'Yes, alas! the pond—the fish-pond—run—fly—'
Distractedly we hurried to the spot already surrounded by a crowd of slaves. 'Who had been with him? Where had he fallen? How did it happen?' were questions hastily asked, but which no one could answer. It was a miserable scene of agony, confusion, and despair—Marcus ordering his slaves to dive into the pond, then uttering curses upon them, and commanding those to whom Gallus was usually entrusted, to the rack. No one could swim, no one could dive. It was long since I had made use of an art which I once possessed, but instantly I cast off my upper garments, and, needing no other direction to the true spot than the barking of the little dog, and his jumping in and out of the water—first learning that the water was deep, and of an even bottom, I threw myself in, and, in a moment, guided by the white dress of the little fellow, I grasped him, and drew him to the surface.
Life was apparently, and probably, to my mind, extinct; but expressing a hope that means might yet be resorted to that should restore him, I bore him in my arms to the house. But it was all in vain. Gallus was dead.
I shall not inflict a new sadness upon you, Fausta, by describing the grief of my friends, or any of the incidents of the days and weeks I now passed with them. They were heavy, and melancholy indeed; for the sorrows, of both Lucilia and Marcus, were excessive and inconsolable. I could do nothing for them, nor say anything to them in the hope to comfort them; yet, while they were thus incapacitated for all action, I could serve them essentially by placing myself at the head of their affairs, and relieving them of common cares and duties, that must otherwise have been neglected, or have proved irksome and oppressive.
The ashes of Gallus, committed to a small marble urn, have been deposited in a tomb in the centre of Lucilia's flower garden, which will soon be embowered by flowers and shrubs, which her hand will delight to train around it.
On the eve of the day when I was to leave them and return to Rome, we sat together in a portico which overlooks the Tiber. Marcus and Lucilia were sad, but, at length, in some sort, calm. The first violence of sorrow had spent itself, and reflection was beginning to succeed.
'I suppose,' said Marcus, 'your rigid faith greatly condemns all this show of suffering, which you have witnessed, Piso, in us, as, if not criminal, at least weak and childish?'
'Not so, by any means,' I rejoined. 'The religion of the Christians, is what one may term a natural religion; it does violence to not one of the good affections and propensities. Coming, as we maintain, from the Creator of our bodies and our minds, it does them no injury, it wars not with any of their natural elements, but most strictly harmonizes with them. It aims to direct, to modify, to heal, to moderate—but never to alter or annihilate. Love of our offspring, is not more according to our nature, than grief for the loss of them. Grief, therefore, is innocent—even as praiseworthy, as love. What trace of human wisdom—much less of divine—would there be in the arrangement, that should first bind us by chains of affection as strong as adamant to a child, or a parent, or a friend, and then treat the sorrow as criminal that wept, with whatever violence, as it saw the links broken and scattered, never again to be joined together?'
'That certainly is a proof that some just ideas are to be found in your opinions,' replied my friend. 'By nothing was I ever more irreconcilably offended in the stoical philosophy, than by its harsh violence towards nature under suffering. To be treated by your philosophy with rudeness and contempt, because you yield to emotions which are as natural, and, therefore, in my judgment, as innocent as any, is, as if one were struck with violence by a friend or a parent, to whom you fled for protection or comfort. The doctrines of all the others failed in the same way. Even the Epicureans hold it a weakness, and even a wrong, to grieve, seeing the injury that is thereby done to happiness. Grief must be suppressed, and banished, because it is accompanied by pain. That too, seemed to me a false sentiment; because, although grief is indeed in some sort painful, yet it is not wholly so, but is attended by a kind of pleasure. How plain it is, that I should suffer greatly more, were I forcibly restrained by a foreign power, or my own, from shedding these tears, and uttering these sighs for Gallus, than I do now while I am free to indulge my natural feelings. In truth, it is the only pleasure that grief brings with it—the freedom of indulging it.'