Dear and Glorious Physician (17 page)

Aurelia, weeping, thought how it would be for her if Diodorus had been stupid enough to try to rescue those foolish books and records. “I shall begin sacrifices, tomorrow, in the temple of Hercules, the god of all heroes,” said Diodorus. If Aurelia had not been present, and Lucanus, and Keptah, he would have knelt and kissed the hem of Iris’ robe. He wanted to do her honor, in behalf of her dead husband. His detestation of Aeneas had been devoured in admiration, and in his love for Iris. Her still and wonderful face touched his heart. He wanted to cry to her, “Iris, my playmate, my beloved, my life is yours for the asking!”

Keptah had disappeared behind a curtain leading to the kitchen. He emerged with a potion in a goblet and, bowing as to a goddess, he put the goblet in the hand of Iris. She drank it, but she still looked at Diodorus with those drowning and unseeing eyes.

“I shall strike a statue for him,” said Diodorus, helplessly. “It shall have an honored niche near the altar of Hercules. In the name of Aeneas a certain sum will be paid to you each year — Iris. It is the least I can do.”

Aurelia wept again with a fresh rush of tears. The books, after all, had been swept away with Aeneas. His gesture of tragic heroism had been wasted. Oh, the touching folly of men, who thought a gesture was more important to their families than their lives! Men were heroes; but women were sensible. Aurelia was very sorry for Iris, who had a hero for a husband.

“I did not love him as my husband, but only as a mother loves a child,” said Iris, speaking for the first time. Aurelia understood, and even while she sobbed she nodded. She was not astonished at honesty.

“He was to me as my child, worthy of my tenderness, my protection,” said Iris, in a faint and dreaming voice. “He was tragic.”

“Yes, yes,” said Diodorus, not comprehending in the least. “But tragedy is the fate of heroes.” He was very tired. He was covered with mud. He had worked for hours rescuing what could be rescued. Three ships loaded with the best produce of Syria had foundered. He had swum, with his officers, looking for the body of Aeneas, in vain. When he had seen Aeneas swept away he had plunged, breastplate, sandals, sword, and all, into the raging yellow waters. He had thought only of Iris.

“I think,” said Keptah, in a gentle voice, “that it would be best for the Lady Aurelia to conduct Iris to her bedroom. The potion is taking effect.” And, indeed, Iris had begun to sway perceptibly. Aurelia rose and put her arms about her friend and led her through the curtain into the bedroom. She said, over her shoulder to her husband, “I will remain with her for a while. When you return, Diodorus, send my special slave, Maia, here to guard and watch over Iris for the night.”

The three men were left alone. Diodorus looked at Lucanus, who, in his grief, was sitting in the presence of the tribune. Diodorus put his hand on the youth’s shoulder. “Let the nobility and dutifulness of your father be an everlasting lesson to you,” he said, in measured accents. Keptah folded his hands in his robe and dropped his eyes.

“I have not been a good son,” said Lucanus.

Diodorus patted his shoulder. “We reproach ourselves when those we love are taken,” he said. “But, if we meditate we can see how they can inspire our lives, make our years more significant by their lessons.”

“I crave your pardon, Master, but you do not understand,” said Lucanus, crushed with his sorrow.

“I never understand; that is what everyone tells me,” said Diodorus with some irritability. His exhaustion made him weak. He patted Lucanus’ shoulder again. “Remain with your mother. Comfort her. Exalt her spirit, for she has a hero for a husband.”

Lucanus rose and went into his mother’s bedroom. She lay like a white statue, fallen, on her bed, her eyes closed. He knelt beside her while Aurelia arranged the rugs over her snowy feet. He kissed a limp hand. Iris opened her eyes and looked at him, and her lips moved. For the first time she wept, and Lucanus lifted her aureate head against his shoulder and held her in mute and aching arms.

His heart was like a huge stone. He wished to pray for the soul of his father, which was now wandering in some ghostly Elysian field, faintly clamoring and lonely. But he could think, even then, only of Rubria, the bright, the young, the tender and the adorable, who would soon travel that grievous path into the depths of death and be lost to him forever.

Rubria recovered a little, enough to be carried out under a tree in the warm spring sunlight. The ghostly aspect of her face lightened into a faint color. Keptah had told Diodorus that young maidens frequently had these relapses into partial invalidism. The devoted father did not know that the long sleeves the girl wore, and the woolen garments in spite of the heat, were to hide from his eyes the dolorous bleeding under her thin skin, and to warm her failing body. It had been arranged between him and Aurelia that she and Rubria would not leave for Rome until the autumn. In the meantime heated letters passed between him and the senator in the matter of the dowry.

Cusa, as much as possible, and when Lucanus pleased him particularly, would permit Lucanus to bring his lessons into the garden near Rubria in order that the youth could be with the maiden. Rubria no longer studied; her waning strength, her languor, her sudden fallings into slumber prohibited all strain. But she would smile with infinite sweetness when Lucanus recited. She would laugh gently at some of Cusa’s sallies. He had always believed he was a wit; for the benefit of the girl Cusa often lay awake at night, inventing witticisms or gay stories. The heart of the crafty Greek had become like butter in the presence of Rubria. Believing only that all men were evil, that they were incapable of truly disinterested motives, that they were wolfish by nature and dissolute in all their thoughts, he marveled at himself. Before this girl one could be inspired only by love.

There were slave girls in this household more beautiful than this maiden. In comparison with Iris, old enough to be her mother, she was as a mortal compared with a shining goddess. Yet Cusa began to believe that never had there been born so perfectly lovely a creature. As her face thinned in its slender brownness, her dark eyes became enormous, shining, filled with a supernatural light, moist with dreams and love. Her mouth, Cusa would say to himself, was like a flower. Her long black hair seemed spun of glass, falling in a cascade over her young shoulders and girlish breast. She would lie back in her chair, her legs and feet covered with wool rugs even on the hottest day, and the outlines of her body took on an impalpable look, like the outlines of a spirit. When she slept she seemed not to breathe. She would awaken as suddenly as she had fallen into a doze, and would look about her with ardent shyness and affection. A Roman maiden, of a noble family, she treated slaves with the courtesy one extended to equals. She embraced life with dearness and reverence. As her mortal life declined her soul took on dimensions beyond the understanding of men.

When with her, one was convinced that all existence was good and full of meaning and poetry. Her favorite birds would light on her shoulder to eat of the bread or fruit she held in her lips for them. They would perch on her delicate finger and lean towards her eagerly, as if to learn from her some ineffable secret. Even the sun appeared to be brighter when she was present, and to shine more warmly upon her. If she were in pain, none knew it but Keptah. Tranquillity and serenity surrounded her like an aura; she was without fear. During the past months, since her sickness had seized her again, she had become a woman, and, in Cusa’s humble belief, a divinity.

He knew that she was dying; all knew it, except the passionately devoted father. Cusa suspected that Rubria knew also. Her sublime patience, her tenderness, her way of looking all about the garden and at every face with quiet intensity and delight assured him that she understood that she would leave here before the winter came. Yet she never complained; she only smiled as if possessed of some divine secret.

And daily Lucanus became sterner and colder, except when with Rubria. The austerity of his face seemed worn down to the bone. He grieved for his father, and this Rubria knew. She had rarely seen Aeneas, but she suffered for Iris and Lucanus. She did not speak of the dead man, but sometimes she would sigh, looking at her old playmate. It was at her specific request that Lucanus ate often with her and her parents, when she had the strength to appear in the dining hall. To spare her father anxiety, she would come, walking slowly and weakly, to her place at the table. When there, all her attention was for Diodorus, and he would look at her lovingly. He believed she was improving. Keptah evaded his sharpest questions in a soothing tone.

Diodorus, happy that Carvilius Ulpian had finally agreed to his terms of the dowry, was elated in his belief that his daughter was improving slowly and steadily. He was also elated that Aurelia would bear him a son. “Naturally,” he would say with fondness to his wife, “it will be a boy. Have I not sacrificed enough to the gods? Only yesterday I sacrificed a hecatomb, and the prices these Syrians charge, the thieves! I have dedicated the boy to Mars. He must be born in Rome, of course, not in this scurvy land.”

Aurelia would smile at him. When sometimes he found her in tears, she would say to him hastily, “You must remember that women have these vagaries during the time they are with child. Put your hand upon my belly, dearest; feel your son leap like a lamb. Ah, he is strong! He is almost worthy of his father.”

One day in late summer Rubria and Lucanus were alone together under the shade of a great green and glittering tree. Lucanus was sitting beside her as she drowsed, doing his lessons and unrolling his books for reference. Then all at once a fearful weariness came over him, and a sensation of overpowering despair. He put aside his tablets and his stylus. He looked at Rubria, at the long black lashes lying like shadows on her pale cheeks, at her folded hands, which were as transparent as alabaster. She had an aspect of death, of utter surrender, her breast hardly stirring. Then he knew, with absolute finality, in spite of his rebellion, in spite of his crying and sometimes blasphemous prayers, in spite of the pitting of his will against that of God, that she would die, and very soon. Her cheekbones were like ivory under her diminished flesh; her throat was a stalk. Lucanus let his head drop slowly against her knee, and he closed his eyes and gave himself up to sorrow.

When she dies, I will go away, he thought. I will become a vagabond on the face of the earth. I will leave in the night and go to the farthest corners of the world, and no one shall know my name. There is nothing without my heart’s darling, without all that I have truly loved.

The birds sang and chattered, and he did not hear them. The sun danced on every leaf and flower, and there was only darkness before his eyes. He was young and warm; he felt old and cold as death. All desire for all that lived had left him. When the darkness of the grave or the funeral pyre had devoured this girl it would devour him also. A weak numbness ran over his flesh, and he felt deathly ill, as if about to die himself. A faint groan escaped him.

A hand, as light as a leaf, touched the top of his golden head and he started and looked up. Rubria was smiling down at him with the tender wisdom of a woman. All love shone in her eyes, all understanding. He caught her hand and kissed it with despairing strength. He could feel its fragility, its chill, its almost spiritual tenuousness.

Then she spoke. “You must not grieve, dear Lucanus,” she said, and her voice was low and infinitely gentle.

The heart of Lucanus shook. Then the girl knew; it was possible that she had known a long time. He could not endure it, that one so young and beautiful had known the truth and had accepted it, without natural fear, without regret, and only with sublime courage. He cursed God inwardly, and thought, When she dies, then I will go with her, for there is nothing without her. A great stillness came to him then, and a quietude.

“Do not grieve,” she repeated, and her voice was even softer. “I am very happy. I will not be parted long from you and my father. The gods are good; they do not hate love between mortals.”

But God is evil, thought Lucanus. He put his head again at the knee of Rubria, and the beautiful garden about him became ghostly in his eyes, filled with the shapes of agony.

Rubria spoke again, and faintly. “I feel in my heart what you are thinking, dear one. You must not think so. God has a great destiny for you. He is our Father, and we are His children. Do you think He would inflict sorrow and pain on us for no purpose? He would have us come to Him.”

“No,” said Lucanus. “If He is as you say, Rubria, let Him raise you from that chair and put blood into your face and strength into your limbs.” His throat closed on a spasm of anguish.

The maiden sighed. “Surely He knows what is best. Surely the peace I feel is His mercy and His goodness. Today I have no pain. Last night I slept as an infant, and my dreams were lovely beyond imagining. I was full of joy, and the joy is with me today. The world is beautiful, but where I go it is more beautiful, and there will be no parting any longer.”

She lifted her head from her pillow and looked down at Lucanus, at his graven face, his still and rigid mouth, the bitter blue of his eyes. “Ah, you have forgotten,” she said. “When we were younger it was you who told me of all this.”

But it is a lie! thought Lucanus. He could not speak; he could not deprive this young girl of her last consolation, even if it were false.

Rubria watched him gravely. “It is true,” she said. “All that you told me when we were children is true. My soul tells me so, and there is no lie on the edge of the grave. I go to God.” She fumbled at her breast and brought out the golden cross which Keptah had given her, and she laid it in Lucanus’ palm. She then gazed at the sky.

“Keptah is a strange man, full of wisdom, Lucanus. He has told me that the One who will die on this Cross is living in the world with us now, hardly more than a Child. But where He is living no one knows, and who He is no one knows but His Mother. His birth was prophesied by the priests of Babylonia thousands of years ago, and He has come. He will lead us into life everlasting, and there will be no more death, but only rejoicing.”

Lucanus suddenly thought of the great white Cross he had seen in the hidden temple of the Chaldeans in Antioch. And he was overwhelmed with rage, self-ridicule, hatred, and disgust. Priests were notorious mountebanks, with their oracles, their prophecies, their conjuring, their delusions, their mysterious jargon. They laughed in secret at the naivete of those who believed them. They fattened on sacrifices. They committed abominations. They filled their coffers with the gold of the fatuous. In the face of the ultimate death their sly faces faded, their voices were silenced.

The golden cross glittered in Lucanus’ hand. He wanted to hurl it passionately from him, and to curse it for the bauble it was. But Rubria, leaning from her chair, gently closed his fingers around it.

“It is my gift to you.”

The sunset stood in the western sky, a sea of scarlet and gold filled with the green sails of drifting little clouds. The gentle breeze sank; the odor of flowers and fertile earth rose like incense. Rubria slept, and Lucanus sat beside her, his head on her knee, her hand on his golden hair. He did not know how long they had remained like this. The edges of the cross cut into his hand, and he did not feel it.

Then at last he lifted his head, and the hand of the maiden fell from it heavily. There was a smile upon her face, as if she had awakened to joy, serene and complete. Her cheeks and her lips had paled to absolute whiteness, and her brow glimmered. Her lashes lay upon her cheeks like the softest shadow.

Lucanus rose slowly to his feet, and the weight of age was upon him. He bent over Rubria, and he uttered one single loud and terrible cry.