ACT FIVE.

Caesar Julian (speaks downward).

Still no sign?

A voice (deep below).

None.

Caesar Julian.

Neither yes nor no? Neither for nor against?

The voice.

Both.

Caesar Julian.

That is as good as nothing.

The voice.

Wait, wait.

Caesar Julian.

I have waited five days and nights; you asked for only three. I tell you, – I am not minded to – (he listens toward the exit and calls in a hushed voice downward.) Speak not!

Sallust the knight (comes in from above by the passage to the left).

My lord; my lord!

Caesar Julian.

Is it you, Sallust? What do you want down here?

Sallust the knight.

This brooding darkness –; ah, now I see you.

Caesar Julian.

What do you want?

Sallust the knight.

To serve you, if I could, – to lead you out to the living again.

Caesar Julian.

What news from up in the world?

Sallust the knight.

The soldiers are restless; we notice all manner of signs that their patience will soon fail them.

Caesar Julian.

Now the sun surely shines up there.

Sallust the knight.

Yes, my lord!

Caesar Julian.

The sky arches like a sea of glittering light. It is perhaps high noon. It is warm; the air quivers along the house-walls; the river ripples, half dried up, over white flintstones. – Lovely life; lovely world!

Sallust the knight.

Oh, come, come, my lord! This sojourn in the grave-passages is interpreted to your harm.

Caesar Julian.

How is it interpreted?

Sallust the knight.

Dare I say it?

Caesar Julian.

You dare and you shall. How is it interpreted?

Sallust the knight.

Many believe that it was less sorrow than remorse that so strangely drove you down beneath the earth.

Caesar Julian.

They believe I killed her?

Sallust the knight.

The mysteriousness of the matter must excuse them, if –

Caesar Julian.

No one killed her, Sallust! She was too pure for this realm of sin; therefore an angel came down from heaven every night into her secret chamber and called to her. Or what? Do you not know that the priests in Lutetia interpreted her death in this way? And the priests must surely know it. Has not her funeral procession hither been like a triumphal procession through the land? Did not all the women of Vienna stream out to meet her coffin outside the gates, greet her with green branches in their hands, spread carpets out on the road and strike up hymns of praise in honour of the heaven-bride, who was being borne home to the bridegroom's house? – What did you laugh at?

Sallust the knight.

I, my lord?

Caesar Julian.

Night and day I have heard the wedding-songs since. Hear, hear; in glorification she is lifted upward. Yes, she was assuredly a true Christian woman. She kept the commandment faithfully; – she gave to Caesar what was Caesar's, and to the other she gave –; well, it was not that we were to speak of; you are not initiated into the mysteries of the doctrine, Sallust! – What news, I asked?

Sallust the knight.

The most important thing I know is that the emperor, at the tidings of what took place in Lutetia, is said to have fled in haste over to Antioch.

Caesar Julian.

That news I know. Constantius doubtless already saw us in spirit before the gates of Rome.

Sallust the knight.

The friends who recklessly joined themselves to you in this dangerous matter saw the same in spirit.

Caesar Julian.

The time is not favourable to us, Sallust! Do you not know that during the war-games, before the departure from Lutetia, my shield broke to pieces, so that I kept only the handle? And do you not know that when I would mount my horse, that servant stumbled on whose folded hands I was to swing myself up?

Sallust the knight.

Yet you came into the saddle, my lord!

Caesar Julian.

But the man fell.

Sallust the knight.

Better men will fall, if Caesar hesitates.

Caesar Julian.

The emperor is decrepit.

Sallust the knight.

The emperor lives. The letters you have written to him about your proclamation –

Caesar Julian.

About my forced proclamation. They compelled me; there was no choice.

Sallust the knight.

The emperor does not let that explanation stand. It is his intent, when an army is gathered in the eastern provinces, to march into Gaul.

Caesar Julian.

How do you know –?

Sallust the knight.

By chance, my lord! I beseech you, believe me –!

Caesar Julian.

Good, good; when it happens, I will go to meet Constantius, – not with sword in hand –

Sallust the knight.

Not? How do you then think to meet him?

Caesar Julian.

I will give the emperor what is the emperor's.

Sallust the knight.

Do you mean by that, that you will step down?

Caesar Julian.

The emperor is decrepit.

Sallust the knight.

Oh, this vain hope! (throws himself on his knees.) Then take my life, my lord!

Caesar Julian.

What now!

Sallust the knight.

Caesar, take my life; I would rather die at your command than at the emperor's.

Caesar Julian.

Rise, friend!

Sallust the knight.

No; let me lie at my Caesar's feet and confess everything. Oh, precious lord, – that I must tell you this! – When I sought you out in the camp by the Rhine, – when I reminded you of our former friendship during the time together in Hellas, – when I begged to be allowed to share the dangers of war with you, – then, oh, Caesar, then I came as a secret spy in the emperor's service –

Caesar Julian.

You –!

Sallust the knight.

My mind had for some time been inflamed with resentment against you; you remember that petty quarrel in Milan, – yet not petty for me, who had hoped that Caesar would help my failing fortune back onto its feet. All this they turned to advantage in Rome; they held me to be the right man to spy out your ways.

Caesar Julian.

And to such a thing you could sell yourself? So black a deceit!

Sallust the knight.

I was ruined, my lord; and I felt that Caesar had cast me off. Yes, my Caesar, I betrayed you – in the first months; afterward not. Your kindness, your great soul, all the grace you showed me –; I became what I had given myself out to be, your faithful follower, and in my secret letters to Rome I deceived those who had sent me out.

Caesar Julian.

These letters were from you? Oh, Sallust!

Sallust the knight.

They contained nothing to your harm, my lord! What others may have written, I do not know; I know only that often enough I writhed in anguish under a forced and hateful silence. I ventured myself as far forward as I in any way dared. That writing, addressed to an unnamed man in your camp, in which is reported the emperor's triumphal entry into Rome, and which you one morning, on the way to Lutetia, found thrust in under your tent –; yes, you did find it, my lord?

Caesar Julian.

Yes, yes –?

Sallust the knight.

It was directed to me, and a lucky chance favoured me, so that it came into your hands. Speak I dared not, of course. I wanted to speak; but I could not; I put off from day to day betraying my disgrace. Oh, punish me, my lord; see, here I lie!

Caesar Julian.

Stand up; you are dearer to me thus, – won against my will and against your own. Stand up, you friend of my soul; no one shall harm a hair of your head.

Sallust the knight.

Take rather the life that you will not, after all, long have power to shield. You say the emperor is decrepit. (rises.) My Caesar, what I have sworn to keep silent, that I now reveal. The emperor's decrepitude holds no hope for you. The emperor is taking a new wife in marriage.

Caesar Julian.

Ah, what madness! How can you think –?

Sallust the knight.

The emperor is taking a new wife, my lord! (hands him some papers.) Read, read, exalted Caesar; these letters will leave no doubt in you.

Caesar Julian (seizes the papers and reads).

Yes, by the sun's light and power –!

Sallust the knight.

Oh, had I but dared to speak before!

Caesar Julian (still reading)

He is taking a woman in marriage. Constantius, – this dwindling shadow of a man –! Faustina –, what does it say? young – barely nineteen years old –, a daughter of – ah! a daughter of that overweening house. A zealous Christian woman, then (folds the papers together.) You are right, Sallust; his decrepitude holds no hope. Though he be decrepit, dying, – what does that signify? Is Faustina not pious? An angel of annunciation will reveal himself; or else –; ha-ha! in short, – in one way or another –, a young Caesar will be procured, and then –

Sallust the knight.

To hesitate is to perish.

Caesar Julian.

This has been prepared for long and in all silence, Sallust! Yes, if that is so, then all riddles are solved. Helena –, it was not, as I thought, her incautious tongue that felled her –

Sallust the knight.

No, my lord!

Caesar Julian.

– they have thought, – they have believed that –; oh, unfathomable, levelling justice! Therefore she had to be put out of the way.

Sallust the knight.

Yes, therefore; I was the one whom they in Rome first cast their eyes upon. Oh, my lord, you surely do not call into doubt that I refused it? I took refuge behind the impossibility of finding an opportunity; they assured me that the criminal undertaking had been given up, and then –!

Caesar Julian.

They do not stop at – at the double corpse in the stone coffin up there. Constantius is taking a wife. That is why I was to be disarmed in Lutetia.

Sallust the knight.

Only one thing can save you, my Caesar; you must act before the emperor regains his strength.

Caesar Julian.

What if I voluntarily withdrew into solitude, giving myself over to the wisdom that I have here been forced to neglect? Would the new rulers tolerate such an existence? Would not the mere fact that they knew me to be alive be like a hanging sword over their heads?

Sallust the knight.

The kinsmen of the future empress are the men who surrounded Caesar Gallus in his last hours.

Caesar Julian.

Scudilo the tribune. Believe me, friend, – I have not forgotten it. And for this bloody emperor I am to yield and fall! Him I am to spare, him who for long years has stumbled about among the corpses of my nearest kin!

Sallust the knight.

If you spare him, within three months he will stumble about among the corpses of your followers.

Caesar Julian.

Yes, yes; in that you are surely right. It is to me almost like a compelling command to rise up against him. If I do it, I do it not for my own sake. Is it not the weal and woe of thousands that is at stake here? Does it not concern the lives of thousands? Or did it lie within my power to avert this extremity? You are more guilty than I, Sallust! Why did you not speak before now?

Sallust the knight.

In Rome they made me swear a solemn oath to keep silent.

Caesar Julian.

An oath. So. By the gods of your forefathers?

Sallust the knight.

Yes, my lord, – by Zeus and by Apollo.

Caesar Julian.

And yet you break the oath?

Sallust the knight.

I wish to live.

Caesar Julian.

But the gods?

Sallust the knight.

The gods – they are far away.

Caesar Julian.

Yes, your gods are far away; they hinder no one; they weigh upon no one; they leave a man room about himself to act. Oh, this Greek happiness, to feel oneself free! – –

You said that the emperor, vengeful as he is, will shed the blood of my faithful ones. Yes, who can doubt that so it will be? Was Chnodomar spared? Did not that harmless captive have to pay with his life for a slip of speech? For – I know it, Sallust – they killed him; it was a lie, that rumour of the barbarian's homesickness. What then have we not to expect for ourselves? In what hateful light has the tribune Decentius not presented matters in Rome?

Sallust the knight.

That is best seen from the court's hasty flight to Antioch.

Caesar Julian.

And am I not the father of the army, Sallust?

Sallust the knight.

The soldiers' father; the shield and protector of their wives and children.

Caesar Julian.

And what would be the realm's lot, if I waver now? A decrepit emperor, and after him a minor child on the throne; discord and revolt; every man's hand against every other's to seize the power. – Not many nights ago I had a vision. There revealed itself to me a figure with a circle of light about its head; it looked wrathfully at me and said: choose! Then it dissolved, like a rising morning mist. Until now I have interpreted this vision as pointing to quite other things; but now, when I know of the emperor's impending marriage – –

Yes, it truly is a matter of choosing, before disaster pours in over the realm. I am not thinking of my own advantage; but dare I push the choice from me, Sallust? And is it not my duty toward the emperor to guard my life? Have I the right to stand with hanging arms and wait for the murderers whom he, in his mad dread, hires to strike me down? Have I the right to give the unhappy Constantius occasion to heap a new blood-guilt upon his sin-laden head? Is it not better for him, – as it stands in the scriptures, – that he suffer wrong than that he do wrong? If therefore that which I inflict upon my kinsman can be called a wrong, then I hold that this wrong of mine is balanced out by the fact that it prevents my kinsman from inflicting a wrong upon me. I believe that both Plato and Marcus Aurelius, that crowned bridegroom of Sophia, would side with me in this. It would in any case not be a wholly unworthy task for the friends of wisdom, my dear Sallust! – Oh, had I but Libanius here!

Sallust the knight.

My lord, you are yourself so far advanced in wisdom that you –

Caesar Julian.

True, true; but I should nonetheless gladly hear the opinion of certain others. Not because I waver. Do not believe that! Nor do I find that we have any reason to despair of a happy outcome. For those foreboding events ought by no means to deter us. That I kept the handle, when my shield broke during the war-games, seems to me with full justification capable of being interpreted thus: that I shall succeed in keeping what my hand has taken hold of. And when I, swinging myself up onto my horse, dragged to the ground the man who helped me into the saddle, then it seems as if this foretokens a steep fall for Constantius, to whom I owe my elevation. However all things may be, my Sallust, I intend to draw up a writing that shall quite clearly justify that –

Sallust the knight.

Very well, gracious lord; but the soldiers are impatient; they wish to see you and hear their fate from your own mouth.

Caesar Julian.

Go, go, and content them; – tell them that Caesar shall soon show himself.

Sallust the knight.

My lord, it is not Caesar, it is the emperor himself that they wish to see.

Caesar Julian.

The emperor comes.

Sallust the knight.

Then he comes – even empty-handed – with the lives of thousands in his hand!

Caesar Julian.

A barter, Sallust; the lives of thousands against the deaths of thousands.

Sallust the knight.

Have your enemies the right to life?

Caesar Julian.

Happy you, whose gods are far away. Oh, this fitness of the will to bear arms –!

A voice (calls deep below in the grave-passages).

Julian, Julian!

Sallust the knight.

Ah, what is that?

Caesar Julian.

Go away, you dear one; go away in haste!

The voice.

Deaden the church-song, Julian!

Sallust the knight.

It calls again. Oh, then it is true after all!

Caesar Julian.

What should be true?

Sallust the knight.

That you live down here with an enigmatic stranger, with a soothsayer or with a sorcerer, who has come to you in the night-time.

Caesar Julian.

Ha-ha; that is said? Go, go!

Sallust the knight.

I conjure you, my lord, – let these pernicious dreams go. Come with me; come up into the day!

The voice (nearer, below).

All effort is wasted.

Caesar Julian (at the descent to the right).

No sign, my brother?

The voice.

Desolation and emptiness.

Caesar Julian.

Oh, Maximus!

Sallust the knight.

Maximus!

Caesar Julian.

Go, I say! If I step out of this house of decay, I come as emperor.

Sallust the knight.

I beseech you –; what do you seek here in the darkness?

Caesar Julian.

Light. Go, go!

Sallust the knight.

If Caesar hesitates, then I fear he will find the way barred.

Caesar Julian.

Speak, my Maximus!

Maximus the mystic.

All effort is wasted, you hear it. Why could you not deaden the church-song? It has choked all the omens; they wanted to speak, but they were not allowed to get a word in.

Caesar Julian.

Silence, darkness; – and I can wait no longer! What do you counsel me to?

Maximus the mystic.

Go forward blindly, emperor Julian! The light seeks you.

Caesar Julian.

Yes, yes, yes; I believe it too. I would not have needed to have you fetched the long way. Do you know what I have just learned –?

Maximus the mystic.

I will not know what you have learned. Take your fate into your own hands.

Caesar Julian (walks restlessly up and down).

In truth, what is he, then, this Constantius, – this fury-scourged sinner, this crumbling remnant of a former human being?

Maximus the mystic.

The gravestone over him, emperor Julian!

Caesar Julian.

Has he not, in all his conduct toward me, been like a shipwreck without a rudder, – now drifting to the left on the stream of distrust, now flung to the right by the storm-gust of remorse? Did he not reel up onto the imperial throne, terror-stricken, with the purple robe dripping with my father's blood? Perhaps with my mother's too. – Did not all my kinsmen have to fall, so that he could sit secure? No, not all; Gallus was spared, and I; – a couple of lives had to be left over, on which he could buy himself a little forgiveness. Then he drifted before the current of distrust again. Remorse wrung from him a Caesar's name for Gallus; then fear wrung from him a death-sentence over Caesar. And I? Do I owe him thanks for the life he has hitherto granted me? One by one; first Gallus and then –; every night I have sweated under the dread that the day just gone should be my last.

Maximus the mystic.

Were Constantius and death your worst dread? Think again.

Caesar Julian.

Yes, you are probably right. The priests –! My whole youth has been one continuous terror of the emperor and of Christ. Oh, he is terrible, this enigmatic one, – this merciless god-man! Everywhere I wanted to press forward, he stepped great and stern into my path with his unconditional, inexorable demand.

Maximus the mystic.

And this demand, – was it within you?

Caesar Julian.

Always outside. I had to! When my soul crouched together in gnawing and consuming hatred toward my kindred's murderer, then sounded the commandment: love your enemy! When my beauty-enraptured mind thirsted toward the customs and images of the bygone Greek world, then the Christian demand struck down into me with its: seek the one thing needful! When I felt the body's sweet desire and longing toward this or that, then the prince of renunciation frightened me with his: die to the world here in order to live yonder! – The human has become unlawful since the day when the seer from Galilee took over the governance of the world. To live has, through him, become to die. To love and to hate, that is to sin. Has he then transformed man's flesh and blood? Or has the earthbound human not remained what it was? Our sound innermost soul rises up against this; – and yet we shall will contrary to our own will! We shall, shall, shall!

Maximus the mystic.

And no further than this have you come? Shame on you!

Caesar Julian.

I?

Maximus the mystic.

Yes, you, the man from Athens and from Ephesus.

Caesar Julian.

Alas, those times, Maximus! Then it was easy to choose. What was it that we were occupied with, really? A wisdom-edifice; neither more nor less.

Maximus the mystic.

Does it not stand somewhere in your scriptures: either with us or against us?

Caesar Julian.

Did not Libanius remain what he was, whether in a war of words he stood on the side of the accusation or of the defence? This here lies deeper. Here it is a deed that I must get through. «Give to the emperor what is the emperor's». In Athens I once made play of it; – but it lies deeper. You cannot grasp it, you who have never been under the god-man's power. It is more than a doctrine that he has spread out over the world; it is a sorcery that takes the minds captive. He who has once been under him, – I do not believe he ever comes wholly free.

Maximus the mystic.

Because you do not will it wholly.

Caesar Julian.

How shall I be able to will the impossible.

Maximus the mystic.

Is it worth the effort to will the possible?

Caesar Julian.

Word-babble from the lecture-halls! You no longer sate me with such things. And yet –; oh, no, no, Maximus! But you cannot grasp how it is with us. We are like vines that have been transplanted into a strange, unaccustomed soil; – plant us back again, and we should die off; but in the new ground we languish.

Maximus the mystic.

We? Whom do you call we?

Caesar Julian.

All those who are under the terror of the revealed one.

Maximus the mystic.

Shadow-terror!

Caesar Julian.

Be that as it may. But do you not see that this paralysing terror has thickened and towered itself into a wall about the emperor? Oh, I understand well why the great Constantine led such a will-binding doctrine to victory and power in the realm. No bodyguard with spear and shield closes so about the imperial throne as this captivating faith that always points out beyond the earthly life. Have you looked rightly at them, these Christians? Hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked, flat-chested are they one and all; they resemble the linen-weavers in Byssos; no hope of honour is allowed to sprout in this brooding existence; the sun shines for them, and they do not see it; the earth offers them its fullness, and they do not desire it; – all that they desire is to renounce and to suffer in order to come to die.

Maximus the mystic.

Then use them as they are; but then you yourself must stand outside. Emperor or Galilean; – that is the choice. Be a thrall under the terror or a ruler in the land of day and light and gladness! You cannot will the contradictory; and yet it is that which you will. You want to unite the irreconcilable, – to reconcile the two that cannot be reconciled; that is why you lie here and rot in the darkness.

Caesar Julian.

If you can, then light my way!

Maximus the mystic.

Are you the Achilles whom your mother dreamed that she would give to the world? A tender-skinned heel makes no man an Achilles. Rise, lord! Victory-bold, like a rider on his spirited steed, you must leap over the Galilean, if you are to win your way to the imperial throne –

Caesar Julian.

Maximus!

Maximus the mystic.

My beloved Julian, do look about you in the world! Those Christians with the death-longing whom you just named, they are the fewest. But how does it stand with all the others? Do the minds not fall away from the master, one by one? Yes, answer me, – what has become of this strange doctrine of love? Does not community rage against community among themselves? And now the bishops, those gold-bedizened lords who call themselves the chief shepherds of the church! Do they yield even to the magnates of the court at all in greed and lust for power and grovelling –?

Caesar Julian.

They are not all so; think of the mighty Athanasius in Alexandria –

Maximus the mystic.

Athanasius was also the only one. And where is Athanasius now? Did they not drive him out, because he was not for sale according to the emperor's will? Did he not have to take refuge in the Libyan desert, where he has been eaten up by lions? And can you then name me one more, like Athanasius? Think of bishop Maris of Chalcedon, who has now three times changed his mind in the Arian quarrels. Think of the old bishop Marcus in Arethusa; him you know, after all, from your youth. Has he not lately, contrary to law and equity, taken from the citizenry all their common property and laid it under the church? And then think of the decrepit, will-less bishop in Nazianzus, who becomes a mockery to his own congregation, because he answers yes and no to the same matter and because he wishes to please all the contending parties.

Caesar Julian.

True, true, true!

Maximus the mystic.

These are your brothers-in-arms, my Julian; better than these you will not find. Or perhaps you are counting on those two expected great Galilean lights from Cappadocia? Ha-ha; the bishop's son Gregory conducts lawsuits in his native town, and Basil studies the writings of worldly sages on his country estate in the eastern parts.

Caesar Julian.

Yes, I know it well. Apostasy on all sides! Hecebolius, my former teacher, has become a rich man on his zeal in the faith and on his scripture-exposition; and since that time –! Maximus, – it is well-nigh come to this, that I stand alone in earnestness.

Maximus the mystic.

You stand alone. Your whole army is in wild flight or lies beaten all around you. Sound the call to battle, – and no one will hear you; advance, – and no one will follow after you! Do not imagine that you can advance the cause that has given itself up. You are going under, I tell you! And where will you go then? Cast off by Constantius, you will be cast off by all powers on earth – and above the earth. Or will you take refuge in the Galilean's embrace? How does it stand between you and him? Have you not yourself said that you are under the terror? Have you his demand within you? Do you love your enemy, Constantius, merely because you do not strike him? Do you hate the flesh's lust and the earth's alluring ways, merely because you do not, like a hot swimmer, plunge yourself down into them? Do you renounce the world, merely because you have not the courage to possess it? And do you know so surely that – if you die to the world here – you shall then live yonder?

Caesar Julian (walks back and forth).

What has he done for me, this great demanding one? If he holds the reins of the world's chariot in his hand, then surely he must have been able to –

Hear, hear! This they call serving him. And this he takes as a sweet sacrificial smoke. Praise-song over him, – and praise-song over her in the coffin! If he is the all-knowing one, how can he then –?

Eutherius the steward (comes quickly down through the passage to the left).

My Caesar! My lord, my lord; where are you?

Caesar Julian.

Here, Eutherius! What do you want of me?

Eutherius the steward.

You must come up, my lord; you must see it with your own eyes; – miracles are happening at the princess's corpse.

Caesar Julian.

You lie!

Eutherius the steward.

I do not lie, my lord! I do not cling to this foreign doctrine; but what I have seen, I cannot doubt.

Caesar Julian.

What did you see?

Eutherius the steward.

The whole city is in uproar. The sick and the crippled are carried in to the princess's coffin; the priests let them touch it, and they go away healed.

Caesar Julian.

And that you have seen yourself?

Eutherius the steward.

Yes, my lord; I have seen an epileptic woman go out of the church sound, praising the Galileans' god.

Caesar Julian.

Ah, Maximus, Maximus!

Eutherius the steward.

Hear how the Christians rejoice; – now a new miracle happens again.

Oribases the physician (calls up in the passage to the left).

Eutherius, – did you find him? Eutherius, Eutherius, where is Caesar?

Caesar Julian (toward him).

Here, here; – is it true, Oribases?

Oribases the physician (comes forward).

Incredible, inexplicable, – and yet true; they touch the coffin, the priests read and pray over them, and they are healed; a voice proclaims from time to time: holy, holy is the pure woman!

Caesar Julian.

A voice proclaims –?

Oribases the physician.

An invisible voice, my Caesar; a voice, high under the church's vault; – no one knows where it comes from.

Caesar Julian (stands a moment motionless, then he suddenly turns to Maximus and cries):

Life or the lie!

Maximus the mystic.

Choose!

Oribases the physician.

Come, come, my lord; the terror-stricken soldiers threaten you –

Caesar Julian.

Let them threaten.

Oribases the physician.

They lay the blame on you and me for the death of the miracle-working princess –

Caesar Julian.

I will come; I will content them –

Oribases the physician.

There is only one means; you must turn their thoughts in another direction, my lord; – they are wild with despair over the fate that awaits them, if you hesitate longer.

Maximus the mystic.

Ascend now to heaven, you fool; now you die for your lord and master!

Caesar Julian (seizes him by the arm).

The emperor's realm for me!

Maximus the mystic.

Achilles!

Caesar Julian.

What looses the covenant?

Maximus the mystic (hands him the sacrificial knife).

This.

Caesar Julian.

What does the water wash off?

Maximus the mystic.

The blood of the beast.

Oribases the physician (approaches).

What do you intend, my lord?

Caesar Julian.

Do not inquire.

Eutherius the steward.

Hear the din! Up, up, my Caesar!

Caesar Julian.

First down, – then up. (to Maximus.) The sanctuary, my beloved brother –?

Maximus the mystic.

Just below, in the second vault.

Oribases the physician.

Caesar, Caesar, – where are you going?

Maximus the mystic.

To freedom.

Caesar Julian.

Through darkness to light. Ah –!

Maximus the mystic (softly, looks after him).

So it came after all.

Eutherius the steward.

Speak, speak; what do those secret arts mean?

Oribases the physician.

And that now, when every moment is precious –

Maximus the mystic (whispers uneasily as he changes place):

These gliding, moist shadows! Fie; this slimy vermin about my feet –!

Oribases the physician (listens).

The din rises, Eutherius! It is the soldiers; hear, hear!

Eutherius the steward.

It is the song from the church –

Oribases the physician.

No, it is the soldiers; – there they come!

Sallust the knight.

Be calm; I conjure you –!

The soldiers.

Caesar has betrayed us! Caesar shall die!

Sallust the knight.

And what then, you raging ones?

Maurus the standard-bearer.

What then? With Caesar's head we buy forgiveness –

The soldiers.

Forth, forth, Caesar!

Sallust the knight.

Caesar, – my Caesar, where are you?

Caesar Julian (calls down in the burial-chamber).

Helios! Helios!

Maximus the mystic.

Set free!

Choral song up in the church.

Our Father, who art in heaven!

Sallust the knight.

Where is he? Eutherius, Oribases, – what is going on here?

The chorus (in the church).

Hallowed be thy name!

Caesar Julian (climbs up the stair; he has blood on his brow, on his breast and on his hands).

Accomplished!

The soldiers.

Caesar!

Sallust the knight.

Bloody –! What have you done?

Caesar Julian.

Cleft the mists of terror.

Maximus the mystic.

Creation is in your hand.

The chorus (in the church).

Thy will be done in heaven, as also on earth!

Caesar Julian.

Now no bodyguard stands about Constantius any longer.

Maurus the standard-bearer.

What do you say, my lord!

Caesar Julian.

Ah, my faithful ones! Up into the day; to Rome and Hellas!

The soldiers.

Long live emperor Julian!

Caesar Julian.

We will not look back; all roads lie open to us. Up into the day. Through the church! The liars shall be struck dumb –!

My army, my treasure, my imperial throne!

The chorus (in the church).

Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil!

Caesar Julian.

Free, free! Mine is the kingdom!

Sallust the knight (calls to him).

And the power and the glory!

The chorus (in the church).

Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory –

Caesar Julian (blinded by the light).

Ah!

Maximus the mystic.

Victory!

The chorus (in the church).

– for ever and ever, amen!

EMPEROR JULIAN,

A PLAY IN FIVE ACTS.

CHARACTERS: