead.

JULIAN.

[_Grasping his cloak._] Libanius!

LIBANIUS.

All on board the ship were full of the most marvellous stories, and here—— [_He shows a letter_], here, my colleague, Eusebius, writes at length on the subject.

JULIAN.

Spirits and shades——

LIBANIUS.

At Ephesus lately, in a large assembly both of his partisans and his opponents. Maximus applied forbidden arts to the statue of Hecate. It took place in the goddess’s temple. Eusebius writes that he himself was present, and saw everything from first to last. All was in pitch-black darkness. Maximus uttered strange incantations; then he chanted a hymn, which no one understood. Then the marble torch in the statue’s hand burst into flame——

BASIL.

Impious doings!

JULIAN.

[_Breathlessly._] And then——?

LIBANIUS.

In the strong bluish light, they all saw the statue’s face come to life and smile at them.

JULIAN.

What more?

LIBANIUS.

Terror seized on the minds of most. All rushed towards the doors. Many have lain sick or raving ever since. But he himself—would you believe it, Julian?—in spite of the fate that befell his two brothers in Constantinople, he goes boldly forward on his reckless and scandalous way.

JULIAN.

Scandalous? Call you that way scandalous? Is not this the end of all wisdom. Communion between spirit and spirit——

BASIL.

Oh, dear, misguided friend——!

LIBANIUS.

More than scandalous, I call it! What is Hecate? What are the gods, as a whole, in the eyes of enlightened humanity? We have happily left far behind us the blind old singer’s days. Maximus ought to know better than that. Has not Plato—and we others after him—shed the light of interpretation over the whole? Is it not scandalous now, in our own days, to seek to enshroud afresh in riddles and misty dreams this admirable, palpable, and, let me add, this laboriously constructed edifice of ideas and interpretations which we, as lovers of wisdom, as a school, as——

JULIAN.

[_Wildly._] Basil, farewell! I see a light on my path!

BASIL.

[_Flinging his arms around him._] I will not let you go; I will hold you fast!

JULIAN.

[_Extricating himself from his grasp._] No one shall withhold me;—kick not against the pricks——

LIBANIUS.

What frenzy is this? Friend, brother, colleague, whither would you go?

JULIAN.

Thither, thither, where torches light themselves and where statues smile!

LIBANIUS.

And you can do this! You, Julian, our pride, our light, our hope,—you can think of rushing to bewildered Ephesus, to give yourself into a juggler’s power! Know that in the hour you so deeply debase yourself, in that same hour you throw away all that bright renown for learning and eloquence which, during these years in Pergamos and Nikomedia, and especially here in the great school of Athens——

JULIAN.

Oh, the school, the school! Do you pore over your books;—you have pointed my way to the man for whom I have been seeking.

[_He goes off hastily through the colonnade to the left._

LIBANIUS.

[_Looking after him awhile._] This princely youth is a menace to enlightenment.

BASIL.

[_Half to himself._] Prince Julian is a menace to more than that.

ACT THIRD

_In Ephesus. A brightly lighted hall in PRINCE JULIAN’S dwelling. The
entrance from the vestibule is on the right side; further back, a
smaller door, covered by a curtain. On the left, a door, which
leads to the inner part of the house. The wall in the back is
pierced with an archway, through which a small enclosed court is
visible, decked with small statues._

_Servants prepare a festal supper, and lay cushions round the table. The
Chamberlain, EUTHERIUS, stands at the entrance, and, with much
ceremony, half forces GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS and BASIL OF CAESAREA
to enter._

EUTHERIUS.

Yes, yes; I assure you it is as I say.

GREGORY.

Impossible! Do not make sport of us.

BASIL.

You are jesting, friend! How can your master expect us? Not a creature knew of our leaving Athens; nothing has detained us on our way; we have kept pace with the clouds and the wild cranes.

EUTHERIUS.

Look around; see yonder table. His daily fare is herbs and bread.

GREGORY.

Ay, truly; all our senses bear you witness;—wine-flagons, wreathed with flowers and leaves; lamps and fruits; incense filling the hall with its odour; flute-players before the door——

EUTHERIUS.

Early this morning he sent for me. He seemed unwontedly happy, for he paced the room to and fro, rubbing his hands. “Prepare a rich banquet,” said he, “for before evening I look for two friends from Athens——”

[_He glances towards the door on the left, is suddenly silent,
and draws back respectfully._

BASIL.

Is he there?

[_EUTHERIUS nods in answer; then gives a sign to the servants to
withdraw; they go out by the larger door on the right; he
follows._

_PRINCE JULIAN shortly afterwards enters from the left. He is dressed in
long, Oriental garb; his whole demeanour is vivacious, and betrays
strong inward excitement._

JULIAN.

[_Going towards them, and greeting them with great warmth._] I see you! I have you! Thanks, thanks, for sending your spirits to herald your bodies!

GREGORY.

Julian!

BASIL.

My friend and brother!

JULIAN.

I have been like a lover, languishing for the pressure of your hands. The court vermin, eager for certain persons’ applause, called me an ape;—oh, would I had an ape’s four hands, to squeeze yours all at once!

GREGORY.

But explain——; your servants meet us with flutes before the door, want to lead us to the bath, to anoint our hair and deck us with roses——

JULIAN.

I saw you last night. The moon was full, you see,—and then is the spirit always strangely alert within me. I sat at the table in my library, and had fallen asleep, weary, oh! so weary, my friends, with research and writing. Of a sudden it seemed as though a storm-wind filled the house; the curtain was swept flapping aloft, and I looked out into the night, far over the sea. I heard sweet singing; and the singers were two large birds, with women’s faces. They flew slanting towards the shore; there they dropped gently earthwards; the bird-forms melted away like a white mist, and, in a soft, glimmering light, I saw you two.

GREGORY.

Are you sure of all this?

JULIAN.

Were you thinking of me? Were you speaking of me last night?

BASIL.

Yes, yes—forward in the prow——

JULIAN.

What time of the night was it?

GREGORY.

What was the time of your vision?

JULIAN.

An hour after midnight.

GREGORY.

[_With a look at BASIL._] Strange!

JULIAN.

[_Rubbing his hands, and walking up and down the room._] You see! Ha-ha; you see?

BASIL.

[_Following him with his eyes._] Ah, then it is true——

JULIAN.

What? What is true?

BASIL.

The rumour of the mysterious arts you practise here.

JULIAN.

Oh, what will not rumour exaggerate?—But tell me, what has rumour found to say? I am told there are many reports afloat concerning me. If I could believe some people’s assurances, it would seem that there are few men in the empire so much talked about as I.

GREGORY.

That you may safely believe.

JULIAN.

And what says Libanius to all this? He could never endure that the multitude should be busied with any one but himself. And what say all my never-to-be-forgotten friends in Athens? They know I am in disgrace with the Emperor and the whole court?

GREGORY.

You? I have frequent intelligence from the court; but my brother Caesarius makes no mention of that.

JULIAN.

I cannot interpret it otherwise, good Gregory! From all sides they think it needful to watch me. The other day, Gallus Caesar sent his chaplain Aëtius hither, to find out whether I hold fast to the orthodox faith.

BASIL.

Well——?

JULIAN.

I am seldom absent from matins in the church. Moreover, I reckon the martyrs among the noblest of men; for truly it is no light matter to endure so great torments, ay, and death itself, for the sake of one’s creed. On the whole, I believe Aëtius departed well content with me.

BASIL.

[_Grasping his hand._] Julian,—for the sake of our true friendship,—open your heart fully to us.

JULIAN.

I am the happiest man on earth, dear friends! And Maximus—ay, he is rightly named—Maximus is the greatest man that has ever lived.

GREGORY.

[_Preparing to depart._] We only wished to see you, my lord!

JULIAN.

Can this estrange brother from brother? You shrink in affright from the inexplicable. Oh, I do not wonder. So I, too, shrank before my eyes were opened, and I divined that which is the kernel of life.

BASIL.

What do you call the kernel of life?

JULIAN.

Maximus knows it. In him is the new revelation.

BASIL.

And it has been imparted to you?

JULIAN.

Almost. I am on the eve of learning it. This very night Maximus has promised me——

GREGORY.

Maximus is a visionary, or else he is deceiving you——!

JULIAN.

How dare you judge of these hidden things? They are beyond your learning, my Gregory! Fearful is the way into the glory of glories. Those dreamers in Eleusis were near the right track; Maximus found it, and I after him—by his help. I have wandered through chasms of darkness. A dead swampy water lay on my left—I believe it was a stream that had forgotten to flow. Piercing voices shrilled through the night confusedly, suddenly, and, as it were, without cause. Now and then I saw a bluish light; dreadful shapes floated past me;—I went on and on in deathly fear; but I endured the trial to the end.—

Since then—oh, beloved ones—with this my body transformed to spirit, I have passed far into the land of paradise; I have heard the angels chant their hymns of praise; I have gazed at the midmost light——

GREGORY.

Woe to this ungodly Maximus! Woe to this devil-devoted heathen juggler!

JULIAN.

Blindness, blindness! Maximus pays homage to his precursor and brother—to both his great brothers, the law-giver of Sinai and the seer of Nazareth.——

Would you know how the spirit of realisation filled me?—It happened on a night of prayer and fasting. I perceived that I was wafted far—far out into space, and beyond time; for there was broad and sun-shimmering day around me, and I stood alone on a ship, with drooping sails, in the midst of the glassy, gleaming Aegean sea. Islands towered aloft in the distance, like dim, still banks of clouds, and the ship lay heavily, as though sleeping, upon the wine-blue plain.—

Then behold! the plain became more and more transparent, lighter, thinner; at last, it was no longer there, and my ship hung over a fearful, empty abyss. No verdure down there, no sunlight,—only the dead, black, slimy bottom of the sea, in all its ghastly nakedness.——

But above, in the boundless dome, which before had seemed to me empty,—there was life; there invisibility clothed itself in form, and silence became sound.—Then I grasped the great redeeming realisation.

GREGORY.

What realisation do you mean?

JULIAN.

That which is, is not; and that which is not, is.

BASIL.

Oh, you are going to wreck and ruin in this maze of mists and gleams!

JULIAN.

I? Do not miracles happen? Do not both omens and certain strange appearances among the stars declare that the divine will destines me to issues yet unrevealed?

GREGORY.

Do not believe such signs; you cannot know whose work they are.

JULIAN.

Am I not to believe in fortunate omens which events have already borne out?

[_He draws them nearer to him, and says softly._

Know, my friends, that a great revolution is at hand. Gallus Caesar and I shall ere long share the dominion of the earth—he as Emperor, and I as—what shall I call it? the unborn cannot be called by a name, for it has none. So no more of this till the time be fulfilled. But of Caesar I dare speak.—Have you heard of the vision for which Apollinaris, a citizen of Sidon, has been imprisoned and put to the torture?

BASIL.

No, no; how can we know——?

JULIAN.

Apollinaris declared that he heard some one knocking many times at his door by night. He arose, and went out from his house; and lo! there he saw an apparition—whether man or woman, he could not tell. And the apparition spoke to him, and bade him make ready a purple robe, such as newly-chosen rulers wear. But when Apollinaris, in affright, would have declined so dangerous a task, the apparition vanished, and only a voice cried: “Go, go, Apollinaris, and speedily prepare the purple robe.”

GREGORY.

Was this the sign that you said events had borne out?

JULIAN.

[_Nodding slowly._] Seven days later Caesar’s wife died in Bithynia. Constantina has always been his bad angel; therefore she had to be removed, in accordance with the change in the divine will. Three weeks after Constantina’s death, the Emperor’s emissary, the tribune Scudilo, came with a great retinue to Antioch, greeted Gallus Caesar with imperial honours, and invited him, in the Emperor’s name, to visit the imperial camp at Rome.—Caesar’s journey from province to province is now like a conqueror’s progress. In Constantinople he has held races in the hippodrome, and the multitude loudly acclaimed him when he, though as yet but Caesar by title, stood forth after the manner of the earlier Emperors, and gave the crown to Corax, the winner in the race. Thus marvellously does God again exalt our house, which had sunk under sin and persecution.

GREGORY.

Strange! In Athens other reports were abroad.

JULIAN.

I have certain information. The purple robe will soon be needed, Gregory! How, then, can I doubt as to the things which Maximus has foretold as near at hand for _me_? To-night the last veil falls. Here shall the great enigma be made manifest. Oh, stay with me, my brothers—stay with me through this night of anxiety and expectation! When Maximus comes you shall witness——

BASIL.

Never!

GREGORY.

It cannot be; we are on our way home to Cappadocia.

JULIAN.

And what has driven you in such haste from Greece?

BASIL.

My mother is a widow, Julian!

GREGORY.

My father is feeble, both in body and mind; he needs my support.

JULIAN.

Oh, at least remain at the hostelry; only until to-morrow——!

GREGORY.

Impossible; our travelling companions start at daybreak.

JULIAN.

At daybreak? Before midnight the day might dawn for you.

BASIL.

Julian, let me not set forth in too great sorrow of soul. Tell me,—when Maximus has interpreted all riddles for you,—what then?

JULIAN.

Do you remember that river whereof Strabo writes—that river which rises in the Lybian mountains? It grows, and grows in its course; but when it is at its greatest, it oozes into the desert sands, and buries itself in the entrails of the earth, whence it arose.

BASIL.

Say not that you long for death, Julian!

JULIAN.

What you slavishly hope for after death, ’tis the aim of the great mystery to win for all the initiated, here in our earthly life. ’Tis regeneration that Maximus and his disciples seek,—’tis our lost likeness to the godhead. Wherefore so full of doubt, my brothers? Why do you stand there as though before something insurmountable? I know what I know. In each successive generation there has been one soul wherein the pure Adam has been born again; he was strong in Moses the lawgiver; in the Macedonian Alexander he had power to subdue the world; he was well-nigh perfect in Jesus of Nazareth. But see, Basil—[_He grasps him by the arm_]—all of them lacked what is promised to _me_—the pure woman!

BASIL.

[_Freeing himself._] Julian, Julian!

GREGORY.

Blasphemer—to this has your pride of heart brought you!

BASIL.

Oh, Gregory, he is sick and beside himself!

JULIAN.

Why all this scornful doubt? Is it my small stature that witnesses against me? Ha, ha; I tell you this gross and fleshly generation shall pass away. That which is to come shall be conceived rather in the soul than in the body. In the first Adam, soul and body were equally balanced, as in those statues of the god Apollo. Since then the balance has been lost. Was not Moses tongue-tied? Had not his arms to be supported when he held them up in imprecation, there by the Red Sea? Did not the Macedonian need ever to be fired by strong drinks and other artificial aids? And Jesus of Nazareth, too? Was he not feeble in body? Did he not fall asleep in the ship, whilst the others kept awake? Did he not faint under the cross, that cross which the Jew Simon carried with ease? The two thieves did not faint.—You call yourselves believers, and yet have so little faith in miraculous revelation. Wait, wait—you shall see; the Bride shall surely be given me; and then—hand in hand will we go forth to the east, where some say that Helios is born,—we will hide ourselves in the solitudes, as the godhead hides itself, seek out the grove on the banks of Euphrates, find it, and there—oh glory of glories!—thence shall a new race, perfect in beauty and in balance, go forth over the earth; there, ye book-worshipping doubters, there shall the empire of the spirit be founded!

BASIL.

Oh, well may I wring my hands in sorrow for your sake. Are you the same Julian who, three years ago, came out of Constantinople?

JULIAN.

Then I was blind, as you are now; I knew only the way that stops short at doctrine.

GREGORY.

Know you where your present way ends?

JULIAN.

Where the path and the goal are one.—For the last time, Gregory, Basil—I implore you to stay with me. The vision I had last night,—that and many other things, point to a mysterious bond between us. To you, my Basil, I had so much to say. You are the head of your house; and who knows whether all the blessings that are promised me—may not come through you and yours——

BASIL.

Never! No one with my good will shall ever be led away by your frenzies and your wild dreams.

JULIAN.

Ah, why talk of will? I see a hand writing on the wall; soon I shall interpret the writing.

GREGORY.

Come, Basil.

JULIAN.

[_With outstretched arms._] Oh, my friends, my friends!

GREGORY.

Between us there is a gulf from this day forward.

[_He drags BASIL with him; both go out to the right._

JULIAN.

[_Looking after them._] Ay, go! Go, go!—What do you two learned men know? What bring you from the city of wisdom? You, my strong, masterful Gregory,—and you, Basil, more girl than man—you know only two streets in Athens, the street to the schools, and the street to the church; of the third street toward Eleusis and further, you know naught; and still less——. Ah!

_The curtain on the right is drawn aside. Two servants in eastern
costume bring in a tall, veiled object, which they place in the
corner, behind the table. Shortly after, MAXIMUS THE MYSTIC enters
by the same door. He is a lean man of middle height, with a
bronzed, hawk-like face; his hair and beard are much grizzled, but
his thick eyebrows and moustache still retain their pitch-black
colour. He wears a pointed cap and a long black robe; in his hand
he carries a white wand._

_MAXIMUS goes, without heeding JULIAN, up to the veiled object, stops,
and makes a sign to the servants; they retire noiselessly._

JULIAN.

[_Softly._] At last!

[_MAXIMUS draws the veil away, revealing a bronze lamp on a high
tripod; then he takes out a little silver pitcher, and pours
oil into the lamp-bowl. The lamp lights of itself, and burns
with a strong reddish glare._

JULIAN.

[_In eager expectancy._] Is the time come?

MAXIMUS.

[_Without looking at him._] Art thou pure in soul and body?

JULIAN.

I have fasted and anointed myself.

MAXIMUS.

Then may the night’s high festival begin!

[_He gives a sign; dancing-girls and flute-players appear in the
outer court. Music and dancing continue during what
follows._

JULIAN.

Maximus,—what is this?

MAXIMUS.

Roses in the hair! Sparkling wine! See, see the lovely limbs at play!

JULIAN.

And amid this whirl of the senses you would——?

MAXIMUS.

Sin lies only in thy sense of sinfulness.

JULIAN.

Roses in the hair! Sparkling wine! [_He casts himself down on one of the couches beside the table, drains a full goblet, puts it hastily from him, and asks_:] Ah! What was in the wine?

MAXIMUS.

A spark of that fire which Prometheus stole.

[_He reclines at the opposite side of the table._

JULIAN.

My senses exchange their functions; I hear brightness and I see music.

MAXIMUS.

Wine is the soul of the grape. The freed and yet willing captive. Logos in Pan!

THE DANCING-GIRLS.
[_Singing in the court_]

Would’st thou know liberty?
Drain Bacchus’ blood;—
Rock on the rhythm-sea,
Float with its flood!

JULIAN.

[_Drinking._] Yes, Yes; there is freedom in intoxication. Canst thou interpret this rapture?

MAXIMUS.

This intoxication is thy marriage with the soul of nature.

JULIAN.

Sweet riddle; tempting, alluring——! What was that? Why didst thou laugh?

MAXIMUS.

I?

JULIAN.

There is whispering on my left hand! The silk cushions rustle—— [_Springing half up with a pale face._] Maximus, we are not alone!

MAXIMUS.

[_Loudly._] We are five at table!

JULIAN.

Symposium with the spirits!

MAXIMUS.

With the shades.

JULIAN.

Name my guests!

MAXIMUS.

Not now. Hark, hark!

JULIAN.

What is that? There is a rushing, as of a storm, through the house——

MAXIMUS.

[_Shrieks._] Julian! Julian! Julian!

JULIAN.

Speak, speak! What is befalling us?

MAXIMUS.

The hour of annunciation is upon thee!

JULIAN.

[_Springing up and shrinking far back from the table._] Ah!

[_The table lamps seem on the point of extinction; over the
great bronze lamp rises a bluish circle of light._

MAXIMUS.

[_Casting himself wholly down._] Thine eye toward the light!

JULIAN.

Yonder?

MAXIMUS.

Yes, yes!

THE GIRLS’ SONG.
[_Low, from the court._]

Night spreads her snares for thee,
All-seeing night;
Laughing-eyed Luxury
Lures to delight.

JULIAN.

[_Staring at the radiance._] Maximus! Maximus!

MAXIMUS.

[_Softly._] Seest thou aught?

JULIAN.

Yes.

MAXIMUS.

What seest thou?

JULIAN.

I see a shining countenance in the light.

MAXIMUS.

Man, or woman?

JULIAN.

I know not.

MAXIMUS.

Speak to it.

JULIAN.

Dare I?

MAXIMUS.

Speak! speak!

JULIAN.

[_Advancing._] Why was I born?

A VOICE IN THE LIGHT.

To serve the spirit.

MAXIMUS.

Does it answer?

JULIAN.

Yes, yes.

MAXIMUS.

Ask further.

JULIAN.

What is my mission?

THE VOICE.

To establish the empire.

JULIAN.

What empire?

THE VOICE.

The empire.

JULIAN.

And by what way?

THE VOICE.

By the way of freedom.

JULIAN.

Speak clearly! What is the way of freedom?

THE VOICE.

The way of necessity.

JULIAN.

And by what power?

THE VOICE.

By _willing_.

JULIAN.

_What_ shall I will?

THE VOICE.

What thou _must_.

JULIAN.

It pales; it vanishes——! [_Coming closer._] Speak, speak! What must I will?

THE VOICE.

[_Wailing._] Julian!

[_The circle of light passes away; the table lamps burn as
before._

MAXIMUS.

[_Looking up._] Gone?

JULIAN.

Gone.

MAXIMUS.

Dost thou _now_ see clearly?

JULIAN.

Now less than ever. I hang in the void over the yawning deep—midway between light and darkness. [_He lies down again._] What is the empire?

MAXIMUS.

There are three empires.

JULIAN.

Three?

MAXIMUS.

First that empire which was founded on the tree of knowledge; then that which was founded on the tree of the cross——

JULIAN.

And the third?

MAXIMUS.

The third is the empire of the great mystery; that empire which shall be founded on the tree of knowledge and the tree of the cross together, because it hates and loves them both, and because it has its living sources under Adam’s grove and under Golgotha.

JULIAN.

And this empire shall come——?

MAXIMUS.

It stands on the threshold. I have counted and counted——

JULIAN.

[_Breaking off sharply._] The whispering again! Who are my guests?

MAXIMUS.

The three corner-stones under the wrath of necessity.

JULIAN.

Who, who?

MAXIMUS.

The three great helpers in denial.

JULIAN.

Name them!

MAXIMUS.

I cannot; I know them not;—but I could show them to thee——

JULIAN.

Then show me them! At once, Maximus——!

MAXIMUS.

Beware——!

JULIAN.

At once; at once! I will see them; I will speak with them, one by one.

MAXIMUS.

The guilt be on thy head.

[_He waves his wand and calls._

Take shape and come to sight, thou first-elected lamb of sacrifice!

JULIAN.

Ah!

MAXIMUS.

[_With veiled face._] What seest thou?

JULIAN.

[_In a low voice._] There he lies; just by the corner.—He is great as Hercules, and beautiful,—yet no, not——

[_Hesitatingly._

Speak to me if thou canst!

A VOICE.

What wouldst thou know?

JULIAN.

What was thy task in life?

THE VOICE.

My sin.

JULIAN.

Why didst thou sin?

THE VOICE.

Why was I not my brother?

JULIAN.

Palter not with me. Why didst thou sin?

THE VOICE.

Why was I myself?

JULIAN.

And what didst thou _will_, being thyself?

THE VOICE.

What I must.

JULIAN.

And wherefore must thou?

THE VOICE.

I was myself.

JULIAN.

Thou art sparing of words.

MAXIMUS.

[_Without looking up._] _In vino veritas._

JULIAN.

Thou hast hit it, Maximus?

[_He pours forth a full goblet in front of the empty seat._

Bathe thee in the fumes of wine, my pallid guest! Refresh thee. Feel, feel—it mounts aloft like the smoke of sacrifice.

THE VOICE.

The smoke of sacrifice does not always _mount_.

JULIAN.

Why does that scar redden on thy brow? Nay, nay,—draw not the hair over it; What is it?

THE VOICE.

The mark.

JULIAN.

H’m; no more of that. And what fruit has thy sin borne?

THE VOICE.

The most glorious.

JULIAN.

What callest thou the most glorious?

THE VOICE.

Life.

JULIAN.

And the ground of life?

THE VOICE.

Death.

JULIAN.

And of death?

THE VOICE.

[_Losing itself as in a sigh._] Ah, _that_ is the riddle!

JULIAN.

Gone!

MAXIMUS.

[_Looking up._] Gone?

JULIAN.

Yes.

MAXIMUS.

Didst thou know him?

JULIAN.

Yes.

MAXIMUS.

Who was it?

JULIAN.

Cain.

MAXIMUS.

By _that_ way, then! Ask no more!

JULIAN.

[_With an impatient gesture._] The second, Maximus!

MAXIMUS.

No, no, no; I will not!

JULIAN.

The second, I say! Thou hast sworn that I should fathom the meaning of certain things. The second, Maximus. I will see him; I will know my guests!

MAXIMUS.

Thou hast willed it, not I.

[_He waves his wand._

Arise and come to light, thou willing slave, thou who didst help at the world’s next great turning-point.

JULIAN.

[_Gazes for a moment into the empty space; suddenly he makes a gesture of repulsion towards the seat at its side, and says in a low voice_:] No nearer!

MAXIMUS.

[_Who has turned his back._] Dost thou see him?

JULIAN.

Yes.

MAXIMUS.

How dost thou see him?

JULIAN.

I see him as a red-bearded man. His garments are rent, and he has a rope round his neck——

Speak to him, Maximus!

MAXIMUS.

’Tis thou must speak.

JULIAN.

What wast thou in life?

A VOICE.

[_Close beside him._] The twelfth wheel of the world chariot.

JULIAN.

The twelfth? The fifth is reckoned useless.

THE VOICE.

But for me, whither had the chariot rolled?

JULIAN.

Whither did it roll by means of thee?

THE VOICE

Into the glory of glories.

JULIAN.

Why didst thou help?

THE VOICE.

Because I _willed_.

JULIAN.

What didst thou will?

THE VOICE.

What I _must_.

JULIAN.

Who chose thee?

THE VOICE.

The master.

JULIAN.

Did the master foreknow when he chose thee?

THE VOICE.

Ah, _that_ is the riddle!

[_A short silence._

MAXIMUS.

Thou art silent.

JULIAN.

He is no longer here.

MAXIMUS.

[_Looking up._] Didst thou know him?

JULIAN.

Yes.

MAXIMUS.

How was he called in life?

JULIAN.

Judas Iscariot.

MAXIMUS.

[_Springing up._] The abyss blossoms; the night betrays itself!

JULIAN.

[_Shrieks to him._] Forth with the third!

MAXIMUS.

He shall come!

[_He waves the wand._

Come forth, thou third corner-stone! Come forth, thou third great freed-man under necessity!

[_He casts himself down again on the couch, and turns his face
away._

What seest thou?

JULIAN.

I see nothing.

MAXIMUS.

And yet he is here.

[_He waves the wand again._

By Solomon’s seal, by the eye in the triangle—I conjure thee—come to sight!——

What seest thou now?

JULIAN.

Nothing, nothing!

MAXIMUS.

[_Waving his wand once more._] Come forth, thou——!

[_He stops suddenly, utters a shriek, and springs up from the
table._

Ah! lightning in the night! I see it;—all art is in vain.

JULIAN.

[_Rising._] Why? Speak, speak!

MAXIMUS.

The third is not yet among the shades.

JULIAN.

He lives?

MAXIMUS.

Yes, he lives.

JULIAN.

And _here_, sayest thou——!

MAXIMUS.

Here, or there, or among the unborn;—I know not——

JULIAN.

[_Rushing at him._] Thou liest! Thou art deceiving me! _Here_, here thou saidst——!

MAXIMUS.

Let go my cloak!

JULIAN.

Then it is thou, or I! But which of us?

MAXIMUS.

Let go my cloak, Julian!

JULIAN.

Which of us? Which? All hangs on that!

MAXIMUS.

Thou knowest more than I. What said the voice in the light?

JULIAN.

The voice in the light——!

[_With a cry._] The empire! The empire? To found the empire——!

MAXIMUS.

The third empire!

JULIAN.

No; a thousand times no! Away, corrupter! I renounce thee and all thy works——

MAXIMUS.

And necessity?

JULIAN.

I defy necessity! I will not serve it! I am free, free, free![10]

[_A noise outside; the dancing-girls and flute-players take to
flight._

MAXIMUS.

[_Listening towards the right._] What is this alarm and shrieking——?

JULIAN.

Strange men are forcing their way into the house——

MAXIMUS.

They are maltreating your servants; they will murder us!

JULIAN.

Fear not; us no one can hurt.

THE CHAMBERLAIN EUTHERIUS.

[_Comes hastily across the court._] My lord, my lord!

JULIAN.

What is that noise without?

EUTHERIUS.

Strange men have surrounded the house; they have set a watch at all the doors; they are making their way in—almost by force. Here they come, my lord! Here they are!

_The QUAESTOR LEONTES, with a large and richly-attired retinue, enters
from the right._

LEONTES.

Pardon, a thousand pardons, most gracious lord——

JULIAN.

[_Recoiling a step._] What do I see!

LEONTES.

Your servants would have hindered me from entering; and as my errand was of the utmost moment——

JULIAN.

You here, in Ephesus, my excellent Leontes!

LEONTES.

I have travelled night and day, as the Emperor’s envoy.

JULIAN.

[_Turning pale._] To me? What would the Emperor with me? I swear I am unwitting of any crime. I am sick, Leontes! This man—[_Pointing to MAXIMUS_]—attends me as my physician.

LEONTES.

Permit me, my gracious lord——!

JULIAN.

Why do you force your way into my house? What is the Emperor’s will?

LEONTES.

His will is to gladden you, my lord, by a great and weighty announcement.

JULIAN.

I pray you, let me know what announcement you bring.

LEONTES.

[_Kneels._] My most noble lord,—with praise to your good fortune and my own, I hail you Caesar.

THE QUAESTOR’S FOLLOWERS.

Long live Julian Caesar!

MAXIMUS.

Caesar!

JULIAN.

[_Retreating, with an exclamation._] Caesar! Stand up, Leontes! What mad words are these!

LEONTES.

I do but deliver the Emperor’s commands.

JULIAN.

I—I Caesar!—Ah, where is Gallus?

LEONTES.

Oh, do not ask me.

JULIAN.

Where is Gallus? Tell me, I conjure you,—where is Gallus?

LEONTES.

[_Standing up._] Gallus Caesar is with his beloved wife.

JULIAN.

Dead?

LEONTES.

In bliss, with his wife.

JULIAN.

Dead! dead! Gallus dead! Dead in the midst of his triumphal progress! But when,—and where?

LEONTES.

Oh, my dear lord, spare me——

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS.

[_Struggling with the guards at the door._] I must go to him! Aside, I say!—Julian!

JULIAN.

Gregory, brother,—after all, you come again?

GREGORY.

Is it true, what rumour is scattering like a storm of arrows over the city?

JULIAN.

I am myself transfixed by one of its arrows. Dare I believe in this blending of good hap and of ill?

GREGORY.

For Christ’s sake, bid the tempter avaunt!

JULIAN.

The Emperor’s commands, Gregory!

GREGORY.

You will trample on your brother’s bloody corpse——

JULIAN.

Bloody——?

GREGORY.

Know you it not? Gallus Caesar was murdered.

JULIAN.

[_Clasping his hands._] Murdered?

LEONTES.

Ah, who is this audacious——?

JULIAN.

Murdered? Murdered? [_To LEONTES._] Tell me he lies!

LEONTES.

Gallus Caesar has fallen through his own misdeeds.