Threshold of Fire by Hella S. Haasse

gradually becomes well known in literary circles. Hadrian’s visits to Eliezar become less frequent. Each time he comes, he offers to bring Claudius with him, but each time Eliezar refuses. He has sat for a long time over a much-admired work of Claudius’s, the
Gigantomachia,
which Hadrian gave him to read. In masterly language, it presents a vision of the sound and fury of the Titans, the ancient inhabitants of the earth, who rebelled against the gods.
    Eliezar has never seen the boy since that day when he had stared from the dahabyeh across the water at his bloody palms. He might have brushed past him a hundred times in the streets and parks of Alexandria, may even have looked into his face without recognizing him.
    His praise of the poet’s work is measured; he is aware that Hadrian is watching him. One line haunts him: “I shall never hesitate to become the weapon which brings Zeus to destruction.”
    When someone is being long sought in the jungle, his footprints and other clues like broken branches tell what sort of start he has had and what direction he is taking. In the same way, Eliezar proceeds — in silent doubt — to read, in the secret language of themes and word choice, the history of a rebellion which is ignorant of its own roots.
    He congratulates Hadrian on the results of his intercession and begs to be left in solitude. For some time now he has suffered attacks of sharp pain which the doctors have not been able to relieve.
    When, some months later, Hadrian visits once more he is struck by the disturbing alteration in Eliezar’s appearance: this man, who had once been straight as an arrow, sits huddled in the folds of his garments; he is emaciated, withered; his eyes are glassy. The conversation doesn’t flow. After some hesitation (the subject now seems inappropriate), Hadrian reads aloud a new poem by his protege about the Phoenix — dying, its eyes frosted over (Eliezar nods imperceptibly), it mounts its burningnest, which will be both its grave and its cradle:
    In a single flight he soars, the son from the father
    Who has begotten himself: between life and life
    Only brief torment: a threshold of fire.
    Eliezar sits without moving, his averted face in shadow.
    Reports: Emperor Theodosius has moved his household from Constantinople to Milan. Administrative reforms are imminent, officials are being summoned from all the corners of the Empire. New appointments have been made. Hadrian is among the privileged; news about his merits and his religious zeal has reached the ears of the Emperor — and his Archbishop. A post awaits him overseas, at the Northern court, where he will exercise the function of Magister
Officiorum.
    He prepares to take ship shortly with his staff and his retinue. A last visit to Eliezar: a last goodbye, both of them know it. Eliezar hands him a paper, a copy of a clause in his will:
“Klafthi servus meus liberesto
… that my slave Klafthi shall be free.…
    “This will become legal in the hour of my death.My heirs will not be able to claim him. Don’t say anything to him about this. Promise me. He has never been treated like a slave.”
    Hadrian is assailed by mixed emotions. Something in him shrinks back, hides itself at the thought that — if he had known — he could have bought the boy from Eliezar, that the jewel of his personal staff, whom everyone in Alexandria envies, could have been his inalienable possession.
    Eliezar senses the other man’s inner turmoil; for Klafthi-Claudius’s sake, he wants no misunderstanding about the nature of his benevolence and the reason for it. He gestures for silence with his sallow, bony hand and begins wearily to say what has to be said.
    After the confession he does not give Hadrian a chance to react. The decision has been pronounced but more arrangements must be made.
    “In his interest, don’t tell anyone that he’s a freedman. It’s only as a free-born man that he can have the future he deserves. That holds true everywhere,