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

own milk. Thou dost not know thyself, Ocelle mi! Look not at her.

Turn thy eyes to me, Ocelle mi! Touch this goblet of wine with thy

lips, and I will put mine on the same place.”

And he pushed up nearer and nearer, and she began to withdraw toward

Acte. But at that moment silence was enjoined because Cæsar had risen.

The singer Diodorus had given him a lute of the kind called delta;

another singer named Terpnos, who had to accompany him in playing,

approached with an instrument called the nablium. Nero, resting the

delta on the table, raised his eyes; and for a moment silence reigned in

the triclinium, broken only by a rustle, as roses fell from the ceiling.

Then he began to chant, or rather to declaim, singingly and

rhythmically, to the accompaniment of the two lutes, his own hymn to

Venus. Neither the voice, though somewhat injured, nor the verses were

bad, so that reproaches of conscience took possession of Lygia again;

for the hymn, though glorifying the impure pagan Venus, seemed to her

more than beautiful, and Cæsar himself, with a laurel crown on his head

and uplifted eyes, nobler, much less terrible, and less repulsive than

at the beginning of the feast.

The guests answered with a thunder of applause. Cries of, “Oh, heavenly

voice!” were heard round about; some of the women raised their hands,

and held them thus, as a sign of delight, even after the end of the

hymn; others wiped their tearful eyes; the whole hall was seething as in

a beehive. Poppæa, bending her golden-haired head, raised Nero’s hand

to her lips, and held it long in silence. Pythagoras, a young Greek of

marvellous beauty,—the same to whom later the half-insane Nero

commanded the flamens to marry him, with the observance of all rites,—

knelt now at his feet.

But Nero looked carefully at Petronius, whose praises were desired by

him always before every other, and who said,—“If it is a question of

music, Orpheus must at this moment be as yellow from envy as Lucan, who

is here present; and as to the verses, I am sorry that they are not

worse; if they were I might find proper words to praise them.”

Lucan did not take the mention of envy evil of him; on the contrary, he

looked at Petronius with gratitude, and, affecting ill-humor, began to

murmur,—“Cursed fate, which commanded me to live contemporary with such

a poet. One might have a place in the memory of man, and on Parnassus;

but now one will quench, as a candle in sunlight.”

Petronius, who had an amazing memory, began to repeat extracts from the

hymn and cite single verses, exalt, and analyze the more beautiful

expressions. Lucan, forgetting as it were his envy before the charm of

the poetry, joined his ecstasy to Petronius’s words. On Nero’s face

were reflected delight and fathomless vanity, not only nearing

stupidity, but reaching it perfectly. He indicated to them verses which

he considered the most beautiful; and finally he began to comfort Lucan,

and tell him not to lose heart, for though whatever a man is born that

he is, the honor which people give Jove does not exclude respect for

other divinities.

Then he rose to conduct Poppæa, who, being really in ill health, wished

to withdraw. But he commanded the guests who remained to occupy their

places anew, and promised to return, In fact, he returned a little

later, to stupefy himself with the smoke of incense, and gaze at further

spectacles which he himself, Petronius, or Tigellinus had prepared for

the feast.

Again verses were read or dialogues listened to in which extravagance

took the place of wit. After that Paris, the celebrated mime,

represented the adventures of Io, the daughter of Inachus. To the

guests, and especially to Lygia, unaccustomed to such scenes, it seemed

that they were gazing at miracles and enchantment. Paris, with motions

of his hands and body, was able to express things apparently impossible

in a dance. His hands dimmed the air, creating a cloud, bright, living,

quivering, voluptuous, surrounding the half-fainting form of a maiden

shaken by a spasm of delight. That was a picture, not a dance; an

expressive picture, disclosing the secrets of love, bewitching and

shameless; and when at the end of it Corybantes rushed in and began a

bacchic dance with girls of Syria to the sounds of cithara, lutes,

drums, and cymbals,—a dance filled with wild shouts and still wilder

license,—it seemed to Lygia that living fire was burning her, and that

a thunderbolt ought to strike that house, or the ceiling fall on the

heads of those feasting there.

But from the golden net fastened to the ceiling only roses fell, and the

now half-drunken Vinicius said to her,—“I saw thee in the house of

Aulus, at the fountain. It was daylight, and thou didst think that no

one saw thee; but I saw thee. And I see thee thus yet, though that

peplus hides thee. Cast aside the peplus, like Crispinilla. See, gods

and men seek love. There is nothing in the world but love. Lay thy

head on my breast and close thy eyes.”

The pulse beat oppressively in Lygia’s hands and temples. A feeling

seized her that she was flying into some abyss, and that Vinicius, who

before had seemed so near and so trustworthy, instead of saving was

drawing her toward it. And she felt sorry for him. She began again to

dread the feast and him and herself. Some voice, like that of Pomponia,

was calling yet in her soul, “O Lygia, save thyself!” But something

told her also that it was too late; that the one whom such a flame had

embraced as that which had embraced her, the one who had seen what was

done at that feast and whose heart had beaten as hers had on hearing the

words of Vinicius, the one through whom such a shiver had passed as had

passed through her when he approached, was lost beyond recovery. She

grew weak. It seemed at moments to her that she would faint, and then

something terrible would happen. She knew that, under penalty of

Cæsar’s anger, it was not permitted any one to rise till Cæsar rose; but

even were that not the case, she had not strength now to rise.

Meanwhile it was far to the end of the feast yet. Slaves brought new

courses, and filled the goblets unceasingly with wine; before the table,

on a platform open at one side, appeared two athletes to give the guests

a spectacle of wrestling.

They began the struggle at once, and the powerful bodies, shining from

olive oil, formed one mass; bones cracked in their iron arms, and from

their set jaws came an ominous gritting of teeth. At moments was heard

the quick, dull thump of their feet on the platform strewn with saffron;

again they were motionless, silent, and it seemed to the spectators that

they had before them a group chiselled out of stone. Roman eyes

followed with delight the movement of tremendously exerted backs,

thighs, and arms. But the struggle was not too prolonged; for Croton, a

master, and the founder of a school of gladiators, did not pass in vain

for the strongest man in the empire. His opponent began to breathe more

and more quickly: next a rattle was heard in his throat; then his face

grew blue; finally he threw blood from his mouth and fell.

A thunder of applause greeted the end of the struggle, and Croton,

resting his foot on the breast of his opponent, crossed his gigantic

arms on his breast, and cast the eyes of a victor around the hall.

Next appeared men who mimicked beasts and their voices, ball-players and

buffoons. Only a few persons looked at them, however, since wine had

darkened the eyes of the audience. The feast passed by degrees into a

drunken revel and a dissolute orgy. The Syrian damsels, who appeared at

first in the bacchic dance, mingled now with the guests. The music

changed into a disordered and wild outburst of citharas, lutes, Armenian

cymbals, Egyptian sistra, trumpets, and horns. As some of the guests

wished to talk, they shouted at the musicians to disappear. The air,

filled with the odor of flowers and the perfume of oils with which

beautiful boys had sprinkled the feet of the guests during the feast,

permeated with saffron and the exhalations of people, became stifling;

lamps burned with a dim flame; the wreaths dropped sidewise on the

heads of guests; faces grew pale and were covered with sweat. Vitelius

rolled under the table. Nigidia, stripping herself to the waist,

dropped her drunken childlike head on the breast of Lucan, who, drunk in

like degree, fell to blowing the golden powder from her hair, and

raising his eyes with immense delight. Vestinius, with the stubbornness

of intoxication, repeated for the tenth time the answer of Mopsus to the

sealed letter of the proconsul. Tullius, who reviled the gods, said,

with a drawling voice broken by hiccoughs,—“If the spheros of

Xenophanes is round, then consider, such a god might be pushed along

before one with the foot, like a barrel.”

But Domitius Afer, a hardened criminal and informer, was indignant at

the discourse, and through indignation spilled Falernian over his whole

tunic. He had always believed in the gods. People say that Rome will

perish, and there are some even who contend that it is perishing

already. And surely! But if that should come, it is because the youth

are without faith, and without faith there can be no virtue. People

have abandoned also the strict habits of former days, and it never

occurs to them that Epicureans will not stand against barbarians. As

for him, he—As for him, he was sorry that he had lived to such times,

and that he must seek in pleasures a refuge against griefs which, if not

met, would soon kill him.

When he had said this, he drew toward him a Syrian dancer, and kissed

her neck and shoulders with his toothless mouth. Seeing this, the

consul Memmius Regulus laughed, and, raising his bald head with wreath

awry, exclaimed,—“Who says that Rome is perishing? What folly! I, a

consul, know better. Videant consules! Thirty legions are guarding our

pax romana!”

Here he put his fists to his temples and shouted, in a voice heard

throughout the triclinium,—“Thirty legions! thirty legions! from

Britain to the Parthian boundaries!” But he stopped on a sudden, and,

putting a finger to his forehead, said,—“As I live, I think there are

thirty-two.” He rolled under the table, and began soon to send forth

flamingo tongues, roast and chilled mushrooms, locusts in honey, fish,

meat, and everything which he had eaten or drunk.

But the number of the legions guarding Roman peace did not pacify

Domitius.

No, no! Rome must perish; for faith in the gods was lost, and so were

strict habits! Rome must perish; and it was a pity, for still life was

pleasant there. Cæsar was gracious, wine was good! Oh, what a pity!

And hiding his head on the arm of a Syrian bacchanal, he burst into

tears. “What is a future life! Achilles was right,—better be a slave

in the world beneath the sun than a king in Cimmerian regions. And

still the question whether there are any gods—since it is unbelief—is

destroying the youth.”

Lucan meanwhile had blown all the gold powder from Nigidia’s hair, and

she being drunk had fallen asleep. Next he took wreaths of ivy from the

vase before him, put them on the sleeping woman, and when he had

finished looked at those present with a delighted and