e before, the Tiber
overflowed. Presently, in addition to the pest, famine came. It was
patent to everyone that the gods were vexed. There was blasphemy
somewhere, and the Christians were tossed to the beasts. Faustine
watched them die. At first they were to her as other criminals, but
immediately a difference was discerned. They met death, not with grace,
perhaps, but with exaltation. They entered the arena as though it were
an enchanted garden, the color of the emerald, where dreams came true.
Faustine questioned. They were enemies of state, she was told. The
reply left her perplexed, and she questioned again. It was then her
eyes became inhabited by regret. The past she tried to put from her,
but remorse is physical; it declines to be dismissed. She would have
killed herself, but she no longer dared. Besides, in the future there
was light. In some ray of it she must have walked, for when at the foot
of Mount Taurus, in a little Cappadocian village, years later, she
died, it was at the sign of the cross.

IX

THE AGONY

The high virtues are not complaisant, it is the cad the canaille adore.
In spite of everything, Nero had been beloved by the masses. For years
there were roses on his tomb. Under Vespasian there was an impostor
whom Greece and Asia acclaimed in his name. The memory of his festivals
was unforgetable; regret for him refused to be stilled. He was more
than a god; he was a tradition. His second advent was confidently
expected; the Jews believed in his resurrection; to the Christian he
had never died, and suddenly he reappeared.

Rome had declined to accept the old world tenet that the soul has its
avatars, yet, when Commodus sauntered from that distant sepulchre, into
which, poison aiding, he had placed his putative father, Rome felt that
the Egyptians were wiser than they looked; that the soul did migrate,
and that in the blue eyes of the young emperor Nero's spirit shone.

Herodian, who has written very agreeably on the subject, describes him
as another Prince Charming. His hair, which was very fair, glistened
like gold in the sun; he was slender, not at all effeminate,
exceedingly graceful, exceedingly gracious; endowed with the promptest
blush, with the best intentions; studious of the interests of his
people; glad of advice, seeking it even; courteous and deferential to
the senate and his father's friends--in short, an adolescent Nero--a
trifle more guileful, however; already a parricide