*CHAPTER III*
*ON THE PALATINE*
The moon was rising over the distant Alban hills, when Eckhardt beganhis ascent. Now and then, he paused on a spot, which offered aparticularly striking view of the city, reposing in the fading light ofday. No sound broke the solemn stillness, save the tolling ofconvent-bells on remote Aventine, or the sombre chant of pilgrims beforesome secluded shrine.
Like the ghost of her former self, Rome seemed to stretch interminablyinto the ever deepening purple haze.
Colossal watch-towers, four-cornered, massive, with twin-like steeplesand crenelated ramparts, dominated the view on all sides. Their shadowsfell afar from one to another. Here and there, conspicuous among thehouses, loomed up the wondrous structures of old Rome, sometimes singly,sometimes in thickly set groups. Beyond the walls the aqueducts pursuedtheir long and sinuous path-ways through the Campagna. The distant Albanhills began to shroud their undulating summits in the slowly risingmists of evening.
What a stupendous desolation time had wrought!
As he slowly proceeded up the hill, Eckhardt beheld the Palatine'senormous structures crumbled to ruin. The high-spanned vaulted archesand partitions still rested on their firm foundations of Tophus stone,their ruined roofs supported by massive pillars, broken, pierced andcreviced. Resplendent in the last glow of departing day towered highthe imperial palaces of Augustus, Tiberius and Domitian. TheSeptizonium of Alexander Severus, still well preserved in its sevenstories, had been converted into a feudal stronghold by Alberic, chiefof the Optimates, while Caligula's great piles of stone rose high anddominating in the evening air. The Jovian temples were still standingclose to the famous tomb of Romulus, but the old triumphal course wasobstructed with filth. In crescent shape here and there a portico wasvisible, shadeless and long deprived of roofing. High towered theColiseum's stately ruins; Circus and Stadium were overgrown with bushes;of the baths of Diocletian and Caracalla, once magnificent and imposing,only ruins remained. Crumbling, weatherbeaten masonry confronted theeye on every turn. Endless seemed the tangled maze of crooked lanes,among which loomed a temple-gable green with moss or a solitary column;an architrave resting on marble columns, looked down upon the huts ofpoverty. Nero's golden palace and the Basilica of Maxentius lay inruins; but in the ancient Forum temples were still standing, theirslender columns pointing to the skies with their ornate Corinthiancapitals.
The Rome of the Millennium was indeed but the phantom of her own past.On all sides the eye was struck with inexorable decay. Where oncetriumphal arches, proud, erect, witnessed pomp and power, crumblingpiles alone recorded the memory of a glorious past. Great fragmentsstrewed the virgin-soil of the Via Sacra from the splendid arch ofConstantine to the Capitol. The Roman barons had turned the old Romanbuildings into castles. The Palatine and the adjoining Coelian hillwere now lorded over by the powerful house of the Pierleoni.Crescentius, the Senator of Rome, claimed Pompey's theatre and theMausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, Castel San Angelo; in the waste fieldsof Campo Marzio the Cavalli had seized the Mausoleum of Augustus; theAventine was claimed by the Romani and Stefaneschi; the Stadium ofDomitian by the Massimi. In the Fora of Trajan and Nerva the Conti hadensconced themselves; the theatre of Marcellus was held by the Caetaniand the Guidi ruled in the tomb of Metellus.
There was an inexpressible charm in the sadness of this desolation whichchimed strangely with Eckhardt's own life, now but a memory of itsformer self.
It was a wonderful night. Scarce a breath of air stirred the dyingleaves. The vault of the sky was unobscured, arching deep-blue over thehigher rising moon. To southward the beacon fires from the Tor diVergera blazed like a red star low down in the horizon. Wrapt in deepthought, Eckhardt followed the narrow road, winding his way through awilderness of broken arches and fallen porticoes, through a regionstudded with convents, cloisters and the ruins of antiquity. Gray mistsbegan to rise over housetops and vineyards, through which at intervalsthe Tiber gleamed like a yellow serpent in the moonlight. Near theRipetta long spirals of dark smoke curled up to the azure night-sky andthe moon cast a glory on the colossal statue of the Archangel Michael,where it stood on the gloomy keep of Castel San Angelo. The risingnight-wind rustled in organ-tones among the cypress trees; the fountainsmurmured, and in a silvery haze the moon hung over the slumbering city.
Slowly Eckhardt continued the ascent of the Palatine and he had scarcelyreached the summit, when out of the ruins there rose a shadow, and hefound himself face to face with Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain.
"By St. Peter and St. Paul and all the saints I can remember!" exclaimedthe latter, "is it Eckhardt, the Margrave, or his ghost? But no matterwhich,--no man more welcome!"
"I am but myself," replied Eckhardt, as he grasped the proffered hand.
"Little did I hope to meet you here," Benilo continued, regardingEckhardt intently. "I thought you far away among the heathen Poles."
"I hate the Romans so heartily, that now and then I love to remind themof my presence."
"Ay! Like Timon of Athens, you would bequeath to them your lastfig-tree, that they may hang themselves from its branches," Beniloreplied with a smile.
"I should require a large orchard. Is Rome at peace?"
"The burghers wrangle about goats' wool, the monks gamble for a humansoul, and the devil stands by and watches the game," replied Benilo.
"Have you surprised any strange rumours during my absence?" questionedEckhardt guardedly.
"They say much or little, as you will," came the enigmatic reply. "Ihave heard your name from the lips of one, who seldom speaks, save toill purpose."
Eckhardt nodded with a grim smile, while he fixed his eyes on hiscompanion. Slowly they lost themselves in the wilderness of crumblingarches and porticoes.
At last Eckhardt spoke, a strange mixture of mirth and irony in histones.
"But your own presence among these ruins? Has Benilo, the GrandChamberlain become a recluse, dwelling among flitter mice andjack-daws?"
"I have not sipped from the fount of the mystics," Benilo replied. "Butoften at the hour of dusk I seek the solitudes of the Palatine, whichchime so strangely with my weird fancies. Here I may roam at will andwithout restraint,--here I may revel in the desolation, enlivened onlynow and then by the shrill tones of a shepherd's pipe; here I may rambleundisturbed among the ruins of antiquity, pondering over the ancientgreatness of Rome, pondering over the mighty that have fallen.--I havejust completed an Ode--all but the final stanzas. It is to greet Ottoupon his return. The Archbishop of Cologne announced the welcometidings of the king's convalescence--truly, a miracle of the saint!"
Eckhardt had listened attentively, then he remarked drily:
"Let each man take his own wisdom and see whither it will lead him.Otto is still pursuing a mocking phantom under the ruins of crumbledempires, but to find the bleached bones of some long-forgotten Caesar!Truly, a worthy cause, in which to brave the danger of Alpine snows andavalanches--and the fever of the Maremmas."
"We both try to serve the King--each in his way," Benilo replied,contritely.
Eckhardt extended his hand.
"You are a poet and a philosopher. I am a soldier and a German.--I havewronged you in thought--forgive and forget!"
Benilo readily placed his hand in that of his companion. After a pauseEckhardt continued:
"My business in Rome touches neither emperor nor pope. Once, I too,wooed the fair Siren Rome. But the Siren proved a Vampire.--Rome is aenamel house.--Her caress is Death."
There was a brief silence.
"'Tis three years since last we strode these walks," Eckhardt spokeagain. "What changes time has wrought!"
"Have the dead brought you too back to Rome?" queried Benilo withaverted gaze.
"Even so," Eckhardt replied, as he strode by Benilo's side. "The dead!Soon I too shall exchange the garb of the world for that of thecloister."
The Chamberlain stared agha
st at his companion.
"You are not serious?" he stammered, with well-feigned surprise.
Eckhardt nodded.
"The past is known to you!" he replied with a heavy sigh. "Since she hasgone from me to the dark beyond, I have striven for peace and oblivionin every form,--in the turmoil of battle, before the shrines of theSaints.--In vain! I have striven to tame this wild passion for one deadand in her grave. But this love cannot be strangled as a lion isstrangled, and the skill of the mightiest athlete avails nothing in sucha struggle. The point of the arrow has remained in the wound. Madness,to wander for ever about a grave, to think eternally, fatefully of onewho cannot see you, cannot hear you, one who has left earth in all thebeauty and splendour of youth."
A pause ensued, during which neither spoke.
They walked for some time in silence among the gigantic ruins of thePalatine. Like an alabaster lamp the moon hung in the luminous vault ofheaven. How peacefully fair beneath the star-sprinkled violet sky wasthis deserted region, bordered afar by tall, spectral cypress-treeswhose dark outlines were clearly defined against the mellow luminance ofthe ether. At last Eckhardt and his companion seated themselves on theruins of a shattered portico, which had once formed the entrance to atemple of Saturnus.
Each seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts, when Eckhardt raisedhis head and gazed inquiringly at his companion, who had likewiseassumed a listening attitude. Through the limpid air of the autumnalnight, like faint echoes from dream-land, there came softly vibratingharp-tones, mingled with the clash of tinkling cymbals, borne aloft fromdistant groves. Faint ringing chimes, as of silver bells, succeededthese broken harmonies, followed by another clash of cymbals, stormilypersistent, then dying away on the evanescent breezes.
A strange, stifling sensation oppressed Eckhardt's heart, as he listenedto these bells. They seemed to remind him of things which had longpassed out of his life, the peaceful village-chimes in his far-awaySaxon land, the brief dream of the happy days now for ever gone. Buthark! had he not heard these sounds before? Had they not caressed hisears on the night, when accompanying the king from Aix-la-Chapelle toMerseburg, they passed the fateful Hoerselberg in Thuringia?
Eckhardt made the sign of the cross, but the question rising to his lipswas anticipated by Benilo, who pointed towards a remote region of theAventine, just as the peals of the chiming bells, softened by distanceinto indistinct tremulous harmonies, and the clarion clearness of thecymbals again smote the stillness with their strangely luring clangour.
"Yonder lies the palace of Theodora," Benilo remarked indifferently.
Eckhardt listened with a strange sensation.
He remembered the pageant he had witnessed in the Navona, the pageant,from whose more minute contemplation he had been drawn by the incidentwith Gian Vitelozzo.
"Who is the woman?" he questioned with some show of interest.
"Regarding that matter there is considerable speculation," repliedBenilo.
"Have you any theory of your own?"
The Chamberlain shrugged his shoulders.
"Heard you ever of a remote descendant of Marozia, still living inItaly?"
"I thought they had all been strangled long ago."
"But if there were one, deem you, that the harlot-blood which flowed inthe veins of her mother and all the women of her house would besanctified by time, a damp convent-cell, and a rosary?"
"I know nothing of a surviving limb of that lightning-blasted trunk."
"Did not the direct line of Marozia end with John XI, whom she succeededin placing in the chair of St. Peter, ere she herself was banished to aconvent, where she died?" questioned Benilo.
"So it is reported! And this woman's name is?"
"Theodora!"
"You know her?"
Benilo met Eckhardt's gaze unflinchingly.
"I have visited her circle," he replied indifferently.
Eckhardt nodded. He understood.
Dexterously changing the subject Benilo continued after a pause.
"If you had but some heart-felt passion, to relieve your melancholy; ifyou could but love somebody or something," he spoke sympathetically."Truly, it was never destined for the glorious career of Eckhardt to endbehind the bleak walls of a cloister."
Eckhardt bowed his head.
"Philosophy is useless. Strange ailments require strange cures."
For some time they gazed in silence into the moonlit night. Around themtowered colossal relics of ancient grandeur, shattered walls, nakedporticoes. Wildernesses of broken arches stretched interminably intothe bluish haze, amidst woods and wild vegetation, which had arisen asif to reassert their ancient possessions of the deserted site.
At last Eckhardt spoke, hesitatingly at first, as one testing hisground, gradually with firmer purpose, which seemed to go straight tothe heart of his companion.
"There is much about Ginevra's sudden death that puzzles me, a mysterywhich I have in vain endeavoured to fathom. The facts are known to you,I can pass them over, dark as everything seems to me at this verymoment. So quickly, so mysteriously did she pass out of my life, that Icould not, would not trust the testimony of my senses. I left the houseon the Caelian hill on that fateful night, and though I felt as if myeyes were bursting from my head, they did not shed a single tear. WhereI went, or what I did, I could not tell. I walked about, as onebenumbed, dazed, as it sometimes happens, when the cleaving stroke of aniron mace falls upon one's helmet, deafening and blinding. This Iremember--I passed the bridge near the tower of Nona and, ascending theBorgo, made for the gate of San Sebastian. The monks of Della Regolasoon appeared, walking two by two, accompanied by a train of acolytes,chanting the Miserere, and bearing the coffin covered with a large pallof black velvet."
Eckhardt paused, drawing a deep breath. Then he continued, slowly:
"All this did not rouse me from the lethargy which had benumbed mysenses. Only the one thought possessed me: Since we had been severed inlife, in death at least we could be united. We were both journeying tothe same far-off land, and the same tomb would give us repose together.I followed the monks with a triumphant but gloomy joy, feeling myselfalready transported beyond the barriers of life. Ponte Sisto andTrastevere passed, we entered San Pancrazio."
There was another pause, Benilo listening intently.
"The body placed in the chapel, prior to the performance of the lastrites," Eckhardt continued, "I hurried away from the place and wanderedall night round the streets like a madman, ready to seek my owndestruction. But the hand of Providence withheld me from the crime. Icannot describe what I suffered; the agony, the despair, that wrung myinmost heart. I could no longer support a life that seemed blightedwith the curse of heaven, and I formed the wildest plans, the maddestresolutions in my whirling brain. For a strange, terrible thought hadsuddenly come over me. I could not believe that Ginevra was dead. Andthe longer I pondered, the greater became my anxiety and fear. Late inthe night I returned to the chapel. I knelt in the shadow of the vaultedarches, leaning against the wall, while the monks chanted the Requiem.I heard the 'Requiescat in Pace,' I saw them leave the chapel, but Iremained alone in the darkness, for there was no lamp save the lamp ofthe Virgin. At this moment a bell tolled. The sacristan who was makingthe rounds through the church, preparatory to closing, passed by me. Hesaw me, without recognizing who I was, and said: 'I close the doors.''I shall remain,' I answered. He regarded me fixedly, then said: 'Youare bold! I will leave the door ajar--stay, if you will!' And withoutspeaking another word he was out. I paid little heed to him, though hiswords had strangely stirred me. What did he mean? After a few momentsmy reasoning subsided, but my determination grew with my fear.Everything being still as the grave, I approached the coffin, cold sweatupon my brow. Removing the pall which covered it, I drew my dagger whichwas strong and sharp, intending to force open the lid, when suddenly Ifelt a stinging, benumbing pain on my head, as from the blow of acudgel. How long I lay unconscious, I know not. When after some d
ays Iwoke from the swoon, the monks had raised a heavy stone over Ginevra'sgrave, during the night of my delirium. I left Rome, as I thought, forever. But strange misgivings began to haunt my sleep and my wakinghours. Why had they not permitted me to see once more the face I had sodearly loved, ere they fastened down for ever the lid of the coffin?'Tis true, they contended that the ravages of the fever to which she hadsuccumbed had precipitated the decomposition of her body. Still--themore I ponder over her death, the more restless grows my soul. Thus Ireturned to Rome, even against my own wish and will. I will not tarrylong. Perchance some light may beam on the mystery which has terrifiedmy dreams, from a source, least expected, though so far I have in vainsought for the monk who conducted the last rites, and whose eyes sawwhat was denied to mine."
There was a dead silence, which lasted for a space, until it grew almostpainful in its intensity. At last Benilo spoke.
"To return to the night of her interment. Was there no one near you, todispel those dread phantoms which maddened your brain?"
"I had suffered no one to remain. I wished to be alone with my grief."
"But whence the blow?"
"The masons had wrenched away an iron bar, in walling up the oldentrance. Had the height been greater, I would not be here to tell thetale."
Benilo drew a deep breath. He was ghastly pale.
"But your purpose in Rome?"
"I will find the monk who conducted the last rites--I will have speechwith Nilus, the hermit. If all else fails, the cloister still remains."
"Let me entreat you not to hasten the irrevocable step. Neither yourking nor your country can spare their illustrious leader."
"Otto has made his peace with Rome. He has no further need of me,"Eckhardt replied with bitterness. "But this I promise. I shall donothing, until I have had speech with the holy hermit of Gaeta.Whatever he shall enjoin, thereby will I abide. I shall do nothinghastily, or ill-advised."
They continued for a time in silence, each wrapt in his own thoughts.Without one ray of light beaming on his course, Eckhardt beheld athousand vague and shadowy images passing before his eyes. Thatsubterranean love, so long crouched at his soul's stairway, had climbeda few steps higher, guided by some errant gleam of hope. The weight ofthe impossible pressed no longer so heavily upon him, since he hadlightened his burden by the long withheld confession. The vertigo offatality had seized him. By a succession of irregular and terribleevents he believed himself hurried towards the end of his goal. Amighty wave had lifted him up and bore him onward.
"Whither?"
From the distance, borne aloft on the wings of the night-wind, camefaintly the chant of pilgrims from secluded shrines on the roadway.Eckhardt's mind was made up. He would seek Nilus, the hermit.Perchance he would point out to him the road to peace and set at restthe dread misgivings, which tortured him beyond endurance. This boonobtained, what mattered all else? The End of Time was nigh. It wouldsolve all mysteries which the heart yearned to know.
And while Benilo seemed to muse in silence over the strange tale whichhis companion had poured into his ear, the latter weighed a resolvewhich he dared not even breathe, much less confide to human ear. Truly,the task required of Nilus was great.
At last Eckhardt and Benilo parted for the night. Eckhardt went hisway, pondering, and wondering what the morrow would bring, and Beniloreturned among the ruins of the Palatine, where he remained seated for atime, staring up at the starry night-sky, as if it contained thesolution of all that was dark and inscrutable in man's existence.