Shone upon by the last star in the window, the candelabrum in front of it rose up black as a tree without foliage, its branches still hung with the shreds of night. And in the alcove, indistinct but recognizable, the boy rested in the armchair, asleep; he had drawn his legs under the seat, his face was supported in his hand, his dark hair was like shadow, the clear eyes invisible, hidden under the shadow of the closed lids, but his listening could be observed, a listening to that which he had announced to himself in his sleep, suffering and dissolving suffering, without help and yet helping, desiring and desireless, love without greed of lust, the unborn angel in the earthborn man: the sleeper. Oh, vanishing night, that bears away the sleeper unto the last drawing of his breath, on and on, eternal in your branching, bearing him in your arms, upon your breast! Once more the great bow of night was stretched out before him, starting with the reddish fumes of hell and with the clamor of voices outside the windows, mounting to the craters of all death, accompanied by all the grimaces and discordances of death, hurtling into the void of most abased nothingness, but taken up again by the commanding, gentle, name-calling voice of annunciation in order to filter—a fading bell-tone—into the first seeping of light, emptied into the light and merging with it into dawn. Could it be possible that all of it had happened before this same window, that something was still happening here? What was transient had sounded up and sounded off, had been unrolled and rolled up, and had come to be enduring, the day rising before him was transient, and for a long time he had given up glancing toward it; his eyes were veiled although they remained open, tear-veiled without tears, but through the veil he saw with estranged glance the coming of day; he saw the dawn, observing wistfully how softly it laid its colorless color, layer after layer, on the roofs outside; he saw it yet he no longer saw it, his seeing had come to be a sensing, and in this sensing, by means of this sensing, the day was born for him, becoming his own with its new light: the early morning grew apace; it was wafted to him in the increasing cleanliness of its smell, in its very distinct, very light-gray clarity, across which, without mingling with it, the thinly acrid threads of smoke from the first hearth fires were drifting; it was wafted to him with the morning-fresh sharpness of the silver, salt breath of the sea, quicksilverly arising from the silver surf, soft in the distance, arising from the first shimmering of the cool, damp shore which, with its clean sand and pebbles rinsed by the silver waves of dawn, had been made ready to receive the morning sacrifice; it was wafted toward him, unfolded and unfolding as the natural beginning of a new creation, and in receiving the unfoldment and being received by it he felt that he himself was being flooded on by its drizzling action, carried on in surge upon surge, enfolded in its heaving breath, as though on wings that were cool to the touch, as though in a vast breath, and yet securely on earth as if, resting in the shadowy fragrance of a laurel bush after an hour of rain, he were breathing it in, rain-dark and dew-clear and refreshed. Thus he was borne along, on and on, and yonder where the flight settled, landing lightly among the blond harvest-billows of the fields, yonder where the sheaves were tossing, grapes hanging on the thorn-bush and the ox lying side by side with the lion, there stood an angel before him, not exactly an angel, more like a boy, but for all that an angel, wrapped in the cool wings of the September morning, dark-tressed and clear-eyed, one whose voice was not that of the deed, the symbolic annunciation of which filled the universe, no, it was much more the quite distant echo of the symbolic arch-image hovering in the empyrean, very soft as he spoke, but nevertheless the bronzen shadow of the aeons: “Enter into the Creation that once existed and again exists, but let you be called Virgil, your time has come!” This is what the angel said, terrible in its gentleness, comforting in its sadness, unreachable in its yearning, this is what he understood from the lips of the angel, this he had heard as the language within language, in all its earthly simplicity; and hearing it, called and assigned to the name, he saw again the waving fields spread out from shore to shore, infinite the waves of grain, infinite the waves of waters, both stroked by the cool, slanting light of earliest morning, coolly glistening the near at hand, coolly glistening the far away, he saw it, and then there followed the sweetness of perceiving everything and perceiving nothing, of knowing everything and knowing nothing, of sensing everything and sensing nothing, there followed the sweetness of complete forgetfulness, sleep without dream.—

EARTH—THE EXPECTATION

THE AWAKENING OCCURRED WITH THE FEELING OF REMISSNESS: this too was a mere impression like his falling asleep, however it came abruptly, and feeling that someone was near his bed, he also felt that this would spell frustration for him; with the second prod of this sensation he crossed the sill of awareness, knowing that he should have rushed to the seashore at dawn to destroy the Aeneid, and that it had become too late to do this. And he fled back into sleep again to find the angel who had vanished, perhaps even hoping that the strange glance which he felt still resting on him might be his. He was certain it was not; all too surely he sensed the strangeness that stood next to him, and actually to frighten it away, even though still with a last spark of hope for the angel’s presence, he asked out of sleep: “Are you Lysanias?”

The answer was something unintelligible, uttered by a quite unfamiliar voice.

Something sighed in him. “You are not Lysanias … go away.”

“Master …,” came hesitantly, almost pleadingly.

“Later …”; the night must not end, he did not wish to see the light.

“Master, your friends have arrived … they are waiting …”

There was no help. And the light hurt. The cough was in his breast ready to break out and there was a risk involved in speaking.

“My friends?… which ones …?”

“Plotius Tucca and Lucius Varius have come from Rome just to greet you … they would like to see you before they are called before Caesar …”

The light hurt. Slanting from southward, the rays of the September sun cut sharply through the corner alcove, filling it with warmth, the light and warmth of a September morning, and the room although beyond reach of the sunrays was affected by them, having become sober-looking in the light, ugly in the heat: the dark floor of relucent mosaic was soiled, the tall candelabrum with its faded flowers and its burnt-down candles looked shoddy. Over there in the corner of the room stood the commode, a necessity and a temptation. Everything that could hurt began to hurt. The friends would have to wait. “First of all I must cleanse myself … help me.”

Dragging his legs over the edge of the bed, he sat there, his crooked back quite bent over, struggling with the urge to cough, the painful impulse having again assaulted him; likewise the mawkish lassitude of fever made itself felt again, firstly in the drooping legs, thence creeping upwards streakily, it spread in soft wavelike thuds over the whole body, finally invading his head; and seized by weariness, his glance fastened itself with slow, tired, long-lasting concentration on his naked toes, unable to bring their mechanical half-gripping movements to a standstill, peering as if something important might be discovered there, perhaps even the origin of the fever—, ah, need the engrossing life of organs and senses begin again? And though one could not ask any intimate question of a slave, his glance wandered up to the one here, seeking enlightenment, almost involuntarily, almost against his will in its questioning, only to be immediately disappointed, because in the oriental, slightly thick-nosed, impenetrable, mask-like and ageless servant’s face there was nothing to be seen that could qualify as an answer, nothing but a stern subjection and a subjected sternness, that although unapproachable was prepared to take orders, waiting without impatience for the guest to make them known and to decide to rise. But just this seemed impossible, because a discord was everywhere observable, and not only in his body; it was a universal discord, and until it had been resolved not a limb could be moved: he who wished to arise, to hasten to the sacrificial deed on the shore, might not do so in discord and division; the officiant must needs be faultless, faultless the offering, if the dignity of complete validity were to be attained for the sacrifice; and it could not even be ascertained whether all the rolls were in the chest, so that the work in its entirety could be offered for destruction, or whether some of the rolls had gone astray in the course of the night—who could answer? To be sure the top of the chest was so neatly and stoutly fastened that one might actually think it had never been opened—, but who would dare touch the offering and loosen the straps? Discordant the body and its limbs, discordant the world—, could integration again be hoped for? He waited and the slave waited with him, both without impatience. But in the midst of all this the door was opened rather unceremoniously and Plotius Tucca as well as Lucius Varius, irritated by the waiting, doubtless having heard from outside that he was awake, entered the room in short order. He withdrew his legs into bed again.

And Plotius was scarcely inside the room before he broke out as usual into an expansive, noisy heartiness. “We were told that you were lying here sick and we spent the whole long night rattling out here, and now one catches you trying secretly to slip out of bed; but it is just as well that we have caught you, this is the way you always behave … but how do you really feel? The gods be thanked, you look all right; no different than ten years ago; you are a tough bit of leather … naturally, you are again the prey of your cough and your fever: we know all about that … if you had consulted your friends they certainly wouldn’t have allowed you to go on this craziest of all journeys! We were told of it afterwards by Horace; you could tell him because you knew he would not try to hinder you, all that’s important to him are his own verses! What in Hades did you have to do in Athens? Naturally you had to keep it a secret, and it was just your luck that Caesar dragged you out and brought you back in time … Augustus, wise as usual, and you, yes, you just as inconsiderate as ever … for we, your friends, are now put to it to get you well again!” He let his heavy body drop creaking into the arm-chair, elbows bent, fists doubled up; he sat there now like a rower or a coachman, and his ruddy, fleshy, liver-spotted, double-chinned face shone with cheerfulness.

Lucius Varius, on the other hand, who took care never to sit down at all, because he had to be mindful of the elegant, well-pressed folds of his toga, remained standing, dignified and spare in his usual posture, one arm resting on his hip, the other raised admonishingly at right angles: “We have been much troubled on your account, Vergilius.”

Despite all the preparation for death, the anxiety of the sick, which nobody can escape, was being aroused: “What have they been telling you about me?” And as if to anticipate the answer the expected and feared fit of coughing shook him suddenly.

“Just let yourself cough,” said Plotius, soothing him, and wiped his own eyes inflamed by a night’s travel. “People are bound to cough in the morning.”

The reassurance that Lucius tendered sounded more correct: “The last news that we had of you is more than a week old … Augustus wrote to Maecenas that he had found you ill and had insisted that you return, and the Senate being in session today because of the birthday, Maecenas was unable to come on to receive you, so we gladly took over his commissions for Augustus in order to have the opportunity of seeing you at the same time … that is all.”

It sounded correct and plausible, and yet the “Let yourself cough” of Plotius had been more of a comfort. “Ugh,” said Plotius at this point, “rumbling along the whole night; that’s no way to sleep, being waked up with every change of horses … in our procession there were at least forty carriages, and at that we were not the only ones. I guess that more than a hundred have arrived here since yesterday.…”

Had Plotius come on one of the peasant-carts? He had the good strong face of an old peasant, and that was just how one might, nay, how one must imagine him, sitting on a peasant’s cart, with his head nodding, his chin sunk onto his breast, resting there, snoring merrily … “Yes, I heard you driving …”

“And now we are here,” said Plotius, again resembling a rower.

“Many were driving … very many …”

“Don’t speak while you are coughing,” observed Lucius, busy with the folds of his toga, wrinkled from the night’s journey. “You mustn’t speak … Don’t you remember that this has always been forbidden by the doctors!”

Ah yes, he remembered, and this was certainly well meant of Lucius despite his elegant posture, but it was this that as always roused him to contradiction: “It is nothing; had not Caesar taken me along to Megara I wouldn’t have been sick at all … this is only the after-effect of the sun’s heat during the festival …” A fresh coughing spell rewarded this longish statement and he tasted blood in his mouth.

“Keep still,” said Plotius.

But he did not want to keep still; less than ever now that he perceived that Plotius was sitting in the very chair in which the boy had slept, and immediately he was compelled to ask: “Where is Lysanias?”

“A Greek name,” said Lucius thoughtfully, “who is that?—Do you mean him?” And he pointed toward the slave, who had retired to the doorway and was waiting there now with the same unmoved expression on his face as before.

“No … not him … the boy …”

Plotius became attentive: “So you have brought a Greek boy back with you … then you are not in such a bad way after all … Just think of him with a Grecian boy!”

The boy—, the boy had disappeared. But the beaker was still standing there on the table, a carved ivory bowl with silver mountings, and even a sip of wine remained in it: “The boy … he was here.”

“Then let him return … call him in, show him to us.”

How could he call him in when he had vanished? And besides he had no wish to exhibit him: “I must go down to the beach with him …”

“Lying down on the dry sea-sand wearily we care for the body, and sleep trickles through our members,” recited Lucius freely, only to add, “but you will not do that today, my Virgil, you will postpone those indulgences until you have recovered …”

“Quite so,” agreed Plotius from the alcove.

What were these two speaking of? it was all incongruous; he hardly heard them: “Where is Lysanias?”

Turning to the slave, Plotius ordered: “Fetch the boy.”

“Sir, there is no boy anywhere about here.”

Yonder from the door the boy’s voice had spoken to him, had whispered to him by night, now the slave stood there, and in gratitude for his having helped to deny the far-near voice, he beckoned him nearer: “Come, I want to get up.”

“Let that wait,” advised Plotius. “The doctor may now be on his way to you, and he will treat you in bed: You only ruin your health with such trifling … It is senseless for you to trump up some business just to withhold your boy from us.”

Was the slave perhaps a substitute for the boy? had the latter sent here a stronger comrade who would convey the sacrificial gift to the shore? “Take the chest,” he heard himself say, startled at the same moment to have heard it, simultaneously blinking in the direction of his friends to ascertain whether or not this made an impression on them.

And sure enough, Plotius, for all his ponderousness, was on his feet at once, while Lucius, nearer to the bed, moved over to it, searching for the invalid’s pulse like a doctor: “You have fever, Virgil, be quiet.”

Plotius, however, was dispatching the slave: “Inquire about the doctor … hurry.”

“I need no doctor.” This too was said against his will.

“That is not for you to decide.”

“I am dying.”

There was a pause. He knew he had spoken the truth, and he was curiously little affected by it. He knew he would hardly live out the evening, and yet even this was a respite to him, offering no end of time. He felt relieved that it had been uttered.

It seemed as if the other two were aware how grave things were; that was to be sensed, and for that very reason it took quite a while for Plotius to find words: “Do not blaspheme, Virgil, you are as far from death as we two … what should I say, who am ten years older than you and apoplectic besides …”

Lucius said nothing. He had let himself down on the chair next to the bed and was silent. And it was touching that he had omitted to put the folds of his toga to rights as he sat down.

“I am going to die, perhaps even today … but before that I am going to burn the Aeneid …”

“What iniquity!” It was a real outcry, and it was Lucius who had uttered it.

Again silence followed.