Flavia

“ There has been a shadow on my spirit, an apprehension of coming evil, a sensation of neighbouring danger, such as domestic animals feel when near a lion, even without seeing it."
Flavia laid down the page, murmuring, "And is it so, Paulinus? alas, and is it so? Go forth, my children," she added, abruptly, seeing them still standing in the doorway; "you seem as if you longed to taste the moonlight air. Go forth! It is a grand sight to gaze upon the waters of the Adriatic from that noble portico. It expands the heart, it elevates the mind, it raises the soul to the God who made all things. ”

“ The cry filled Dea Flavia's veins as with living fire. She longed to run out into the streets now, at this moment, with the rain beating about her and the storm raging overhead, and to call to the people to come into her house, in their thousands and tens of thousands, and here to fall down and worship the mighty hero who would rule over them all.
The people clamoured for him, and because of these clamours an almighty love for the people of Rome filled the heart of the Augusta. She saw now just what the imperium should be, just how supreme power should sit upon a man. ”

“ What though their thoughts might wander on into the vague future, and sad experience might cause a fear to cast its shadow over the prospect! What though Flavia's heart might feel a chilliness at the idea of strange lands, strange habits, and strange nations! What though Ildica and Theodore might look upon a probable separation of seven long years with grief and regret; yet oh, how such pitiful alloy sunk into nothing when mingled with the golden happiness of knowing that safety, liberty, and peace had been obtained after so fearful a struggle! ”

“ But Flavia also was thinking of Allan Gerard—Allan Gerard, who loved Isabel and for whose sake Flavia carried a double sorrow, his and her own. As he had found excuses in his mind for her apparent failure of him, so she on her part never had blamed him for what she considered her own misunderstanding of his purpose. They were not given to the small vice of ready condemnation. There is no comfort in blaming the one loved, where the love is great. ”

“ A dull grey light enveloped the city in its mantle of gloom, and it was not the torch of Phoebus which had spread the rosy gleam of dawn over the sky! As Dea Flavia looked, she saw a canopy of dull crimson over her head, and from beyond the Palace of Tiberius there rose at intervals heavy banks of purple smoke. ”

“ Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's husband, who had been the magician of her childhood and the hero of innumerable Arabian fairy tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see M. Roux, whom Flavia had announced as the especial attraction of the occasion. Perhaps it was a wish to study that remarkable woman in her own setting.
Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning Flavia. She was in the habit of taking people rather seriously, but somehow found it impossible to take Flavia so, because of the very vehemence and insistence with which Flavia demanded it. ”

“ Dea Flavia, of a truth, had little thought of my lord Hortensius Martius, of his ambition or of his love; she could not tear her eyes away from the spot beyond the stuccoed walls where lay a man—helpless now—but a man whose every deed proclaimed him the born ruler of men. ”

“ At word of command no doubt the bearers put the litter down quite close to the rostrum even whilst four young girls stepped forward and drew the silken curtains aside.
Dea Flavia was resting against the cushions; her tiny feet in shoes of gilded leather were stretched out on a coverlet of purple silk richly wrought with gold and silver threads. Her elbow was buried in the fleecy down of the cushions; her head rested against her hand. [Pg 25]
Dea Flavia, imperial daughter of Rome, what tongue of poet could describe thy beauty? what hand of artist paint its elusiveness? ”

“ She has every thing that is in the fashion, and is in every place where there is any diversion. Flavia is very orthodox; she talks warmly against heretics and schismatics, is generally at church, and often at the sacrament. She once commended a sermon that was against the vanity of dress, and thought it was very just against Lucinda, whom she takes to be a great deal finer than she need be. If any one asks Flavia to do some thing in charity, if she likes the person that makes the proposal, or happens to be in a right temper, she will toss him half a crown, or a crown ”

“ Well, you are a clever girl. But you see it doesn't do to permit oneself to look at it in that light. If we do, we always go to pieces, and waste our substance a-starring as the unhappy daughter of the Capulets. But there, I hear Flavia coming to take you down; and just remember I'm not one of them; the artists, I mean."
Flavia conducted Imogen and Miss Broadwood downstairs. As they reached the lower hall they heard voices from the music-room, and dim figures were lurking in the shadows under the gallery, but their hostess led straight to the smoking-room. ”

“ But Flavia, in whose love there lay no shame, with radiant eyes and blushing face held out her hand to Sapt. She said nothing, but no man could have missed her meaning who had ever seen a woman in the exaltation of love. A sour, yet sad, smile passed over the old soldier's face, and there was tenderness in his voice as, bending to kiss her hand, he said:
"In joy and sorrow, in good times and bad, God save your Royal Highness!"
He paused and added, glancing at me and drawing himself up to military erectness:
"But before all comes the king—God save the king!" ”

“ Fulvius a tawny Italian. It is in favour of this supposition that Constantius, who brought the Flavian gens to the imperial throne, had the agnomen Chlorus, also expressing a light complexion. Out of compliment to his family the derivatives of Flavius became common, as Flavianus, Flavia, and Flavilla. Flavio is now and then found in modern Italy, and Flavia figured in the poetry and essays of the last century. Fulvia, “the married woman,” as her rival Cleopatra calls her, was the wife of Antony, and gave her name an evil fame by her usage of the head of the murdered Cicero. ”

“ Dea Flavia felt supremely happy. Love had come to her in its most exquisite plenitude; the man whom she [Pg 307] honoured, loved her and she loved him. It seemed as if she had slept for thousands and thousands of years and had just woke up to see how beautiful was the world.
"Love is not death," she murmured gently. "It is life."
"Death to me," he whispered, "for I have seen thy beauty and felt thee near unto my soul. And when I no longer may look upon thee mine eyes will become blind with the infinity of their longing, and when I no longer can feel thy touch, my heart will become as a stone." ”

“ For her alone the lips of Eudochia had learned to pronounce those sweetest of words, my mother--for her alone had her heart learned to feel the thrill of filial love.
The affection, however, of the Lady Flavia--for so was called the elder of whom we have spoken--was divided. For the love of man, woman has but one place in her heart, but maternal tenderness has many; and the agony of Niobe was not less for every child that died than if she had had but one. Flavia looked upon Eudochia as her child, and loved her as such ”

“ But Flavia continued, turning to her daughter: "And you, Ildica," she said, "tell me that you are my child indeed--that you would sacrifice life, and all life's dearest interests, rather than take part, or benefit by, or instigate the ruin of your country."
"I would, my mother, I would," replied Ildica, while her person seemed to grow taller, and her resemblance to her mother increased under the excitement of the moment. "I would sacrifice life, and, what is far dearer than life, I would sacrifice him," and she laid her hand upon the arm of Theodore. ”

“ Thine by the will of thousands, thine by the call of one pair of perfect lips ... Rome, the unconquered queen ... Dea Flavia holding in her white hands a cup brimming over with happiness ... all are thine at the word."
The silent watcher cried out in his loneliness and his agony; he held his hands to his ears, for the voice grew more insidious and more real:
"The Empire of the world and Dea Flavia ... and in the balance what?... an oath rendered to a tyrannical madman, the scourge and terror of mankind ... an oath which reason itself doth repudiate with scorn ... ”

“ M. Emile Roux, who sat at Flavia's right, was a man in middle life and quite bald, clearly without personal vanity, though his publishers preferred to circulate only those of his portraits taken in his ambrosial youth. Imogen was considerably shocked at his unlikeness to the slender, black-stocked Rolla he had looked at twenty. He had declined into the florid, settled heaviness of indifference and approaching age. There was, however, a certain look of durability and solidity about him; the look of a man who has earned the right to be fat and bald, and even silent at dinner if he chooses. ”

“ And that word sent its dismal echo even to Dea Flavia's ear.
"Death!"
Then Blanca uttered a terrified scream and quickly drew away from the window; from beyond the Palace of Tiberius, there where the new Palace of Caligula reared its gigantic marble pillars above the temples below, a huge [Pg 262] column of flames had shot upwards to the sky. And a cry, louder than before and more distinct, came clearly from afar.
"Death to the Cæsar! Death!"
"Ye gods protect him," murmured Dea Flavia fervently.
"They'll murder him! they'll murder him!" shouted Licinia at the top of her trembling voice. ”

“ Why this point, as you call it, simply is Flavia. Who could conceive of her without it? I don't know where it's all going to end, I'm sure, and I'm equally sure that, if it were not for Arthur, I shouldn't care," declared Miss Broadwood, drawing her shoulders together.
"But will it end at all, now?"
"Such an absurd state of things can't go on indefinitely. A man isn't going to see his wife make a guy of herself forever, is he? Chaos has already begun in the servants' quarters. ”

“ If you and I had risen from the charcoal- burning to be consul twice and a grammarian and the friend of Marcus Aurelius; if you and I were as handsome as he is, and had experienced a triumph after restoring discipline in Britain and conducting two or three successful wars; and if either of us had such a wife as Flavia Titiana, I believe we could besmirch ourselves more constantly than Pertinax does! It is not that he delights in women so much as that he thinks debauch is aristocratic. Flavia Titiana is unfaithful to him. She is also a patrician and unusually clever. ”

“ Dea Flavia, daughter of Octavius Claudius thou art accursed. May thine every deed of mercy be turned to sorrow and to humiliation, thine every act of pity prove a curse to him who receives it, until thou on thy knees, art left to sue for pity to a heart that knoweth it not and findest a deaf ear turned to thy cry. Hear me, ye gods—hear me!... Magna Mater, hear me!... ”

“ Flavia hasn't the slightest notion of what these people are really like, their good and their bad alike escape her. They, on the other hand, can't imagine what she is driving at. Now, Arthur is worse off than either faction; he is not in the fairy story in that he sees these people exactly as they are, but he is utterly unable to see Flavia as they see her. There you have the situation. Why can't he see her as we do? My dear, that has kept me awake o' nights. This man who has thought so much and lived so much, who is naturally a critic, really takes Flavia at very nearly her own estimate. ”

“ If Dea Flavia chose to desire a slave she could satisfy the caprice, since no man's fortune could hold out against her own. This too did the praefect know. He himself was passing rich and would gladly have paid a large sum now, that he might prove the victor in this unequal contest but Dea Flavia had the law and boundless wealth on her side. Taurus Antinor had only his personal authority which had coerced the crowd, but was of no avail against this beautiful woman who defied him openly before the plebs and before his slaves. ”

“ It has perplexed even Emil Roux, that merciless dissector of egoism. She has puzzled him the more because he saw at a glance what some of them do not perceive at once, and what will be mercifully concealed from Arthur until the trump sounds; namely, that all Flavia's artists have done or ever will do means exactly as much to her as a symphony means to an oyster; that there is no bridge by which the significance of any work of art could be conveyed to her."
"Then, in the name of goodness, why does she bother?" gasped Imogen. "She is pretty, wealthy, well-established; why should she bother?" ”

“ Flavia took her hand and glanced at her affectionately, nodding nervously. “Of course, dear girl, I can't ask you to be quite frank with me. Poor child, you are trembling and your hands are icy. Poor Arthur! But you must not judge him by this altogether; think how much he misses in life. What a cruel shock you've had. I'll send you some sherry, Good night, my dear.”
When Flavia shut the door Imogen burst into a fit of nervous weeping.
Next morning she awoke after a troubled and restless night. At eight o'clock Miss Broadwood entered in a red and white striped bathrobe. ”

“ Citizens of Rome, patricians, and soldiers all! What we must look for in your future ruler is valour in the face of death, coolness and intrepidity in the sight of danger. These qualities, which grace your present Cæsar, must be transmitted to his successor through Dea Flavia, the divine, [Pg 217] and by a father who has given signal proof of his virtues. I have enjoined the Augusta Dea Flavia to bestow her hand on him who above all is worthy to be her lord. ”