Callista Part 2

Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs.

"At one time I thought you would have been baptized," his brother continued.

"That was my weakness," answered Juba; "it was a weak moment: it was just after the old bishop's death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me."

"Oh that you had yielded to your wis.h.!.+" cried Agellius.

Juba looked superior. "The fit pa.s.sed," he said. "I have come to a juster view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion;" and he began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a great many.

"Well," said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a conclusion of the altercation, "what brings you here so late?"

"I was on my way to Jucundus," he answered, "and have been delayed by the Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river."

Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite white. "My poor fellow," he said, "what were you there for?"

"To see the world," answered Juba; "it's unmanly not to see it. Why shouldn't I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots.

There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no kind of harm."

"No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog?"

"You don't take just views of human nature," answered Juba, with a self-satisfied air. "Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog," and he laughed.

"This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and try this way, if I please."

"Happiness!" cried Agellius; "where have you been picking up all this stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness?"

"What do you know about such matters?" asked Juba. "Did you ever see them?

Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own way. I'd rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do, crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has been beaten."

"Now, as I live, you shan't stop here one instant longer!" cried out Agellius, starting up. "Be off with you! get away! what do you come here to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take yourself off! Why don't you go? Keep your ribaldry for others."

"I am as good as you any day," said Juba.

"I don't set myself up," answered Agellius, "but it's impossible to confound Christian and unbeliever as you do."

"Christian and unbeliever!" said Juba, slowly. "I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded." He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, "If I _were_ a Christian, I'd be so in earnest: else I'd be an honest heathen."

Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarra.s.sment.

"I despise you," said Juba; "you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you're not made of that stuff.

You're even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you," he continued, "I despise you, and the whole kit of you.

What's the difference between you and another? Your people say, 'Earth's a vanity, life's a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short;' but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit."

"It is one thing to have a conscience," answered Agellius; "another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once."

"Conscience, conscience," said Juba. "Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and s.h.i.+vering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now-white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none."

Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor.

"The truth is," continued Juba, with the air of a teacher-"the truth is, that religion was a fas.h.i.+on with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon," he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, "which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It's among the things that were."

Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, "I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don't believe a bit more about religion than I do."

"You must not say that under my roof," cried Agellius, feeling he must not let his brother's charge pa.s.s without a protest. "Many are my sins, but unbelief is not one of them."

Juba tossed his head. "I think I can see through a stone slab as well as any one," he said. "It is as I have said; but you're too proud to confess it. It's part of your hypocrisy."

"Well," said Agellius coldly, "let's have done. It's getting late, Juba; you'll be missed at home. Jucundus will be inquiring for you, and some of those revelling friends of yours may do you a mischief by the way. Why, my good fellow," he continued, in surprise, "you have no leggings. The scorpions will catch hold of you to a certainty in the dark. Come, let me tie some straw wisps about you."

"No fear of scorpions for me," answered Juba; "I have some real good amulets for the occasion, which even _boola-kog_ and _uffah_ will respect."

Saying this, he pa.s.sed out of the room as unceremoniously as he had entered it, and took the direction of the city, talking to himself, and singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of wild airs as he went along, throwing back and shaking his head, and now and then uttering a sharp internal laugh. Disdaining to follow the ordinary path, he dived down into the thick and wet gra.s.s, and scrambled through the ravine, which the public road crossed before it ascended the hill. Meanwhile he accompanied his quickened pace with a louder strain, and it ran as follows:-

"The little black Moor is the mate for me, When the night is dark, and the earth is free, Under the limbs of the broad yew-tree.

"'Twas Father Cham that planted that yew, And he fed it fat with the b.l.o.o.d.y dew Of a score of brats, as his lineage grew.

"Footing and flaunting it, all in the night, Each lock flings fire, each heel strikes light; No lamps need they, whose breath is bright."

Here he was interrupted by a sudden growl, which sounded almost under his feet, and some wild animal was seen to slink away. Juba showed no surprise; he had taken out a small metal idol, and whispering some words to it, had presented it to the animal. He clambered up the bank, gained the city gate, and made his way for his uncle's dwelling, which was near the temple of Astarte.

CHAPTER V.

JUCUNDUS AT SUPPER.

The house of Jucundus was closed for the night when Juba reached it, or you would see, were you his companion, that it was one of the most showy shops in Sicca. It was the image-store of the place, and set out for sale, not articles of statuary alone, but of metal, of mosaic work, and of jewellery, as far as they were dedicated to the service of paganism. It was bright with the many colours adopted in the embellishment of images, and the many lights which silver and gold, bra.s.s and ivory, alabaster, gypsum, talc, and gla.s.s reflected. Shelves and cabinets were laden with wares; both the precious material, and the elaborated trinket. All tastes were suited, the popular and the refined, the fas.h.i.+on of the day and the love of the antique, the cla.s.sical and the barbarian devotion. There you might see the rude symbols of invisible powers, which, originating in deficiency of art, had been perpetuated by reverence for the past: the mysterious cube of marble sacred among the Arabs, the pillar which was the emblem of Mercury or Bacchus, the broad-based cone of Heliogabalus, the pyramid of Paphos, and the tile or brick of Juno.

There, too, were the unmeaning blocks of stone with human heads, which were to be dressed out in rich robes, and to simulate the human form.

There were other articles besides, as portable as these were unmanageable: little Junos, Mercuries, Dianas, and Fortunas, for the bosom or the girdle. Household G.o.ds were there, and the objects of personal devotion: Minerva or Vesta, with handsome niches or shrines in which they might reside. There, too, were the bra.s.s crowns, or _nimbi_ which were intended to protect the heads of the G.o.ds from bats and birds. There you might buy, were you a heathen, rings with heads on them of Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Serapis, and above all Astarte. You would find there the rings and signets of the Basilidians; amulets too of wood or ivory: figures of demons, preternaturally ugly; little skeletons, and other superst.i.tious devices.

It would be hard, indeed, if you could not be pleased, whatever your religious denomination-unless indeed you were determined to reject all the appliances and objects of idolatry indiscriminately-and in that case you would rejoice that it was night when you arrived there, and, in particular, that darkness swallowed up other appliances and objects of pagan wors.h.i.+p, which to darkness were due by a particular t.i.tle, and by darkness were best shrouded, till the coming of that day when all things, good and evil, shall be made light.

The shop, as we have said, was closed, concealed from view by large lumbering shutters, and made secure by heavy bars of wood. So we must enter by the pa.s.sage or vestibule on the right side, and that will conduct us into a modest _atrium_, with an _impluvium_ on one side, and on the other the _triclinium_ or supper-room, backing the shop. Jucundus had been pleasantly engaged in a small supper-party; and, mindful that a _symposium_ should lie within the number of the Graces and of the Muses, he had confined his guests to two, the young Greek Aristo, who was one of his princ.i.p.al artists, and Cornelius the son of a freedman of a Roman of distinction, who had lately got a place in one of the _scrinia_ of the proconsular _officium_, and had migrated into the province from the imperial city where he had spent his best days.

The dinner had not been altogether suitable to modern ideas of good living. The grapes from Tacape, and the dates from the lake Tritonis, the white and black figs, the nectarines and peaches, and the watermelons, address themselves to the imagination of an Englishman, as well as of an African of the third century. So also might the liquor derived from the sap or honey of the Getulian palm, and the sweet wine, called _melilotus_, made from the poetical fruit found upon the coast of the Syrtis. He would have been struck, too, with the sweetness of the mutton; but he would have asked what the sheep's tails were before he tasted them, and found how like marrow the firm substance ate of which they consisted. He would have felt he ought to admire the roes of mullets, pressed and dried, from Mauritania; but he would have thought twice before he tried the lion cutlets though they had the flavour of veal, and the additional _gout_ of being imperial property, and poached from a preserve. But when he saw the indigenous dish, the very haggis and c.o.c.k-a-leekie of Africa, in the shape of-(alas! alas! it _must_ be said, with whatever apology for its introduction)-in shape, then, of a delicate puppy, served up with tomatoes, with its head between its fore-paws, we consider he would have risen from the unholy table, and thought he had fallen upon the hospitality of some sorceress of the neighbouring forest. However, to that festive board our Briton was not invited, for he had some previous engagement that evening, either of painting himself with woad, or of hiding himself to the chin in the fens; so that nothing occurred to disturb the harmony of the party, and the good humour and easy conversation which was the effect of such excellent cheer.

Cornelius had been present at the Secular Games in the foregoing year, and was full of them, of Rome, and of himself in connection with it, as became so genuine a c.o.c.kney of the imperial period. He was full of the high patriotic thoughts which so solemn a celebration had kindled within him.

"O great Rome!" he said, "thou art first, and there is no second. In that wonderful pageant which these eyes saw last year was embodied her majesty, was promised her eternity. We die, she lives. I say, _let_ a man die. It's well for him to take hemlock, or open a vein, after having seen the Secular Games. What was there to live for? I felt it; life was gone; its best gifts flat and insipid after that great day. Excellent-Tauromenian, I suppose? We know it in Rome. Fill up my cup. I drink to the genius of the emperor."

He was full of his subject, and soon resumed it. "Fancy the Campus Martius lighted up from one end to the other. It was the finest thing in the world. A large plain, covered, not with streets, not with woods, but broken and crossed with superb buildings in the midst of groves, avenues of trees, and green gra.s.s, down to the water's edge. There's nothing that isn't there. Do you want the grandest temples in the world, the most s.p.a.cious porticoes, the longest racecourses? there they are. Do you want _gymnasia_? there they are. Do you want arches, statues, obelisks? you find them there. There you have at one end the stupendous mausoleum of Augustus, cased with white marble, and just across the river the huge towering mound of Hadrian. At the other end you have the n.o.ble Pantheon of Agrippa, with its splendid Syracusan columns, and its dome glittering with silver tiles. Hard by are the baths of Alexander, with their beautiful groves. Ah! my good friend! I shall have no time to drink if I go on.

Beyond are the numerous chapels and fanes which fringe the base of the Capitoline hill; the tall column of Antoninus comes next, with its adjacent basilica, where is kept the authentic list of the provinces of the empire, and of the governors, each a king in power and dominion, who are sent out to them. Well, I am now only beginning. Fancy, I say, this magnificent region all lighted up; every temple to and fro, every bath, every grove, gleaming with innumerable lamps and torches. No, not even the G.o.ds of Olympus have anything that comes near it. Rome is the greatest of all divinities. In the dead of night all was alive; then it was, when nature sleeps exhausted, Rome began the solemn sacrifices to commemorate her thousand years. On the banks of the Tiber, which had seen aeneas land, and Romulus ascend to the G.o.ds, the clear red flame shot up as the victims burned. The music of ten thousand horns and flutes burst forth, and the sacred dances began upon the greensward. I am too old to dance; but, I protest, even I stood up and threw off. We danced through three nights, dancing the old millenary out, dancing the new millenary in. We were all Romans, no strangers, no slaves. It was a solemn family feast, the feast of all the Romans."

"Then we came in for the feast," said Aristo; "for Caracalla gave Roman citizens.h.i.+p to all freemen all over the world. We are all of us Romans, recollect, Cornelius."