Svetoslav Nikolov
	VERGILIUS AND THE WATER
	"A valuable archeological monument of the Late Roman period
was unearthed during excavations on the road-bed of the Hemus'
Motorway. It is thought that the find dates to the second half of
the fifth century A.D. The work of deciphering the inscriptions
is continuing."   (From the press)
	"...And in the star dust I sometimes feel I am not myself.
The night gives rise to strange thoughts in me but, like a
malevolent mother-in-law, conceals the vessel holding the
catholicon from me. The moon - the lamia* with yellow blood -
calls me tenderly into her baleful arms when she is naked and
reckless in her desires, but as soon as she is satiated by me,
she loosens the grip of her sharp nails and falls asleep content,
without divulging her secret. Then what else can I do but gaze at
the stars? And doing it I understand that they are not at all so
unapproachable and far away as they try to seem. You who are now
trying to follow the clumsy, asinine train of my thoughts,
haven't you noticed that the stars don't stay fixed in one place?
I lie on my back and they come near, hanging over me like tiny
coins, neither silver, neither gold, I see the hellish fire which
burns them up and dies out quickly and then, how they are then
swallowed up by the still more terrible cold that lies between
them. And now they are already not only above me but everywhere,
or to be more precise, I myself am somewhere among them, in the
hold of a galley, wearing something like a brightly polished
helmet,spherical and without any opening for breathing, and
between the stars and my eyes there is only a small piece of
crystal, flame-proof and polished most likely with Ardean sand to
make it so clear and transparent and, what is the strangest thing
of all, I am not alone in the galley: all around me I see other
people, dressed like me, without any signs of their sex, family
or class, in rich bluish-green garments, soft as down but as
strong and durable as Saracen mail, these people are sleeping or
talking, but in general are inactive, in expectation of
something, and the galley is suspended amid the stars without
falling, and only from time to time does a thrill of fear grip
our hearts. But suddenly all this vanishes like a shadow on
water, the wind blows the stars around me back to the firmament
and they leave behind only traces of their own dust, which
gradually covers me and begins to stick to my eyelids and eyes
without irritating them. And in the star dust I sometimes feel I
am not myself...
	This mystery has given me urge to travel - let's hope that
on the way the bright face of truth will shine upon me. This
passion of mine is as insidious as a mandragora infusion. It
intoxicates me to such a degree that I can rest nowhere, and not
only have I no permanent abode but I sleep wherever I happen to
be, sometimes even near to the ill-boding haunts of erineys,
bacchants and harpies, and not only have I failed to acquire a
wife, lasting friendship and a good profession, but my memories
are beginning to resemble my sandals, frayed and worn with
wandering. And if any worthy man came up to me and asked me where
I was born, who had brought me into the world and when I first
saw the light of day, I would not be able to give an answer to a
single question of his. That is the reason I have taken a marble
slab and a hard style of metal, tempered in fire and water. It is
difficult to incise and engrave on marble and the marble is
rather heavy in my bag, but stone has a longer and better memory
than either parchment or man.
	I was leaving Rome along the eastern road when I was
overtaken by a messenger on a mule, and he asked me:
	"Are you the poet Vergilius?"
	"Yes." I answered. "That's what they call me."
	"Turn aside now from your road and follow me!" The messenger
ordered. "The censor himself, Appius Claudius Caecus, wishes to
hear your wordplay."
	We made our way up the rocky paths and when we had climbed
them, a magnificent view of a construction in progress was
revealed to our eyes. Thus I saw how the work was proceeding on
the first Roman aqueduct which, when it was finished, would
stretch a distance of eleven miles and 190 double paces. The
censor was personally in charge of the construction and he
politely invited me into his tent, handing me an earthenware
vessel full of crystal clear water so that I could refresh myself
after climbing the steep path. Then he asked me to recite some of
my poems, but he was not satisfied with one or two, so for nearly
an hour I recited those rather clumsy works which, by the way, I
had written only to make my wearisome wanderings seem shorter and
less unpleasant. When I had finished, this censor and great
citizen of Rome proposed that I should remain there with him, to
sing the praise of his magnificent work and, in this way, to
immortalize him and myself. He gave orders that I should be given
food, accommodation and slaves, but I refused the slaves and,
putting both hands on my chest, I bowed low to him. Thus I
stopped my wandering along the roads and through the towns for a
long time, only to begin the strangest of my journeys in time.
And I wrote in the year when Appius Claudius Caecus was censor.
	II.
	Human thoughts and wishes are like colored pollen - relying
on the bees or on the wind to be transformed into fruit. But not
all the pollen clings to the bees' legs, a great part of it is
dispersed to no purpose in the air with every chance puff emitted
by Boreas...
	I supposed that as soon as I settled down somewhere, the
food, the hearth and the bed would be as balsam for my strange
thoughts. But it was not like that, because only the days
belonged to the aqueduct and to Appius until he died, while the
nights remained mine again. And I gazed again at the stars
through the round opening of the dwelling, which the censor had
arranged to be built for me, and again the star dust, covering
me, whispered that I was not myself. And sometimes I saw another
mystery: in the hold of that great galley, I was among the same
people, dressed like me in rich bluish-green garments, without
any sign of sex, family or class, and as we were talking or
sleeping in expectation of something, suddenly part of the
ceiling, which was actually the floor of the deck above
us,slipped noiselessly to one side and on the edge of the wide
opening there stood a handsome young man, as proud and majestic
as a god,with his tall slim body clad in close-fitting mail which
was dazzlingly bright and smooth. And the young man looked at us
with his deep eyes as he smiled thoughtfully, and after a little
while another being approached him - slimmer and still more
beautiful, but covered with the same close-fitting garment, so
that from the enchanting soft line of the hips, the delicate
legs, the rounded shape of the breast and the Venus helmet, the
shining hair and the lips, we were able to understand that this
was a woman. Now they stood side by side and the young man put
his arm tenderly round her shoulders, and the woman leaned her
head on his chest and so they stood, it seemed to us, for an
endlessly long time, looking towards us, exchanging some thoughts
in an unknown but very melodious language. And we could not tear
our eyes away from this divine sight, because we perceived it as
a dawning of something from high above and we felt with every
cell of our bodies that they were our supreme sovereigns, that
our insignificant lives were sacred and joyful only when we
served them and that our existence had sense and meaning only
through theirs... And we loved them with something that was
stronger than love, we believed in them with something stronger
than dogma, we were full of awe for them with something stronger
than awe. In reality, this instant was short, like all divine
intervention, and then the opening above us closed slowly and
left us again and for a long time alone in the hold of the great
galley - sleeping or murmuring something... And in order to wake
up without having been asleep I, Vergilius, listened to the
unceasing sound of the water and gazed at the stars and their
dust,which stuck to my eyes without irritating them.
	And many things have happened since Appius built that
aqueduct and my home near it. I lived alone but sometimes
aediles* and tax-collectors dropped in see me and told me about
different things. And the aediles and tax-collectors were changed
very often, and in general it seemed that most people were
replaced by others in several decades. Thus the powerful princeps
Publius Scipio, called the African because he had defeated
Hannibal at Cana, was disgraced and defamed by enterprising and
wily Cato, who first revealed to me the art of talking about one
thing while saying another. I saw Caius Marius with my own eyes
when he was leading his army towards Sicily and I did not wish to
believe that this man of short stature, half bald and looking
like a dirty plebeian, had raised himself to the consul's toga,
and was the person who had made the army stronger than the state.
And that after the civil war Caius Julius Caesar, who won thanks
to the legions, had added to his title "Dictator", the
elucidation "Eternal". But finally Caesar was assassinated in the
Senate and Cleopatra captured the heart and turned the head of
his successor, the valiant soldier Mark Antony, and he threw
himself against the same sword of power with which he had wished
to conquer the world. And the small aqueduct Antonius was built
in his honor.
	Besides this aqueduct, at that time the aqueducts of Old
Anio, Aqua Marcia, Aqua Alexandriana Neronianus, Aqua Crabra were
built for Rome... And in most of them the water flowed in good
sound lead pipes.
	Once when the aedile Frontinus came to check the level of
the water in Appius' aqueduct, he told me that, in spite of the
abundant irrigation, the land around the town did not yield good
crops. And little by little Gallic wine, Spanish oil and African
and Egyptian wheat were flooding the market in Rome. And some of
the land there was going untilled and unsown. I, Vergilius,
chiselled out and engraved this at the time when Rome was the
heart of a powerful republic and for a long time had ruled over
the greater part of the world.
	III.
	... There continued to be born the gods' elect and the
darlings of time and fate. When Mark Antony died, the triumvirate
broke down and Octavian remained the only one of the three. As
soon as he had put the affairs of state in order, he declared in
the Senate that he was ill and wished to retire. Then the Senate
bade him "for the good of the people and the Republic" not to do
so. And thus when he gave up his high triumvirate rank, Octavian
acquired the highest of all titles then - that of "Imperator"
(Emperor).
	Great brilliance and much gold flooded the forum and the
stadia. The rich people in Rome were very numerous and Octavian
discovered yet another way to cover himself with still more
glory. He had a friend whose name was Caius Maecenas, also a very
rich man, who gave support to well-known poets so that they were
able to write without having to worry about their everyday needs.
Such were Albius Tibullus, Sextus Properce, Horace Flaccus and
also Vergilius Maro, who was sometimes taken for me later on. But
I didn't like their verses very much, because I considered there
was more entertainment in them than thought. Thought seeks the
truth and that is why it sometimes comes out harsh and uneven,
while what is entertaining presents itself as the truth and
because it flows smoothly, it enjoys enviable popularity. But
thought is of greater benefit, or so I consider because I knew
Senecca. And once when Horace was drunk, he put the whole of his
audacity into a poem which he called "Memorial", or something
like that. I bow and congratulate him as he had the daring to
provoke fate.
	Octavian, called Augustus, died after driving the Gauls out
of Rome and left as his successor his stepson Tiberius. And
Tiberius died and Caligula became Emperor. Four years after this,
when they found him assassinated, Claudius became Emperor. He
ruled well for thirteen years but then they poisoned him and Nero
became Emperor. One night people woke up and saw that the whole
sky was red and glowing. Nero had set Rome on fire and later on
he himself affronted the sword and died. Vespasian became
Emperor. When he died his son Titus Flavius ascended the imperial
throne. On his death Domitian took the title of Emperor, but he
overestimated himself and they killed him. Mark Cocceius Nerva
then became Emperor and when he died the present Emperor Mark
Ulpus Trajan succeeded him, may the gods save and protect him!
	I learnt about all this from the tax collectors and the
aediles who dropped in to see me when they came to check the
level of the water and to have a talk. And I gazed at the sky
alone.
	One morning, hearing the clatter of horses' hoofs, I went
out in front of my house and saw a magnificent chariot which was
just pulling up. A stout unknown man got out of it, came up and
stared at me.
	"Are you the poet Vergilius?" He asked somewhat
mistrustfully.
	"Yes,I am." I answered. "That's what they call me."
	Then the man did something which I did not expect at all: he
took a step backwards and bowed low to me. I decided in my mind
that he had got me mixed up with Vergilius Maro and was taking me
for him.
	"I am not from the circle of Maecenas!" I said, forewarning
him. And he in his turn asked:
	"What Maecenas?"
	And then it flashed across my mind that since Maecenas had
died the people who came to me had been changed several times.
And the stout man said that his master Ulpius Urbinus, who had
been freed from slavery and was the head of the City Chancery of
Finances, had the great pleasure of inviting me to his home to
recite my best poems to him and his guests. Tempted by my eyes
which in their turn were tempted by the prospect of seeing
something new, I agreed and accepted the invitation. Thus, it was
the first time since I came here that I left Appius' aqueduct,
but the murmuring of the water, which for a long time I had
ceased to hear, suddenly sounded in my ears when we were at half
a mile's distance from the place
	And a bend in the road revealed a breath-taking view. Rome
spread out below us - magnificent, clean and all marble. And in
the morning haze I could make out the archaic outlines of the
eleven aqueducts which, like lead-hued rays, slanted down from
different directions towards the city.
	In the home of Ulpius Urbinus I met Luccia, a young slave
dancer of that time, and I fell in love with her. And Ulpius, who
was himself a freed slave, freed her for me in a splendid
ceremony at which he gave her a good dowry, so that we could get
married. This same night I discovered the fiery mystery of her
body, which I came to love just as much as I did her heart and
soul. And I understood that a woman is inexplicable, like God,
and that is why she is called upon to create life.
	And in his magnificent house Ulpius had four fountains,
cascades, a water timepiece and even his own bath with two marble
pools, so that the water, to which I was accustomed, was not
lacking here. But most of all I liked to bathe with Luccia in the
pale pink pool where no one but me could look at her undressed.
	Later on my wife lay down and would not take food and in two
months' time she was dead. Almost insane with grief, I bid
farewell to her earthly remains and also to the world for I was
firmly resolved that, having lost her, I would put an end to my
life. And the same evening I took a sharp dagger and prepared a
hot bath, so that the blood would flow with less pain. As I was
getting into the bath, my eyes happened to turn towards a
looking-glass and with horror I saw that for the time I had been
here, and that had been for several decades, I had hardly aged at
all beyond acquiring three fine wrinkles. Luccia was dead and
Ulpius Urbinus had died still earlier. I cried out and cut my
veins at the wrist. It hurt me but no blood gushed out.
Astonished by what was happening, I struck my wrist a second time
with the dagger. And again not a drop of blood appeared! Then I
threw down the dagger and, as though pursued by some augury, I
rushed outside. And the god Janus, my protector, helped me to
climb unnoticed over the city walls.
	So I ran the whole night along the paths and through the
cuttings in the forest until at last I heard the sound of the
water in the aqueduct formerly built by Appius. Afterwards I
engraved this account of what happened at the time when Trajan
stationed part of his legions in the plain around Serdica after
waging a victorious war against Decebal.
	IV.
	Great tranquility and quiet pleasure heals in our hearts and
souls the wounds of the most distracting passion. Try to find
yourself, man, because the breath is in you yourself and only so
will you understand that the Universe is your true sister, and
infinity begins and ends at the tip of your fingers.
	I endlessly sat near the place where the quick-flowing
mountain stream poured into the earthen channel of the aqueduct,
unable to tear myself away from the strange discovery that I was
not myself. And the train of my thought was not dependent on the
will because it seemed to me that my own memories did not belong
to me. I wanted to see Rome, but I could picture to myself only
the leaden arrow-like streaks of the aqueducts cutting into its
very tissue. I wanted to think about the luxurious home of Ulpius
Urbinus and about all the other beautiful buildings, but the only
thing I saw in my mind's eye were the grayish pipes out of which
water streamed everywhere without ceasing - in the pools, in the
fountains, in the huge recesses... A sharp pain always pierced my
heart when I thought of Luccia, but she came into my thoughts
only as she had been when bathing in the luxurious pool and
laughing in her clear-ringing manner, with the water penetrating
her body, ever deeper and deeper. I remembered, but involuntarily
how in the last months of her life Luccia almost never came out
of the pool because, when she was out of the water, her face
turned pale and sallow and she felt sick at the very sight of
food. Even when my wife grew so weak that she could no walk, some
of the slave girls carried her on a stretcher to her pool and put
her under a warm stream of water. And there they found her dead -
with her eyes fixed in surprise on the water falling around her
neck.
	Great tranquility and quiet solitude washed the wounds of
profound grief out of my heart and soul.
	And so one day I asked the tax-collector Terence, who had
dropped in to see me, to sprinkle some lead dust in the
earthen-ware water jar and to put a fish into it. And when after
a little time, the fish rose to the surface dead and turned its
silver-bluish abdomen up towards the sky, I cried out in pain
because the whip of a terrible truth had lashed savagely across
my face. And almost out of my senses and with the dark effort of
that other person in me, I understood why my wife Luccia had died
so soon and unexpectedly. And I understood what had been the
reason for the death of Ulpius Urbinus and thousands of other
well-known citizens of Rome, because I could not help being
struck by the fact that among the simple people there were more
old people than among the nobility. The aqueducts , those same
"silver paths of blessing, always enveloped in the luminous
variegated nimbi of the rainbow", as I had sung their praise in
scores of my poems, were slowly bringing ruin to Rome with the
poisonous lead in their conduits... And the water which all of us
were drinking was no longer pure!
	For a long time I was held captive by this terrible
discovery, which I had made by the will of the god Janus of the
two faces, the guardian of doors and gates and of every
beginning. And one day I was jerked out of my thoughts by a still
more terrible incident.
	I was sitting near the modest home, built for me by Appius,
when a plebeian came running towards me. Out of breath and
ragged, he grasped my hand before he could pull himself together,
and he began speaking quickly:
	"Listen to me, my friend, my brother, listen to everything
and what you remember tell to the others! Because every second
may see my undoing because of the God I believe in, but I will
die for him in meekness and humility as he died for me on the
cross... I am a Christian, a hermit, and that means that I
believe in the holy and inseparable Trinity of the creator
Jehovah, in his Son Jesus, the Redeemer of earthly sins, and the
Holy Ghost that covers eternally the Earth and the water to bring
blessed repentance. My God is not wicked and terrible like your
gods, but gentle and good. He does not wish sacrificial fires and
blood, but just the opposite, a righteous life and a prayer. And
everyone is equal in his eyes, my brother, and the Emperor
himself is not higher than the lowest plebeian. And He says to
the sick and the poverty-stricken: "The last shall be first!" And
to those who all their lives are doomed to be slaves: "Come to me
all you who are downtrodden and distressed." Is there one of all
the savage, depraved and cruel gods who is greater than Him? Yes,
I shall die but after my death I shall not go, like you, into the
gloomy kingdom of Pluto and Proserpine, but I shall rise to the
Third Heaven, to the gentle faces of the angels in the heavenly
regions... I have become a Christian, a hermit, because there is
no god more righteous than Jehovah and his son Jesus, Agnus
Dei..."
	At that moment there suddenly appeared about a score of
lightly armed soldiers, led by a centurion. And when he noticed
them, the Christian shook my hand so hard that it hurt and then,
with a wild laugh, he flung himself forward and was transfixed on
the sword of one of the soldiers. And I saw how the blade sank
into his body and in a second the cut made by the metal became
red and suffused with blood.
	And the centurion cried out in anger as he ran up to his
soldier and struck him a blow with the blunt side of his sword,
all the while shrieking that this unfortunate Christian should
have died the next day at the triumph of the Emperor Alexander
Severe. Then his eyes fell on me and he asked:
	"And you, are you also against our gods?"
	"No." I answered. "I am against your water."
	"It's all the same." Said the centurion and made a sign to
the soldiers to take me prisoner:
	"You will die tomorrow instead of him!"
	So, again I left the aqueduct built by Appius Claudius,
without knowing that this time I was leaving it forever.
	A sound like the buzzing of bees penetrated into the hold of
the great galley and the light unexpectedly became stronger - as
though someone had fanned a bunch of yarn, soaked in Carthagian
tar, into flame, so that we could see each others' faces above
these rich garments, but our eyes were extremely slow in getting
used to the ever more abundant brilliant light and we could
distinguish only vaguely the outlines of people's bodies. It was
through the other source of light, the enormous piece of crystal
which separated us from the stars, that we suddenly discovered
the lack of darkness outside, while in consternation our eyes
followed the colors chasing each other: blue like the fathomless
sea, emerald green, blue again like a Persian sapphire, pearly
white, golden yellow, and then topaz, but yellow, knife-edged
tongues of ruby flames... We ourselves could not make any
movement at all, as though molten lead was running in our veins,
and we could breathe only with difficulty, but the pump of life
kept beating convulsively in our breasts, and this continued
through some great timelessness - neither short, not extremely
long. And later our strange journeying was abruptly cut short,
with a feeling of a fall from a great height. And in one great
second everything stood still. And the terrible weight no longer
pressed down on our bodies. Then the crack in the ceiling above
us opened and there on the edge stood the handsome young man,
proud and majestic, surely a god; he looked slowly round at all
of us with his deep eyes, and we knew that now the young man
would lift his hand and point to someone, who would leave the
hold of the galley, and no one would ever see him again... I knew
this because it had happened already many times during long
voyages. And I, like everybody else, wished to be the chosen one
and, indeed, the young man then lifted his hand and pointed to
me, and suddenly it was as though a silver arrow had pierced my
breast...
	Such a wonderful mystery appeared to me that same night,
after the soldiers of Alexander Severe had taken me prisoner and
I was being held, along with thirty Christians and other
criminals,in the dungeon of the largest amphitheater in Rome,
waiting to hear my sentence. I knew I should die, but I did not
feel the least pity for myself. On the contrary, I found it easy
to keep control over my thoughts and soul, because death alone
could put an end to all the torment and anguish, as well as to
the ever more frequent fits of madness which possessed me. For
what, if not madness, were my ever recurring visions and the
feeling that I was not myself? And for the first time then, the
significance of what I had seen took shape in my mind and I
understood that the handsome young man, who had lifted his hand
and pointed to me, among all the others, was Death itself...
	And the next day, as soon as Emperor Alexander Severe learnt
a little before his triumph who I was, he gave me a choice,
promising to save my life if I wrote laudatory poems in his
praise at once and recited them in the arena in such a stirring
way that all the people would lift their fists with merciful
thumbs. And I did this, because my body recoiled and surrendered
at the thought of the suffering it would have to go through to
set the soul at rest. Thus in one day I went all the way from the
bloodstained sand to the special seat reserved in the
amphitheater for the Emperor's favorite,and in wonder I
discovered that it is shorter than it looks. And I lived again in
Rome in still greater luxury, without having asked anyone for it,
and the senators greeted me respectfully, but they could not
conceal the malicious envy in their eyes. Quite different had
both the people and the city been when I had known them in the
time of Ulpius Urbinius, in spite of the fact that since then not
more than about one hundred years had passed. For a long time I
could not find out what the difference was until one day I
noticed that my own poor poems were turning out more clumsily
written than my former ones had been. And I understood -
everything was taking place more slowly. The nobles moved and
exerted themselves when they tried in vain to hide behind a mask
of worthiness and wisdom. The merchants did not barter in loud
voices but indolently. The centurions gave the word of command
slackly and they often looked round furtively. Even the slaves
carried out the orders of their masters as though they were doing
other people's work, listening to the murmuring of the water
streaming on all sides...
	And the Emperor Alexander Severe, my patron, was a
milk-livered and cruel man. I learned from his enemies that his
grandmother Julia Messa had herself taken part in a conspiracy
against her other grandson in order to revel secretly in her
power. When she died, Mamea, the mother of the Emperor, acquired
a great influence over him. And the triumph in honor of the
victory over the Persians, at which he granted me my life, was in
fact a quirk of several legates in order to throw golden dust in
the eyes of the citizens after the forced retreat of the Roman
legions from the East. And there had actually been no victory at
all! I was astonished that Alexander Severe was surrounded by so
many enemies...
	And one moonlit evening, two years after his triumph, he
himself came into my room, and, offering me some wonderful wine
and promising me great rewards, he tried to assault me sexually.
And as I cried out in horror and disgust, three guards of the
Pretorian guard rushed into the room. Striding quickly towards us
with their naked swords in their hands, they separated me from
the Emperor and they tore him to pieces with their own hands.
Then they did the same to Mamea, but they give me the choice
between instant death, if I did not leave the imperial court
immediately, or service in one of the legions. And again my flesh
made the choice instead of my will...
	So I fell into the transport unit of legate Maximin, known
also as the Thracian, because he was a barbarian born outside the
frontiers of the Roman Empire. And almost at the same time as I
arrived, there came the news that the soldiers had raised
Maximin, the Thracian, to the rank of Emperor.
	VI.
	I remember that from the morning an unfathomable blue sky
hung over us and the day itself happened to be hot and sultry.
Around noon the first small group of loafers, dressed-up matrons
and bored soldiers began to hurry towards the central forum. And
when the sun grew softer and the shadows longer, the liveliness
and bustle reached a scale quite unknown to me. And the whole
forum was packed with a dark mass of people as though the
soldiers' sandals had kicked a huge ant-hill along their way.
	But then there came about twenty guardsman out of the palace
with lighted torches in their hands and, dividing up into two
lines, they formed a square, incomplete in the lower part. A
hidden orchestra played several thunderous accords and when it
stopped, the highest state officials came in sight before the
people. They were divided according to their rank into "the
eminent", "the most perfect", "the most high", "the most
honored", "the most illustrious" and "the noblest"... And
according to their rank they took their places around the marble
pedestal erected onto the building's stairway.
	The orchestra rang out still more thunderously and on a
magnificent palanquin six bodyguards carried in the Emperor
Constantine himself, adorned with all the attributes of his
divine power. And the ant-hill swayed slightly, wonderstruck with
such magnificence, and cries could be heard, and the torches were
lighted up as the hands were raised in greeting. And as soon as
the bodyguards had set the palanquin on the ground, the Emperor
stood up, set his toga straight and, ascending the pedestal,
raised his right hand to command silence.
	It was time to sally forth and so I left the archlike
balcony, from where I had seen all this, and went down below
towards the multitude. And my knees were almost bent beneath me
with anxiety, because I knew I would recite my poems for the last
time to so many people. And I did not believe that Constantine
would spare my life after what I was going to say...
	O bitter water of years,
	Our hearts you have corroded with lead.
	O cruel waters...
	The verses came into my mind quickly and without any effort
on my part as though some secret power was creating them alone. I
knew that they were my last and I thanked the Fates that they had
come into existence so easily.
	Some time ago I had talked with Constantine. All the
Emperors whom I had happened to be in contact with had liked to
sit and talk with me, because they were flattered by the thought
that with one gesture of the hand they could do away with my
tongue and mind for ever, and this thought gave them pleasure.
But Constantine, although he had killed not a few people, among
them Augustus Licinius himself, in order to become the one and
only ruler, was cultivated in spirit. Then I had talked to him
about the water, beginning the conversation with my earliest
memories of it and ending it with his intention to remove the
capital of the Empire from Rome to Byzantium, of course after
building aqueducts and reservoirs there. And see what the Emperor
Constantine did. He summoned the nobles and begged me politely to
repeat what I had just said to them. And when I had done it, he
spread out his hands and asked astutely:
	"Eh, what do you think? Are we to believe a man who affirms
that he was living in the time of the censor Appius Claudius
Caecus?"
	And all of them split their sides with laughter, something
which was terribly humiliating for me.
	O bitter water of years...
	By force of habit I whispered the first verses, although the
Emperor Constantine was still speaking. All this multitude were
at his feet, nobles and hetaerae, the colony and prepositi*, the
brave weather-beaten legionaries... all of them had to forget
that tomorrow the sacred and eternal Rome would be a city like
any other city in the Empire. But they did not even know that
Rome was doomed and that was why Constantine was leaving it
almost in panic. And Constantine did not know why Rome was doomed
or, at least, he did not wish to think of that now... But after
the Emperor had spoken it was my turn to speak, as court reciter,
and I was going to tell the truth. Then they would have to learn
the truth too...
	I was startled by the thundering shouts and I understood
that Constantine had succeeded. How long had I still to live? And
would the guards, at a sign from the Emperor, stab me at once, or
would he magnanimously allow me to say everything? I went up to
speak and when the people became silent, I lifted my right hand
to my chest and began...
	O great water of years,
	With rapture you nourish our hearts.
	O clear-eyed water...
	... But who was speaking instead of me? With my voice and my
rhythm, but with different words? Who was living in my body?
Pluto? Mercury? Was Janus making me go on? Or was it maybe the
splendid young man from the galley among the stars, who was
always appearing to me in those intrusive visions?
	And as soon as I had finished reciting the poem, there were
again cries of acclamation expressed in the most uncouth manner.
And turning to his retinue of nobles, illuminated by the light of
the torches, the Emperor Constantine said:
	"Well, should we deprive ourselves of a poet who has such a
thorough command of his art?"
	And after answering deferentially, the men congratulated me
with eyes in which one could see fear, surprise and suppressed
rancor.
	Such was my last day in Rome, because that same night, quite
bewildered, I set out with the court for Byzantium, which soon
after this was called Constantinople.
	VII.
	... Alarming news has reached us. An usurper had killed
Constant, the son of Constantine, and then Constance the Second,
his other son, killed the usurper and became Emperor. And
barbarian tribes were bearing down on the frontier regions, both
to the north and to the south. Constance the Second appointed his
cousin Gallus as his Eastern deputy and gave him the title of
"Caesar" (Trusted Lieutenant). But afterwards he was suspected of
being involved in a conspiracy and he was punished with death.
Again, about the same time another cousin of his, Julian, won
great renown among the people, and when Constance died he became
Emperor. And Julian exalted the pagan gods and he himself made
sacrifices to them and read the future by the liver of animals.
He was well educated and cultivated, but melancholic in
temperament and that was why he wished to bring back the old days
against the march of time. But he was pierced by a spear on the
battle-field near the River Euphrates and eye-witnesses assert
that when he was facing death he repented and accepted the
Christian faith. After him Jovian came to the imperial throne,
but he died in a very short time. Valentinian then became Emperor
but when he understood that he could not manage the state affairs
alone, he called his brother Valens and they divided the Empire
between them. Valentinian set off for the West while Valens
remained in the East. Then to the south there was a revolt of the
agonists, who did not live in the towns but spent their time
roaming the highways and when they saw one of the nobility yoked
him to his chariot instead of a horse. To the north the Goths
were making inroads and, besides them, the Franks, Alamanni,
Quades, Gauls and Ligures. Valentinian died and his son Gracian
took his place. And at that time Valens began to let those Goths
who had adopted Christianity into the Roman lands, on condition
that they hand over all weapons they had. But the second-hand
buyers of these arms agreed to let the Goths keep them if they
paid them bribes. And then a little later the Goths rebelled and
thus happened the terrible defeat at Adrianopole, where Valens
was killed, and Gracian, who had not sufficient power to rule
alone raised Theodosius to power in the East. This Theodosius was
destined by providence to be the sacred fierysword expiator and
he destroyed the pagan temples, forbid sacrificial burnt
offerings and began a terrible persecution of heathens and Arian
heretics. Later on he destroyed the statues of all the Roman and
Greek gods, but the statue of Zeus paralysed his hand and then he
took it to Constantinople. And also in those times the Olympic
Games ceased to take place. And for the last time Theodosius
divided the Empire into two parts, giving the Eastern one to his
son Arcadius and the already undermined Western one to his other
son Honorius. And for a long time the land had not yielded good
crops, there had been a great deal of unrest, and the slaves ran
away or killed their masters. No one felt strong and safe and
that is why no one loved the state.
	And the water flowed and the people drank it.
	VIII.
	Wait awhile, Vergilius, now when you have understood
everything, keep the wisdom of your eyes and master the impatient
trembling of your hand as you never cease zealously to chisel the
marble! Who can hinder you from fulfilling your plan? And nobody
even suspects what you have in mind because to the people, those
weak, awkward, cowardly creatures, such an undertaking seems
impossible. But free yourself of the burden because you know that
stone remembers better than parchment and man. And because you
know that fearing the truth, people born later on will proclaim
some clever nonsense as the truth. And because you know that
mortals will leave behind them descendants, but you, the
immortal, nothing... go on writing, Vergilius!
	I see how the hawks' claws tear to pieces the likeness of a
heart in your breast, and you are overcome with stupefaction at
the thought of Elitza, but drive away grief, because even its
blessings are for others and not for you!
	Did you not believe that it would happen so? But you did not
flee after the lisping Horace to the marshes of Ravenna, but
stayed there among the flames on that night when the slaves
opened the gates of Rome and with vehement emotion and first of
all, received the Gothic swords in their bodies. And you saw
Alaric's hordes, who had served with Theodosius, plundering the
temples and luxurious houses. And there too, near the forum, you
saw a slave chasing his master with a Thracian axe and when he
had caught up with him, tripped him up and chopped off his leg
and then he did the same to the other limbs of his body, and the
expression on his face was like that of someone chopping the
branches off a tree.
	It was then that you noticed her running towards you through
the gleams of fire and blood in white clothing and with hair like
a sunbeam. She threw herself at your feet and begged you to save
her, and it was only then that you came to your senses,
Vergilius, and when you raised her from the ground it was with
wonder that you understood that in the whole of Rome only the two
of you remained standing stiff and speaking together. And when
you succeeded in leaving the town through a secret passage, she
said only:
	"Take me to Serdica!"
	"Who are you?" You asked her without being able to see her
in the dark and you heard the answer:
	"I am Elitza."
	"Your name is strange." You said.
	"I am a Slav." She answered. "My husband was a Roman like
you and was called Flavius. The Goths killed him and Alaric took
me prisoner."
	"Serdica is very far away." You said after a while.
	"My home is near Serdica." She said simply. "I have a piece
of land, a garden and household goods."
	And as you didn't know what might happen, you, Vergilius,
said:
	"You need a lot of water for a garden."
	And you heard her laugh and then her words:
	"There's water in abundance there, as much as you like!"
	"From where do you get it?" You asked quietly, almost
tongue-tied with uneasiness.
	And she explained:
	"My husband was a descendant of a Trajan legate. His great
grandfather already had his own water laid on from the aqueduct."
	Then you two fell silent and walked side by side for a long
time without looking at each other because the night was
moonless. And when you turned round, you discovered that the
burning Rome below you was already smaller than the moon. Then,
Vergilius, you posed your last and very senseless question:
	"Are the pipes of your water-conduct made of lead?"
	"What else could they be made of?" She said in surprise.
"Your questions are strange, Vergilius."
	"Because you are drinking poison!" You cried out and quickly
told her everything. And she listened attentively and her wonder
increased all the time. And you knew this by her eyes, because
the sun had began to rise.
	"If my husband had not had such a high opinion of you, I
would think you mad when I heard your words." Said Elitza. "So
far I don't know anyone who has been poisoned by our water.
Poison kills quickly and with pain. But water gives life..."
	And you two walked like this for a rather long time,
Vergilius, and you remembered many things and told them to her,
and Elitza kept on affirming that she understood your thoughts,
but she did not believe them. Not reason was important,
Vergilius, but belief in you; that was something you could not
get people to have in you.
	And finally, extremely exhausted, the two of you reached her
home near Serdica and lived there. And Elitza became your wife,
and didn't you in your happiness quickly forget everything else?
And was it only once that a tremor went through your body when
you learnt that the Empire no longer existed in the West? But
that you also knew in advance and everyone knew it, because the
last Emperor Romulas Augustus, called Augustulus (Little
Augustus), was the under-age son of the Gothic commander Oreste,
the Pannonian... No, you are incapable of happiness, Vergilius,
since with your inhuman eyes you noticed all too quickly the
sudden way your wife turned pale, her loss of appetite and her
excessive thirst. And Luccia ever more frequently began to haunt
your dreams, naked and with water pouring over her...
	Therefore, finish what you have begun and listen to me,
Janus, the god of doors and gateways and of every beginning,
because I am the only one who will never abandon you.
	IX.
	I have come outside, stepping on something fine, crunchy and
granular for several paces, dazed, incredibly light, I already
know that what I am walking on is sand, and it is yellow, and the
round thing behind me, looking like two united covers, is
silvery, I have been inside, now I am not, I have to walk, to
move away, that is a command, in a little while the covers will
take off from the sand and a great whirlwind will arise, the
others are inside, the young man and the girl are also inside, I
shall not see them any more, but I shall always be connected with
them through the power of my thought, which is obliged to
overcome time and space, connected with them as long as they
wish. Oh, how attached I am to them, Oh, how I love them, that is
an order, yes, a command to move away, you can be easy in your
minds, the power of my thought is infinite, it will fly in an
instant to you, it will bring you everything, O how I love you,
see that is a bush, the bush is green, green is a color like
yellow, another color is blue, the sky is blue, the earth is
brown, some colors are red, some colors are not silvery, that is
a quadruped, a four-footed creature, it is called a dog, I am a
biped, a two-footed creature, I am not a dog, that too is a
biped, its body is covered with a spiny growth - feathers - I am
also a biped but I am not covered with feathers, I am not a bird,
that is a biped, it is not covered with feathers either, it
thinks, it expresses its thoughts, it is called a man, I am a
biped, I think, I express my thoughts, I am called man, that is a
command, I call myself a man, I look like a man, my face looks
like a man's, my hands look like a man's, my voice sounds like a
man's, my behavior is like a man's, I explore and inquire into
what is existing, that is necessary, it is a command, because it
is necessary, I need a name, need to hear the name of a man,
because the aim of all this is directed to where there are
people. Vergilius, that is the name of a man, I am a man, I am
Vergilius...
	Light. Elitza, my wife, is weeding the garden and as it is
already time for lunch, she will call me very soon. I have to get
there before her. There were many of us in the hold of the big
galley, all in the same bluish-green garments; the young man and
the girl above us,the unapproachable gods, Oh how I love them,
surely they have abandoned me... No, it is impossible that it is
so! I am loosing my reason. Who needs a crazy servant? Janus, my
loyal protector, you finished your work and then left me. Now I
have a fixed idea that I am a self-tuning bio-robot... What do
these words mean? There is no such office in Rome! And because
the research process is concluded, are my energetic deeds
deteriorating? Janus, my protector, what am I prattling about?...
	Light. The stone-hewer Nicodim is making me a sarcophagus,
small but very solid and weather-resistant. I will put the marble
slabs I have engraved inside. It is only from them that I have
never been parted, even when we were fleeing from the burning
town. I carried them in a goat-skin bag and because I had always
been carrying them, I did not feel their weight.
	Light. And see what I shall do. I shall stand beneath the
arch of the aqueduct, listening to the flowing water and when I
have gathered together the whole power of my thought, and because
love is strong in me, I shall try to destroy it, to free the
rivers of the poisonous lead. But I shall bury the sarcophagus
with the slabs beforehand, so as not to get them broken because
of lack of belief in what is written. And if anyone finds them,
when he knows that the impure water is the undoing of Rome, let
him tell as many people as possible about it. That is the last
wish of the traveller who is called Vergilius, and forgive me if
I have erred and BE HEALTHY.
	RESTORER'S POSTSCRIPT
	Of course, this hapless fellow would not have been able to
write all this on nine marble slabs. Some of the words used
simply do not exist in the Latin language. Other words have a
quite different meaning in Latin.
	And I would not be able to figure them out. It is true that
formerly I was attracted to literature and after that to
philosophy, but that is by no means enough. I am an archaeologist
by profession.
	In this case one should take it for granted that what has
been said above does not exist. It is nowhere. It was born only
in my soul after gazing for a long time at the traces left on the
stone; and there again in me it died. But it seems to me that I
ought to give some kind of explanation, most of all for those who
see in the marble slabs something more than beautiful
fabrications.
	The first thing that puzzled me while I was deciphering them
was the fact that the author always managed to be at the
epicenter of the happenings which interested him. And that is not
at all simple when one bears in mind the long duration of the
period (about six centuries), as well as the extremely narrow
field of his interests. It seems that this Vergilius, I said to
myself, devoted the whole of his incredibly long life to only one
single object of research: the aqueducts. Nothing else impressed
him so much or, more precisely, other things impressed him only
so far as he had contact with them! I will admit that I did not
find any solution to this puzzle until he himself revealed it to
me. And then shivers went through me...
	Imagine a powerful, highly developed extraterrestrial
civilization which has mastered cosmic distances. It carries out
researches into our past without having any definite pragmatic
aim (by the way, I am not capable of judging its aims). It needs
perfect copies of the reasoning beings of the planet and it
creates them. Probably the biorobot Vergilius has not been the
only one, because it is hardly likely that it is only the
aqueducts which have interested this extraterrestrial
civilization. But anyway he was appointed to collect information
about the ancient Roman aqueducts.
	And he collected it: conscientiously, pedantically and
quietly as is befitting for every biorobot. At one moment,
however, something unforeseen happened - Vergilius went beyond
the bounds of admissible freedom of behavior, he wanted to
intervene, to change... Why? I don't know. And I don't want to
make any guesses. In any case, in processing the data, the
superintellect (or, if you prefer it, the supercomputer) decided
that intervention, expressed in writing poems, was not so
dangerous as to require his immediate annihilation. Thus
Vergilius continued to exist until the very end of his researches
into the historical process of the downfall of the Roman Empire,
this downfall for him, of course, being bound up most of all with
the aqueducts. His unavoidable removal naturally came in due
course later on.
	But in at least one point the extraterrestrial intellect
went wrong. Through his poems the biorobot succeeded in creating
a splendid epic. It is in a parable-like manner typical of that
time. The "lead-poisoned water" which was the undoing of Rome...
What a symbol of false, unklean prosperity, of inability and fear
to face up to the truth, however bitter it may sometimes be!
	Yes, a whole heap of questions remain without answers. As
this one for example: had the researchers the right to proceed in
such a manner with him, a biorobot, created to be
indistinguishable from other men, but deprived of the ability to
change anything at all. Where is then the furthermost permissible
boundary beyond which no other intellect should penetrate in
man's likeness?
	I don't know why, but for me it would be much more
interesting to know whether Vergilius really succeeded in his
last hour in destroying the aqueduct. Or are the ruins, which I
am standing in front of now, the result of the natural and
inexorable march of time?
	Alas, it stubbornly conceals "the vessel holding the
catholicon".
	
	__________________________________________________
	* The lamia was a beautiful phantasmal creature in woman's
shape in Roman mythology, something like a vampire.
	__________________________________________________
	* Aedile - head of the ancient Roman office of works
(restorer's note)
	__________________________________________________
	* coloni and prepositi -tenant farmers and free workers
	