young children, before his departure for the war. A whole day passed
as Marius crossed the Campagna on horseback, pleased by the random
autumn lights bringing out in the distance the sheep at pasture, the
shepherds in their picturesque dress, the golden elms, tower and
villa; and it was after dark that he mounted the steep street of the
little hill-town to the imperial residence. He was struck by an odd
mixture of stillness and excitement about the place. Lights burned
at the windows. It seemed that numerous visitors were within, for
the courtyard was crowded with litters and horses [56] in waiting.
For the moment, indeed, all larger cares, even the cares of war, of
late so heavy a pressure, had been forgotten in what was passing with
the little Annius Verus; who for his part had forgotten his toys,
lying all day across the knees of his mother, as a mere child's ear-
ache grew rapidly to alarming sickness with great and manifest agony,
only suspended a little, from time to time, when from very weariness
he passed into a few moments of unconsciousness. The country surgeon
called in, had removed the imposthume with the knife. There had been
a great effort to bear this operation, for the terrified child,
hardly persuaded to submit himself, when his pain was at its worst,
and even more for the parents. At length, amid a company of pupils
pressing in with him, as the custom was, to watch the proceedings in
the sick-room, the eminent Galen had arrived, only to pronounce the
thing done visibly useless, the patient falling now into longer
intervals of delirium. And thus, thrust on one side by the crowd of
departing visitors, Marius was forced into the privacy of a grief,
the desolate face of which went deep into his memory, as he saw the
emperor carry the child away--quite conscious at last, but with a
touching expression upon it of weakness and defeat--pressed close to
his bosom, as if he yearned just then for one thing only, to be
united, to be absolutely one with it, in its obscure distress.