“At the end of last month,” Lucius Rutilius began, “Hero had firmly resolved to unite her life with mine. I made her acquaintance at Tibur, where her father had purchased Junius’ Gellius’ villa—it adjoins my own, you know—after the death of its first owner. Wandering through the park, I saw the bewitching girlish figure on the opposite side of the wall that divides Gellius’ grounds from mine. Hero was standing in the shade of a laurel-bush, her fair hair adorned simply with a rose, scattering with her dainty little hands crumbs or corn, which she held gathered in her robe, to a fluttering cloud of sparrows. Concealed behind the pedestal of a goddess of autumn, I could watch her quietly without having my presence suspected.

“Ah, my dear Caius, I should vainly try to describe the subtle charm, childlike innocence, and enchanting grace revealed to me in that quarter of an hour! How she chatted with her protÉgÉs, repelled the bold and encouraged the timid ones, how she jested and laughed, how her loose tunic slipped from her snowy shoulder—it was bewitching! In short, those fifteen minutes decided my fate. For the first time during a life of twenty-six years I experienced at the sight of a girl who charmed me a feeling of sacred reserve, a sort of reverence that made any wanton thought seem a crime. In my ardent dreams, which instantly twined with eager longing around this lovely apparition, I saw her only as the presiding mistress of my house, the ruler of my life....”

“It really appears to be a serious matter,” murmured Caius Bononius. “Does the night-breeze rustling through the boughs deceive me, or what is it that makes your voice tremble so?”

“Do not doubt!” replied Rutilius. “What I feel for Hero is sacred enough to fill my heart with the emotions that seize devout worshippers at the presence of the goddess. Now hear the rest. Wholly absorbed by one thought, I returned to the house and pondered in solitude over the problem how I might succeed in reaching the desired goal. Usually—as you know—I was not embarrassed when in the society of beautiful girls and women; but here the often-tested art of crafty plans seemed to leave me in the lurch. After twenty absurdly tasteless ideas I resolved to ask Agathon—who also lived at Tibur—to take me with him as an uninvited guest to the next banquet given by her father, Heliodorus. A pretended desire to talk with him about the sale of a small grove would serve for an excuse. Agathon cast a strange glance at me when I informed him of my wish. Perhaps this sort of introduction was not the best, though I thought it so; for you, too, will some day learn, spite of all the wisdom that now fills your soul, that love makes even the most experienced people unskilful.”

“On the contrary,” replied Bononius, “I believe great passions render us inventive.”

“We won’t argue the point. Inventive perhaps in what is decisive, but foolish in every other respect.—Agathon consented, and on the third day the opportunity offered. Heliodorus received me with the manners of a polished man of the world, greeting me as a neighbor whose acquaintance he had long desired to make. As to the grove, about which I incoherently stammered a few words, he would consider the matter, and if he could really oblige me, would willingly make a sacrifice.

“The banquet passed without my even obtaining a glimpse of the object of my ardent longing; yet I might well be satisfied. From this hour the wall between our two estates was as it were demolished; an intercourse began, which after a short time developed into friendly relations, and now of course Hero, who had retired from the sight of the guests at the noisy drinking-bout, was visible at any hour of the day to the neighbor who came as it were clad in a tunic,[1] to see her father.

“Let me say nothing about how it all happened. A hundred details gradually wove the certainty that the worthy Sicilian’s daughter favored me, and one evening in the park, on the very spot under the laurel-bush where I had first beheld her, I kissed the words of consent from her quivering lips.

“Those were happy days, Bononius! We still kept our love concealed; not that we had reason to doubt her father’s consent, but there was an indescribable charm in this mystery; I might say: we feared to profane our happiness, if we should draw aside the veil too soon. True, our relations did not wholly escape the excellent Heliodorus’ notice. More than once, while wandering by Hero’s side through the colonnades of the peristyle, I met his sympathizing smile, which seemed to say: ‘Friend, I see through you, but am not angered by your secret suit.’

“Then one evening—we had formed the resolution the day before to appear on the following Friday, October 1st, Heliodorus’ birthday, hand in hand before him and reveal everything—Hero received me with an agitated expression that greatly alarmed me. Her father had gone to Rome on business and was not expected to return till late. Hero had been alone all day with Lydia, a young relative with whom she was educated, had refused old Septimia, her grey-haired confidante, admission to her apartments, neglected to eat, and did not dress until the hour I usually came, when she waited for me on the stone bench under the colonnade of the peristyle. Lydia—a charming creature, by the way, only she reminds one a little too much of our highly-painted fashionable ladies to compare with Hero’s divine simplicity—was sitting beside her when I entered. My sweet, sorrowful love was holding a triangular paper in her hand; Lydia, frowning, clenched in her dainty fist a parchment covered with red letters. After long questioning I learned the following details.

“The two girls were walking in the grounds just after sunrise, as they usually did in the morning. Suddenly a hideously-ugly old woman, dressed in rags, stood before the unsuspecting maidens, called three times in a shrill voice, with the expression of a Gorgon, a prophetic ‘woe!’, threw a roll at my trembling Hero’s feet, and hastily vanished.

“The girls, as if spellbound by this mysterious apparition, took the roll from the ground and untied its fastenings. The contents consisted of a written parchment and a triangular piece of blank paper. The purport of the parchment was as follows:

“‘Olbasanus the Chaldean, the investigator of the future and warner of blinded humanity, writes this to Hero, the daughter of Heliodorus. The gods have announced to us that, inflamed with love for Lucius Rutilius, you cherish the design of accepting him for a husband. Olbasanus warns you against this intention, for his eye has read in the stars what horrible misfortunes threaten you and yours, especially Lucius Rutilius himself, if you carry out your resolve. As you might not believe my warning, I send you with this letter a sacred leaf from the book of the god Amun. Carry the page to the hearth, lay it on the stone flags, but so that the flames cannot reach it; bow thrice with clasped hands and await the divine revelation. Amun himself, with invisible finger, will write upon this page from his book and announce what is impending if you despise his sacred will.’

“This was the purport of the parchment Lydia convulsively clenched in her fingers.”

During the last few moments Caius Bononius had pressed his friend’s arm more closely and showed other tokens of increasing interest.

“Olbasanus?” he now asked, as Lucius Rutilius paused a moment to take breath. “The Chaldean on the Quirinal?”

“The same. His name had already reached my ears, but I now learned for the first time his ghost-like influence and his power.”

“Go on! go on!” urged Bononius.

“Well,” continued the other, “this paper had been enough to throw the two girls into the utmost excitement. Lydia—an exception to her sex—had hitherto made no attempt to pry into her friend’s secret, although she, too, had long since perceived our relations. Now, when the affair was so suddenly and unexpectedly revealed, she forgot the usual questions, amazement, congratulations. In her heartfelt anxiety she pressed into the rooms occupied by the head cook, impetuously sent away all the slaves, and told her friend to do what Olbasanus had directed. Hero, almost bereft of her senses, bowed thrice over the mysterious page and, after a few seconds, perceived with mysterious horror the black characters that were to announce what barred her happiness. She read: ‘To the father, madness, to the daughter, blindness, to Lucius Rutilius, death.’”

“Unprecedented!” cried Caius Bononius. “And a strange coincidence!”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Rutilius.

“Afterwards, my dear fellow! Let me first hear the end of your adventure! True, I scarcely need an explanation of the result of the affair. What reply did you make when the young girls had shown you the page from the book of Amun?”

“I tried to doubt—but the spectral letters and my sorrowful Hero’s troubled eyes spoke only too distinctly. The fact that this was some strange marvel, an inexplicable miracle, apparently sent by the gods themselves—never wavered. At first I was painfully moved, but in the course of our conversation, as Hero seemed to grow calmer, I regained a certain degree of confidence, and when in the middle of the first vigil[2] I entered my house, was disposed, spite of the still unsolved enigma, to regard the whole matter rather as a strange adventure than a misfortune.

“The next day was to undeceive me bitterly. Going into the street at the time of the second breakfast, I saw two large travelling-carriages before the door of the next house. As I was about to ask one of the slaves who held the horses the object of these preparations, Heliodorus and the two young girls crossed the threshold. The Sicilian greeted me and said that he was on his way, with Hero and Lydia, to bid me farewell. Hero, who, as I knew, was a little tyrant, had suddenly declared that she detested Tibur from the very bottom of her soul and longed to go back to Rome, so as it was now so late in the season that he, Heliodorus, had no real reason for opposing this wish, he had decided with his usual promptness.

“Of course I knew that Hero’s suddenly awakened longing was connected with Olbasanus. She wanted to seek him, learn farther particulars about the strange prophecy, and if possible appease by prayers and sacrifices the hostile powers that opposed our happiness.

“Ere fifteen minutes had passed the whole party, including old Septimia and some of the household slaves, were seated among the cushions, and preceded by three horsemen, rolling along the road to Rome.

“You will not be surprised, dear Bononius, when I tell you that I, too, left Tibur that very day and returned to the seven-hilled city. With a heavy heart I approached the next morning the superb Hellenic dwelling on the northern side of the Caelian Hill, occupied by Heliodorus. The Sicilian received me cordially and kindly, though with a somewhat anxious air. Seating myself by his side, I learned that Hero seemed to be ill. Shortly after her arrival she had entered her litter, accompanied by Lydia, returning at a late hour with every sign of agitation. Since then she had lain dejectedly on her couch, scarcely answering a question, but gazing fixedly, with a pallid face, into vacancy. Once she had burst into violent sobs, her whole frame shaken by emotion; then increased depression and exhaustion followed until at last, long after midnight, she fell asleep.

“Of course I guessed what had happened. Hero had been to Olbasanus and had heard from the soothsayer’s lips the same thing the inscription had predicted. Nay, it seemed as if the manner of this confirmation had been far more terrible and demoniac than the first warning by the page from the book of the god Amun. I was utterly at a loss and, stammering my regret in incoherent words, left the house, begging the Sicilian to inform me when his daughter’s health was so far restored that I might repeat my visit without being intrusive.

“On the next evening,” continued Rutilius,—“it was the very Friday we had chosen for the disclosure of our secret, but in my excitement I had entirely forgotten Heliodorus’ birthday—I received a few lines from Hero that almost drove me to despair.

“‘We must part,’ she wrote, ‘part forever. I had hoped the cruel warning that terrified me at Tibur was only the expression of some hidden resentment which might be appeased. But now I know that the gods themselves bar our way with their destroying curse. I have visited Olbasanus twice: day before yesterday at the dinner hour and yesterday at the commencement of the first vigil. This man—do not doubt it—holds intercourse with the gods, demons, and the dead; he has been given power over all the realms of spirits! I have heard it with these ears, seen it with these eyes! When, after manifold proofs of his omnipotence, I still doubted—alas, only because I shrank from despair—at a sign from the terrible man the goddess of death, Hecate herself, appeared to me in the clouds of the night heavens, and in a voice like the roaring of the storm, repeated the awful words I had read on the page of Amun. We must part, Lucius, not for my sake—oh! how gladly would I bear the curse of blindness, if I might win in you a higher, purer light—but for yours, to whom cruel Hecate predicts death, and for love of my dear father, whose mind is threatened with darkness. Farewell, dear Lucius! May you learn to forget more easily than I!’

“These were the words engraved upon my heart in indelible, torturing characters, as if written by a red-hot stylus. I now learned from my slave Gaipor, that Olbasanus was really considered by thousands of people the most powerful conjurer among all the Chaldeans of the seven-hilled city. Gaipor himself, before I bought him, had been sent to the magician by his mistress, a lady from Neapolis, to enquire about the future, and had beheld with his own eyes, like Hero, the terrible apparition of Hecate, who, surrounded by flames, soared across the starry sky. You know, Caius, I am not very credulous. I’ve often laughed at our augurs[3] and soothsayers, and paid the homage of my sincere respect to that general in the time of the Republic, who when the sacred chickens would not eat, flung them into the sea. But here conviction pressed upon me with such power that I succumbed to its force....”

“Hecate!” murmured Caius Bononius. “This marvel was attested to me also, not by one or two persons who had beheld it, but by twenty. Know, Rutilius, that for months I have been reckoning what this Olbasanus accomplishes by means of his league with gods and demons.... But you had not finished your story. Go on, Lucius; but make haste!”

“I have finished,” replied the youth. “There’s only one thing more to add. Amid the dull, heart-corroding grief that mastered me, the desire to visit in the hall of his incantations, the man who had destroyed my future—though with kind intentions—daily became more uncontrollable. I, too, wished to ask the terrible queen of the underworld a question. Every effort to see my beloved Hero again was unavailing. Heliodorus, too, seemed completely transformed—his frank bearing had become so timid and constrained. The impossibility of speaking to Hero, or even Lydia, drove me to carry my desire into execution. Nay, I conquered my repugnance to any contact with the supernatural—and now, oh! Caius, you behold me on my way to Olbasanus, firmly resolved to see with my own eyes what the gods have allotted and at least to bear away the one consolation that lies in the consciousness of immutability and eternally predestined fate.”

“On your way to Olbasanus!” cried Caius Bononius passionately. “Well, then, let us not delay! I, too, am about to seek him. I sent my Glabrio yesterday, and Olbasanus appointed the second hour after sunset....”

“You, too?” asked Lucius in surprise.

“Yes, I, too—though from different motives, my dear Rutilius. I am a philosopher, you know. For years I have searched and investigated; I am acquainted with the manifold appearances of animate and inanimate nature; I don’t believe in this conjuror’s wonderful phantasmagoria. No matter, the testimony of many truthful men lies before us, I cannot doubt that they have faithfully and honestly related what they heard and saw. So a torturing contradiction results. Either I am mistaken in denying, with Pliny and Lucretius, the interference of demons in the affairs of men, or all these truthful people deceive themselves and are the victims of base, unprincipled fraud. Impelled by my curiosity, I am determined, so far as possible, to decide this question one way or another. So come, that I may not miss the hour Olbasanus has appointed.”

Lucius Rutilius felt a thrill of joyful fear. A gleam of hope flashed through his soul, for his friend’s words, spite of their measured reserve, expressed strong confidence.

“Let us hurry!” he said, trembling with impatience.

So the two friends went back into the house, and passing around the Viminal Hill by the side of the Tullian wall, turned towards Olbasanus’ dwelling.