*CHAPTER VII*
*ARA COELI*
It was not till late that night, that Otto found himself alone. He hadat last withdrawn from the maddening revelry. Silence was falling onthe streets of Rome and the dimness of midnight upon the sky, throughwhich blazing meteors had torn their brilliant furrows. Afterdismissing his attendants, the son of Theophano sat alone in the lonelychamber of his palace on the Aventine. A sense of death-like desolationhad come over him. Never had the palace seemed so vast and so silent.And he--he, the lord of it all--he had no loving heart to turn to, noone, that understood him with a woman's intuition. The waves of destinyseemed to close over him and the circumstances of his past rose poignantand vivid before his fading sight.
But uppermost in his soul was the certainty that he could not furtherbehold Stephania with impunity. When he recalled the meeting in theMinotaurus and the subsequent events of the evening, he lost all peaceof mind. What then would be the result of a new meeting? What wouldbecome of him, should he thereafter find himself unable to contain hispassion in darkness and in silence? Would he exhibit to the world theridiculous spectacle of an insane lover, or would he, by some unheedfulaction, bring down upon himself the disdainful pity of the woman, unableas he was to resist the vertigo of her fascination?
He gazed out into the moonlit night. The ancient monuments stood outmournful and deserted as a line of tombs. The city seemed a graveyard,and himself but a disembodied ghost of the dead past.
Gradually the hour laid its tranquillizing hush upon him. By degrees,with the dim light of the candles, he grew drowsy. His mental imagesbecame more and more indistinct, and he gradually drifted away into theland of dreams. After a time he was awakened by a light that shone uponhis face. Starting up, Otto was for a moment overcome by a strangesensation of faintness, which vanished as he gazed into the face ofBenilo, whom his anxiety had carried to the side of the King afterhaving in vain searched for him among the late revellers on theCapitoline hill.
Otto smiled at the expression of anxiety in the Roman's face.
"'Twas naught, save that I was weary," he replied to Benilo's concernedinquiry. "'Tis many a week since we revelled so late. But perchanceyou had best leave me now, that I may rest."
Benilo withdrew and Otto fell into a fitful slumber filled with hazyvisions, in which the persons of Crescentius and Stephania werestrangely mingled, melting rapidly from one into the other.
He slept later than usual on the following day. When the shadows ofevening began to fall over the undulating expanse of the Roman Campagna,Otto left the palace on the Aventine by a postern gate. This hour hewished to be free from all affairs of state, from all intrusions andcares. This hour he wished fitly to prepare himself for the great workof his life. In the dreamy solitude he would question his own heart asto his future course with regard to Stephania.
The evening was serene and fair. The brick skeletons of arches, vaultsand walls glowed fiery in the rays of the sinking sun. Among olives andacanthus was heard the bleating of sheep and the chirrup of thegrasshopper.
Otto descended the tangled foot-path on the northern slope of theAventine, not far from the gardens of Capranica, and soon reached thefoot of the Capitoline hill, the ruins of the temple of Saturnus, theplace where in the days of glory had stood the ancient Forum. From thearch of Septimius Severus as far as the Flavian Amphitheatre the ViaSacra was flanked with wretched hovels. Their foundations were formedof fragments of statues, of the limbs and torsos of Olympian gods. Forcenturies the Forum had been a quarry. Christian churches languished onthe ruins of pagan shrines. Still lofty columns soared upward throughthe desolation, carrying sculptured architraves, last traces of avanished art. Here a feudal tower leaned against the arch of Titus;beside it a tavern befouled the fallen columns, the marble slabs, thehalf defaced inscription. Behind it rose the arch, white and pure, lessshattered than the remaining monuments. The sunlight streaming throughit from the direction of the Capitol lighted up the bas-relief of theEmperor's triumph, the malodorous curls of smoke from the tavernappearing like clouds of incense.
Otto's heart beat fast as, turning once more into the Forum, he heardthe dreary jangling of bells from the old church of Santa MariaLiberatrice, sounding the Angelus. It seemed to him like a dirge overthe fallen greatness of Rome. Half unconsciously he directed his stepstoward the Coliseum. Seating himself on the broken steps of theAmphitheatre, he gazed up at the blue heavens, shining through the gapsin the Coliseum walls.
Sudden flushes of crimson flamed up in the western horizon. Slowly thesun was sinking to rest. A pale yellow moon had sailed up from behindthe stupendous arches of Constantine's Basilica, severing with her diska bed of clouds, transparent and delicately tinted as sea-shells. Thethree columns in front of Santa Maria Liberatrice shone like phantoms inthe waning light of evening. And the bell sounding the ChristianAngelus seemed more than ever like a dirge over the forgotten Rome ofthe past.
Wrapt in deep reveries, Otto continued upon his way. He had lost allsense of life and reality. It was one of those moments when time andthe world seem to stand still, drifting away on those delicateimperceptible lines that lie between reality and dream-land. And thesolitary rambler gave himself up to the half painful, half delicioussense of being drawn in, absorbed and lost in infinite imaginings, whenthe intense stillness around him was broken by the peals of distantconvent bells, ringing with silvery clearness through the evening calm.
Suddenly Otto paused, all his life-blood rushing to his heart.
At the lofty flight of stairs, by which the descent is made from AraCoeli, stood Stephania.
She had come out of the venerable church, filled with the devoutimpressions of the mass just recited. The chant still rang in her earsas she passed down the long line of uneven pillars, which we see to-day,and across the sculptured tombs set in the pavement which thereverential tread of millions has worn to smooth indistinctness. Nowthe last rays of the sun flooded all about her, mellowing the tints ofverdure and drooping foliage, and softening the outlines of the Albanhills.
As she looked down she saw the German king and met his upturned gaze.For a moment she seemed to hesitate. The sunlight fell on her pale faceand touched with fire the dark splendour of her hair. Slowly shedescended the long flight of stairs.
They faced each other in silence and Otto had leisure to steal a closerlook at her. He was struck by the touch of awe which had suddenly comeupon her beauty. Perhaps the evening light spiritualized her pure andlofty countenance, for as Otto looked upon her it seemed to him that shewas transformed into a being beyond earthly contact and his heart sankwith a sense of her remoteness.
Timidly he lifted her hand and pressed his lips upon it.
Silence intervened, a silence freighted with the weight of suspendeddestinies. There was indeed more to be felt between them, than to besaid. But what mattered it, so the hour was theirs? The narrow kingdomof to-day is better worth ruling than the widest sweep of past andfuture, but not more than once does man hold its fugitive sceptre. Ottofelt the nearness of that penetrating sympathy, which is almost a giftof divination. The mere thought of her had seemed to fill the air withher presence.
Steadily, searchingly, she gazed at the thoughtful and earnestcountenance of Otto, then she spoke with a touch of domineeringhaughtiness:
"Why are you here?"
He met her gaze eye in eye.
"I was planning for the future of Rome,--and dreaming of the past."
She bent her proud head, partly in acknowledgment of his words, partlyto conceal her own confusion.
"The past is buried," she replied coldly, "and the future dark anduncertain."
"And why may it not be mine,--to revive that past?"
"No sunrise can revive that which has died in the sunset glow."
"Then you too despair of Rome ever being more than a memory of her deadself?"
She looked at him amusedly.
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"I am living in the world--not in a dream."
Otto pointed to the Capitoline hill.
"Yet see how beautiful it is, this Rome of the past!" he spoke withrepressed enthusiasm. "Is it not worth braving the dangers of theavalanches that threaten to crush rider and horse--even the wrath ofyour countrymen, who see in us but unbidden, unwelcome invaders? Ah!Little do they know the magic which draws us hither to their sunnyshores from the gloom of our Northern forests! Little they know thetransformation this land of flowers works on the frozen heart, thatyearns for your glowing, sun-tinted vales!"
"Why did you come to Rome?" she questioned curtly. "To remind us ofthese trifles,--and incidentally to dispossess us of our time-honouredrights and power?"
Otto shook his head.
"I came not to Rome to deprive the Romans of their own,--rather torestore to them what they have almost forgotten--their glorious past."
"It is useless to remind those who do not wish to be reminded," shereplied. "The avalanche of centuries has long buried memory andambition in those you are pleased to call Romans. Desist, I beg of you,to pursue a phantom which will for ever elude you, and return beyond theAlps to your native land!"
"And Stephania prefers this request?" Otto faltered, turning pale.
"Stephania--the consort of the Senator of Rome."
There was a pause.
Through the overhanging branches glimmered the pale disk of the moon. Asoft breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. There was a hushedbreathlessness in the air. Fantastic, dream-like, light and shadowsplayed on the majestic tide of the Tiber, and all over the high summitsof the hills mysterious shapes, formed of purple and gray mists, rose upand crept softly downward, winding in and out the valleys, likewandering spirits, sent on some hidden, sorrowful errand.
Gazing up wistfully, Stephania saw the look of pain in Otto's face.
"I ask what I have," she said softly, "because I know the temper of mycountrymen."
"What would you make of me?" he replied. "On this alone my heart isset. Take it from me,--I would drift an aimless barque on the tide oftime."
She shook her head but avoided his gaze.
"You aim to accomplish the impossible. Crows do not feed on the living,and the dead do not rise again. Ah! How, if your miracle does notsucceed?"
Otto drew himself up to his full height.
"Gloria Victis,--but before my doom, I shall prove worthy of myself."
Suddenly a strange thought came over him.
"Stephania," he faltered, "what do you want with me?"
"I want you to be frankly my foe," exclaimed the beautiful wife ofCrescentius. "You must not pass by like this, without telling me thatyou are. You speak of a past. Sometimes I think it were better, ifthere had been no past. Better burn a corpse than leave it unburied.All the friends of my dreams are here,--their shades surround us,--intheir company one grows afraid as among the shroudless dead. It isimpossible. You cannot mean the annihilation of the past, you cannotmean to be against Rome--against me!"
Otto faced her, pale and silent, vainly striving to speak. He dared nottrust himself. As he stepped back, she clutched his arm.
"Tell me that you are my enemy," she said, with heart-broken challengein her voice.
"Stephania!"
"Tell me that you hate me."
"Stephania--why do you ask it?"
"To justify my own ends," she replied. Then she covered her face withher hands.
"Tell me all," she sobbed. "I must know all. Do you not feel how nearwe are? Are you indeed afraid to speak?"
She gazed at him with moist, glorious eyes.
Striding up and down before the woman, Otto vainly groped for words.
"Otto," she approached him gently, "do you believe in me?"
"Can you ask?"
"Wholly?"
"What do you mean?"
"I thought,--feared,--that you suffered from the same malady as weRomans."
"What malady?"
"Distrust."
There was a pause.
"The temple is beautiful in the moonlight," Stephania said at last."They tell me you like relics of the olden time. Shall we go there?"
Otto's heart beat heavily as by her side he strode down the narrow path.They approached a little ruined temple, which ivy had invaded andoverrun. Fragments lay about in the deep grass. A single column onlyremained standing and its lonely capital, clear cut as the petals of alily, was outlined in clear silhouette against the limpid azure.
At last he spoke--with a voice low and unsteady.
"Be not too hard on me, Stephania, for my love of the world that liesdead around us. I scarcely can explain it to you. The old simplethings stir strange chords within me. I love the evening more than themorning, autumn better than spring. I love all that is fleeting, eventhe perfume of flowers that have faded, the pleasant melancholy, thegolden fairy-twilight. Remembrance has more power over my soul thanhope."
"Tell me more," Stephania whispered, her head leaning back against thecolumn and a smile playing round her lips. "Tell me more. These areindeed strange sounds to my ear. I scarcely know if I understand them."
He gazed upon her with burning eyes.
"No--no! Why more empty dreams, that can never be?"
She pointed in silence to the entrance of the temple.
Otto held out both hands, to assist her in descending the sloping rock.She appeared nervous and uncertain of foot. Hurriedly and agitated,anxious to gain the entrance she slipped and nearly fell. In the nextmoment she was caught up in his arms and clasped passionately to hisheart.
"Stephania--Stephania," he whispered, "I love you--I love you! Awaywith every restraint! Let them slay me, if they will, by every death myfalsehood deserves,--but let it be here,--here at your feet."
Stephania trembled like an aspen in his strong embrace, and strove torelease herself, but he pressed her more closely to him, scarcelyknowing that he did so, but feeling that he held the world, life,happiness and salvation in this beautiful Roman. His brain was in awhirl; everything seemed blotted out,--there was no universe, noexistence, no ambition, nothing but love,--love,--love,--beating throughevery fibre of his frame.
The woman was very pale.
Timidly she lifted her head. He gazed at her in speechless suspense; hesaw as in a vision the pure radiance of her face, the star-like eyesshining more and more closely into his. Then came a touch, soft andsweet as a rose-leaf pressed against his lips and for one moment heremembered nothing. Like Paris of old, he was caught up in a cloud ofblinding gold, not knowing which was earth, which heaven.
For a moment nothing was to be heard, save the hard breathing of thesetwo, then Otto held Stephania off at an arm's length, gazing at her, hissoul in his eyes.
"You are more beautiful than the angels," he whispered.
"The fallen angels," was her smiling reply.
Then with a quick, spontaneous movement she flung her bare arms roundhis neck and drew him toward her.
"And if I did come toward you to prophesy glory and the fulfilment ofyour dreams?" she murmured, even as a sibyl. "You alone are alive amongthe dead! What matters it to me that your love is hopeless, that ourwings are seared? My love is all for the rejected! I love the proud andsolitary eagle better than the stained vulture."
He felt the fire of the strange insatiate kiss of her lips and reeled.It seemed as if the Goddess of Love in the translucence of the moon, haddescended, embracing him, mocking to scorn the anguish that consumed hisheart, but to vanish again in the lunar shadows.
"Stephania--" he murmured reeling, drunk with the sweetness of her lips.
Never perhaps had the beautiful Roman bestowed on mortal man such aglance, as now beamed from her eyes upon the youth. The perfume of herhair intoxicated his senses. Her breath was on his cheek, her sweetlips scarce a hand's breath from his own.
Had Lucifer, the prince of darkness, himself appeared at this moment, orCrescentius started up like a
ghost from the gaping stone floor,Stephania could scarcely have changed as suddenly as she did, to thecold impassive rigidity of marble. Following the direction of her stonygaze, Otto beheld emerging as it were from the very rocks above him adark face and mailed figure, which he recognized as Eckhardt's. Whetheror not the Margrave was conscious of having thus unwittingly interruptedan interview,--if he had seen, his own instincts at once revealed to himthe danger of his position. Eckhardt's countenance wore an expression ofutter unconcern, as he passed on and vanished in the darkness.
For a moment Otto and Stephania gazed after his retreating form.
"He has seen nothing," Otto reassured her.
"To-morrow," she replied, "we meet here again at the hour of theAngelas. And then," she added changing her tone to one of deepesttenderness, "I will test your love,--your constancy,--your loyalty."
They faced each other in a dead silence.
"Do not go," he faltered, extending his hands.
She slowly placed her own in them. It was a moment upon which hung thefate of two lives. Otto felt her weakness in her look, in the touch ofher hands, which shivered, as they lay in his, as captive birds. Andthe long smothered cry leaped forth from his heart: What was crown,life, glory--without love! Why not throw it all away for a caress ofthat hand? What mattered all else?
But the woman became strong as he grew weak.
"Go!" she said faintly. "Farewell,--till to-morrow."
He dropped her hands, his eyes in hers.
Giving one glance backward, where Eckhardt had disappeared, Stephaniafirst began to move with hesitating steps, then seized by anirresistible panic, she gathered up her trailing robe and ranprecipitately up the steep path, her fleeting form soon disappearing inthe moonlight.
Otto remained another moment, then he too stepped out into the clearmoonlit night. In silent rumination he continued his way toward theAventine.
Past and future seemed alike to have vanished for him. Time seemed tohave come to a stand-still.
Suddenly he imagined that a shadow stealthily crossed his path. Hepaused, turned--but there was no one.
Calmly the stars looked down upon him from the azure vault of heaven.
And like a spider in his web, Johannes Crescentius sat in Castel SanAngelo.