Ch. 27 - The Vigil of Hope - Page 2

period of the blockade, presented an
appearance far different from that which it had displayed on the
occasion when they had last occupied it. The formerly bare walls were
now covered with rich, thick hangings; and the simple couch and scanty
table of other days had been exchanged for whatever was most luxurious
and complete in the household furniture of the age. At one end of the
room three women, attended by a little girl, were engaged in preparing
some dishes of fruit and vegetables; at the other, two men were occupied
in low, earnest conversation, occasionally looking round anxiously to a
couch placed against the third side of the apartment, on which Antonina
lay extended, while Numerian watched by her in silence. The point of
Goisvintha's knife had struck deep, but, as yet, the fatal purpose of
the assassination had failed.

The girl's eyes were closed; her lips were parted in the languor of
suffering; one of her hands lay listless on her father's knee. A slight
expression of pain, melancholy in its very slightness, appeared on her
pale face, and occasionally a long-drawn, quivering breath escaped her--
nature's last touching utterance of its own feebleness! The old man, as
he sat by her side, fixed on her a wistful, inquiring glance. Sometimes
he raised his hand, and gently and mechanically moved to and fro the
long locks of her hair, as they spread over the head of the couch; but
he never turned to communicate with the other persons in the room--he
sat as if he saw nothing save his daughter's figure stretched before
him, and heard nothing save the faint, fluttering sound of her
breathing, close at his ear.

It was now dark, and one lamp hanging from the ceiling threw a soft
equal light over the room. The different persons occupying it presented
but little evidence of health and strength in their countenances, to
contrast them in appearance with the wounded girl; all had undergone the
wasting visitation of the famine, and all were pale and languid, like
her. A strange, indescribable harmony prevailed over the scene. Even
the calmness of absorbing expectation and trembling hope, expressed in
the demeanour of Numerian, seemed reflected in the actions of those
around him, in the quietness with which the women pursued their
employment, in the lower and lower whispers in which the men continued
their conversation. There was something pervading the air of the whole
apartment that conveyed a sense of the solemn, unworldly stillness which
we attach to the abstract idea of religion.

Of the two men cautiously talking together, one was the patrician,
Vetranio; the other, a celebrated physician of Rome.

Both the countenance and manner of the senator gave melancholy proof
that the orgie at his