Part 16 (1/2)

'Whew! who is here? Take care! Your tongue, old man, has short s.p.a.ce to wag in.'

'I am no Christian, knave, but I trust I am a man: and that is more than any can say of you, that know you. Out upon you for a savage!'

The little crowd burst into loud laughter at this, and with various abusive epithets moved away. The old man addressed himself to me, who alone remained as they withdrew,--

'Aurelian, I believe, would do well enough were he let alone. He is inclined to cruelty, I know: but n.o.body can deny that, cruel or not, he has wrought most beneficial changes both in the army and in the city. He has been in some sort, up to within the last half year, a censor, greater than Valerian; a reformer, greater and better than even he. Had he not been crazed by his successes in the East, and were he not now led, and driven, and maddened, by the whole priesthood of Rome, with the h.e.l.l-born Fronto at their head, we might look for a new and a better Rome. But, as it is, I fear these young savages, who are just gone, will see all fulfilled they are praying for. A fair day to you.'

And he too turned away. Others were come into the same spot, and for a long time did I listen to similar language. Many came, looked, said nothing, and took their way, with paler face, and head depressed, silent under the imprecations heaped upon the atheists, but manifestly either of their side in sympathy, or else of the very atheists themselves.

I now sought my home, tired of the streets, and of all I had seen and heard. Many of my acquaintance, and friends pa.s.sed me on the way, in whose altered manner I could behold the same signs which, in ruder form, I had just seen at the window of Periander. Not, Fausta, that all my friends of the Roman faith are summer ones, but that, perhaps, most are.

Many among them, though attached firmly as my mother to the existing inst.i.tutions, are yet, like her, possessed of the common sentiments of humanity, and would venture much or all to divert the merest shadow of harm from my head. Among these, I still pa.s.s some of my pleasantest and most instructive hours--for with them the various questions involved in the whole subject of religion, are discussed with the most perfect freedom and mutual confidence. Varus, the prefect, whom I met among others, greeted me with unchanged courtesy. His sweetest smile was on his countenance as he swept by me, wis.h.i.+ng me a happy day. How much more tolerable is the rude aversion, or loud reproaches of those I have told you of, than this honied suavity, that means nothing, and would be still the same though I were on the way to the block.

As I entered my library, Solon accosted me, to say, that there had been one lately there most urgent to see me. From his account, I could suppose it to be none other than the Jew Isaac, who, Milo has informed me, is now returned to Rome, which he resorts to as his most permanent home. Solon said that, though a.s.sured I was not at home, he would not be kept back, but pressed on into the house, saying that 'these Roman n.o.bles often sat quietly in their grand halls, while they were denied to their poor clients. Piso was an old acquaintance of his when in Palmyra, and he had somewhat of moment to communicate to him, and must see him.'

'No sooner,' said Solon, 'had he got into the library, the like of which, I may safely affirm, he had never seen before, for his raiment betokened a poor and ragged life, than he stood, and gazed as much at his ease as if it had been his own, and then, by Hercules! unb.u.t.toning his pack, for he was burdened with one both before and behind, he threw his old limbs upon a couch, and began to survey the room! I could not but ask him, If he were the elder Piso, old Cneius Piso, come back from Persia, in Persian beard and gown?--'Old man,' said he, 'your brain is turned with many books, and the narrow life you lead here, shut out from the living world of man. One man is worth all the books ever writ, save those of Moses. Go out into the streets and read him, and your senses will come again. Cneius Piso! Take you me for a spirit? I am Isaac the Jew, citizen of the world, and dealer in more rarities and valuables than you ever saw or dreamed of. Shall I open my parcels for thee?' No, said I, I would not take thy poor gewgaws for a gift. One worm-eaten book is worth them all.--'G.o.d restore thy reason!' said he, 'and give thee wisdom before thou diest; and that, by thy wrinkles and hairless pate must be soon.' What more of false he would have added I know not, for at that moment he sprang from where he sat like one suddenly mad, exclaiming, 'Holy Abraham! what do my eyes behold, or do they lie?

Surely that is Moses! Never was he on Sinai, if his image be not here!

Happy Piso! and happy Isaac to be the instrument of such grace! Who could have thought it? And yet many a time, in my dreams, have I beheld him, with a beard like mine, his hat on his head, his staff in his hand, as if standing at the table of the Pa.s.sover, the princess with him, and--dreams will do such things--a brood of little chickens at their side. And now--save the last--it is all come to pa.s.s. And here, too, who may this be? who, but Aaron, the younger and milder! He was the speaker, and lo! his hand is stretched out! And this young Joseph is at his knee the better to interpret his character to the beholder. Moses and Aaron in the chief room of a Roman senator, and he, a Piso! Now, Isaac, thou mayest tie on thy pack, and take thy leave with a merry heart, for G.o.d, if never before, now accepteth thy works.' And much more, n.o.ble sir, in the same raving way, which was more dark to my understanding than the darkest pages of Aristotle.'

I gathered from Solon, that he would return in the evening in the hope to see me, for he had that to impart which concerned nearly my welfare.

I was watching with Julia, from the portico which fronts the Esquiline and overlooks the city, the last rays of the declining sun, as they gilded the roofs and domes of the vast sea of building before us, lingering last upon, and turning to gold the brazen statues of Antonine and of Trajan, when Milo approached us, saying that Isaac had returned.

He was in a moment more with us.

'Most n.o.ble Piso,' said he, 'I joy to see thee again; and this morning, I doubt not, I should have seen thee, but for the obstinacy of an ancient man, whose wits seem to have been left behind as he has gone onward. I seek thee, Piso, for matters of moment. Great princess,' he suddenly cried, turning to Julia with as profound a reverence as his double burden would allow, 'glad am I to greet thee in Rome; not glad that thou wert forced to flee here, but glad that if, out of Palmyra, thou art here in the heart of all that can best minister to thy wants.

Not a wish can arise in the heart but Rome can answer it. Nay, thou canst have few for that which is rare and costly, but even I can answer them. Hast thou ever seen, princess, those diamonds brought from the caves of mountains a thousand miles in the heart of India, in which there lurks a tint, if I may so name it, like this last blush of the western sky? They are rarer than humanity in a Roman, or apostacy in a Jew, or truth in a Christian. I shall show thee one.' And he fell to unlacing his pack, and drawing forth its treasures.

Julia a.s.sured him, she should see with pleasure whatever he could show her of rich or rare.

'There are, lady, jewelers, as they name themselves in Rome, who dwell in magnificent houses, and whose shops are half the length of a street, who cannot show you what Isaac can out of an old goatskin pack. And how should they? Have they, as I have, traveled the earth's surface and trafficked between crown and crown? What king is there, whose necessities I have not relieved by purchasing his rarest gems; or whose vanity I have not pleased by selling him the spoils of another? Old Sapor, proud as he was, was more than once in the grasp of Isaac. There!

it is in this case--down, you see, in the most secret part of my pack--but who would look for wealth under this sordid covering? as who, lady, for a soul within this shriveled and shattered body? yet is there one there. In such outside, both of body and bag, is my safety. Who cares to stop the poor man, or hold parley with him? None so free of the world and its high ways as he; safe alike in the streets of Rome, and on the deserts of Arabia. His rags are a s.h.i.+eld stouter than one of seven-fold bull's hide. Never but in such guise could I bear such jewels over the earth's surface. Here, lady, is the gem; never has it yet pressed the finger of queen or subject. The stone I brought from the East, and Demetrius, here in Rome, hath added the gold. Give me so much pleasure--'

And he placed it upon Julia's finger. It flashed a light such as we never before saw in stone. It was evidently a most rare and costly gem.

It was of great size and of a hue such as I had never before seen.

'This is a queen's ring, Isaac,' said Julia--'and for none else.'

'It well becomes the daughter of a queen'--replied the Jew, 'and the wife of Piso--specially seeing that--Ah, Piso! Piso! how was I overjoyed to-day to see in thy room the evidence that my counsels had not been thrown away. The Christian did not gain thee with all his cunning--'

'Nay, Isaac'--I here interrupted him--'you must not let your benevolent wishes lead you into error. I am not yet a Jew. Those images that caught your eye were not wholly such as you took them for.'

'Well, well,' said the philosophic Jew, 'rumor then has for once spoken the truth. She has long, as I learn, reported thee Christian: but I believed it not. And to-day, when I looked upon those statues, I pleased myself with the thought that thou, and the princess, like her august mother, had joined themselves to Israel. But if it be not so, then have I an errand for thee, which, but now, I hoped I might not be bound to deliver. Piso, there is danger brewing for thee, and for all who hold with thee!'

'So I hear, Isaac, on all sides, and partly believe it. But the rumor is far beyond the truth, I do not doubt.'

'I think not so,' said Isaac. 'I believe the truth is beyond the rumor.

Aurelian intends more and worse than he has spoken; and already has he dipt his hand in blood!'

'What say you? how is it you mean?' said Julia.

'Whose name but Aurelia's has been in the city's ears these many days? I can tell you, what is known as yet not beyond the Emperor's palace and the priest's, Aurelia is dead!'