The soldiers worshipped him as much as ever; and Julian became more and more convinced that the Olympians were protecting him and advancing his cause. But, for prudential reasons, he continued to attend Christian churches, and in the town of Vienna on the banks of the river Rhodanus he had been present at an especially solemn mass.
In the middle of December the conquering Cæsar was returning after a long campaign to winter quarters in his beloved Parisis-Lutetia on the banks of the Seine.
Night was closing in. The southern soldiers were marvelling at the pale green lights of the northern sky. New-fallen snow sounded crisply under the tread of the soldiers. Lutetia, built on a little island, was surrounded by wide river-channels. Two wooden bridges connected the town with steep banks. Its houses were built in the Gallo-Roman style, with broad glazed galleries, instead of the open porticoes of southern countries. The smoke of a multitude of chimneys hung over the town, and the trees were hoar with frost.
Fig-trees carefully swaddled in straw, and brought by the Romans from the south, clung to the southward-facing walls of the gardens, like children dreading the cold.
This year, in spite of occasional thawing winds from the south, the winter had been severe. Huge blocks of ice, crashing and grinding together, were floating down the Seine. The Greek and Roman soldiers used to watch these in surprise, and Julian too wondered at the beauty of the blue and green transparent masses, and compared them to Phrygian marble, with its emerald-hued veins.
There was something in the sad beauty of the North which, like a distant remembrance, haunted and thrilled his heart, as now he and his troop arrived at the palace, of which the brick arcades and turrets rose in sharp black outline against the twilight sky.
Julian went into the library. The cold was intense; a great fire was kindled on the hearth, and letters which had arrived at Lutetia during his absence were brought to him. One of these from Asia Minor came from Iamblicus. Julian thought that the fragrance of the East came with it.
Outside a hurricane was raging, and the wind roaring by struck violent blows on the closed shutters. Shutting his eyes, Julian dreamed of marble porticoes and gleaming temples veiled in obscurity, sweeping away to the horizon to disappear like golden clouds.
He shivered, rose, and noticed that the fire had gone out. He could hear a mouse gnawing the parchments in the library.
Julian suddenly felt a longing to see a human face. With a half-humorous smile he remembered that he had a wife. She was a relative of the Empress Eusebia, named Helena, whom the Emperor had forced to marry Julian shortly before his departure for Gaul. Julian cared nothing for Helena. Although more than a year had elapsed since their marriage he had scarcely seen her; he knew nothing of her, and had never passed a night under the same roof. His wife had remained a virgin.