The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 21 February 1918, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By Cardinal Wiseman.)

FAB IOLA ! V V l 08, ' . ' ;.l’ THE CHURCH PF THE CATACOMBS

Part First— Peace ( CHAPTER THE VISIT. - During the latter part of the dialogue just recorded, and the catastrophe which closed it, there took place an apparition in Fabiola’s room, which, if seen by her, would probably have cut short the one, and prevented the other. The interior chambers, in a Roman house were more frequently divided by curtains across their entrances, than by doors; and thus it was easy, especially during such an excited scene as had just taken place, to enter unobserved. This was the case now ; and when Syra turned to leave the room, she was almost startled at seeing standing, in bright relief before the deep crimson door-curtain, a figure, which she immediately recognised, but which we must briefly describe. It was that of a lady, or rather a child not more than twelve or thirteen years old, dressed in pure and spotless white, without a single ornament about her person. In her countenance might be seen united the simplicity of childhood with the intelligence of a maturer age. There not merely dwelt in her eyes that dove-like innocence which the sacred poet describes, but often there beamed from them rather an intensity of pure affection, as though they were looking beyond all surrounding objects, and rested upon one, unseen by all else, but to her really present, and exquisitely dear. Her forehead was the very seat of candour, open and bright, with undisguising truthfulness; a kindly smile played about the lips, and the fresh, youthful features varied their sensitive expression with guileless earnestness, passing rapidly from one feeling to the other, as her warm and tender heart received it. Those who knew her believed that she never thought of herself, but was divided entirely between kindness to those about her and affection for her unseen love. When Syra saw this beautiful vision, like that of an angel, before her, she paused for a moment. But the child took her hand, and reverently kissed it, saying: “I have seen all ; meet me in the small chamber near the entrance, when I go out.” She then advanced; and "as Fabiola saw her, a crimson blush mantled in her cheek; for she feared the child had been witness of her undignified burst of passion. With a cold wave of her hand she dismissed her slaves, and then greeted her kinswoman, for such she was, with cordial affection. We have said that Fabiola’s temper made a few exceptions in its haughty exercise. One of these was her old nurse and freedwoman Euphrosyne, who directed all her private household, and whose only creed was, that Fabiola was the most perfect of beings, the wisest, most accomplished,, most admirable lady in Rome. Another was her young visitor, whom she loved, and ever treated with gentlest affection, and whose society she always coveted. “This is really kind of you, dear Agnes,” said the softened Fabiola, “to come at my sudden request, to join our table to-day. But the fact is, my father has called in one or two new people to dine, and I was anxious to have some one with whom I could have the excuse of a duty to converse. Yet I own I have some curiosity about one of our new guests. It is Fulvius, of whose grace, wealth, and accomplishments I hear so much; though nobody seems to know who or what he is, or whence he has sprung up.” * -:- V “My dear Fabiola,” replied Agnes, “you know I am always happy to visit you, and my .kind parents willingly allow me; therefore, make no apologies about that.”V- • • ' • /

,v And so you have come to me as usual," said the other playfully, "in your own * snow- white dress, without jewel or ornament, as if you were every day a bride. You always seem to. me to be celebrating one eternal espousal. But, good heavens ! what is this ? Are you hurt? Or are you aware that there is, right on the bosom of your tunic, a large red spot—it looks like blood. If so, let me change your dress at once." "Not for-the worldj Fabiola; it is the jewel, the only ornament I mean to wear this evening. It is blood, and_that of a slave, but nobler, in my eyes, and more generous, than flows in your veins or mine." The whole truth flashed upon Fabiola's mind. Agnes had seen all and humbled almost to sickening, she said Somewhat pettishly, "Do you then wish to exhibit proof to all the world of my hastiness of temper, in over-chastising a forward slave?" "No, dear cousin, far from it. I only wish to preserve for myself a lesson of fortitude, and of elevation of mind, learnt from a slave, such as few patrician philosophers can teach us." "What a strange idea! Indeed, Agnes, I have often thought that you make too much of that class of people. After all, what are they V "Human beings as much as ourselves, endowed with the same reason, the same feelings, the same organisation. Thus far you will admit, at any rate, to go no higher. Then they form part of the same family ; and if God, from Whom comes our life, is thereby our Father, He is theirs as much, and consequently they are our brethren." "A slave my brother or sister, Agnes? The gods forbid it! They are our properly and our goodsj and I have no notion of their being allowed to move, to act, to think, or to feel, except as it suits their masters, or is for their advantage." "Come, come," said Agnes, with her sweetest tones, "do not let us get into a warm discussion. You are too candid and honorable not to feel, and to be ready to acknowledge, that to-day you have been outdone by a slave in all that you most admire, —in mind, in reasoning, in truthfulness, and in heroic fortitude. Do not answer me; I see it in that tear. But, dearest cousin, I will save you from a repetition of your pain. Will you grant me my request?" "Any in my power." "Then it is, that you will allow me to purchase Syra-r-I think that is her name. You will not like to see her about you." "You are mistaken, Agnes. I will master pride for once, and own that I shall now esteem her, perhaps almost admire her. It is a new feeling in me towards one in her station." "But I think, Fabiola, I could make her happier than she is." "No doubt, dear Agnes, you havethe power of making everybody happy about you. I never saw such a household as yours. You seem to carry out in practice that strange philosophy which Syra alluded to, in which there is no distinction of freeman and slave. Everybody in your house is always smiling, and cheerfully anxious to discharge his duty. And there seems to be no one who thinks of commanding. Come, tell me your secret." (Agnes smiled.) "I suspect, you little magician, that in that mysterious chamber, which you will never open for me, you keep your charms and potions by which you make everybody and everything love you. If you were a Christian, and were exposed in the amphitheatre, I am sure the very leopards would crouch and nestle at your feet. - But why do you look so serious, child ? You know I am only joking." Agnes seemed absorbed; and bent forward that keen and tender look which we have mentioned, as though she saw before her, nay, as if she heard speaking to her, some one delicately beloved. It passed away, and. she gaily said, "Well, well, Fabiola, stranger things have come to pass; and at any rate, if aught so dreadful had to happen, Syra would just be the

sort of person .one would like to see near one so you ' really must let me have her." ''V '/'. , -/.-• -. ■'■'•• "For heaven's-sake, Agnes, do not take my words so seriously. . ; I assure you they were spoken in jest. I have too high an opinion of your good sense to be- - lieve such a calamity .possible. But as to Syra's devotedness, you are ; right. When last summer you were, away, and I was so dangerously ill of contagious fever, it required the lash to make the other slaves approach me; while that poor thing would hardly leave me,' but watched by me, "" and nursed me day and night, and I really believe greatly promoted my recovery."' "And did you not Jove her for this ?" "Love her! Love a slave, child! Of course, I took care to reward her generously, though I cannot make out what she does with what I give her. The others tell me she has nothing put by, and she certainly spends nothing on herself. Nay, I have even heard that she foolishly shares her daily allowance of food with a blind beggar-girl. What a strange fancy, to be sure!" "Dearest Fabiola," exclaimed Agnes, "she must be mine ! You promised me my request. Name your price, and let me take her home this evening." "Well, be it so, you most irresistible of petitioners. But we will not bargain together. Send some one to-morrow to see my father's steward, and all will be right. And now this o-reat piece of business being settled between us, let us go down to our guests." "But you have forgotten to put on your jewels." "Never mind them; I will do without them for once. I feel no taste for them to-day." CHAPTER Vl. BANQUET. They found, on descending, all the guests assembled in a hall below. It was not a state banquet which they were going to" share, but the usual meal of a rich - house, where preparation for a tableful of friends was always made. We will therefore content ourselves with, saying that everything was elegant and exquisite in arrangement and material, and we will confine ourselves entirely to such incidents as may throw a light upon our story. When the two ladies entered the exedra or hall, Fabius, after saluting his daughter, exclaimed : "Why, my child, you have come down, though late, still scarcely fittingly arranged ! You have forgotten your usual trinkets." Fabiola was confused. She knew not what answer to make; she was ashamed of her weakness about her angry display ; and still more of what she now thought a silly way of punishing herself for it. Agnes stepped into the rescue, and blushingly said: "It is' my fault, cousin Fabius, both that she is late and that she is so plainly dressed. I detained her with my gossip, and no doubt she wishes to keep me in countenance by the simplicity of her attire." "You, dear Agnes," replied the father, "are privileged to do as you please. But, seriously speaking, I must say, that even with- you, this may have answered while you were a mere child ; now that you are marriageable, you must begin to make a little more display, and try "to win the affections of some handsome and eligible youth. A beautiful necklace, for instance, such as you have plenty of at home, would not make you less attractive. But you are not attending to me. Come, come, I dare say you have some one already in view." " < J During most of this address, which was meant to be thoroughly good-natured, as it was perfectly worldly, Agnes appeared in one of her abstracted moods, her bewitched looks, as Fabiola called them, transfixed, in a smiling ecstasy, as if attending to some one else, but never losing the thread of the discourse, nor saying anything out of place. She therefore at once answered Fabius : "Oh, yes, most certainly, one who has already pledged me to him by .his betrothal ring, and has adorned me with immense jewels." ;\_

i aslce( * Fabius, “ w ith what?” . A* Y> . answered Agnes, with a look of glowing ” earnestness and in tones of artless simplicity, .“he has. girded my hand and neck with precious gems, and has set in my ears rings of peerless pearls.”-; : - Goodness ! who can it be ? Come, Agnes, some day you must tell me your secret. Your first love, no s doubt; may it last long and make you happy!” t? .“For ever!” was her reply, as she turned to join habiola and enter with her into the dining-room. It was wel! she had not overheard this dialogue, or she would have been hurt to the quick, as thinking that gnes had concealed the most important thought of her age, as she would have considered it, from’ her most il g friend. But while Agnes was defending her she had turned away from her father, and had been attending to the other guests. One was a heavy thicknecked Roman sophist, or dealer in universal knowedge, named Calpurnius; another, Proculus, a mere lover of good fare, often at the house. Two more remain deserving further notice. The first of them, evidently a favorite both with Fabiola and Agnes was a tribune Tb high officer of the imperial or pnetorian SUaiC V Though not above thirty years of age, he had already drstuigmshed himself by his valor, and enjoyed the highest favor with the emperors Dioclesian in the East, and Maximian Herculius in Rome. He was free from all affectation in manner or dress, though handsome in person ; and though most engaging in conversation, he manifestly scorned the foolish topics which generally occupied society. In short, he was a perfect specimen of a noble-hearted youth, full of honor and generous thoughts; strong and brave, without a particle or pride or display in him. s n Quite a contrast to him was the last guest, already alluded to by Fabiola, the new star of society, Young and almost effeminate in look, dressed with most elaborate elegance, with brilliant rings on every finger, and jewels in his dress, affected in his speech, which had a slightly .foreign accent, overstrained in and C °Kr eSy ° f n ma ™ erS ’ bllt a PP arent good-natured and obliging he had in a short time quietly pushed his way into the highest society of Rome. This was indeed, owing partly to his having been seen at the imperial court and partly to the fascination of his manner He had arrived in Rome accompanied by a single elderly attendant, evidently deeply attached to him; whether slave, freedman, or friend, nobody well knew. They spoke together always in a strange tongue, and the swarthy features, keen fiery eye, and unamiable expression of the domestic, inspired a certain degree of fear in his dependants ; for Fulvius had taken an apartment in what was called an insula, or house let out in parts, had furnished it luxuriously, and had peopled it with a sufficient bachelor’s establishment of slaves. Profusion rather than abundance distinguished all his domestic arrangements; and, in the corrupted and degraded circle of pagan Rome, the obscurity of his history, and the suddenness of his apparition, were soon forgotten in the evidence of . his riches, and the charm of his loose conversation. A shrewd observer ot character, however, would soon notice a wander in restlessness of eye, and an eagerness of listening attend tion for all sights and sounds around him, which betrayed an insatiable curiosity; and, in moments of forgetfulness, a dark scowl, under his knit brows, from his flashing eyes, and a curling of the upper lip, which inspired a feeling of mistrust, and gave an idea that his exterior softness only clothed a character of feline malignity. I „ The guests were soon at table ; and as ladies sat, while men reclined on couches during the repast, Fabiola and Agnes were together on one side, the two younger guests last described were opposite, and the master, with his two elder friends, in the middle if these terms can be used to describe their position about three parts of a round table; one side being left unencumbered by the sigma, or semicircular couch, for the convenience of serving. And we may observe, in passing, that a table-cloth, a luxury unknown in the times of Horace, was now in ordinary use.

When the first claims of .hunger,', or the palate, had been satisfied, conversation grew-more general. ?? « ?t , £&* "What news to-day at the baths?" asked Calpurniusi "I have no leisure myself to look after" such trifles." I .. -V | '(£■£> ./."-?? ' ; 1 $H {p $f 9 "Very interesting news indeed," answered-Pro-culus. "It seems quite certain that orders have been received from* . the divine Uloclesian, to finish his Thermae in three years." ■' "Impossible!" exclaimed Fabius. "I looked in at the works the other day, on my way to Sallust's gardens, and found them very little, advanced in the last year. There is an immense deal of heavy work to be done, such as carving marbles and shaping columns." "True," interposed Fulvius; "but I know that orders have been sent to all parts, to forward hither all prisoners and all persons condemned to the mines in Spain, Sardinia, and even Chersonesus, who can possibly be spared, to come and labor at the Thermae. A few thousand Christians thus set . to the work, will soon finish it." "And why Christians better than other criminals-?" asked, with some curiosity, Fabiola. "Why, ideally," said Fulvius, with his moat winning smile, "I can hardly give a reason for it; but the fact is so. Among fifty workmen so condemned, I would engage to pick out a single Christian." "Indeed!" exclaimed several at once; "pray how?'.' "Ordinary convicts," answered he, "naturally do not love their work, and they require the lash at every step to compel them to perform it ; and when the overseer's- eye is off them, no work is done. And, moreover, they are, of course, rude, sottish, quarrelsome, and querulous. But the Christians, when condemned to these public works, seem, on the contrary, to be glad, and are always cheerful and obedient.'l have seen young patricians so occupied in Asia, whose hands had never before handled a pickaxe, and whose weak shoulders had never borne a weight, yet working-hard, and as happy, to all appearance, as when at home. Of course, for all that, the overseers apply the lash and the stick very freely to them ; and most justly : because it is the will of the divine emperors that their lot should be made as hard as possible; but still they never complain." "T cannot say that I admire this sort of justice," replied Fabiola; "but what a strange race they must be! I am most curious to know what can be the motive or cause of this stupidity, or unnatural insensibility, in these Christians?" Proculus replied, with a facetious look: "Calpurnius here no doubt can tell us ; for he is a philosopher, and I hear could declaim for an hour on ,any topic, from the Alps to an ant-hill." Calpurnius, thus challenged, and thinking himself highly complimented, solemnly gave mouth: "The Christians," said he, "are a foreign sect, the founder of which flourished many ages ago in Chaldea. His doctrines were brought to Rome at the time of Vespasian by two brothers named Peter and Paul. Some maintain that these were the same twin brothers as the Jews called Moses and Aaron, the second of whom sold his birthright to his brother for a kid, the skin of which he wanted to make chirothecce (gloves) of. But this identity I do not admit; as it is recorded in the mystical books of the Jews, that the second of these brothers, seeing the other's victims give better omens of birds than his own, slew him, as our Romulus did Remus, but with the jawbone of an ass ; for which he was hung by King Mardochaeus of Macedon, upon a gibbet fifty cubits high, at the. suit of their sister Judith. However, Peter and Paul coming, as I said, to Rome, the former was discovered to be a fugitive slave of Pontius Pilate, and was crucified by '1 his master's orders on the Janiculum. Their followers, of whom they had many, made the cross their symbol, and adore it; and they think it the greatest honor to suffer stripes, and "even ignominious death, as the best means of being like their teachers,*" and, as they fancy, of going to them in a place somewhere among the clouds."

iI v This lucid explanation the origin of i Christianity " r was listened to with admiration by all except two. The. young -officer gave a piteous look towards Agnes, which seemed to say, "Shall Vl' answer the goose, or shall I laugh outright?" But she'; put her finger on her lips, and smiled imploringly for silence. * - "Well,. then, the upshot of it is," observed Procuius, :; "that the Thermae will be* finished soon, and we shall have glorious sport. Is it not said, Fulvius, that v the ; divine < Dioclesian will himself come to the dedication?" -■ ■■/ |-/ fM .:-■. "It is quite certain; and so will there be splendid festivals and glorious games. But we'shall not : have to wait = so long; already, for ; other purposes, have orders been sent to . Numidia for an unlimited supply of lions and leopards to be ready before winter." Then turning round sharp to 'his neighbor, he said, ■ bending a keen eye upon his countenance: "A brave soldier like you, Sebastian, must be delighted with the noble spec- ' tacles of the amphitheatre, especially when, directed against the enemies of/the august emperors, and of the . republic." ; The i officer.raised i--.himself upon his couch, looked* on his interrogator with an unmoved, majestic countenance, and answered calmly : • T .^-' -;/ i "Fulvius, I should not deserve the title which you give me, could \ I contemplate with-.pleasure, in cold blood, the struggle, if it deserve the name, between a brute beast, and a helpless child or woman, for such are the spectacles which you call noble. No, I will draw my sword willingly against any enemy of the princes or the state ; but I would as readily draw it against the lion or the leopard that should rush, even by imperial order, against the innocent and defenceless." Fulvius was starting up; but Sebastian placed his strong hand upon his arm, and continued: "Hear me out. lam not the first Roman, nor the noblest, who has thought thus? before me. Remember the words of Cicero: 'Magnificent are these games, no doubt; but what delight can it be to a refined mind to see either, a feeble man torn by a most powerful beast, or a noble animal pierced -through by a javelin lam not ashamed of agreeing with the greatest of Roman orators." "Then shall we never see you in the amphitheatre, Sebastian?" asked Fulvius, with a bland but taunting tone. .f-' •/"" •/'-. 'CV-\M "If you do," the soldier replied, "depend upon it, it will be on the side of the defenceless, not on that of the brutes that would destroy them. 4 "Sebastian is right," exclaimed Fabiola, clapping her hands, "and I close the discussion by my applause. I have never heard Sebastian speak, except on the side of generous and high-minded sentiments." Fulvius bit his lip in silence, and all rose to depart. (To be continued.)