Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/492

456 vaster, its light more golden, and many moons circled around it.

Then I looked down at my own earth—the Emperor's earth, which I had made Galileanless—and I thought that all that I had done was very good.

But behold, my Maximus,—there came a procession by me, on the strange earth where I stood. There were soldiers, and judges, and executioners at the head of it, and weeping women followed. And lo!—in the midst of the slow-moving array, was the Galilean, alive, and bearing a cross on his back. Then I called to him, and said, "Whither away, Galilean?" But he turned his face toward me, smiled, nodded slowly, and said: "To the place of the skull."

Where is he now? What if that at Golgotha, near Jerusalem, was but a wayside matter, a thing done, as it were, in passing, in a leisure hour? What if he goes on and on, and suffers, and dies, and conquers, again and again, from world to world?

Oh that I could lay waste the world! Maximus,—is there no poison, no consuming fire, that could lay creation desolate, as it was on that day when the spirit moved alone over the face of the waters?

I hear a noise from the outposts. Come, Julian

To think that century shall follow century, and that in them all shall live men, knowing that 'twas I who was vanquished, and he who conquered!