The Sorceress of Rome. Gallizier Nathan
the Coliseum'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 the eye 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 of poverty. Nero's golden palace and the Basilica of Maxentius lay in ruins; but in the ancient Forum temples were still standing, their slender columns pointing to the skies with their ornate Corinthian capitals.
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 once triumphal arches, proud, erect, witnessed pomp and power, crumbling piles alone recorded the memory of a glorious past. Great fragments strewed the virgin-soil of the Via Sacra from the splendid arch of Constantine to the Capitol. The Roman barons had turned the old Roman buildings into castles. The Palatine and the adjoining Coelian hill were now lorded over by the powerful house of the Pierleoni. Crescentius, the Senator of Rome, claimed Pompey's theatre and the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, Castel San Angelo; in the waste fields of Campo Marzio the Cavalli had seized the Mausoleum of Augustus; the Aventine was claimed by the Romani and Stefaneschi; the Stadium of Domitian by the Massimi. In the Fora of Trajan and Nerva the Conti had ensconced themselves; the theatre of Marcellus was held by the Caetani and the Guidi ruled in the tomb of Metellus.
There was an inexpressible charm in the sadness of this desolation which chimed strangely with Eckhardt's own life, now but a memory of its former self.
It was a wonderful night. Scarce a breath of air stirred the dying leaves. The vault of the sky was unobscured, arching deep-blue over the higher rising moon. To southward the beacon fires from the Tor di Vergera blazed like a red star low down in the horizon. Wrapt in deep thought, Eckhardt followed the narrow road, winding his way through a wilderness of broken arches and fallen porticoes, through a region studded with convents, cloisters and the ruins of antiquity. Gray mists began to rise over housetops and vineyards, through which at intervals the Tiber gleamed like a yellow serpent in the moonlight. Near the Ripetta long spirals of dark smoke curled up to the azure night-sky and the moon cast a glory on the colossal statue of the Archangel Michael, where it stood on the gloomy keep of Castel San Angelo. The rising night-wind rustled in organ-tones among the cypress trees; the fountains murmured, and in a silvery haze the moon hung over the slumbering city.
Slowly Eckhardt continued the ascent of the Palatine and he had scarcely reached the summit, when out of the ruins there rose a shadow, and he found himself face to face with Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain.
"By St. Peter and St. Paul and all the saints I can remember!" exclaimed the latter, "is it Eckhardt, the Margrave, or his ghost? But no matter which, – 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, regarding Eckhardt intently. "I thought you far away among the heathen Poles."
"I hate the Romans so heartily, that now and then I love to remind them of my presence."
"Ay! Like Timon of Athens, you would bequeath to them your last fig-tree, that they may hang themselves from its branches," Benilo replied with a smile.
"I should require a large orchard. Is Rome at peace?"
"The burghers wrangle about goats' wool, the monks gamble for a human soul, and the devil stands by and watches the game," replied Benilo.
"Have you surprised any strange rumours during my absence?" questioned Eckhardt guardedly.
"They say much or little, as you will," came the enigmatic reply. "I have heard your name from the lips of one, who seldom speaks, save to ill purpose."
Eckhardt nodded with a grim smile, while he fixed his eyes on his companion. Slowly they lost themselves in the wilderness of crumbling arches and porticoes.
At last Eckhardt spoke, a strange mixture of mirth and irony in his tones.
"But your own presence among these ruins? Has Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain become a recluse, dwelling among flitter mice and jack-daws?"
"I have not sipped from the fount of the mystics," Benilo replied. "But often at the hour of dusk I seek the solitudes of the Palatine, which chime so strangely with my weird fancies. Here I may roam at will and without restraint, – here I may revel in the desolation, enlivened only now and then by the shrill tones of a shepherd's pipe; here I may ramble undisturbed among the ruins of antiquity, pondering over the ancient greatness of Rome, pondering over the mighty that have fallen. – I have just completed an Ode – all but the final stanzas. It is to greet Otto upon his return. The Archbishop of Cologne announced the welcome tidings 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 crumbled empires, but to find the bleached bones of some long-forgotten Cæsar! Truly, a worthy cause, in which to brave the danger of Alpine snows and avalanches – 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 have wronged you in thought – forgive and forget!"
Benilo readily placed his hand in that of his companion. After a pause Eckhardt 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 a enamel house. – Her caress is Death."
There was a brief silence.
"'Tis three years since last we strode these walks," Eckhardt spoke again. "What changes time has wrought!"
"Have the dead brought you too back to Rome?" queried Benilo with averted 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 the cloister."
The Chamberlain stared aghast 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 has gone from me to the dark beyond, I have striven for peace and oblivion in every form, – in the turmoil of battle, before the shrines of the Saints. – In vain! I have striven to tame this wild passion for one dead and in her grave. But this love cannot be strangled as a lion is strangled, and the skill of the mightiest athlete avails nothing in such a struggle. The point of the arrow has remained in the wound. Madness, to wander for ever about a grave, to think eternally, fatefully of one who cannot see you, cannot hear you, one who has left earth in all the beauty and splendour of youth."
A pause ensued, during which neither spoke.
They walked for some time in silence among the gigantic ruins of the Palatine. Like an alabaster lamp the moon hung in the luminous vault of heaven. How peacefully fair beneath the star-sprinkled violet sky was this deserted region, bordered afar by tall, spectral cypress-trees whose dark outlines were clearly defined against the mellow luminance of the ether. At last Eckhardt and his companion seated themselves on the ruins of a shattered portico, which had once formed the entrance to a temple of Saturnus.
Each seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts, when Eckhardt raised his head and gazed inquiringly at his companion, who had likewise assumed a listening attitude. Through the limpid air of the autumnal night, like faint echoes from dream-land, there came softly vibrating harp-tones, mingled with the clash of tinkling cymbals, borne aloft from distant groves. Faint ringing chimes, as of silver bells, succeeded these broken harmonies, followed by another clash of cymbals, stormily persistent, then dying away on the evanescent breezes.
A strange, stifling sensation oppressed Eckhardt's heart, as he listened to these bells. They seemed to remind him of things