CHAPTER XX.
We will not attempt to describe the effect of this letter upon the Prefect, but will rather accompany the two friends upon one of their evening walks on the charming shores of the Gulf of Neapolis.
After an early cœna, they wandered through the city, and out of the Porta Nolana, which was still decorated with some half-ruined reliefs, illustrating the victories of one of the Roman Emperors over the barbarians.
Totila stood still and admired the beautiful sculpture.
"Who can be that Emperor," he asked his friend, "on the car of victory, with the winged lightning in his hand, like a Jupiter Tonans?"
"That is Marcus Aurelius," said Julius, and would have walked on.
"Oh, stay a while! And who are those four prisoners in chains, with the long waving hair, who drag the car?"
"They are Germanic Kings."
"But of what family?" asked Totila. "Look there, an inscription--'Gothi extincti!'--the Goths annihilated!" and, laughing loudly, the young Goth struck the marble column with the palm of his hand, and walked quickly through the gate. "A lie in marble!" he cried, looking back. "That Emperor never thought that one day a Gothic Count in Neapolis would give his boast the lie!"
"Yes, nations are like the changing leaves upon the tree," said Julius thoughtfully. "Who will govern this land after you?"
Totila stood still.
"After us?" he asked in astonishment.
"What! You do not think that your Goths will endure for ever amongst the nations?"
"I don't know that," said Totila, walking on.
"My friend, Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Macedonians, and, as it seems, we Romans also, had their appointed time. They flourished, ripened, and decayed. Will it be otherwise with the Goths?"
"I do not know," answered Totila uneasily. "I never thought about it. It has never occurred to me that a time might come when my nation----" He hesitated, as if it were a sin even to express the thought. "How can one imagine such a thing? I think as little about it as I do about--death!"
"That is like you, my Totila."
"And it is like you, Julius, to tease yourself and others with such dreams."
"Dreams! You forget that for me and for my nation it has already become a reality. You forget that I am a Roman. I cannot deceive myself like most men; it is all over with us. The sceptre has gone from us to you. It was not without much painful thought that I learned to forget that you, my bosom friend, are a barbarian, the enemy of my country."
"But it is not so, by the light of the sun!" interrupted Totila eagerly. "Do I find this harsh thought in you too? Look around you! When, tell me, when has Italy ever flourished more than under our protection? Scarcely in the time of Augustus! You teach us science and art; we give you peace and protection. Can one imagine a finer correlation? Harmony amongst Romans and Goths may create an entirely new era, more splendid than has ever existed."
"Harmony! But it does not exist. You are to us a strange people, divided from us by speech and faith, by race and customs, and by centuries of hatred. Once we robbed you of your freedom; now you have robbed us of ours. Between us yawns a wide abyss."
"You reject my favourite idea."
"It is a dream!"
"No, it is truth. I feel it, and perhaps the time will come when I can prove it. I would build all the fabric of my life upon it."
"Then were it built upon a noble delusion. No bridge between Romans and barbarians!"
"Then," said Totila, with some heat, "I do not understand how you can live--how you could take me----"
"Do not complete your sentence," said Julius gravely. "It was not easy; it was most painful self-denial. Only after a sharp struggle with selfish feelings did I succeed. But at last I have ceased to live only in my nation. The faith which already unites Romans and barbarians as nothing else could; which more and more powerfully conquered my repugnant reason by grief and pain--pain which turned to joy--brought peace to me in the conflict of my soul. In this one thing I may already boast that I am a Christian; I live for mankind, not alone for my nation. I am a man, and no longer a mere Roman. Therefore I can love you, the barbarian, like a brother. Are we not brothers of one family--that of humanity? Therefore I can bear to live, even after seeing my nation die. I live for humanity; that is my people."
"No!" cried Totila vehemently; "that I could never do. I can, and will, live only for my nation. My nationality is the air in which alone my soul can breathe. Why should we not endure eternally, or as long as this earth endures? Persians and Greeks? We are of better stuff! Need we fall because they have decayed? We are still in the strength of our youth. Ah, no! If the day should ever come when the Goths fall, may I not live to see it! Oh, ye gods! let us not linger like these sickly Greeks, who cannot live and cannot die. No; if it must be, send a fearful tempest, and let us perish suddenly and gloriously all, all! and I the foremost!"
He had excited himself to the warmest enthusiasm. He sprang up from the marble bench upon which they had been seated, and shook his lance in the air.
"My friend," said Julius, looking at him kindly, "how well this ardour becomes you! But reflect; such a conflict could only be kindled against us, against my nation, and should I----"
"If ever such a strife arose, you should cling to your nation, body and soul, that is clear. You think that would interfere with our friendship? Not in the least. Two heroes can cleave each other to the marrow, and yet remain the best friends. Ha! I should rejoice to meet you in battle, with spear and shield."
Julius smiled: "My friendship is not of so grim a nature, my savage Goth! These doubts have tormented me for some time, and all my philosophers together could give me no peace. Only since I learned, in my sorrow, that I owe service to God in heaven alone, and must, on earth, live for humanity, and not for a nation----"
"Softly, friend," cried Totila, "where is this humanity of which you rave? I do not see it. I see only Goths, Romans, and Byzantines! I know of no humanity somewhere up in the sky, above the existing peoples. I serve humanity by serving my nation! I cannot do otherwise. I can not strip off the skin in which I was born. I speak like a Goth, in Gothic words, not in a language of general humanity: there is no such thing. And as I speak like a Goth, so I feel like a Goth. I can appreciate strange nations certainly; I can admire your art, your science, and, in part, your state, in which everything is so strictly ordered. We can learn much from you; but I could not and would not exchange, even with a people of angels. Ah! my brave Goths! At the bottom of my heart their faults are dearer to me than your virtues!"
"How differently I feel, and yet I am a Roman."
"You are no Roman! Forgive me, friend, it is long since a Roman existed, else I could never be the Count of the Harbour of Neapolis. No one can feel as you do, whose nation yet exists; and all must feel as I do, who belong to a living people."
Julius was silent for a short time. "If it be indeed so, then happy I! If I have lost the earth, I have gained heaven! What are nations, what are states, what is the earth? Not here below is the home of my immortal soul, which longs for a kingdom where all is divine and eternal!"
"Stop, Julius," said Totila, standing still, and striking his lance upon the ground. "Here upon earth have I a firm footing; here let me stand and live, doing good, and enjoying what is beautiful. I will not follow you into your heaven. I cannot. I honour your dreams and your longing for holiness; but I do not share your feelings. You know," he added, smiling, "that I am an inveterate heathen, like Valeria--my Valeria! I remember her at the right moment. Your earth-forsaking dreams make us forget the dearest things upon that earth! Look, we have reached the city again; the sun sinks rapidly here in the south, and before nightfall I must take some seeds to the garden of Valerius. A fine gardener," he laughed, "to forget his flowers. Farewell. I turn to the right."
"Farewell. Greet Valeria for me. I shall go home and read."
"What are you reading now? still Plato?"
"No, Augustinus. Farewell!"