The Four Corners of the World Part 55

Gleva (_with a cry accusingly_): You want to go.

Calpurnius (_springs up_): By all the G.o.ds I do. For ten years I have toiled in Britain building roads--roads--roads--till I'm sick of them.

First the pounded earth, then the small stones, next the rubble, then the concrete, and last of all the pavement; here in Anderida, there across the swamps to Londinium, northwards through the fens to Eborac.u.m--ten years of it. And now--Rome--the mother of me!

Gleva: Rome? (_She speaks despairingly. Calpurnius has forgotten her: he answers her voice, not her._)

Calpurnius: Just for a little while. Oh, I shall go out again, but just for a little while--to rise when I want to, not at the trumpet's call, the house all quiet till I clap my hands--to have one's mornings free--to saunter through the streets, picking up the last new thing of Juvenal in the Argiletum, or some fine piece of Corinthian bronze in the Campus Martius, and stopping on the steps of the Appian Way to send a basket of flowers or a bottle of new scent to some girl that has caught one's fancy. To go to the theatre, and see the new play, though, to be sure, people write to me that there are no plays nowadays.

Gleva: Plays?

Calpurnius: And in the evening with a party of girls in their bravest, all without a care, to gallop in the cool along the Appian Way to Baiae and crowned with roses and violets have supper by the sea. Oh, to see one's women again--Lydia'll be getting on, by the way!--women dressed, jewelled, smelling of violets. Oh, just for a little while!

By Castor and Pollux, I have deserved it.

Gleva (_who has been listening in grief_): Yes, you must go. (_She goes to him and sits at his side._) I have a plan.

Calpurnius: Yes. (_Absently._)

Gleva: Listen to me!--Calpurnius.

[_He laughs affectionately at her p.r.o.nunciation of his name._]

Calpurnius: Let me hear this wise plan!

Gleva: I will go with you.

Calpurnius (_rising_): What?

[_Gleva pulls him down._]

Gleva: Yes, I'll give up my kingdom here, sacrifice it all, and go to Rome with you. Calpurnius (_in a whisper_), I'll be your Lydia. Oh, to drive with you on such a night as this, all crowned with roses, from Rome to Baiae on the sea.

Calpurnius: These are dreams.

Gleva (_pa.s.sionately_): Why? Why? Are these women in Rome more beautiful than I? Look! (_She rises._) I can dress, too, as the Roman women do. I wear the combs you gave me. I don't think they are pretty, but I wear them. See, I wear, too, the sandals, the bracelets.

Calpurnius: No. There are no women in Rome more beautiful than you--but--but----

Gleva (_all her pa.s.sion dying away_): You would be ashamed of me.

[_Calpurnius is uncomfortable._]

Calpurnius: You would be--unusual. People would turn and stare. Other women would laugh. Some scribbler would write a lampoon. Oh, you are beautiful, but this is your place, not Rome. Each to his own in the end, Gleva. I to Rome--you to your people.

Gleva: My people! Oh, you did right to laugh at the thought of reigning here. What are my people? Slaves for your pleasure. It can't be! You to Rome, the lights, the women--oh, how I hate them! You would not reproach me because my knife hangs idle, had I your Roman women here! Calpurnius, be kind. From the first morning when I saw you in the forest, s.h.i.+ning in bra.s.s, a G.o.d, there has been no kingdom, no people for me but you. I have watched you, learnt from you. Oh! I am of the Romans--I'll----

Calpurnius: Each to his own in the end. That's the law.

Gleva: A bitter, cruel one.

Calpurnius: Very likely. But it can't be changed. So long as the world lasts, centuries hence, wherever soldiers are, still it will be the law.

Gleva: Soldiers! Say soldiers, and all must be forgiven!

Calpurnius: Much, at all events, by those with understanding. Hear what a soldier is. You see him strong, browned by the sun, flas.h.i.+ng in armour, tramping the earth, a conqueror--a G.o.d, yes, a G.o.d! Ask his centurion who drills him in the barrack square.

Gleva: But the centurion----

Calpurnius: The centurion's the G.o.d, then? Ask me, his Captain, who tells him off. Am I the G.o.d, then? Ask my Colonel, who tells me off.

Is it my Colonel, my General? Ask the Emperor in Rome who, for a fault, strips them of their command and brings them home. Soldiers are men trained to endurance by a hard discipline, cursed, ridiculed, punished like children but with a man's punishments, so that when the great ordeal comes they may move, fight, die, like a machine. The soldier! He suffers discomfort, burns in the desert, freezes in the snow at another's orders. He has no liberty, he must not argue, he must not answer; and he gets an obol a day, and in the end--in the end, a man, he gives his life without complaint, without faltering, gladly as a mere trifle in the business of the day, so that his country may endure. And what's his reward? What does he get? A woman's smile in his hour of furlough. That's his reward. He takes it. Blame him who will. The woman thinks him a G.o.d, and he does not tell her of the barrack square. Good luck to him and her, I say. But at the last, there's the long parting, just as you and I part in the forest of Anderida to-night. Other soldiers will say good-bye here on this spot to other women in centuries from now. Their trouble will be heavy, my dear, but they'll obey the soldier's law.

Gleva: Very well, then! Each to his own! I, too, will obey that law.

(_She confronts him, erect and, strong._)

Calpurnius: You will? (_Doubtfully._)

Gleva: To the letter. To the very last letter. I'll gather my men.

There shall be no more Romans in Anderida. There shall be only stubble in the fields where the scythes of my chariots have run.

Calpurnius: Silence! (_Sternly._)

Gleva: I learn my lesson from my Lord Calpurnius. Why should my teacher blame me if I learn it thoroughly?

Calpurnius: Gleva, you cannot conquer Rome. (_He speaks gently. She stands stubbornly._) How shall I prove it to you--you who know only one wild corner of Britain! (_Thinks._) There is that road where the soldiers march. You know--how much of it?--a few miles where it pa.s.ses through the forest. That's all. But it runs to the Wall in the north.

Gleva (_scornfully_): Is there a Wall?

Calpurnius: Is there a Wall? Ye G.o.ds! I kept my watch upon it through a winter under the coldest stars that ever made a night unfriendly. I freeze now when I think of it. Yes, there's a Wall in the north, and that road runs to it; and in the south, it does not end at Regnum.

Gleva: Doesn't it? Wonderful road!

Calpurnius: Yes, wonderful road. For on the other side at the very edge of the sea in Gaul it lives again--yes, that's the word--the great road lives and runs straight as a ruled line to Rome. For forty days you drive, inns by the road-side, post horses ready and a cloud of traffic, merchants on business, governors on leave, pedlars, musicians and actors for the fairs, students for the universities, Jews, explorers, soldiers, pack-horses and waggons, gigs and litters.

Oh, if I could make you see it--always on each side the shade of trees, until on its seven hills springs Rome. Nor does the road end there.

Gleva: This same road? (_Her scorn has gone. She speaks doubtfully._)

Calpurnius: This same road which runs by the brook down here in the forest. (_Pointing L._) It crosses Rome and goes straight to the sea again--again beyond the sea it turns and strikes to Jerusalem four thousand miles from where we stand to-night, Rome made it. Rome guards it, and where it runs Rome rules. You cannot conquer Rome--until the road's destroyed.

Gleva: I will destroy it.

Calpurnius: Only Rome can destroy it. (_A pause._) Gleva, let what I say sink deep into your heart. A minute ago I sneered at the road. I blasphemed. The roads are my people's work. While it builds roads, it's Rome, it's the Unconquerable. But when there are no new roads in the making and the weeds sprout between the pavements of the old ones, then your moment's coming. When the slabs are broken and no company marches down from the hill to mend them, it has come. Launch your chariots then, Gleva! Rome's day is over, her hand tired. She has grown easy and forgotten. But while Rome does Rome's appointed work, beware of her! Not while the road runs straight from Regnum to the Wall, shall you or any of you prevail.

Gleva (_looking inscrutably._) No, I cannot conquer Rome.

[_A moment's pause._]

Calpurnius: Listen!

Gleva: The sound upon the road has ceased.