Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (ebook reader macos TXT) 📕

so as to respect a law which prohibits the punishment of virgins with

death? Lygia, Lygia, do not irritate Cæsar. If the decisive moment

comes when thou must choose between disgrace and death, thou wilt act as

thy faith commands; but seek not destruction thyself, and do not

irritate for a trivial cause an earthly and at the same time a cruel

divinity.”

Acte spoke with great compassion, and even with enthusiasm; and being a

little short-sighted, she pushed her sweet face up to Lygia’s as if

wishing to see surely the effect of her words.

But Lygia threw her arms around Acte’s neck with childish trustfulness

and said,—“Thou art kind, Acte.”

Acte, pleased by the praise and confidence, pressed her to her heart;

and then disengaging herself from the arms of the maiden, answered,—“My

happiness has passed and my joy is gone, but I am not wicked.” Then she

began to walk with quick steps through the room and to speak to herself,

as if in despair.

“No! And he was not wicked. He thought himself good at that time, and

he wished to be good. I know that best. All his change came later,

when he ceased to love. Others made him what he is—yes, others—and

Poppæa.”

Here her eyelids filled with tears. Lygia followed her for some time

with her blue eyes, and asked at last,—“Art thou sorry for him, Acte?”

“I am sorry for him!” answered the Grecian, with a low voice. And again

she began to walk, her hands clinched as if in pain, and her face

without hope.

“Dost thou love him yet, Acte?” asked Lygia, timidly.

“I love him.”

And after a while she added,—“No one loves him but me.”

Silence followed, during which Acte strove to recover her calmness,

disturbed by memories; and when at length her face resumed its usual

look of calm sorrow, she said,—

“Let us speak of thee, Lygia. Do not even think of opposing Cæsar; that

would be madness. And be calm. I know this house well, and I judge

that on Cæsar’s part nothing threatens thee. If Nero had given command

to take thee away for himself, he would not have brought thee to the

Palatine. Here Poppæa rules; and Nero, since she bore him a daughter,

is more than ever under her influence. No, Nero gave command, it is

true, that thou shouldst be at the feast, but he has not seen thee yet;

he has not inquired about thee, hence he does not care about thee.

Maybe he took thee from Aulus and Pomponia only through anger at them.

Petronius wrote me to have care of thee; and since Pomponia too wrote,

as thou knowest, maybe they had an understanding. Maybe he did that at

her request. If this be true, if he at the request of Pomponia will

occupy himself with thee, nothing threatens thee; and who knows if Nero

may not send thee back to Aulus at his persuasion? I know not whether

Nero loves him over much, but I know that rarely has he the courage to

be of an opinion opposite to his.”

“Ah, Acte!” answered Lygia; “Petronius was with us before they took me,

and my mother was convinced that Nero demanded my surrender at his

instigation.”

“That would be bad,” said Acte. But she stopped for a while, and then

said,—“Perhaps Petronius only said, in Nero’s presence at some supper,

that he saw a hostage of the Lygians at Aulus’s, and Nero, who is

jealous of his own power, demanded thee only because hostages belong to

Cæsar. But he does not like Aulus and Pomponia. No! it does not seem

to me that if Petronius wished to take thee from Aulus he would use such

a method. I do not know whether Petronius is better than others of

Cæsar’s court, but he is different. Maybe too thou wilt find some one

else who would be willing to intercede for thee. Hast thou not seen at

Aulus’s some one who is near Cæsar?”

“I have seen Vespasian and Titus.”

“Cæsar does not like them.”

“And Seneca.”

“If Seneca advised something, that would be enough to make Nero act

otherwise.”

The bright face of Lygia was covered with a blush. “And Vinicius-”

“I do not know him.”

“He is a relative of Petronius, and returned not long since from

Armenia.”

“Dost thou think that Nero likes him?”

“All like Vinicius.”

“And would he intercede for thee?”

“He would.”

Acte smiled tenderly, and said, “Then thou wilt see him surely at the

feast. Thou must be there, first, because thou must,—only such a child

as thou could think otherwise. Second, if thou wish to return to the

house of Aulus, thou wilt find means of beseeching Petronius and

Vinicius to gain for thee by their influence the right to return. If

they were here, both would tell thee as I do, that it would be madness

and ruin to try resistance. Cæsar might not notice thy absence, it is

true; but if he noticed it and thought that thou hadst the daring to

oppose his will, here would be no salvation for thee. Go, Lygia! Dost

thou hear the noise in the palace? The sun is near setting; guests will

begin to arrive soon.”

“Thou art right,” answered Lygia, “and I will follow thy advice.”

How much desire to see Vinicius and Petronius there was in this resolve,

how much of woman’s curiosity there was to see such a feast once in

life, and to see at it Cæsar, the court, the renowned Poppæa and other

beauties, and all that unheard-of splendor, of which wonders were

narrated in Rome, Lygia could not give account to herself of a

certainty. But Acte was right, and Lygia felt this distinctly. There

was need to go; therefore, when necessity and simple reason supported

the hidden temptation, she ceased to hesitate.

Acte conducted her to her own unctorium to anoint and dress her; and

though there was no lack of slave women in Cæsar’s house, and Acte had

enough of them for her personal service, still, through sympathy for the

maiden whose beauty and innocence had caught her heart, she resolved to

dress her herself. It became clear at once that in the young Grecian,

in spite of her sadness and her perusal of the letters of Paul of

Tarsus, there was yet much of the ancient Hellenic spirit, to which

physical beauty spoke with more eloquence than aught else on earth.

When she had undressed Lygia, she could not restrain an exclamation of

wonder at sight of her form, at once slender and full, created, as it

were, from pearl and roses; and stepping back a few paces, she looked

with delight on that matchless, spring-like form.

“Lygia,” exclaimed she at last, “thou art a hundred times more beautiful

than Poppæa!”

But, reared in the strict house of Pomponia, where modesty was observed,

even when women were by themselves, the maiden, wonderful as a wonderful

dream, harmonious as a work of Praxiteles or as a song, stood alarmed,

blushing from modesty, with knees pressed together, with her hands on

her bosom, and downcast eyes. At last, raising her arms with sudden

movement, she removed the pins which held her hair, and in one moment,

with one shake of her head, she covered herself with it as with a

mantle.

Acte, approaching her and touching her dark tresses, said,—

“Oh, what hair thou hast! I will not sprinkle golden powder on it; it

gleams of itself in one place and another with gold, where it waves. I

will add, perhaps, barely a sprinkle here and there; but lightly,

lightly, as if a sun ray had freshened it. Wonderful must thy Lygian

country be where such maidens are born!

“I do not remember it,” answered Lygia; “but Ursus has told me that with

us it is forests, forests, and forests.”

“But flowers bloom in those forests,” said Acte, dipping her hand in a

vase filled with verbena, and moistening Lygia’s hair with it. When she

had finished this work, Acte anointed her body lightly with odoriferous

oils from Arabia, and then dressed her in a soft gold-colored tunic

without sleeves, over which was to be put a snow-white peplus. But

since she had to dress Lygia’s hair first, she put on her meanwhile a

kind of roomy dress called synthesis, and, seating her in an armchair,

gave her for a time into the hands of slave women, so as to stand at a

distance herself and follow the hairdressing. Two other slave women put

on Lygia’s feet white sandals, embroidered with purple, fastening them

to her alabaster ankles with golden lacings drawn crosswise. When at

last the hairdressing was finished, they put a peplus on her in very

beautiful, light folds; then Acte fastened pearls to her neck, and

touching her hair at the folds with gold dust, gave command to the women

to dress her, following Lygia with delighted eyes meanwhile.

But she was ready soon; and when the first litters began to appear

before the main gate, both entered the side portico from which were

visible the chief entrance, the interior galleries, and the courtyard

surrounded by a colonnade of Numidian marble.

Gradually people passed in greater and greater numbers under the lofty

arch of the entrance, over which the splendid quadrigæ of Lysias seemed

to bear Apollo and Diana into space. Lygia’s eyes were struck by that

magnificence, of which the modest house of Aulus could not have given

her the slightest idea. It was sunset; the last rays were falling on

the yellow Numidian marble of the columns, which shone like gold in

those gleams and changed into rose color also. Among the columns, at

the side of white statues of the Danaides and others, representing gods

or heroes, crowds of people flowed past,—men and women; resembling

statues also, for they were draped in togas, pepluses, and robes,

falling with grace and beauty toward the earth in soft folds, on which

the rays of the setting sun were expiring. A gigantic Hercules, with

head in the light yet, from the breast down sunk in shadow cast by the

columns, looked from above on that throng. Acte showed Lygia senators

in wide-bordered togas, in colored tunics, in sandals with crescents on

them, and knights, and famed artists; she showed her Roman ladies, in

Roman, in Grecian, in fantastic Oriental costume, with hair dressed in

towers or pyramids, or dressed like that of the statues of goddesses,

low on the head, and adorned with flowers. Many men and women did Acte

call by name, adding to their names histories, brief and sometimes

terrible, which pierced Lygia with fear, amazement, and wonder. For her

this was a strange world, whose beauty intoxicated her eyes, but whose

contrasts her girlish understanding could not grasp. In those twilights

of the sky, in those rows of motionless columns vanishing in the

distance, and in those statuesque people, there was a certain lofty

repose. It seemed that in the midst of those marbles of simple lines

demigods might live free of care, at peace and in happiness. Meanwhile

the low voice of Acte disclosed, time after time, a new and dreadful

secret of that palace and those people. See, there at a distance is the

covered portico on whose columns and floor are still visible red stains

from the blood with which Caligula sprinkled the white marble when he

fell beneath the knife of Cassius Chærea; there his wife was slain;

there his child was dashed against a stone; under that wing is the

dungeon in which the younger Drusus gnawed his hands from hunger; there

the elder Drusus was