Our conversation here ended, and I turned from the prison, resolved to seek the presence of Aurelian. I did so. He received me with urbanity as before, but neither confirmed my hopes nor my fears. I returned again to the cell of Gracchus, with whom, in various, and to me most instructive conversation, we passed the remainder of the day.
In the morning, with a spirit heavy and sad, burdened indeed with a grief such as I never before had experienced, I turned to seek the apartment of Longinus. It was not far from that of Gracchus. The keeper of the prison readily admitted me, saying, 'that free intercourse was allowed the prisoners with all whom it was their desire to see, and that there were several friends of Longinus already with him.' With these words he let fall a heavy bar, and the door of the cell creaked upon its hinges.
The room into which I passed seemed a dungeon, rather than any thing else or better, for the only light it had, came from a small barred window far above the reach. Longinus was seated near a massy central column, to which he was bound by a chain; his friends were around him, with whom he appeared to have been engaged in earnest conversation, He rose as I approached him, and saluted me with the grace that is natural to him, and which is expressive, not more of his high breeding, than of an inward benevolence that goes forth and embraces all who draw near him.
'Although,' said he, 'I am forsaken of that which men call fortune, yet I am not forgotten by my friends. So that the best things remain. Piso, I rejoice truly to see you. These whom you behold are pupils and friends whom you have often met at my house, if this dim light will allow you to distinguish them.'
'My eyes are not yet so used to darkness as to see with much distinctness, but I recognise well-known faces.'
After mutual salutations, Longinus said, 'Let me now first inquire concerning the daughter of Gracchus, that bright emanation of the Deity. I trust in the gods she is well!'
'I left her,' I replied, 'overwhelmed by sorrow. To lose at once country, parent, and friends, is loss too great I fear for her. Death to Gracchus will be death also to her.'
'The temper of Fausta is too sanguine, her heart too warm: she was designed for a perpetual prosperity. The misfortunes that overtake her friends she makes more than her own. Others' sufferings--her own she could bear--falling upon her so thickly, will, if they leave her life, impart a lasting bitterness to it. It were better perhaps that she died with us. Gracchus you have found altogether Gracchus?'
'I have. He is in the prison as he was in his own palace. His thoughts will sometimes wander to his daughter--oftener than he would--and then in the mirror of the face you behold the inward sorrow of the heart, but it is only a momentary ruffling of the surface, and straightway it is calm again. Except this only, and he sits upon his hard seat in the same composure as if at the head of the Senate.'
'Gracchus,' said Longinus in reply, 'is naturally great; he is a giant! the ills of life, the greater and the lesser, which assail and subdue so many, can make nothing of him. He is impenetrable, immovable. Then he has aided nature by the precepts of philosophy. What he wanted of insensibility to evil, he has added from a doctrine, to which he himself clings tenaciously, to which he refers and will refer, as the spring of his highest felicity, but from which I--so variously are we constituted--shrink with unfeigned horror. Doubtless you all know what it is?'