Old Faustina had returned to Capri and had sought out the Emperor. She told him her story, and while she spoke she hardly dared look at him. During her absence the illness had made frightful ravages, and she thought to herself: “If there had been any pity among the Celestials, they would have let me die before being forced to tell this poor, tortured man that all hope is gone.”
To her astonishment, Tiberius listened to her with the utmost indifference. When she related how the great miracle performer had been crucified the same day that she had arrived in Jerusalem, and how near she had been to saving him, she began to weep under the weight of her failure. But Tiberius only remarked: “You actually grieve over this? Ah, Faustina! A whole lifetime in Rome has not weaned you then of faith in sorcerers and miracle workers, which you imbibed during your childhood in the Sabine mountains!”
Then the old woman perceived that Tiberius had never expected any help from the Prophet of Nazareth.
“Why did you let me make the journey to that distant land, if you believed all the while that it was useless?”
“You are the only friend I have,” said the Emperor. “Why should I deny your prayer, so long as I still have the power to grant it.”
But the old woman did not like it that the Emperor had taken her for a fool.
“Ah! this is your usual cunning,” she burst out. “This is just what I can tolerate least in you.”
“You should not have come back to me,” said Tiberius. “You should have remained in the mountains.”
It looked for a moment as if these two, who had clashed so often, would again fall into a war of words, but the old woman’s anger subsided immediately. The times were past when she could quarrel in earnest with the Emperor. She lowered her voice again; but she could not altogether relinquish every effort to obtain justice.
“But this man was really a prophet,” she said. “I have seen him. When his eyes met mine, I thought he was a god. I was mad to allow him to go to his death.”