DARK athwart the purple twilight of the Campagna there stretched an aqueduct bearing sweet water to Rome. The flight of its arches eclipsed newly risen stars and sprang aloft from among reeds and thickets, where danced the fire-fly and croaked the frog.
At the foot of a stone pier, huddled together, bruised and suffering from many blows and many wrongs, there sat a ragged lad. His face had been beautiful save for the grief upon it; but it was stained with tears and distorted with pain. The boy was dark-eyed, with a delicacy of feature and a brooding thoughtfulness of expression akin to the sculptors’ Antinous. Now, however, tribulation concealed his good looks, and he wept again at the hopelessness of his position.
The stars ascended from their eclipse behind the aqueduct and the young moon set; but it was scarcely dark, for another day already loitered behind the mountains.
Then came a precious shape out of the gloom, and Pan, plodding through the night-hidden Campagna, stood above this miserable lad.
It was, indeed, Pan himself — the Pasturer, son of Zeus and Callisto. He came, a stalwart shape with shaggy breast and arms, puck-nose, bright horns and genial countenance — man and animal one — with the all-seeing eyes of divinity. His syrinx hung over his shoulder and about his head there streamed a halo of adoring fire-flies, that moved as he moved.
“And what is the matter with you, human boy?” asked the god mildly.
The youngster instantly recognising that august presence, was too alarmed immediately to answer. He fell upon his knees and Pan patted his thick, black hair.
“Why, Arcadius, do you weep in this unmanly fashion?” he inquired.
“Very dreadful things have happened, Mighty One,” answered the youth, “and I cannot forbear to shed tears, for all happiness and hope have departed out of my life.”
“At fifteen years of age there is still hope,” replied Pan. “Relate your tale, and I shall see if you tell it truly.”
He sat down, crossed his hairy thighs and waited for the boy to speak.
“I was slave to Caius Crassus and worked in his vineyards until to-day,” began Arcadius. “But this morning, as ill-luck willed, I fell into prayer and had set this — your image — upon a stone, and was worshipping before it when my master entered the vineyard and surprised me.”
From his wallet he produced a little figure of Pan coarsely carved on a piece of walnut wood.
The god examined it.
“Not an inspiration,” he said, “yet doubtless the artist meant well.”
“I will destroy it now that I have seen you with my own eyes, Mighty One,” answered Arcadius; but his deity prevented him.
“Keep it,” he replied; “the puppet will serve to remind you of a day worth remembering.”
“I shan’t forget this hour in a hurry,” answered the lad. “My grief may be forgotten, not my God.”
“Proceed with your story then.”
“Caius Crassus is a Christian and uneven tempered; but he seldom beats us. Unfortunately, however, while I lifted my prayer, sundry accursed goats, who know you not, strayed in the vines and did much evil. Observing this, my master terribly chastised me — my back is bruised and I am still aching all over. Nor is that the worst, for Caius Crassus cast me out and willed that he should never see my face again. Thus life is ended, and I hope that I may presently die and be no more.”
“To pray is good,” answered Pan, “and to pray to me was not amiss; but to pray to me, when you ought to be working for somebody else, only proves that you have not yet grasped the nature of things. Your prayer to me was uttered at the expense of your duty to Caius Crassus; and such devotion is of doubtful lustre. I heard, however, and I was aware of the sequel. But henceforth do not address yourself to me, when you should be about other business.”
“I have no ‘henceforth,’ Great God,” answered Arcadius. “I do not want to go on living. Life without happiness — there is no charm in that.”
“Like all young things, and middle-aged things, and even old things, you are greedy of happiness,” answered Pan, “and I am the last to blame you; but happiness is a difficult subject, Arcadius, concerning which I will expound the truth on another occasion. For the moment you need healing and consolation. To the broken boy a sound skin is happiness, therefore, so far, be happy; to the hungry boy a full skin is happiness, therefore, so far, feel joy.”
The god lifted his great hand, stroked the bruises of Arcadius and healed them; while delight mantled the lad’s face at feeling himself whole; and then Pan touched the earth, whereupon appeared a cake of wheaten bread, a wedge of honeycomb, four great red plums and a handful of chestnuts.
He watched Arcadius eat and smiled, even as a kindly mortal will smile to see youth feeding with good appetite; but his countenance appeared to be melancholy and his divine thoughts tinged with gloom. This the boy perceived, for he was an observant lad.
“Sorrow is upon your face, Mighty One,” he ventured to say; “but I will never make you sorry again. I will be good and worship at the proper time in future, and work hard if I can find a master.”
“Sorrow is upon my face, as you declare,” answered Pan, “for a sufficient reason. To-day though Rome knows it not as yet, there has fallen the Emperor. He expired far off beyond the Tigris after defeating the armies of King Sapor.”
“Julian!” cried the lad.
“A Persian spear has ended that remarkable life and turned the hour of triumph into mourning,” answered Pan. “He who supported our altars against the Time Spirit has vanished and an evil day is dawning for the gods, a worse for the goddesses. With Julian’s passing, our temples must presently be shut and deserted; the Christians will pardon, or seek revenge, according to their natures. Therefore I am sad while, with proleptic eyes, I gaze into the future.”
“The Emperor Julian fallen!”
“Nobly he fell, with his face to the foe, and never man spoke worthier words before his spirit fled,” replied Pan. “About him assembled Oribazius, his physician, and the sages, Priscus and Maximus, of Ephesus, without whom he travelled not. There came also Hormizdas Lucilian, Sallustius, Jovian and a young centurion of the imperial horse, Ammianus Marcellinus, who in time to come will win fame as an historian of these events. Thus, then, did the dying Cœsar address them, while with lowered heads and falling tears they mourned his fate. ‘I have learned from philosophy,’ said Julian, ‘how much more excellent is the soul than the body, and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the subject of joy rather than of affliction…. I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt…. I have considered the happiness of my people as the end of government.’ Observe, Arcadius, that Julian, too, thought upon happiness — for others. Though he had been forewarned that by the sword he must die, the Emperor hesitated not to lead his armies against the national foe. And what does he say at the last? ‘I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the dagger of secret enemies, or the tortures of disease.’ Nor did Julian name another to follow him in the purple. With virile wisdom he left that great task to the living and allowed no dead hand to weight their councils. ‘As a good citizen,’ said he, ‘I shall only express my hopes that the Romans may be blessed with the government of a virtuous sovereign.’ So Julian departed off the earth and was united with the stars and Apollo, the Lord of Light.”
Pan ceased for a time, and Arcadius considered these great matters. Then his god turned to the lad’s affairs.
“I shall now,” he said, “relate your history, which it becomes essential you should know.”
“I only remember that I had a little twin brother,” replied Arcadius, “and we were separated when still very small.”
“The facts are these,” explained his deity. “Your father, Marcus Pomponius, a good and kindly man, loved your mother, Aurelia; but she being a daughter of the people and he a patrician, it was not convenient that he should wed her. Aurelia died when you and your twin brother came into the world, and your maternal grandmother, who hated Marcus, looked to it that his children should see Pomponius no more. He much desired to make the world a pleasant place for both of you; but he was prevented from doing so, and though he endeavoured to find you after his great grief at your mother’s death, good care was taken that he should not. He therefore erected a handsome stele to the beautiful Aurelia, who was buried in his own grounds and not among the folk, mourned her with bitter tears, prayed the gods to bless her in Hades, and presently married Placidia, the daughter of Scribonius Spartianus. With Placidia and his mother, the matron Latona, your father now dwells at his famous villa on a spur of the Sabine Mountains nigh Tivoli. And thither you must seek him. Proclaim to him that you are his son, and let him know that Pan has sent you. Should he doubt, permit him to see my gift; then he will doubt no more.”
“Your gift is eaten, Great God,” answered Arcadius, licking his lips.
“My gift has yet to be given,” replied Pan. “Briefly, you shall be privileged to understand the speech of all things of the pad and hoof and wing. This will be useful knowledge in the days to come, and such an accomplishment must convince your parent, if indeed your remarkable likeness to your mother fails to do so. But fear not: he will receive you with genuine delight. He has no family, and his wife is a Christian. Himself he worships the Great Mother, Rhea-Cybele, and entertains an affection for me also. Indeed a considerable part of his domain is at my service, and I often wander there and bless his flocks and herds. For the present, farewell. The gods, Arcadius, care not for crowds. Their highest entertainment is found in watching a single body and mind working alone. Thus I shall follow you, and I trust you to remember it and give me nothing but pleasure. Meet me here in six months’ time, when Jovian reigns and Julian lies in his last, long sleep beside the crystal founts of Cydnus. The philosophers will demand that his body should rest in the groves of the Academy; his soldiers will clamour to join his warrior ashes with those of Cœsar in the Field of Mars. Seldom has the dust of a king awakened such competition.”
Arcadius ventured to speak before the god departed.
“Do you know my brother, Mighty One?” he asked.
“I do,” answered Pan, “and it is seemly that you should think upon him. He is become a Christian from force of circumstances, and promises to be a very good one. When you were sold for a handful of silver denarii to Caius Crassus, your twin brother was received into the household of Cassius P. Lucanus. But he liked it not and ran away.”
“Shall I ever see him again?” inquired Arcadius, and Pan promised that he might expect to do so.
“In years to come you will meet,” he answered. “And now go upon your way. Enter Rome to-morrow, and in the marketplace you shall see a man with a cart and black horse. Beg for a lift to Tivoli, and his heart will be touched to grant it. From his destination anybody will direct you to the Pomponian lands.”
Grateful Arcadius knelt down, kissed the hoof of the god and went his way; but he had not proceeded a hundred paces when he heard Pan’s syrinx, for the guardian of living things had lifted the reed to his lips and now wailed a melancholy dirge to the Shade of departed Julian.
And at that sacred sound, the creatures of the night pricked ear and set forth on speedy paws, that they might salute the god. Many hastened past Arcadius, who would have questioned them, to learn if indeed he had received the divine gift of animal understanding; but lynx and pard, fox and brock, rats and mice, great buffaloes, does and little fawns all hastened so swiftly that he might not address them.
Then came a huge tortoise — Pan’s own beast, dedicate of old time to the god — and though he lumbered along at his best pace, it was not difficult for Arcadius to move beside him.
“Tell me, good friend,” said he, “are you a happy tortoise? ”
And the reptile understood, but since his intellect was too small to feel surprise at being questioned by a human boy, replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I am two hundred years old,” he said, and appeared to think no farther answer was needed.
Arcadius walked three miles and then, beyond the range of Pan’s melancholy piping, the animals were about their own affairs and in no hurry, for never a wild beast hastens unless there is need to do so.
The boy stopped a vixen fox and put his former problem.
“Are you a happy fox?” he inquired; and the creature understood and was rather pleased to be questioned.
“I might easily be,” she answered, “though as a fact I am not. We foxes are a sequestered people without any sense of large friendship and communion. We mate and live alone. We seldom see our neighbours, and make no offer of amity when we do. No other fox visits my den; no mother compares her cubs with mine, or exchanges the news, or even passes the time of day. We keep ourselves to ourselves, and when our young are grown, they go out into the world and we see them no more. The life of a fox, therefore, is lonely, for a husband is not society — and children cannot take the place of neighbours, gossip, company. Therefore being by birth a fox, though at heart unfoxlike, gregarious, intensely sociable, convivial and hospitable, I am disappointed, because no opportunity arises or can arise for the display of my gifts. The unusual are, as a rule, unhappy. You may have noticed that.”
“You ought to have been another person,” said Arcadius.
“Exactly,” answered the vixen.
“It seems a common state of things,” continued the boy.
“That makes it no better,” replied she. “To kill the fatted calf for friends! To gather a whole party of foxes and entertain them and be entertained! How admirable an experience! But it is denied me, because normal, vulpine nature hates parties and, in any case, I know not a soul to ask.”
“I might visit you some day and tell you the news,” said Arcadius, and she thanked him, but not warmly.
“It wouldn’t be quite the same thing,” she explained.
“I suppose not,” he answered. Then he bade her good night and walked toward the walls of the city.
Here, protected from wild beasts by shepherds standing silent like sentinels round about, there ranged the flocks and herds of Rome; and presently Arcadius found himself among slumbering sheep, that breathed heavily in the darkness and minded not the summer dew upon their fleeces. One moved to turn over and her the lad accosted.
“Are you a happy sheep?” he asked, and the sheep, who was sleeping badly, but possessed patience and even intelligence, explained that she was not.
“I might be,” she said, “but temperament makes my lot not such as I would most desire. I should have loved a lonely life of retirement and contemplation. I look up to yonder hills and envy the creatures who can go all day and night without seeing a fellow-being. Silence, peace, solitude: these are my dream. But they can never be mine, because I belong to a people not happy out of sight of each other, and only strong in the strength of a multitude. I am one of a timid folk who love to hear each other’s voices, shake beyond sound of the bellwether and feel that in union is their sole security. I cannot roam away and live the life I would live; because, if I attempted to do so, strange and savage enemies would interfere with my contemplation, slay me and rend me for their food. Such, my child, is life. We must, in fact, wear our coat according to our wool, and accept the conditions that alone sustain our well-being, even if we dream of others better suited to our ideals.”
“You would not care to come for a long and lonely walk sometimes — with me to protect you?” suggested Arcadius, and the sheep regarded him humorously.
“A shepherd I know, and a shepherd’s dog I know; but who are you?” she asked.
Then she satisfied herself that a hundred neighbours were within call, turned over and wooed slumber again.
Arcadius also felt a need of sleep. His eyelids were closing over his wonderful brown eyes, and Somnus led him to a mossy stone, where he might repose until morning. For the city gates were fast shut and they would not open till the dawn.
With a prayer of thanksgiving to Pan, he curled upon his couch, heaved a great sigh of contentment, thought upon the death of the Emperor and slept until heaven had grown white again above the Alban Hills.