Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213. Baring-Gould Sabine
a mere closet, furnished with a bed only. All washing was done at the baths, not in the house. The room had no window, only a door over which hung a curtain.
Æmilius divested himself of his wet garment and gave it to his hostess to dry, then wrapped himself in his toga and awaited supper.
The meal was prepared as speedily as might be. It consisted of eggs, eels, with melon, and apples of last year. Wine was abundant, and so was oil.
When he had eaten and was refreshed, moved by a kindly thought Æmilius asked if he might see the sick mother. His hostess at once conducted him to her apartment, and he stood by the old woman’s bed. The evening sun shone in at the door, where stood the daughter holding back the curtain, and lighted the face of the aged woman. It was thin, white and drawn. The eyes were large and lustrous.
“I am an intruder,” said the young man, “yet I would not sleep the night in this house without paying my respects to the mother of my kind hostess. Alas! thou art one I learn who is unable to escape that which befalls all mortals. It is a lot evaded only by the gods, if there be any truth in the tales told concerning them. It must be a satisfaction to you to contemplate the many pleasures enjoyed in a long life, just as after an excellent meal we can in mind revert to it and retaste in imagination every course – as indeed I do with the supper so daintily furnished by my hostess.”
“Ah, sir,” said the old woman, “on the couch of death one looks not back but forward.”
“And that also is true,” remarked Æmilius. “What is before you but everything that can console the mind and gratify the ambition. With your excellent daughter and the timber-yard hard by, you may calculate on a really handsome funeral pyre – plenty of olive wood and fragrant pine logs from the Cebennæ. I myself will be glad to contribute a handful of oriental spices to throw into the flames.”
“Sir, I think not of that.”
“And the numbers who will attend and the orations that will be made lauding your many virtues! It has struck me that one thing only is wanting in a funeral to make it perfectly satisfactory, and that is that the person consigned to the flames should be able to see the pomp and hear the good things said of him.”
“Oh, sir, I regard not that!”
“No, like a wise woman, you look beyond.”
“Aye! aye!” she folded her hands and a light came into her eyes. “I look beyond.”
“To the mausoleum and the cenotaph. Unquestionably the worthy Flavillus will give you a monument as handsome as his means will permit, and for many centuries your name will be memorialized thereon.”
“Oh, sir! my poor name! what care I for that? I ask Flavillus to spend no money over my remains; and may my name be enshrined in the heart of my daughter. But – it is written elsewhere – even in Heaven.”
“I hardly comprehend.”
“As to what happens to the body – that is of little concern to me. I desire but one thing – to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.”
“Ah! – so – with Christ!”
Æmilius rubbed his chin.
“He is my Hope. He is my Salvation. In Him I shall live. Death is swallowed up in Victory.”
“She rambles in her talk,” said he, turning to the daughter.
“Nay, sir, she is clear in her mind and dwells on the thoughts that comfort her.”
“And that is not that she will have an expensive funeral?”
“Oh, no, sir!”
“Nor that she will have a commemorative cenotaph belauding her virtues?”
Then the dying woman said: “I shall live – live forevermore. I have passed from death unto life.”
Æmilius shook his head. If this was not the raving of a disordered mind, what could it be?
He retired to his apartment.
He was tired. He had nothing to occupy him, so he cast himself on his bed.
Shortly he heard the voice of a man. He started and listened in the hopes that Callipodius had returned, but as the tones were strange to him he lay down again.
Presently a light struck through a knot in the boards that divided his room from that of the dying woman. Then he heard the strange voice say: “Peace be to this house and to all that dwell therein.”
“It is the physician,” said Æmilius to himself. “Pshaw! what can he do? She is dying of old age.”
At first the newcomer did inquire concerning the health of the patient, but then rapidly passed to other matters, and these strange to the ear of the young lawyer. He had gathered that the old woman was a Christian; but of Christians he knew no more than that they were reported to worship the head of an ass, to devour little children, and to indulge in debauchery at their evening banquets.
The strange man spoke to the dying woman – not of funeral and cenotaph as things to look forward to, but to life and immortality, to joy and rest from labor.
“My daughter,” said the stranger, “indicate by sign that thou hearest me. Fortified by the most precious gift thou wilt pass out of darkness into light, out of sorrow into joy, from tears to gladness of heart, from where thou seest through a glass darkly to where thou shalt look on the face of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. Though thou steppest down into the river, yet His cross shall be thy stay and His staff shall comfort thee. He goeth before to be thy guide. He standeth to be thy defence. The spirits of evil cannot hurt thee. The Good Shepherd will gather thee into His fold. The True Physician will heal all thine infirmities. As the second Joshua, He will lead thee out of the wilderness into the land of Promise. The angels of God surround thee. The light of the heavenly city streams over thee. Rejoice, rejoice! The night is done and the day is at hand. For all thy labors thou shalt be recompensed double. For all thy sorrows He will comfort thee. He will wipe away thy tears. He will cleanse thee from thy stains. He will feed thee with all thy desire. Old things are passed away; all things are made new. Thy heart shall laugh and sing – Pax!”
Æmilius, looking through a chink, saw the stranger lay his hand on the woman’s brow. He saw how the next moment he withdrew it, and how, turning to her daughter, he said:
“Do not lament for her. She has passed from death unto life. She sees Him, in whom she has believed, in whom she has hoped, whom she has loved.”
And the daughter wiped her eyes.
“Well,” said Æmilius to himself, “now I begin to see how these people are led to face death without fear. It is a pity that it should be delusion and mere talk. Where is the evidence that it is other? Where is the foundation for all this that is said?”
CHAPTER VII
OBLATIONS
The house into which the widow lady and her daughter entered was that used by the Christians of Nemausus as their church. A passage led into the atrium, a quadrangular court in the midst of the house into which most of the rooms opened, and in the center of which was a small basin of water. On the marble breasting of this tank stood, in a heathen household, the altar to the lares et penates, the tutelary gods of the dwelling. This court was open above for the admission of light and air, and to allow the smoke to escape. Originally this had been the central chamber of the Roman house, but eventually it became a court. It was the focus of family life, and the altar in it represented the primitive family hearth in times before civilization had developed the house out of the cabin.
Whoever entered a pagan household was expected, as token of respect, to strew a few grains of incense on the ever-burning hearth, or to dip his fingers in the water basin and flip a few drops over the images. But in a Christian household no such altar and images of gods were to be found. A Christian gave great offense by refusing to comply with the generally received customs, and his disregard on this point of etiquette was held to be as indicative of boorishness and lack of graceful courtesy, as would be the conduct nowadays of a man who walked into a drawing-room wearing his hat.
Immediately