Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (152 page)

JULIAN.
Establish the empire! The voice in the light, Maximus!

MAXIMUS.
Sign against sign.

LEONTES.
How, noble Caesar?

JULIAN.
I also have been forewarned of certain things; but this —

GREGORY.
Say no, Julian. ‘Tis the wings of destruction they would fasten on your shoulders.

LEONTES.
Who are you, that defy the Emperor?

GREGORY.
My name is Gregory; I am the son of the Bishop of Nazianzus; — do with me what you will.

JULIAN.
He is my friend and brother; let no one touch him!
[A great crowd has meanwhile filled the outer court.

BASIL OF CAESAREA.
[Making his way through the crowd.]
Take not the purple, Julian!

JULIAN.
You, too, my faithful Basil.

BASIL.
Take it not! For the Lord God’s sake —

JULIAN.
What terrifies you so in this?

BASIL.
The horrors that will follow.

JULIAN.
Through me shall the empire be established.

BASIL, Christ’s empire?

JULIAN.
The Emperor’s great and beautiful empire.

BASIL.
Was that the empire which shone before your eyes when, as a child, you preached the word beside the Cappadocian martyrs’ graves? Was that the empire you set forth from Constantinople to establish on earth? Was that the empire — ?

JULIAN.
Mists, mists; — all that lies behind me like a wild dream.

BASIL.
‘Twere better you yourself should be at the bottom of the sea, with a mill-stone about your neck, than that that dream should lie behind you. — See you not the work of the tempter? All the glory of the world is laid at your feet.

MAXIMUS.
Sign against sign, Caesar!

JULIAN.
One word, Leontes!
[Seizing his hand and drawing him aside.
Whither do you lead me?

LEONTES.
To Rome, my lord.

JULIAN.
That is not what I ask. Whither do you lead me: to fortune and power, — or to the shambles?

LEONTES.
Oh, my lord, so odious a suspicion —

JULIAN.
My brother’s body can scarce have mouldered yet.

LEONTES.
I can silence all doubt.
[Taking out a paper.]
This letter from the Emperor, which I had thought to hand you in private —

JULIAN.
A letter? What lines he write? —
[He opens the paper and reads.
Ah, Helena! Oh, Leontes! Helena, — Helena to me!

LEONTES.
The Emperor gives her to you, my lord! He gives you his beloved sister, for whom Gallus Caesar begged in vain.

JULIAN.
Helena to me! The unattainable attained! — But she, Leontes — ?

LEONTES.
At my departure he took the Princess by the hand and led her to me. A flush of maiden blood swept over her lovely cheeks, she cast down her eyes, and said: “Greet my dear kinsman, and let him know that he has ever been the man whom—”

JULIAN.
Go on, Leontes!

LEONTES.
These words were all she spoke, the modest and pure woman.

JULIAN.
The pure woman! — How marvellously is all fulfilled!
[He calls loudly.
Robe me in the purple!

MAXIMUS.
You have chosen?

JULIAN. — Chosen, Maximus!

MAXIMUS. — Chosen, in spite of sign against sign?

JULIAN.
Here is no sign against sign, Maximus, Maximus, seer though you be, you have been blind. Robe me in the purple!
[The
Quaestor Leontes
attires him in the mantle.

BASIL.
It is done!

MAXIMUS.
[
Murmurs to himself with upstretched hands.]
Light and victory be to him who wills!

LEONTES.
And now to the Governor’s palace; the people would fain greet Caesar.

JULIAN.
Caesar, in his exaltation, remains what he was, — the poor lover of wisdom, who owes all to the Emperor’s grace. — To the Governor’s palace, my friends!

VOICES AMONG THE QUAESTOR’S RETINUE. Room, room for Julian Caesar!
[All go out through the court
,
amid the acclamations of the crowd; only
Gregory
and.
Basil
remain behind.

BASIL.
Gregory? Whatever comes of this — let us hold together.

GREGORY.
Here is my hand.

ACT FOURT
H

At Lutetia, in Gaul. A hall in Caesar’s palace, “The Warm Baths,” outside the city. Entrance door in the back; to the right, another smaller door; in front, on the left, is a window with curtains.
The Princess Helena,
richly attired,
with pearls in her hair, sits in an arm-chair, and looks out of the window. Her slave,
Myrrha,
stands apposite her, and holds the curtain aside.

THE PRINCESS HELENA.
What a multitude! The whole city streams out to meet them. — Hark! Myrrha, — do you not hear flutes and drums?

MYRRHA.
Yes, I think I can hear —

HELENA.
You lie! The noise is too great; you can hear nothing.
[Springing up
] Oh, this torturing uncertainty! Not to know whether he comes as a conqueror or as a fugitive.

MYRRHA.
Fear not, my noble mistress; Caesar has always returned a conqueror,

HELENA.
Ay, hitherto; after all his lesser encounters. But this time, Myrrha! This great, fearful battle. All these conflicting rumours. If Caesar were victorious, why should he have sent that letter to the city magistrates, forbidding them to meet him with shows of honour outside the gates?

MYRRHA.
Oh, you know well, my lady, how little your noble husband cares for such things.

HELENA.
Yes, yes, that is true. And had he been defeated — they must have known it in Rome — would the Emperor have sent us this envoy who is to arrive to-day, and whose courier has brought me all these rich ornaments and gifts? Ah, Eutherius! Well? Well?

THE CHAMBERLAIN EUTHERIUS.
[From the back.]
My Princess, it is impossible to obtain any trustworthy tidings —

HELENA.
Impossible? You are deceiving me! The soldiers themselves must surely know —

EUTHERIUS.
They are only barbarian auxiliaries who are coming in — Batavians and others — and they know nothing.

HELENA.
[Wringing her hands,]
Oh, have I deserved this torture? Sweet, holy Christ, have I not called upon Thee day and night — [She
listens and screams out.
Ah, my Julian! I hear him! — Julian; my beloved!

JULIAN CAESAR.
[In dusty armour, enters hastily by the back
.] Helena!

EUTHERIUS.
My noble Caesar!

JULIAN.
[Vehemently embracing the Princess.]
Helena! — Bar all the doors, Eutherius!

HELENA.
Defeated! Pursued!

EUTHERIUS.
My lord!

JULIAN.
Double guards at all the doors; let no one pass! Tell me: has any emissary arrived from the Emperor?

EUTHERIUS.
No, my lord; but one is expected.

JULIAN.
Go, go!
[To the Slave.]
Away with you. [Eutherius
and
Myrrha
go out by the back.

HELENA.
[Sinking into the arm-chair.]
Then all is over with us?

JULIAN.
[Drawing the curtains together.
| Who knows? If we are cautious, the storm may yet —

HELENA.
After such a defeat — ?

JULIAN.
Defeat? What are you talking of, my beloved?

HELENA.
Have not the Alemanni defeated you?

JULIAN.
If they had, you would not have seen me alive.

HELENA.
[Springing up.]
Then, Lord of Heaven, what has happened?

JULIAN.
[Softly.]
The worst, Helena; — a stupendous victory.

HELENA.
Victory, you say! A stupendous victory? You have conquered, and yet — ?

JULIAN.
You know not how I stand. You see only the gilded outside of all a Caesar’s misery.

HELENA.
Julian!

JULIAN.
Can you blame me for having hidden it from you? Did not both duty and shame constrain me — ? Ah, what is this? What a change — !

HELENA.
What? What?

JULIAN.
How these months have changed you! Helena, you have been ill?

HELENA.
No, no; but tell me —

JULIAN.
Yes, you have been ill! You must be ill now; — your fever-flushed temples, the blue rings round your eyes —

HELENA.
Oh, ‘tis nothing, my beloved! Do not look at me, Julian. ‘Tis only anxiety and wakeful nights on your account; ardent prayers to the Blessed One on the cross —

JULIAN.
Spare yourself, my treasure; it is more than doubtful whether such zeal is of any avail.

HELENA.
Fie; you speak impiously. — But tell me of your own affairs, Julian! I implore you, hide nothing from me.

JULIAN.
Nothing can now be hidden. Since the Empress’s death, I have taken no single step here in Gaul that has not been evilly interpreted at court. If I went cautiously to work with the Alemanni, I was called timorous or inert. They laughed at the philosopher, ill at ease in his coat of mail. If I gained an advantage over the barbarians, I was told that I ought to have done more.

HELENA.
But all your friends in the army —

JULIAN.
Who, think you, are my friends in the army? I have not one, my beloved Helena! Yes, one single man — the knight Sallust, of Perusia, to whom, during our marriage feast at Milan, I had to refuse a slight request. He magnanimously came to me in the camp, appealed to our old friendship in Athens, and begged leave to stand at my side in all dangers. But what does Sallust count for at the imperial court? He is one of those whom they call heathens. He can be of no help to me. — And the others! Arbetio, the tribune, who left me in the lurch when I was blockaded by the Senones! Old Severus, burdened with the sense of his own impotence, yet unable to reconcile himself to my new strategy! Or think you I can depend on Florentius, the captain of the Praetorians? I tell you, that turbulent man is filled with the most unbridled ambitious.

HELENA.
Ah, Julian!

JULIAN.
[Pacing up and down,
j If I could but come to the bottom of their intrigues! Every week secret letters pass between the camp and Rome. Everything I do is set down and distorted. No slave in the empire is so fettered as Caesar. Would you believe it, Helena, even my cook has to abide by a bill of fare sent to him by the Emperor; I may not alter it, either by adding or countermanding a single dish!

HELENA.
And all this you have borne in secrecy — !

JULIAN.
All know it, except you. All mock at Caesar’s powerlessness. I will bear it no longer! I will not bear it!

HELENA.
But the great battle — ? Tell me, — has rumour exaggerated — ?

JULIAN.
Rumour could not exaggerate. — Hush; what was that?
[Listening towards the door
.] No, no; I only thought — I may say that in these months I have done all that mortal man could do. Step by step, and in spite of all hindrances in my own camp, I drove the barbarians back towards the eastern frontier. Before Argentoratum, with the Rhine at his back, King Knodomar gathered all his forces together. He was joined by five kings and ten lesser princes. But before he had collected the necessary boats for his retreat in case of need, I led my army to the attack.

HELENA.
My hero, my Julian!

JULIAN.
Lupicinus, with the spearmen and the light armed troops, outflanked the enemy on the north; the old legions, under Severus, drove the barbarians more and more to the eastward, towards the river; our allies, the Batavians, under the faithful Bainabaudes, stood gallantly by the legions; and when Knodomar saw that his case was desperate, he tried to make off southwards, in order to reach the islands. But before he could escape, I sent Florentius to intercept him with the Praetorian guards and the cavalry. Helena, I dare not say it aloud, but certain it is that treachery or envy had nearly robbed me of the fruits of victory. The Roman cavalry recoiled time after time before the barbarians, who threw themselves down on the ground and stabbed the horses in the belly. Defeat stared us in the face —

HELENA.
But the God of Battles was with you!

JULIAN.
I seized a standard, fired the Imperial Guards by my shouts, made them a hasty address, which was, perhaps, not quite unworthy of a more enlightened audience, and then, rewarded by the soldiers’ acclamations, I plunged headlong into the thickest of the fight.

HELENA.
Julian! Oh, you do not love me!

JULIAN.
At that moment you were not in my thoughts. I wished to die; for I despaired of victory. But it came, my love! It seemed as though lightnings of terror flashed from our lance-points. I saw Knodomar, that redoutable warrior — ah, you have seen him too — I saw him fleeing on foot from the battlefield, and with him his brother Vestralp, and the kings Hortar and Suomar, and all who had not fallen by our swords.

HELENA.
Oh, I can see it; I can see it! Blessed Saviour, ‘twas thou that didst again send forth the destroying angels of the Milvian Bridge!

JULIAN.
Never have I heard such shrieks of despair; never seen such gaping wounds as those we trampled on, as we waded through the slain. The river did the rest; the drowning men struggled among themselves until they rolled over, and went to the bottom. Most of the princes fell living into our hands; Knodomar himself had sought refuge in a bed of reeds; one of his attendants betrayed him, and our bowmen sent a shower of arrows into his hiding-place, but without hitting him. Then, of his own accord, he gave himself up.

HELENA.
And after such a victory do you not feel secure?

JULIAN.
[
Hesitatingly
.] On the very evening of the victory an accident occurred, a trifle —

HELENA.
An accident?

JULIAN.
I prefer to call it so. In Athens we used to speculate much upon Nemesis. — My victory was so overwhelming, Helena; my position had, as it were, got out of balance; I do not know’ —

HELENA.
Oh, speak, speak; you put me on the rack!

JULIAN.
It was a trifle, I tell you. I ordered the captive Knodomar to be brought before me, in the presence of the army. Before the battle, he had threatened that I should be flayed alive when I fell into his hands. Now he came towards me with faltering steps, trembling in every limb. Crushed by disaster, as the barbarians are apt to be, he cast himself down before me, embraced my knees, shed tears, and begged for his life.

HELENA.
His mighty frame quivering with dread — I can see the prostrate Knodomar. — Did you kill him, my beloved?

JULIAN.
I could not kill that man. I granted him his life, and promised to send him as a prisoner to Rome.

HELENA.
Without torturing him?

JULIAN.
Prudence bade me deal mercifully with him. But then — I cannot tell how it happened — with a cry of overflowing gladness, the barbarian sprang up, stretched his pinioned hands into the air, and, half ignorant as he is of our language, shouted with a loud voice: “ Praise be to thee, Julian, thou mighty Emperor!”

HELENA.
Ah!

JULIAN.
My attendants were inclined to laugh; but the barbarian’s shout flew like a lightning-flash through the surrounding soldiery, kindling as it went.
“
Long live the Emperor Julian,” those who stood nearest repeated; and the cry spread around in wider and ever wider circles to the furthest distance. ‘Twas as though some Titan had hurled a mighty rock far out into the ocean; — oh, my beloved, forgive me the heathen similitude, but —

HELENA.
Emperor Julian! He said Emperor Julian!

JULIAN.
What did the rude Aleman know of Constantius, whom he had never seen? I, his conqueror, was in his eyes the greatest —

HELENA.
Yes, yes; but the soldiers — ?

JULIAN.
I rebuked them sternly; for I saw at a glance how Florentius, Severus, and certain others stood silently by, white with fear and wrath.

HELENA.
Yes, yes, they — but not the soldiers.

JULIAN.
Before a single night had passed my secret foes had distorted the affair. “Caesar has induced Knodomar to proclaim him Emperor,” the story went, “and in requital he has granted the barbarian his life.” And, thus inverted, the news has travelled to Rome.

HELENA.
Are you sure of that? And through whom?