Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v11: Friar Philip's Geese and Minutolo"

Pierre Loti - "Madame Chrysantheme, v1"

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Books: Antonina

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Antonina




'You are too penetrating,' resumed Vetranio, after a short pause, 'not
to have already suspected that I only require your villa to assist me in
the concealment of an intrigue. So peculiar is my adventure in its
different circumstances, that to make use of my palace as the scene of
its development would be to risk a discovery which might produce the
immediate subversion of all my designs. But I fear the length of my
confession will exceed the duration of your patience!'

'You have aroused my curiosity. I could listen to you for ever!'

'A short time before I took my departure from Rome for this place,'
continued Vetranio, 'I encountered an adventure of the most
extraordinary nature, which has haunted me with the most extraordinary
perseverance, and which will have, I feel assured, the most
extraordinary results. I was sitting one evening in the garden of my
palace on the Pincian Mount, occupied in trying a new composition on my
lute. In one of the pauses of the melody, which was tender and
plaintive, I heard sounds that resembled the sobbing of some one in
distress among the trees behind me. I looked cautiously round, and
discerned, half-hidden by the verdure, the figure of a young girl, who
appeared to be listening to the music with the most entranced attention.
Flattered by such a testimony to my skill, and anxious to gain a nearer
view of my mysterious visitant, I advanced towards her hiding-place,
forgetting in my haste to continue playing on the lute. The instant the
music ceased, she discerned me and disappeared. Determined to behold
her, I again struck the chords, and in a few minutes I saw her white
robe once more among the trees. I redoubled my efforts. I played with
the utmost expression the most pathetic parts of the melody. As if
under the influence of a charm, she began to advance towards me, now
hesitating, now moving back a few steps, now approaching, half-
reluctantly, half willingly, until, utterly vanquished by the long
trembling close of the last cadence of the air, she ran suddenly up to
me, and falling at my feet, raised her hands as if to implore my
pardon.'

'Truly this was no common tribute to your skill! Did she speak to you?'


'She uttered not a word,' continued Vetranio. 'Her large soft eyes,
bright with tears, looked piteously up in my face; her delicate lips
trembled, as if she wished to speak, but dared not; her smooth round
arms were the very perfection of beauty. Child as she seemed in years
and emotions, she looked a woman in loveliness and form. For the moment
I was too much astonished by the suddenness of her supplicating action
to move or speak. As soon as I recovered myself I attempted to fondle
and console her, but she shrunk from my embrace, and seemed inclined to
escape from me again; until I touched once more the strings of the lute,
and then she uttered a subdued exclamation of delight, nestled close up
to me, and looked into my face with such a strange expression of mingled
adoration and rapture, that I declare to you, Julia, I felt as bashful
before her as a boy.'

'You bashful! The Senator Vetranio bashful!' exclaimed Julia, looking
up with an expression of the most unfeigned incredulity and
astonishment.

'The lute,' pursued Vetranio gravely, without heeding the interruption,
'was my sole means of procuring any communication with her. If I ceased
playing, we were as strangers; if I resumed, we were as friends. So,
subduing the notes of the instrument while she spoke to me in a soft
tremulous musical voice, I still continued to play. By this plan I
discovered at our first interview that she was the daughter of one
Numerian, that she was on the point of completing her fourteenth year,
and that she was called Antonina. I had only succeeded in gaining this
mere outline of her story, when, as if struck by some sudden
apprehension, she tore herself from me with a look of the utmost terror,
and entreating me not to follow her if I ever desired to see her again,
she disappeared rapidly among the trees.'

'More and more wonderful! And, in your new character of a bashful man,
you doubtless obeyed her injunctions?'

'I did,' replied the senator; 'but the next evening I revisited the
garden grove, and, as soon as I struck the chords, as if by magic, she
again approached. At this second interview I learned the reason of her
mysterious appearances and departures. Her father, she told me, was one
of a new sect, who imagine--with what reason it is impossible to
comprehend--that they recommend themselves to their Deity by making
their lives one perpetual round of bodily suffering and mental anguish.
Not content with distorting all his own feelings and faculties, this
tyrant perpetrated his insane austerities upon the poor child as well.
He forbade her to enter a theatre, to look on sculpture, to read poetry,
to listen to music. He made her learn long prayers, and attend to
interminable sermons. He allowed her no companions of her own age--not
even girls like herself. The only recreation that she could obtain was
the permission--granted with much reluctance and many rebukes--to
cultivate a little garden which belonged to the house they lived in, and
joined at one point the groves round my palace. There, while she was
engaged over her flowers, she first heard the sound of my lute. for many
months before I had discovered her, she had been in the habit of
climbing the enclosure that bounded her garden, and hiding herself among
the trees to listen to the music, whenever her father's concerns took
him abroad. She had been discovered in this occupation by an old man
appointed to watch her in his master's absence. The attendant, however,
on hearing her confession, not only promised to keep her secret, but
permitted her to continue her visits to my grove whenever I chanced to
be playing there on the lute. Now the most mysterious part of this
matter is, that the girl seemed--in spite of his severity towards her--
to have a great affection for her surly; for, when I offered to deliver
her from his custody, she declared that nothing could induce her to
desert him--not even the attraction of living among fine pictures and
hearing beautiful music every hour in the day. But I see I weary you;
and, indeed, it is evident from the length of the shadows that the hour
of my departure is at hand. Let me then pass from my introductory
interviews with Antonina, to the consequences that had resulted from
them when I set forth on my journey to Ravenna.'

'I think I can imagine the consequences already!' said Julia, smiling
maliciously.


'Begin then,' retorted Vetranio, 'by imagining that the strangeness of
this girl's situation, and the originality of her ideas, invested her
with an attraction for me, which the charms of her person and age
contributed immensely to heighten. She delighted my faculties as a
poet, as much as she fired my feelings as a man; and I determined to
lure her from the tyrannical protection of her father by the employment
of every artifice that my ingenuity could suggest. I began by teaching
her to exercise for herself the talent which had so attracted her in
another. By the familiarity engendered on both sides by such an
occupation, I hoped to gain as much in affection from her as she
acquired in skill from me; but to my astonishment, I still found her as
indifferent towards the master, and as tender towards the music, as she
had appeared at our first interview. If she had repelled my advances,
if they had overwhelmed her with confusion, I could have adapted myself
to her humour, I should have felt the encouragement of hope; but the
coldness, the carelessness, the unnatural, incomprehensible ease with
which she received even my caresses, utterly disconcerted me. It seemed
as if she could only regard me as a moving statue, as a mere
impersonation, immaterial as the science I was teaching her. If I spoke,
she hardly looked on me; if I moved, she scarcely noticed the action. I
could not consider it dislike; she seemed to gentle to nourish such a
feeling for any creature on earth. I could not believe it coldness; she
was all life, all agitation, if she heard only a few notes of music.
When she touched the chords of the instrument, her whole frame trembled.
Her eyes, mild, serious, and thoughtful when she looked on me, now
brightened with delight, now softened with tears, when she listened to
the lute. As day by day her skill in music increased, so her manner
towards me grew more inexplicably indifferent. At length, weary of the
constant disappointments that I experienced, and determined to make a
last effort to touch her heart by awakening her gratitude, I presented
her with the very lute which she had at first heard, and on which she
had now learned to play. Never have I seen any human being so
rapturously delighted as this incomprehensible girl when she received
the instrument from my hands. She alternately wept and laughed over it,
she kissed it, fondled it, spoke to it, as if it had been a living
thing. But when I approached to suppress the expressions of
thankfulness that she poured on me for the gift, she suddenly hid the
lute in her robe, as if afraid that I should deprive her of it, and
hurried rapidly from my sight. The next day I waited for her at our
accustomed meeting-place, but she never appeared. I sent a slave to her
father's house, but she would hold no communication with him. It was
evident that, now she had gained her end, she cared no more to behold
me. In my first moments of irritation, I determined to make her feel my
power, if she despised my kindness; but reflection convinced me, from my
acquaintance with her character, that in such a matter force was
impolitic, that I should risk my popularity in Rome, and engage myself
in an unworthy quarrel to no purpose. Dissatisfied with myself, and
disappointed in the girl, I obeyed the first dictates of my impatience,
and seizing the opportunity afforded by my duties in the senate of
escaping from the scene of defeated hopes, I departed angrily for
Ravenna.'

'Departed for Ravenna!' cried Julia, laughing outright. 'Oh, what a
conclusion to the adventure! I confess it, Vetranio, such consequences
as these are beyond all imagination!'

'You laugh, Julia,' returned the senator, a little piqued; 'but hear me
to the end, and you will find that I have not yet resigned myself to
defeat. For the few days that I have remained here, Antonina's image
has incessantly troubled my thoughts. I perceive that my inclination,
as well as my reputation, is concerned in subduing her ungrateful
aversion. I suspect that my anxiety to gain her will, if unremoved, so
far influence my character, that from Vetranio the Serene, I shall be
changed into Vetranio the Sardonic. Pride, honour, curiosity, and love
all urge me to her conquest. To prepare for my banquet is an excuse to
the Court for my sudden departure from this place; the real object of my
journey is Antonina alone.'

'Ah, now I recognise my friend again in his own character,' remarked the
lady approvingly.


'You will ask me how I purpose to obtain another interview with her?'
continued Vetranio. 'I answer, that the girl's attendant has voluntarily
offered himself as an instrument for the prosecution of my plans. The
very day before I departed from Rome, he suddenly presented himself to
my in my garden, and proposed to introduce me into Numerian's house--
having first demanded, with the air more of an equal than an inferior,
whether the report that I was still a secret adherent of the old
religion, of the worship of the gods, was true. Suspicious of the
fellow's motives (for he abjured all recompense as the reward of his
treachery), and irritated by the girl's recent ingratitude, I treated
his offer with contempt. Now, however, that my dissatisfaction is
calmed and my anxiety aroused, I am determined, at all hazards, to trust
myself to this man, be his motives for aiding me what they may. If my
efforts at my expected interview--and I will not spare them--are
rewarded with success, it will be necessary to obtain some refuge for
Antonina that will neither be suspected nor searched. For such a
hiding-place, nothing can be more admirably adapted than your Arician
villa. Do you--now that you know for what use it is intended--repent of
your generous disposal of it in aid of my design?'

'I am delighted to have had it to bestow on you,' replied the liberal
Julia, pressing Vetranio's hand. 'Your adventure is indeed uncommon--I
burn with impatience to hear how it will end. Whatever happens, you may
depend on my secrecy and count on my assistance. But see, the sun is
already verging towards the west; and yonder comes one of your slaves to
inform you, I doubt not, that your equipage is prepared. Return with me
to the palace, and I will supply you with the letter necessary to
introduce you as master to my country abode.'

*****

The worthy citizens of Ravenna assembled in the square before the palace
to behold the senator's departure, had entirely exhausted such innocent
materials for amusement as consisted in staring at the guards, catching
the clouds of gnats that hovered about their ears, and quarrelling with
each other; and were now reduced to a state of very noisy and unanimous
impatience, when their discontent was suddenly and most effectually
appeased by the appearance of the travelling equipage with Vetranio and
Camilla outside the palace gates.

Uproarious shouts greeted the appearance of the senator and his
magnificent retinue; but they were increased a hundred-fold when the
chief slaves, by their master's command, each scattered a handful of
small coin among the poorer classes of the spectators. Every man among
that heterogeneous assemblage of rogues, fools, and idlers roared his
loudest and capered his highest, in honour of the generous patrician.
Gradually and carefully the illustrious travellers moved through the
crowd around them to the city gate; and thence, amid incessant shouts of
applause, raised with imposing unanimity of lung, and wrought up to the
most distracting discordancy of noise, Vetranio and his lively companion
departed in triumph for Rome.

*****

A few days after this event the citizens were again assembled at the
same place and hour--probably to witness another patrician departure--
when their ears were assailed by the unexpected sound produced by the
call to arms, which was followed immediately by the closing of the city
gates. They had scarcely asked each other the meaning of these unusual
occurrences, when a peasant, half frantic with terror, rushed into the
square, shouting out the terrible intelligence that the Goths were in
sight!

The courtiers heard the news, and starting from a luxurious repast,
hurried to the palace windows to behold the portentous spectacle. For
the remainder of the evening the banqueting tables were unapproached by
the guests.


The wretched emperor was surprised among his poultry by that dreaded
intelligence. He, too, hastened to the windows, and looking forth, saw
the army of avengers passing in contempt his solitary fortress, and
moving swiftly onward towards defenceless Rome. Long after the darkness
had hidden the masses of that mighty multitude from his eyes, did he
remain staring helplessly upon the fading landscape, in a stupor of
astonishment and dread; and, for the first time since he had possessed
them, his flocks of fowls were left for that night unattended by their
master's hand.


CHAPTER 3. ROME.

The perusal of the title to this chapter will, we fear, excite emotions
of apprehension, rather than of curiosity, in the breasts of experienced
readers. They will doubtless imagine that it is portentous of long
rhapsodies on those wonders of antiquity, the description of which has
long become absolutely nauseous to them by incessant iteration. They
will foresee wailings over the Palace of the Caesars, and meditations
among the arches of the Colosseum, loading a long series of weary
paragraphs to the very chapter's end; and, considerately anxious to
spare their attention a task from which it recoils, they will
unanimously hurry past the dreaded desert of conventional reflection, to
alight on the first oasis that may present itself, whether it be formed
by a new division of the story, or suddenly indicated by the appearance
of a dialogue. Animated, therefore, by apprehensions such as these, we
hasten to assure them that in no instance will the localities of our
story trench upon the limits of the well-worn Forum, or mount the arches
of the exhausted Colosseum. It is with the beings, and not the
buildings of old Rome, that their attention is to be occupied. We
desire to present them with a picture of the inmost emotions of the
times--of the living, breathing actions and passions of the people of
the doomed Empire. Antiquarian topography and classical architecture we
leave to abler pens, and resign to other readers.

It is, however, necessary that the sphere in which the personages of our
story are about to act should be in some measure indicated, in order to
facilitate the comprehension of their respective movements. That
portion of the extinct city which we design to revive has left few
traces of its existence in the modern town. Its sites are
traditionary--its buildings are dust. The church rises where the temple
once stood, and the wine-shop now lures the passing idler where the bath
invited his ancestor of old.

The walls of Rome are in extent, at the present day, the same as they
were at the period of which we now write. But here all analogy between
the ancient and modern city ends. The houses that those walls were once
scarcely wide enough to enclose have long since vanished, and their
modern successors occupy but a third of the space once allotted to the
capital of the Empire.

Beyond the walls immense suburbs stretched forth in the days of old.
Gorgeous villas, luxurious groves, temples, theatres, baths--
interspersed by colonies of dwellings belonging to the lower orders of
the people--surrounded the mighty city. Of these innumerable abodes
hardly a trace remains. The modern traveller, as he looks forth over
the site of the famous suburbs, beholds, here and there, a ruined
aqueduct, or a crumbling tomb, tottering on the surface of a
pestilential marsh.

The present entrance to Rome by the Porta del Popolo occupies the same
site as the ancient Flaminian Gate. Three great streets now lead from
it towards the southern extremity of the city, and form with their
tributaries the principal portion of modern Rome. On one side they are
bounded by the Pincian Hill, on the other by the Tiber. Of these
streets, those nearest the river occupy the position of the famous
Campus Martius; those on the other side, the ancient approaches to the
gardens of Sallust and Lucullus, on the Pincian Mount.

On the opposite bank of the Tiber (gained by the Ponte St. Angelo,
formerly the Pons Elius), two streets pierced through an irregular and
populous neighbourhood, conduct to the modern Church of St. Peter. At
the period of our story this part of the city was of much greater
consequence, both in size and appearance, than it is at present, and led
directly to the ancient Basilica of St. Peter, which stood on the same
site as that now occupied by the modern edifice.


The events about to be narrated occur entirely in the parts of the city
just described. From the Pincian Hill, across the Campus Martius, over
the Pons Elius, and on to the Basilica of St. Peter, the reader may be
often invited to accompany us, but he will be spared all necessity of
penetrating familiar ruins, or mourning over the sepulchres of departed
patriots.

Ere, however, we revert to former actors or proceed to new characters,
it will be requisite to people the streets that we here attempt to
rebuild. By this process it is hoped that the reader will gain that
familiarity with the manners and customs of the Romans of the fifth
century on which the influence of this story mainly depends, and which
we despair of being able to instil by a philosophical disquisition on
the features of the age. A few pages of illustration will serve our
purpose better, perhaps, than volumes of historical description. There
is no more unerring index to the character of a people than the streets
of their cities.

It is near evening. In the widest part of the Campus Martius crowds of
people are assembled before the gates of a palace. They are congregated
to receive several baskets of provisions, distributed with ostentatious
charity by the owner of the mansion. The incessant clamour and
agitation of the impatient multitude form a strange contrast to the
stately serenity of the natural and artificial objects by which they are
enclosed on all sides.

The space they occupy is oblong in shape and of great extent in size.
Part of it is formed by a turf walk shaded with trees, part by the paved
approaches to the palace and the public baths which stand in its
immediate neighbourhood. These two edifices are remarkable by their
magnificent outward adornments of statues, and the elegance and number
of the flights of steps by which they are respectively entered. With
the inferior buildings, the market-places and the gardens attached to
them, they are sufficiently extensive to form the boundary of one side
of the immediate view. The appearance of monotony which might at other
times be remarked in the vastness and regularity of their white fronts,
is at this moment agreeably broken by several gaily-coloured awnings
stretched over their doors and balconies. The sun is now shining on
them with overpowering brightness; the metallic ornaments on their
windows glitter like gems of fire; even the trees which form their
groves partake of the universal flow of light, and fail, like the
objects around them, to offer to the weary eye either refreshment or
repose.

Towards the north, the Mausoleum of Augustus, towering proudly up into
the brilliant sky, at once attracts the attention. From its position,
parts of this noble building are already in shade. Not a human being is
visible on any part of its mighty galleries--it stands solitary and
sublime, an impressive embodiment of the emotions which it was raised to
represent.

On the side opposite the palace and the baths is the turf walk already
mentioned. Trees, thickly planted and interlaced by vines, cast a
luxurious shade over this spot. In their interstices, viewed from a
distance, appear glimpses of gay dresses, groups of figures in repose,
stands loaded with fruit and flowers, and innumerable white marble
statues of fauns and wood-nymphs. From this delicious retreat the
rippling of fountains is to be heard, occasionally interrupted by the
rustling of leaves, or the plaintive cadences of the Roman flute.


Southward two pagan temples stand in lonely grandeur among a host of
monuments and trophies. The symmetry of their first construction still
remains unimpaired, their white marble pillars shine in the sunlight
brightly as of old, yet they now present to the eye an aspect of strange
desolation, of unnatural mysterious gloom. Although the laws forbid the
worship for which they were built, the hand of reform has as yet not
ventured to doom them to ruin or adapt them to Christian purposes. None
venture to tread their once-crowded colonnades. No priest appears to
give the oracles from their doors; no sacrifices reek upon their naked
altars. Under their roofs, visited only by the light that steals through
their narrow entrances, stand unnoticed, unworshipped, unmoved, the
mighty idols of old Rome. Human emotion, which made them Omnipotence
once, has left them but stone now. The 'Star in the East' has already
dimmed the fearful halo which the devotion of bloodshed once wreathed
round their forms. Forsaken and alone, they stand but as the gloomy
monuments of the greatest delusion ever organised by the ingenuity of
man.

We have now, so to express it, exhibited the frame surrounding the
moving picture, which we shall next attempt to present to the reader by
mixing with the multitude before the palace gates.

This assembly resolved itself into three divisions: that collected
before the palace steps, that loitering about the public baths, and that
reposing in the shade of the groves. The first was of the most
consequence in numbers, and of the greatest variety in appearance.
Composed of rogues of the worst order from every quarter of the world,
it might be said to present, in its general aspect of numerical
importance, the very sublime of degradation. Confident in their rude
union of common avidity, these worthy citizens vented their insolence on
all objects, and in every direction, with a careless impartiality which
would have shamed the most victorious efforts of modern mobs. The
hubbub of voices was perfectly fearful. The coarse execrations of
drunken Gauls, the licentious witticisms of effeminate Greeks, the noisy
satisfaction of native Romans, the clamorous indignation of irritable
Jews--all sounded together in one incessant chorus of discordant noises.
Nor were the senses of sight and smell more agreeably assailed than the
faculty of hearing, by this anomalous congregation. Immodest youth and
irreverent age; woman savage, man cowardly; the swarthy Ethiopian
beslabbered with stinking oil; the stolid Briton begrimed with dirt--
these, and a hundred other varying combinations, to be imagined rather
than expressed, met the attention in every direction. To describe the
odours exhaled by the heat from this seething mixture of many
pollutions, would be to force the reader to close the book; we prefer to
return to the distribution which was the cause of this degrading tumult,
and which consisted of small baskets of roasted meat packed with common
fruits and vegetables, and handed, or rather flung down, to the mob by
the servants of the nobleman who gave the feast. The people revelled in
the abundance thus presented to them. They threw themselves upon it like
wild beasts; they devoured it like hogs, or bore it off like plunderers;
while, secure in the eminence on which they were placed, the purveyors
of this public banquet expressed their contempt for its noisy
recipients, by holding their noses, stopping their ears, turning their
backs, and other pantomimic demonstrations of lofty and excessive
disgust. These actions did not escape the attention of those members of
the assembly who, having eaten their fill, were at leisure to make use
of their tongues, and who showered an incessant storm of abuse on the
heads of their benefactor's retainers.