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.
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