“Why did he hate all that was good and love all that was evil?”
Again she tried to speak, but one of the senators rose and pointed to her breast.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Milk.”
Now anger was on every face, terrible anger, and she was more frightened than ever. And then, for no reason she could understand in her dream, her fear passed away. In her dream, she said to herself,
“This can only be because Spartacus is with me.”
She turned her head then, and sure enough, he stood beside her. He was dressed as he had most often been dressed in the time of their struggle. He wore high leather boots. He wore a plain gray tunic and a small felt cap was perched on his black curls. He wore no arms, for he had always made it a point to be unarmed unless they faced battle. He wore no jewels, no rings, no bracelets. His face was clean-shaven, and his curly hair was cropped close.
His very stance was one of such ease and certainty! She recalled—in her dream—that it had always been that way. Spartacus would join a group, and that sense of ease would permeate everyone. But in herself, there was a different reaction. Always, when she saw him, it was with a feeling of joy. Like a ring which was broken open. When he appeared, the ring would close itself and become whole and complete. Once she had been in his pavilion. At least fifty people were there, waiting for Spartacus. Finally, he came; she stood to one side, letting him deal with the people who were waiting for him. She only watched him, but her happiness increased and increased, and every word he said and every motion he made was a part of this process of pleasure. A point came where she could not endure the addition, and she had to go out of the pavilion and find a place where she could be all alone.
Now, in her dream, she had something of that feeling.
“What are you doing here, my darling?” he asked her.
“They are questioning me.”
“Who?”
“They.” She pointed to the noble senators. “They make me afraid.” And now she noticed that the senators were absolutely motionless, frozen, as it were.
“But you see, they are more afraid,” Spartacus said. It was so typical of him! He saw a thing, and stated it simply and directly. Then she would always wonder why she hadn’t seen it too. Of course, they were afraid.
“Let’s go, Varinia,” Spartacus smiled. He put his arm around her waist and she put her arm around his. They walked out of the Senate Chamber into the streets of Rome. They were lovers. They walked on and on through the streets of Rome, and nobody noticed them and nobody stopped them.
In her dream, Spartacus said, “Every time I’m with you, it’s the same. Every time I’m with you, I want you. Oh, I want you so much.”
“Every time you want me, you can have me.”
“I know—I know. But that’s hard to remember. I suppose you should stop wanting something you can have. But I don’t stop wanting you. I want you more and more. Do you want me that way?”
“The same way.”
“Whenever you see me?”
“Yes.
“I feel that way. Whenever I see you.” They walked on a while more, and then Spartacus said, “I must go somewhere. We must go somewhere and lie with each other.”
“I know a place to go,” Varinia said in her dream.
“Where?”
“It’s the house of a man called Crassus, and I live there.”
He stopped and took his arm away. He turned her to face him, searching her eyes. Then he noticed the stain of milk on her dress.
“What is that?” he asked, forgetting apparently what she had said about Crassus.
“The milk I feed my baby.”
“I have no child,” he said. He was afraid suddenly, and he backed away from her—and then he was gone. Then the dream was over, and Varinia awoke and there was nothing but the darkness around her.
VIII
The next day, Crassus went to the country, and when evening came, Flavius brought Varinia to Gracchus, just as he had agreed to do. They came as Gracchus sat alone at dinner. A slave came to Gracchus and told him that there were two people outside, Flavius and a woman. And the woman carried a child in her arms.
“Yes,” said Gracchus. “Yes, I know. There is a place ready for the child. Bring them in.” Then he said, “No. No. I’ll do it myself.” He almost ran from the dining room to the front door. He let them in himself. He was very polite, very considerate, and he welcomed them as one welcomes honored guests.
The woman was wrapped in a long cloak, and in the shadowed entranceway, he could not make out her face. But now he could wait to look at her. He led them inside, and told the woman that she could give him the child or take it herself to the nursery. The child was cradled in her arms, and Gracchus was afraid he might say or indicate something that would create apprehension in her concerning the child.
“I have a regular nursery for him,” he said. “I have a little crib and everything you can want. He will be very comfortable and safe, and nothing at all can happen to him.”
“He doesn’t need much,” Varinia answered. It was the first time Gracchus had heard her voice. It was a soft voice, but rich and deep, a pleasing voice. Now she threw the hood of her cloak back, and he saw her face. Her long, yellow hair was tied at the back of her neck. She wore no face paint—which, strangely enough, made the fine planes and contours of her face more noticeable and more handsome.
While Gracchus looked at her, Flavius watched Gracchus. Flavius stood to one side, interested, glum, and also puzzled. He was uncomfortable there, and as soon as he was able to get his words in, he said,
“I have to make the other preparations now, Gracchus. I’ll be back at dawn. You’ll be ready for me then, I hope.”
“I’ll be ready,” Gracchus nodded.
Then Flavius left, and Gracchus led her to the room he had prepared for the child. A slave sat there, and Gracchus nodded at the woman and explained.
“She will sit here all night. She will never take her eyes off the baby. So you don’t have to be afraid that anything can happen to your baby. If the baby cries, then she will call you right away. No need to worry at all.”
“The baby will sleep,” Varinia said. “You’re very kind, but the baby will sleep.”
“But you won’t have to listen for the baby’s cry. As soon as that happens, she’ll call you. Are you hungry? Have you eaten?”
“I haven’t eaten, but I’m not hungry,” Varinia answered, after she placed the child in the crib. “I’m too excited to have any appetite at all. I feel like I’m in a dream. First I was afraid to trust that other man, but now I believe him. I don’t know why you should do this for me. I’m afraid I’m dreaming and that any moment I will wake up.”
“But you’ll sit with me while I finish my dinner, and perhaps you’ll want to eat something too.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
They returned to the dining room, and Varinia took the couch at right angles to the one Gracchus sat on. He couldn’t recline. He sat there, rather stiffly, unable to take his eyes off Varinia. It occurred to him with some surprise that he was not disturbed in any way, not apprehensive, but rather filled with a greater happiness than he had ever known before in his life. It was a matter of contentment. In all his life before, he had never experienced this same feeling of contentment. It seemed to him that all was right with the world. The aching incongruities of the world had disappeared. He was at home in his house in his blessed city, in his wonderful
urbs
, and he was filled with a great outgoing love for this woman who faced him. He did not now attempt to trace the complex which had fixed the single act of love in his whole existence upon the wife of Spartacus; he thought he understood it, but he had no desire to probe in himself and lay hands upon it.
He began to talk of the food. “I’m afraid you’ll find it rather simple after the table Crassus sets. I eat fruit and plain meat and fish for the most part, and then sometimes something special. I have a stuffed lobster tonight that is very good. And a good white wine which I drink in water—”
She wasn’t listening to him, and with unusual perceptiveness, he said, “You don’t really understand, do you, when we Romans talk about food?”
“I don’t,” she admitted.
“I can see why. We never talk about how empty our lives are. That is because we spend so much time filling our lives. All the natural acts of barbarians, eating and drinking and loving and laughing—all these things we have made a great ritual and fetish out of. We are never hungry any more. We talk of hunger, but we never experience it. We talk of thirst, but we are never thirsty. We talk of love, but we don’t love, and with our endless innovations and perversions we try to find a substitute. With us, amusement has taken the place of happiness, and as each amusement palls, there must be something more amusing, more exciting—more and more and more. We have brutalized ourselves to a point where we are insensitive to what we do, and this insensitivity grows. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Some of it I understand,” Varinia answered.
“And I must understand you, Varinia. I must understand why you are afraid this is just a dream. You have a great deal with Crassus. I think he would even marry you, if you wanted it enough. Crassus is a great man. He is one of the greatest men in Rome, and his power and influence are unbelievable. You know what an Egyptian Pharaoh is?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, right now, Crassus has more power than a Pharaoh of Egypt. And you could be greater than a queen of Egypt. Wouldn’t this bring you some happiness?”
“With the man who killed Spartacus?”
“Ah—but consider. He did not do this personally. He did not know Spartacus or have any personal hatred for him. I am equally guilty. Rome destroyed Spartacus. But Spartacus is dead and you are alive. Don’t you want what Crassus can give you?”
“I don’t want it,” Varinia answered.
“What do you want, my dear Varinia?”
“I want to be free,” she said. “I want to go away from Rome and never see Rome again as long as I live. I want to see my son grow up in freedom.”
“Is it so much to be free?” Gracchus asked, genuinely puzzled. “Free for what? Free to starve, to be slain, to be homeless—free to labor in the fields the way a peasant does?”
“I can’t tell you about that,” Varinia said. “I tried to tell Crassus, but I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t know how to tell you.”
“And you hate Rome. I love Rome, Varinia. Rome is my blood and my life, my mother and my father. Rome is a whore, but I would die if I had to leave Rome. I feel it now. Because you are sitting there, I am full of my city. But you hate it. I wonder why. Did Spartacus hate Rome?”
“He was against Rome and Rome was against him. You know that.”
“But when he tore down Rome, what would he build instead of Rome?”
“He wanted a world where there were no slaves and no masters, only people living together in peace and brotherhood. He said that we would take from Rome what was good and beautiful. We would build cities without walls, and all men would live in peace and brotherhood, and there would be no more war and no more misery and no more suffering.”
Gracchus was silent a long while now, and Varinia watched him with curiosity and without fear. For all of his gross exterior, the great fat hulk of him, he was a man she wanted to trust and different from any she had known before. There was a peculiar, inverted honesty about him. There was a quality in him that in some way reminded her of Spartacus. It was nothing she could pin down. It was nothing physical—not even a mannerism. It was more a pattern of his thinking; and sometimes—only sometimes—he said a thing as Spartacus would have said it.
He was silent for quite a while before he spoke again, and then he commented upon what she had said before, just as if not a moment had passed.
“So that was the dream of Spartacus,” he said, “to make a world with no whips and none to be whipped—with no palaces and no mud huts. Who knows! What did you name your son, Varinia?”
“Spartacus. What else should I name him?”
“Properly Spartacus. Yes—of course. And he will grow up to be tall and proud and strong. And you will tell him about his father?”
“Yes, I will tell him.”
“How will you tell him? How will you explain? He will grow up in a world where there are no men like Spartacus. How will you explain to him what made his father pure and gentle?”
“How do you know that Spartacus was pure and gentle?” Varinia asked him.
“Is that so hard to know?” Gracchus wondered.
“It’s hard for some people to know. Do you know what I will tell my son? I think you will understand me. I will tell him a very simple thing. I will explain to him that Spartacus was pure and gentle because he set his face against evil and opposed evil and fought evil—and never in all his life did he make his peace with what was wrong.”
“And that made him pure?”
“I’m not very wise, but I think it will make any man pure,” Varinia said.
“And how did Spartacus know what was right and what was wrong?” Gracchus asked.
“What was good for his people was right. What hurt them was wrong.”
“I see,” Gracchus nodded, “the dream of Spartacus and the way of Spartacus. I’m too old for dreams, Varinia. Otherwise, I would dream too much about what I did with the one life that is given to man to live. One life—and it seems so short, so pointless and aimless. It’s like a moment. Man is born and man is dead, without rhyme or reason. And here I sit with this fat, gross and ugly body of mine. Was Spartacus a very handsome man?”
She smiled for the first time since she entered his house. She smiled and then she began to laugh, and then the laughter turned to tears and she put her face on the table and wept.
“Varinia, Varinia—what did I say?”
“Nothing—” She sat up and wiped her face with her napkin. “Nothing that you said. I loved Spartacus so. He wasn’t like you Romans. Not like the men in my tribe either. He was a Thracian, with a broad, flat face, and once, when an overseer was beating him, his nose was broken. People said it made him look like a sheep, but to me he was as he should be. That’s all.”