FELIX searched afterward through several volumes of Anatole France for that story, but he never could find it, and he suspected that she had made it up herself ... or perhaps it was a story her father had told her—it sounded rather like it....
2
“It seems,” she smilingly began, “that there was a young Roman nobleman, in the early Christian days, who was rich and handsome and beloved; and he had a slave who was a Christian. And Julian—I think that was the young nobleman’s name—used to discuss Christianity with this slave. It seemed to him a barbarian superstition, but he had heard of some intelligent people becoming converted to its doctrines, so he wanted to know more about it. The slave explained. And Julian laughed, saying that these doctrines were even more absurd than he had supposed.
“But Julian, who was a perfect young Roman gentleman, always doing what was expected of him and what everybody else did, became more and more bored with the life he was living. He continued to talk with his slave about Christianity, and finally became converted. And he said, ‘I see now that this life of mine is a tissue of vanities in which there is no real joy. I will renounce my wealth and my title, give up my old habits, and then receive baptism and begin a life of true Christian happiness.’
“‘Good,’ said the slave. ‘I will go and tell my brethren.’
“Now Julian kept a stable and had been fond of racing. He had a favourite mare which he used to hitch up to a small but elegant chariot, and drive very fast through the streets of Rome, wearing a chaplet of flowers. But all 232this looked very silly to him now and so he went first of all to his stable, and said to his head-groom: ‘I have wasted enough time with these soulless brutes. Sell them!’
“The head-groom was thunderstruck. ‘But,’ he stammered, ‘there are the big races next week!’
“‘What of it?’ said Julian.
“‘Well,’ said the head-groom, ‘all your friends are betting on your mare, and they’ll think—’
“‘I don’t care what they think,’ said Julian.
“‘I’ve put all the money I’ve got in the world on her myself,’ said the head-groom, sadly. ‘I’ve been very proud of that filly!’
“Julian was touched. This loyalty deserved an explanation from him. But how could he explain? This good-hearted simple man would never understand. He would simply think his master had gone crazy, and would hold that against Christianity. It did not seem fair that Christianity should get a black eye through such a well-meaning but hasty action as this that he had contemplated. He realized that he must go about the matter of becoming a Christian in a more practical way.
“‘After all,’ he said, ‘there is nothing very wicked about horse-racing. I will keep my horses’—and he countermanded his order to the head-groom—‘and go and give up Leila instead.’ Leila was a Persian girl, and the most beautiful of his three mistresses. Once he had given her up, it would be easier to dispense with the others.
“He went to see Leila, and told her about becoming a Christian. ‘Is it the thing to do?’ she asked. ‘Then I will become one, too!’ Dear, sweet, simple soul! He tried to explain, but she understood nothing, until he said that it meant that he would have to part with her. Then she burst into tears, and cast herself at his feet, and cried out, ‘Is it true, then, that you no longer love me?’
“He told her that he loved her more than ever, but in a different way: now he loved her soul. ‘You have a soul, Leila,’ he said, ‘an immortal soul—and it is high time you began to think about saving it, too!’
233“‘Stay with me,’ she begged, ‘and explain all these things to me. I think if you are kind to me I can understand you, and learn to save my soul, whatever that means. But do not look at me coldly, for that frightens me.’
“‘After all,’ he thought, ‘she has as much a right to save her soul as I have to save mine. Perhaps I had better break it to her gently. In the course of a few weeks—’ And so he kissed her and stayed to explain.
“It was harder than he had realized to become a Christian. His other mistress was angry at him when he proposed to leave her, and said that it was because he preferred that Persian hussy with her silly doll-face! It pained him to have his motives so misconstrued, but why, after all, should he discriminate against this girl? She, too, had a soul. As for the third one, he put off mentioning the subject to her; he was discouraged with the results of his previous efforts, and besides, he felt that women did not understand these things very well.
“‘At least,’ he said, ‘I will receive baptism; and these other things will go easier after that.’
“But on the day set for the ceremony, his mother reminded him that it was the day of the festival of Diana, her favourite goddess. It had been his filial custom to escort his mother to the temple, and sprinkle with her a few grains of incense in the fire which burned before the statue of the goddess. He had never believed in the gods and goddesses—no cultivated Roman did—but it had seemed to him a harmless and pretty custom.... Now he endeavoured to explain to his mother why he could not accompany her. Of course the dear old lady could not understand. It seemed to her that her child had fallen under the influence of godless men, and she wept bitterly. ‘To have this happen to me in my old age!’ she wailed.
“He could not bear to see his mother cry like that. And it seemed to him that there must be some mistake: how could this new religion of kindness and gentleness and love command him to break his mother’s heart?
“He comforted her, and said he would go with her after 234all, and sent word that the baptism was to be postponed for a while.
“Julian pondered this situation in the silent hours of the night, when Leila was asleep. And it seemed to him that perhaps he, too, was a martyr—a different kind of martyr than any his Christian slave had told him about, but a martyr none the less. Upon him lay the burden of seeming to be a mere pagan profligate, sunk in idleness and debauchery, while in truth he was carrying out the precepts of kindness and gentleness and love which he had learned from his slave. He was a Christian after all—too much of a Christian to hurt anybody’s feelings. And nobody would ever understand! That was the saddest part of all, and he shed a few tears, waking Leila, who was frightened by these tears, and had to be comforted....
“He continued to live, in outward seeming, the ordinary life of a young Roman profligate, while inwardly his heart was dedicated to the austere practices of virtue. He wished that he could go to the desert, and wear sackcloth, and go hungry, like his more fortunate brethren. But, no—duty compelled him to bear the burden of meaningless riches and idleness and pleasure. Eventually, he was appointed governor of a Roman province, where he distinguished himself in a quiet way by the economy and orderliness of his rulership, and by a moderation of the severities currently practised against new sects. Nevertheless, strange to say, the Christians of that province hated him, and spread scandalous stories about him. He bore all this meekly, but in his breast was a profound sadness. None of those martyrs whom from his cushioned seat at the gladiatorial games he saw go, pale but erect and proud—rather spectacularly proud, he thought, to meet the lions (for after all, in spite of his moderation, he had to sacrifice a Christian virgin or two now and then to satisfy the mob)—none of them, year by year, would ever know that he too was, in his quiet unassuming way, also a martyr.”