CHAPTER XLV

BETWEEN TWO STOOLS

In those days became Simon of Cyrene a crypto-Jew. He still believed upon Adonai, but he set up in his halls the statues of Jupiter and Juno (for did he not require the countenances of the great?); Minerva, the goddess of wisdom (and who so much in need of wisdom as a snare-encircled Jew?); Vesta, the goddess of fire (whose flames tried out the bright gold from the ore); Ceres, she of the corn and of husbandry (whose profits were sooner or later in Simon's own tills); and Neptune, god of the seas (the seas, upon whose waters rode his innumerable, rich ships); and Venus (let love and beauty still increase, that expenditures and profits may be greater); Vulcan, her husband, blacksmith to the gods, who forged in winter the thunderbolts which great Jupiter, vindictive and unafraid of mortals, cast in the pleasant summer time (but let no Jew be stricken by the lightning): lame was Vulcan, lame and a cuckold (as seldom a Jew had been) and ridiculous; Mars, the fierce god of war, riding in a chariot, strong, and holding tight his spear (especially hateful unto Jews was Mars); then Diana, goddess of the woods and the chase (might the profits on the furs and the timbers be also unto him, the Hebrew); next Mercury, the patron of merchants and of gain: winged sandals, or talaria, were upon his feet (for promptness was important in business), while a caduceus, or wand entwined with wisest serpents, was holden in his hand, and he bore a purse, marsupium; last of all the greater twelve of the Roman gods, was Apollo, which had been specially loved of Lampadephorus (and, after him, of Simon): god of music and of poetry and of painting was Apollo; and of medicine likewise, and all the finer and better arts. Praise unto all these gods of Rome, but especially unto Mercury and Apollo.

And all these "greater" (they that the Romans called "celestial") deities he set up in his atrium, and certain of the lesser deities also set he up, for ensamples, Plutus, god of riches (Ceres' son) and Saturn, the god of time, he that was shown as a snake eating eternally his own futile tail. And this the Jew set up beside old Chronos and his water-clock of silver.

And just inside the atrium door, he erected, greater than all the celestial gods combined-Cæsar, the Lord of the Whole World.

He set up also, in his minor courts, innumerable statues of the lesser gods-Janus, the god of the year; Pluto, king of Hell; the Fates; the Furies; Somnus, or sleep; Bacchus Corniger, attended by

Silenus his nurse; Luna, the moon, and Sol, the sun; and Hercules; and his own Genius-of which each man-according to the Romans -hath one only.

And there were other gods also. But in each of the courts of Simon was either a bust or a statue of Cæsar.

Simon, in his heart, despised the gods, Cæsar most of all. He said, "O Adonai, thou knowest! thou knowest! But for these, and the silence which I have set as a seal upon my lips, I should go to the gates of Hades and be as nothing. Therefore have I done these things. But behold! I will stand high charitable to all men, and I will make new deserts to prosper, new caravans to wind, and the world shall be far happier even for this, that I am in it. Therefore forgive." Yet his heart was afraid and his knees trembled, because he had set up the images. He believed not upon them, yet he feared and feared the very appearance of idolatry.

And they that beheld the statues in the house of Simon, reported quickly the things they had seen. And they told Cæsar.

Hence, on a day (even as Simon was feeling in the flesh of his arm for the pearl of great price which in it he had buried) there came to the house of Simon a messenger from Cæsar.

Who handed unto him a scroll.

And Simon, taking the scroll, and breaking the seal thereof, read: "I, even Cæsar, do hereby make thee a knight. Thou hast been high serviceable unto me. I may later cause that thou shalt be a senator."

Then wrote Simon a grateful answer, and gave it unto the messenger, and despatched him with it.

But still did Simon fear. And he felt in the flesh of his arm again for his great pearl. And, finding it, was more content.

For behold! it had come to pass that, in his highest happiness, the man was most afraid, inasmuch as, because of the great vicissitudes of his years, he had come to believe in his soul that happiness did not of right belong to him, Simon of Cyrene. Even the laughter of his slaves, as well as of himself, was tinged now and again with a wholly tragic fear.

About this time Conatus was greatly care-burdened for his master. He came therefore unto him, and said: "Master, among the slaves (who know everything, but will not always tell exactly how they have learned) it is fearfully whispered that our Master is to go into exile. It is also whispered that he is, instead, to be secretly assassinated. What will be the outcome? Is there, O Master, anything afoot at all!"

But Simon only smiled, saying: "Who knoweth? Adonai." Then when Conatus perceived that his master was not of a truth heathen, but was at the least a crypto-Jew, he said: "O Master, I want to say to thee-I think-I think I cannot tell what I think. I am without 'expression.' There are deeps within me-slave as I am-there are deeps-and within thee too, O Master, there are deeps, into the which I fear-I fear-to be saying— I think—I think that I dream impossibilities. The wonderful thing! The wonderful thing, O Master! Would it might happen!"

Simon thereupon looked at Conatus with round, bright eyes. "What wonderful thing, O faithful servant?"

"Master, Master! Speak to me, I pray thee, about thy prophets." Thought Simon, "I have said in my soul that never a word of my prophets or of Adonai would I speak to any one again. But, as concerneth the speaking to Conatus, what doth it matter?" He spake therefore unto his servant long about the olden prophets, the greater and the less, but chiefly of how those men had prophesied concerning the Messiah.

When he had finished, asked Conatus: "And thou lookest still, O Master, for the coming of Messiah?"

"I look."

Conatus closed his eyes, as if listening to an inward voice. Then, in a much lower tone than theretofore, he asked: "Master, may I go into my private room?"

"Yea, indeed, Conatus."

The man left, and prayed.

But Simon passed to the Forum, where he still was accustomed to transact much business, especially in company with his olden friends, Nummus and Praesens Pecunia.

Nummus said unto him, "Seest thou not that on us the ends of the world are come? Things get worse daily. The universe is rotten. to the core, and will fall asunder."

Praesens Pecunia said, "Discord groweth continually. There is disaffection in the army, centurions are murdered in the night. Treason is discovered in the palace of Cæsar. The Temple of Saturn is robbed, and the custodian murdered out of revenge upon the State.But Cæsar himself! Look where he cometh!"

Then came Cæsar in his litter straightway unto the Jew, and got out of the litter on purpose that he might kiss the Jew before the multitude. Then gat he him back into the litter, and left the Forum, flinging sweet words behind for the Jew only. And great crowds

gathered round Simon of Cyrene, for, as it seemed to them, he had forever overcome his chief adversary, which was Ophidion.

But, at the close of the afternoon (for it was winter now, and trading was mostly in the latter portion of the day) when Simon was quitting the Forum with great gain, and his litter (only less splendid than that of Cæsar) had come, then there stepped up beside him a viator, one of the officers of Cæsar, Lord of All this World, and by whom arrests are made, and saith unto him with a mock: "Thy pardon, sacred Jew."

He gave Simon a writing from the prefect which Simon read, then gat into his litter with it. And turning in the litter, the Jew beheld himself alone in the midst of the Forum, Nummus and Praesens Pecunia being last to leave him. But these also at length departed, and there were now beside him only his own slaves-they that might not choose to go away. A flood of red light from the setting sun fell like a baptism of blood into the marble gulley of the Roman Forum. Then, by a strangely sudden association of ideas, Simon of Cyrene remembered that night outside the walls of old Jerusalem, when the Nazarene (who had lately been attended by an acclaiming multitude) had suddenly been deserted, and the lurid lights of hunting Roman torches filled the desolate valley of Jehosaphat. "Thy Gethsemane, my Forum! Cæsar against us both! But who is to bear the cross for me, thou Crucified One?"

And when Simon had come into his own home-for as such he still did think of it-he ran quickly up into his bibliotheca, or library, then farther on into that little zotheca wherein most he loved to spend his solitude, whether in hope or in despair.

Then cried he aloud, "And thy kiss, O Cæsar, it was like the kiss of a snake-or that of Iscariot. Well, I do know thee now. And on such and such a day (as thy writing saith) I will present my lately knighted person to the prefect, in the Basilica Julia, there to undergo trial-and for treason unto thee."

For a time he could not wholly realize, or comprehend, the meaning and import of his strangely sudden arrest. Then he beheld the mockery of the affair. Little by little there dawned upon his mind also the terrible significance of his trial which was to be before the prefect. For the space of a dozen heartbeats he saw himself in the Mines of the Wretched: heard the click on click of multitudes of hammers and chisels, beheld the crowds of naked and melancholy slaves coming from darkness and disappearing back into darkness again: and all the pent-up wretchedness of the place! Then the roar of the landslide, the blinding entry of the light—

He recalled his wanderings, so filled with suffering and lonesomeness, his meeting with the sweet follower of Christ, his friendship with that gentle spirit for a time, the quarrel at the cross, the parting. "Ah me! that parting eternal! Thou little knowest, O Christopherus, gentlest of all idolaters, and like, much, unto Lampadephorus Why couldst thou not have been a Jew?"

After a little walking about, he recalled again his rough journeythat journey which he had had after leaving Christopherus, the strange, one-ideaed people whom he had met upon that journeySuperbus and Superbia, with their foolish ancestry, full of nothing; Avaritius of the supernumerary fingers, who lived in but a single apartment of his house; Luxurius, and his sister, fond of enticement, with whom he, even the Jew, had braken wedlock; Invidus and Invida, they who, in the town of Natura Humana, had loved him dearly until they beheld him prosperous; Gula, that had had no appetite save when he saw his fellow creatures starving; also Accidius, the slothful, and the ever-scolding Ira. Then the castle of Levitas came back to him as it were in a dream, and all its pitiable follies, his own sudden imprisonment, the release because of the justice of one man alone, even Grammaticus. Then the journey into Germania Barbara. After that, the road to Rome-the first day in The City! Ah me, the exultation and despair, the injustices, the victories- But now!

He saw with preternatural clearness the possible consequences of this trial, nor would he in any wise seek to blind himself as thereunto. He began to feel once more a strange homesickness for the Land, the land that the Lord had given to his fathers, even Canaan! Why had he not returned unto that land long ago? Should he not have been happier? Should he not have been as safe? Was he not likely, even now, before the very eyes of Cæsar, to be sent to the Mines again, else nailed to a cross?

Came at this moment a cry from the tumblers in the atrium, "The temple of Jupiter is stricken! The temple of Jupiter-a thunderbolt!"

Then cried Simon softly, in his lone zotheca: "The temple of Jupiter-thy bolt, O Jehovah! And this shall be as a sign unto me, though I am not a believer on any signs. Ah! Thou Sarcogenes, great Christian as thou art, and son of the old Devil, if I do defeat thee this one time, then, at last, I will take upon thee a great revenge. Too long have I deferred it. We shall see. And I will quit me like a man upon my trial. I will be mine own advocate, even as thou, Sarcogenes, art ever thine. For who is this Ophidion, but a man, that he should certainly triumph over me? Let calculation, coolest calcula