Threshold of Fire     by Hella S. Haasse, Translated by Nini Blinstrub Anita Miller Original title: Een nieuwer testament Original language: Dutch Original year: 1966 Published by Academy Chicago Publishers Pub. Date: 1996 Format: Paperback Dimensions: (in inches): 0.83 x 7.10 x 4.46 ISBN: 0897334264 List Price: $14.95 Buy online from Amazon.com for $10.47 Published by Academy, Chicago IL Pub. Date: 1993 Not available for ordering

Threshold of Fire, like its predecessors In a Dark Wood Wandering and The Scarlet City, is a historical novel. This time the scene is set during the late Roman empire, a period later than that evoked in Robert Graves’ fascinating I, Claudius or Marguerite Yourcenar’s marvellous Memoirs of Hadrian (see Babel Guide to French Fiction). In Haasse’s novel Rome has adopted Christianity as its official religion but it still struggling to rid itself of its pagan past. The empire is still in place, but the barbarians are massing on the borders. It is a time of transition, crisis, and uncertainty.


The main action of Threshold of Fire covers barely a day and a half in July 417 C.E., but through the skilful use of flashbacks and changes in perspective we are presented with a panorama stretching back a lifetime and more, and including everything from Rome’s social outcasts to its decadent and dangerous court circles. One of the book’s protagonists is an historical figure, the Egyptian-born poet Claudian (or Claudius Claudianus), who became court poet under the emperor Honorius and his all-powerful general Stilicho. No evidence has come down to us concerning Claudian’s life after 404 C.E. Hella Haasse has exploited this opportunity to weave a complex story of friendship and betrayal which reaches its dramatic climax in the summer of 417 C.E. The title Threshold of Fire is taken from one of Claudian’s poems.


Told in chronological order, the story runs as follows. The gifted boy Claudian is noticed in Alexandria by the Roman prefect Hadrian, who is himself also of Egyptian extraction but has become more Roman than the Romans and more Christian than the Christians. Indeed, as a police officer it is Hadrian’s task to stamp out pagan rituals. Hadrian takes the young Claudian to Rome as his secretary and introduces him to the court, but he becomes increasingly dismayed at Claudian’s independence of mind and admiration for Stilicho, in whose honour Claudian composes gushing but politically unwise panegyrics. Caught up in court intrigues and abandoned by those whose protection he took for granted, Claudian manages to offend the inflexible, self-righteous Hadrian, who sees to it that the poet is disgraced and banished from Rome for life, on a charge of clinging to the old pagan gods. But Claudian secretly returns to Rome, gives up poetry and for ten years ekes out a living in the city’s popular, seedy districts. Eventually he comes into contact with some rich Roman patricians who yearn for the old days, practice subversive rituals in honour of the old gods and need Claudian’s literary skills.


In July 417 C.E. they are arrested and brought before the prefect, Hadrian. The patricians receive harsh punishments. Hadrian recognises the dishevelled Claudian, reads about himself in the latter’s confiscated papers and begins to doubt his own motives. But even in his underground dungeon Claudian remains deaf to Hadrian’s pleas to save his life by converting to Christianity, even though he has no faith in the old gods either. He dedicates his last will and testament to his Egyptian Jewish grandfather Eliezar, who also kept his own counsel and refused to be drawn on questions of faith or allegiance. Hadrian, torn between public duty, Christian compassion, self-pity and burgeoning admiration for Claudian’s strength of mind, shows his own independence by deciding to set his former protégé and enemy free. When his own officers confront him with this grave judicial inconsistency and Hadrian realises the loss of face and authority this will bring, he puts a flacon filled with poison to his lips. Whether he swallows the poison or not, we don’t know.


Like much of Hella Haasse’s other work, this novel wraps universal ideas in a historical, carefully crafted form. The main idea is that of sovereign thought and critical self-knowledge. Claudian rejects his former self when he realises how empty his poetry was, how much harm his lyrical effusions and biting sarcasm caused, how the high and mighty used him for their own ends and discarded him when he became an embarrassment to them. After his public disgrace he ceases to cringe, He keeps his distance from all beliefs, but especially the abject submission of the Son to the Father’s will, so glorified in Christianity, seems repugnant to him. The rigid, proselytising, law-abiding Hadrian goes through his crisis as the book unfolds, even though we catch only tantalising glimpses of his inner turmoil behind the impassive façade. Just how he reaches his bold, impossible conclusion is never made entirely clear. Its full impact has to wait until the final page, when Hadrian, the father-figure, seems ready to die for his adopted son.

I was know far and wide as Stilicho’s poet. Anything that put me in an unfavourable light had to hit him twice as hard. His attempt to come to an accord with the neighbouring Goths (he knew that Rome stood no chance in a war) had shocked both Honorius’ Christian and non-Christian advisors into frantic opposition. Serena understood that at that moment Stilicho could ill afford a scandal centring around his eulogist. With the resourcefulness and energy that was characteristic of her, she succeeded in recruiting a bride for me in Libya (a respectable distance from Rome) along with a position there: the first was a guarantee that I would not abandon the second.

She caught me off-balance with these accomplished facts. Her attitude was affable but relentless. Stilicho was with the court in Ravenna; I have never known whether he was aware of this plan of Serena’s. In a final attempt to soften her, I dedicated a poem to her in which I thanked her for all the favours she had shown me and pleaded for the opportunity to return to the city. Something must have leaked out about my imminent departure: not long after that, I was arrested. While I write, I am struck by the form of this essay: I am writing as if it were a letter (as I presently write so many letters in the names of others relating experiences, arguing, explaining) to a reader whom I do not know. Is this perhaps myself? What do I have in common with the man who vanished ten years ago in the dungeons of the prefecture? Who was Claudius Claudianus? (p. 187-8, tr. Anita Miller & Nini Blinstrub)