The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance Part 20

Presently I became conscious of a deep murmuring sound tike the subdued hum of many thousands of voices,--and lifting my eyes I saw the wide circular sweep of a vast arena crowded with people. In the centre, and well to the front of the uplifted tiers of seats, there was a gorgeous pavilion of gold, draped with gaudy coloured silk and hung with festoons of roses, wherein sat a heavily-built, brutish-looking man royally robed and crowned, and wearing jewels In such profusion as to seem literally clothed in flas.h.i.+ng points of light. Beautiful women were gathered round him,--boys with musical instruments crouched at his feet--attendants stood on every hand to minister to his slightest call or signal,--and all eyes were fixed upon him as upon some wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d of a nation's idolatry. I felt and knew that I was looking upon the 'shadow-presentment' of the Roman tyrant Nero; and I wondered vaguely how it chanced that he, in all the splendour of his wild and terrible career of wickedness, should be brought into this phantasmagoria of dream in which I and One Other alone seemed to be chiefly concerned.

There were strange noises in my ears,--the loud din of trumpets--the softer sound of harps played enchantingly in some far-off distance--the ever-increasing loud buzzing of the voices of the mult.i.tude--and then all at once the roar as of angry wild beasts in impatience or pain. The time of this vision seemed to be late afternoon--I thought I could see a line of deep rose colour in a sky where the sun had lately set--the flare of torches glimmered all round the arena and beyond it, striking vivid brilliancy from the jewels on Nero's breast and throwing into strong relief the groups of soldiers and people immediately around him.

I perceived now that the centre of the arena, previously empty, had become the one spot on which the looks of the people began to turn--one woman stood there all alone, clad in white, her arms crossed on her breast. So still was she,--so apparently unconscious of her position, that the mob, ever irritated by calmness, grew suddenly furious, and a fierce cry arose:--"Ad leones! Ad leones!" The great Emperor stirred from his indolent, half-reclining position and leaned forward with a sudden look of interest on his lowering features,--and as he did so a man attired in the costume of a gladiator entered the arena from one of its side doors and with a calm step and a.s.sured demeanour walked up to the front of the royal dais and there dropped on one knee. Then quickly rising he drew himself erect and waited, his eyes fixed on the woman who stood as immovably as a statue, apparently resigned to some untoward fate. And again the vast crowd shouted "Ad leones! Ad leones!"

There came a heavy grating noise of drawn bolts and bars--the sound of falling chains--then a savage animal roar--and two lean and ferocious lions sprang into the arena, las.h.i.+ng their tails, their manes bristling and their eyes aglare. Quick as thought, the gladiator stood in their path--and I swiftly recognised the nature of the 'sport' that had brought the Emperor and all this brave and glittering show of humanity out to watch what to them was merely a 'sensation'--the life of a Christian dashed out by the claws and fangs of wild beasts--a common pastime, all unchecked by either the mercy of man or the intervention of G.o.d! I understood as clearly as if the explanation had been volunteered to me in so many words, that the woman who awaited her death so immovably had only one chance of rescue, and that chance was through the gladiator, who, to please the humour of the Emperor, had been brought hither to combat and frighten them off their intended victim,--the reward for him, if he succeeded, being the woman herself.

I gazed with aching, straining eyes on the wonderful dream-spectacle, and my heart thrilled as I saw one of the lions stealthily approach the solitary martyr and prepare to spring. Like lightning, the gladiator was upon the famished brute, fighting it back in a fierce and horrible contest, while the second lion, pouncing forward and bent on a similar attack, was similarly repulsed. The battle between man and beasts was furious, prolonged and terrible to witness--and the excitement became intense. "Ad leones! Ad leones!" was now the universal wild shout, rising ever louder and louder into an almost frantic clamour. The woman meanwhile never stirred from her place--she might have been frozen to the ground where she stood. She appeared to notice neither the lions who were ready to devour her, nor the gladiator who combated them in her defence--and I studied her strangely impa.s.sive figure with keen interest, waiting to see her face,--for I instinctively felt I should recognise it. Presently, as though in response to my thought, she turned towards me,--and as in a mirror I saw MY OWN REFLECTED PERSONALITY again as I had seen it so many times in this chain of strange episodes with which I was so singularly concerned though still an outside spectator. Between her Shadow-figure and what I felt of my own existing Self there seemed to be a pale connecting line of light, and all my being thrilled towards her with a curiously vague anxiety. A swirling mist came before my eyes suddenly,--and when this cleared I saw that the combat was over--the lions lay dead and weltering in their blood on the trampled sand of the arena, and the victorious gladiator stood near their p.r.o.ne bodies triumphant, amid the deafening cheers of the crowd. Wreaths of flowers were tossed to him from the people, who stood up in their seats all round the great circle to hail him with their acclamations, and the Emperor, lifting his unwieldy body from under his canopy of gold, stretched out his hand as a sign that the prize which the dauntless combatant had fought to win was his. He at once obeyed the signal;--but now the woman, hitherto so pa.s.sive and immovable, stirred. Fixing upon the gladiator a glance of the deepest reproach and anguish, she raised her arms warningly as though forbidding him to approach her--and then fell face forward on the ground. He rushed to her side, and kneeling down sought to lift her;--then suddenly he sprang erect with a loud cry:--

"Great Emperor! I asked of thee a living love!--and this is dead!"

A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. The Emperor leaned forward from his throne and smiled.

"Thank your Christian G.o.d for that!" he said--"Our pagan deities are kinder! They give us love for love!"

The gladiator gave a wild gesture of despair and turned his face upward to the light--THE FACE OF SANTORIS!

"Dead!--dead!"--he cried--"Of what use then is life? Dark are the beloved eyes!--cold is the generous heart!--the fight has been in vain--my victory mocks me with its triumph! The world is empty!"

Again the laughter of the populace stirred the air.

"Go to, man!"--and the rough voice of Nero sounded harshly above the murmurous din--"The world was never the worse for one woman the less!

Wouldst thou also be a Christian? Take heed! Our lions are still hungry! Thy love is dead, 'tis true, but WE have not killed her! She trusted in her G.o.d, and He has robbed thee of thy lawful possession.

Blame Him, not us! Go hence, with thy laurels bravely won! Nero commends thy prowess!"

He flung a purse of gold at the gladiator's feet--and then I saw the whole scene melt away into a confused ma.s.s of light and colour till all was merely a pearl-grey haze floating before my eyes. Yet I was hardly allowed a moment's respite before another scene presented itself like a painting upon the curtain of vapour which hung so persistently in front of me--a scene which struck a closer chord upon my memory than any I had yet beheld.

The cool, s.p.a.cious interior of a marble-pillared hall or studio slowly disclosed itself to my view--it was open to an enchanting vista of terraced gardens and dark undulating woods, and gay parterres of brilliant blossom were spread in front of it like a wonderfully patterned carpet of intricate and exquisite design. Within it was all the picturesque grace and confusion of an artist's surroundings; and at a great easel, working a.s.siduously, was one who seemed to be the artist himself, his face turned from me towards his canvas. Posed before him, in an att.i.tude of indolent grace, was a woman, arrayed in clinging diaphanous drapery, a few priceless jewels gleaming here and there like stars upon her bosom and arms--her hair, falling in loose waves from a band of pale blue velvet fastened across it, was of a warm brown hue like an autumn leaf with the sun upon it, and I could see that whatever she might be according to the strictest canons of beauty, the man who was painting her portrait considered her more than beautiful. I heard his voice, in the low, murmurous yet perfectly distinct way in which all sounds were conveyed to me in this dream pageant--it was exactly as if persons on the stage were speaking to an audience.

"If we could understand each other,"--he said--"I think all would be well with us in time and eternity!"

There was a pause. The picturesque scene before me seemed to glow and gather intensity as I gazed.

"If you could see what is in my heart,"--he continued--"you would be satisfied that no greater love was ever given to woman than mine for you! Yet I would not say I give it to you--for I have striven against it." He paused--and when he spoke again his words were so distinct that they seemed close to my ears.

"It has been wrung out of my very blood and soul--I can no more resist it than I can resist the force of the air by which I live and breathe.

I ought not to love you,--you are a joy forbidden to me--and yet I feel, rightly speaking, that you are already mine--that you belong to me as the other half of myself, and that this has been so from the beginning when G.o.d first ordained the mating of souls. I tell you I FEEL this, but cannot explain it,--and I grasp at you as my one hope of joy!--I cannot let you go!"

She was silent, save for a deep sigh that stirred her bosom under its folded lace and made her jewels sparkle like sunbeams on the sea.

"If I lose you now, having known and loved you," he went on--"I lose my art. Not that this would matter--"

Her voice trembled on the air.

"It would matter a great deal"--she said, softly--"to the world!"

"The world!" he echoed--"What need I care for it? Nothing seems of value to me where you are not--I am nerveless, senseless, hopeless without you. My inspiration--such as it is--comes from you--"

She moved restlessly--her face was turned slightly away so that I could not see it.

"My inspiration comes from you,"--he repeated--"The tender look of your eyes fills me with dreams which might--I do not say would--realise themselves in a life's renown--but all this is perhaps nothing to you.

What, after all, can I offer you? Nothing but love! And here in Florence you could command more lovers than there are days in the week, did you choose--but people say you are untouchable by love even at its best. Now I--"

Here he stopped abruptly and laid down his brush, looking full at her.

"I," he continued--"love you at neither best nor worst, but simply and entirely with all of myself--all that a man can be in pa.s.sionate heart, soul and body!"

(How the words rang out! I could have sworn they were spoken close beside me and not by dream-voices in a dream!)

"If you loved me--ah G.o.d!--what that would mean! If you dared to brave everything--if you had the courage of love to break down all barriers between yourself and me!--but you will not do this--the sacrifice would be too great--too unusual--"

"You think it would?"

The question was scarcely breathed. A look of sudden amazement lightened his face--then he replied, gently--

"I think it would! Women are impulsive,--generous to a fault--they give what they afterwards regret--who can blame them! You have much to lose by such a sacrifice as I should ask of you--I have all to gain. I must not be selfish. But I love you!--and your love would be to more than the hope of Heaven!"

And now strange echoes of a modern poet's rhyme became mingled in my dream:

"You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you-- Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer, But will it not one day in heaven repent you?

Will they solace you wholly, the days that were?

Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, Meet mine and see where the great love is?

And tremble and turn and be changed?--Content you; The gate is strait; I shall not be there.

Yet I know this well; were you once sealed mine, Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath, Mixed into me as honey in wine, Not time that sayeth and gainsayeth, Nor all strong things had severed us then, Not wrath of G.o.ds nor wisdom of men, Nor all things earthly nor all divine, Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death!"

I watched with a deepening thrill of anxiety the scene in the studio, and my thoughts centred themselves upon the woman who sat there so quietly, seeming all unmoved by the knowledge that she held a man's life and future fame in her hands. The artist took up his palette and brushes again and began to work swiftly, his hand trembling a little.

"You have my whole confession now!"--he said--"You know that you are the eyes of the world to me--the glory of the sun and the moon! All my art is in your smile--all my life responds to your touch. Without you I am--can be nothing--Cosmo de Medicis--"

At this name a kind of shadow crept upon the scene, together with a sense of cold.

"Cosmo de Medicis"--he repeated, slowly--"my patron, would scarcely thank me for the avowals I have made to his fair ward!--one whom he intends to honour with his own alliance. I am here by his order to paint the portrait of his future bride!--not to look at her with the eyes of a lover. But the task is too difficult--"

A little sound escaped her, like a smothered cry of pain. He turned towards her.

"Something in your face,"--he said--"a touch of longing in your sweet eyes, has made me risk telling you all, so that you may at least choose your own way of love and life--for there is no real life without love."

Suddenly she rose and confronted him--and once again, as in a magic mirror, I saw MY OWN REFLECTED PERSONALITY. There were tears in her eyes,--yet a smile quivered on her mouth.

"My beloved!"--she said--and then paused, as if afraid.

A look of wonder and rapture came on his face like the light of sunrise, and I RECOGNISED THE NOW FAMILIAR FEATURES OF SANTORIS! Very gently he laid down his palette and brushes and stood waiting in a kind of half expectancy, half doubt.

"My beloved!" she repeated--"Have you not seen?--do you not know? O my genius!--my angel!--am I so hard to read?--so difficult to win?"