FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>  
piercing the soil, as those descents became steeper, and the main line of the Apennines, [202] now visible, gave a higher accent to the scene, he espied over the plateau, almost like one of those broken hills, cutting the horizon towards the sea, the old brown villa itself, rich in memories of one after another of the family of the Antonines. As he approached it, such reminiscences crowded upon him, above all of the life there of the aged Antoninus Pius, in its wonderful mansuetude and calm. Death had overtaken him here at the precise moment when the tribune of the watch had received from his lips the word Aequanimitas! as the watchword of the night. To see their emperor living there like one of his simplest subjects, his hands red at vintage-time with the juice of the grapes, hunting, teaching his children, starting betimes, with all who cared to join him, for long days of antiquarian research in the country around:--this, and the like of this, had seemed to mean the peace of mankind. Upon that had come--like a stain! it seemed to Marius just then--the more intimate life of Faustina, the life of Faustina at home. Surely, that marvellous but malign beauty must still haunt those rooms, like an unquiet, dead goddess, who might have perhaps, after all, something reassuring to tell surviving mortals about her ambiguous self. When, two years since, the news had reached Rome that those eyes, always so persistently turned to vanity, had suddenly closed for ever, a strong desire to pray had come [203] over Marius, as he followed in fancy on its wild way the soul of one he had spoken with now and again, and whose presence in it for a time the world of art could so ill have spared. Certainly, the honours freely accorded to embalm her memory were poetic enough--the rich temple left among those wild villagers at the spot, now it was hoped sacred for ever, where she had breathed her last; the golden image, in her old place at the amphitheatre; the altar at which the newly married might make their sacrifice; above all, the great foundation for orphan girls, to be called after her name. The latter, precisely, was the cause why Marius failed in fact to see Aurelius again, and make the chivalrous effort at enlightenment he had proposed to himself. Entering the villa, he learned from an usher, at the door of the long gallery, famous still for its grand prospect in the memory of many a visitor, and then leading to the imperial a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>  



Top keywords:
Marius
 

memory

 

Faustina

 

vanity

 

turned

 
reached
 
persistently
 

presence

 
Certainly
 

honours


spoken

 

spared

 
strong
 

desire

 
freely
 

suddenly

 
closed
 
ambiguous
 

sacred

 

failed


Aurelius

 

chivalrous

 

enlightenment

 

effort

 

called

 

precisely

 

proposed

 

prospect

 

visitor

 

leading


imperial

 
famous
 

learned

 

Entering

 

gallery

 
villagers
 

mortals

 
embalm
 

poetic

 
temple

breathed
 

sacrifice

 
married
 
foundation
 

orphan

 

golden

 
amphitheatre
 

accorded

 
crowded
 

reminiscences