Sometimes he raised his hand, and gently and mechanically moved to and fro the long locks of her hair, as they spread over the head of the couch; but he never turned to communicate with the other persons in the room--he sat as if he saw nothing save his daughter's figure stretched before him, and heard nothing save the faint, fluttering sound of her breathing, close at his ear.
It was now dark, and one lamp hanging from the ceiling threw a soft equal light over the room. The different persons occupying it presented but little evidence of health and strength in their countenances, to contrast them in appearance with the wounded girl; all had undergone the wasting visitation of the famine, and all were pale and languid, like her. A strange, indescribable harmony prevailed over the scene. Even the calmness of absorbing expectation and trembling hope, expressed in the demeanour of Numerian, seemed reflected in the actions of those around him, in the quietness with which the women pursued their employment, in the lower and lower whispers in which the men continued their conversation. There was something pervading the air of the whole apartment that conveyed a sense of the solemn, unworldly stillness which we attach to the abstract idea of religion.
Of the two men cautiously talking together, one was the patrician, Vetranio; the other, a celebrated physician of Rome.
Both the countenance and manner of the senator gave melancholy proof that the orgie at his palace had altered him for the rest of his life. He looked what he was, a man changed for ever in constitution and character. A fixed expression of anxiety and gloom appeared in his eyes; his emaciated face was occasionally distorted by a nervous, involuntary contraction of the muscles; it was evident that the paralysing effect of the debauch which had destroyed his companions would remain with him to the end of his existence. No remnant of his careless self-possession, his easy, patrician affability, appeared in his manner, as he now listened to his companion's conversation; years seemed to have been added to his life since he had headed the table at 'The Banquet of Famine'.
'Yes,' said the physician, a cold, calm man, who spoke much, but pronounced all his words with emphatic deliberation,--'Yes, as I have already told you, the wound in itself was not mortal. If the blade of the knife had entered near the centre of the neck, she must have died when she was struck. But it passed outwards and backwards; the large vessels escaped, and no vital part has been touched.'
'And yet you persist in declaring that you doubt her recovery!' exclaimed Vetranio, in low, mournful tones.
'I do,' pursued the physician. 'She must have been exhausted in mind and body when she received the blow--I have watched her carefully; I know it! There is nothing of the natural health and strength of youth to oppose the effects of the wound. I have seen the old die from injuries that the young recover, because life in them was losing its powers of resistance; she is in the position of the old!'
'They have died before me, and she will die before me! I shall lose all--all!' sighed Vetranio bitterly to himself.
'The resources of our art are exhausted,' continued the other; 'nothing remains but to watch carefully and wait patiently. The chances of life or death will be decided in a few hours; they are equally balanced now.'
'I shall lose all!--all!' repeated the senator mournfully, as if he heeded not the last words.
'If she dies,' said the physician, speaking in warmer tones, for he was struck with pity, in spite of himself, at the spectacle of Vetranio's utter dejection, 'if she dies, you can at least remember that all that could be done to secure her life has been done by you. Her father, helpless in his lethargy and his age, was fitted only to sit and watch her, as he has sat and watched her day after day; but you have spared nothing, forgotten nothing. Whatever I have asked for, that you have provided; the hangings round the room, and the couch that she lies on, are yours; the first fresh supplies of nourishment from the newly-opened markets were brought here from you; I told you that she was thinking incessantly of what she had suffered, that it was necessary to preserve her against her own recollections, that the presence of women about her might do good, that a child appearing sometimes in the room might soothe her fancy, might make her look at what was passing, instead of thinking of what had passed--you found them, and sent them! I have seen parents less anxious for their children, lovers for their mistresses, than you for this girl.'
'My destiny is with her,' interrupted Vetranio, looking round superstitiously to the frail form on the couch. 'I know nothing of the mysteries that the Christians call their "Faith", but I believe now in the soul; I believe that one soul contains the fate of another, and that her soul contains the fate of mine!'
The physician shook his head derisively. His calling had determined his philosophy--he was as ardent a materialist as Epicurus himself.
'Listen,' said Vetranio; 'since I first saw her, a change came over my whole being; it was as if her life was mingled with mine! I had no influence over her, save an influence for ill: I loved her, and she was driven defenceless from her home! I sent my slaves to search Rome night and day; I exerted all my power, I lavished my wealth to discover her; and, for the first time in this one effort, I failed in what I had undertaken. I felt that through me she was lost--dead! Days passed on; life weighed weary on me; the famine came. You know in what way I determined that my career should close; the rumour of the Banquet of Famine reached you as it reached others!'
'It did,' replied the physician. 'And I see before me in your face,' he added, after a momentary pause, 'the havoc which that ill-omened banquet has worked. My friend, be advised!--abandon for ever the turmoil of your Roman palace, and breathe in tranquillity the air of a country home. The strength you once had is gone never to return--if you would yet live, husband what is still left.'
'Hear me,' pursued Vetranio, in low, gloomy tones. 'I stood alone in my doomed palace; the friends whom I had tempted to their destruction lay lifeless around me; the torch was in my hand that was to light our funeral pile, to set us free from the loathsome world! I approached triumphantly to kindle the annihilating flames, when she stood before me--she, whom I had sought as lost and mourned as dead! A strong hand seemed to wrench the torch from me; it dropped to the ground! She departed again; but I was powerless to take it up; her look was still before me; her face, her figure, she herself, appeared ever watching between the torch and me!'
'Lower!--speak lower!' interrupted the physician, looking on the senator's agitated features with unconcealed astonishment and pity. 'You retard your own recovery,--you disturb the girl's repose by discourse such as this.'
'The officers of the senate,' continued Vetranio, sadly resuming his gentler tones, 'when they entered the palace, found me still standing on the place where we had met! Days passed on again; I stood looking out upon the street, and thought of my companions whom I had lured to their death, and of my oath to partake their fate, which I had never fulfilled. I would have driven my dagger to my heart; but her face was yet before me, my hands were bound! In that hour I saw her for the second time; saw her carried past me--wounded, assassinated! She had saved me once; she had saved me twice! I knew that now the chance was offered me, after having wrought her ill, to work her good; after failing to discover her when she was lost, to succeed in saving her when she was dying; after having survived the deaths of my friends at my own table, to survive to see life restored under my influence, as well as destroyed! These were my thoughts; these are my thoughts still-- thoughts felt only since I saw her! Do you know now why I believe that her soul contains the fate of mine? Do you see me, weakened, shattered, old before my time; my friends lost, my fresh feelings of youth gone for ever; and can you not now comprehend that her life is my life?--that if she dies, the one good purpose of my existence is blighted?--that I lose all I have henceforth to live for?--all, all!'
As he pronounced the concluding words, the girl's eyes half unclosed, and turned languidly towards her father.