partments, that the emperor was already in audience: Marius must wait
his turn--he knew not how long it might be. An odd audience it seemed;
for at that moment, through the closed door, came shouts of laughter,
the laughter of a great crowd of children--the "Faustinian Children"
themselves, as he afterwards learned--happy and at their ease, in the
imperial presence. Uncertain, then, of the time for which so pleasant
a reception might last, so pleasant that he would hardly have wished to
[204] shorten it, Marius finally determined to proceed, as it was
necessary that he should accomplish the first stage of his journey on
this day. The thing was not to be--Vale! anima infelicissima!--He
might at least carry away that sound of the laughing orphan children,
as a not unamiable last impression of kings and their houses.

The place he was now about to visit, especially as the resting-place of
his dead, had never been forgotten. Only, the first eager period of
his life in Rome had slipped on rapidly; and, almost on a sudden, that
old time had come to seem very long ago. An almost burdensome
solemnity had grown about his memory of the place, so that to revisit
it seemed a thing that needed preparation: it was what he could not
have done hastily. He half feared to lessen, or disturb, its value for
himself. And then, as he travelled leisurely towards it, and so far
with quite tranquil mind, interested also in many another place by the
way, he discovered a shorter road to the end of his journey, and found
himself indeed approaching the spot that was to him like no other.
Dreaming now only of the dead before him, he journeyed on rapidly
through the night; the thought of them increasing on him, in the
darkness. It was as if they had been waiting for him there through all
those years, and felt his footsteps approaching now, and understood his
devotion, quite gratefully, in that lowliness of theirs, in spite of
its tardy [205] fulfilment. As morning came, his late tranquillity of
mind had given way to a grief which surprised him by its freshness. He
was moved more than he could have thought possible by so distant a
sorrow. "To-day!"--they seemed to be saying as the hard dawn
broke,--"To-day, he will come!" At last, amid all his distractions,
they were become the main purpose of what he was then doing. The world
around it, when he actually reached the place later in the day, was in
a mood very different from his:--so work-a-