Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by Henryk Sienkiewicz (nonfiction book recommendations .txt) π
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- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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Hence he rallied; he crushed doubt in himself, he compressed his whole being into the sentence, βI believe,β and he looked for a miracle.
But as an overdrawn cord may break, so exertion broke him. The pallor of death covered his face, and his body relaxed. He thought then that his prayer had been heard, for he was dying. It seemed to him that Lygia must surely die too, and that Christ would take them to Himself in that way. The arena, the white togas, the countless spectators, the light of thousands of lamps and torches, all vanished from his vision.
But his weakness did not last long. After a while he roused himself, or rather the stamping of the impatient multitude roused him.
βThou art ill,β said Petronius; βgive command to bear thee home.β
And without regard to what Cæsar would say, he rose to support Vinicius and go out with him. His heart was filled with pity, and, moreover, he was irritated beyond endurance because Cæsar was looking through the emerald at Vinicius, studying his pain with satisfaction, to describe it afterwards, perhaps, in pathetic strophes, and win the applause of hearers.
Vinicius shook his head. He might die in that amphitheatre, but he could not go out of it. Moreover the spectacle might begin any moment.
In fact, at that very instant almost, the prefect of the city waved a red handkerchief, the hinges opposite CΓ¦sarβs podium creaked, and out of the dark gully came Ursus into the brightly lighted arena.
The giant blinked, dazed evidently by the glitter of the arena; then he pushed into the centre, gazing around as if to see what he had to meet. It was known to all the Augustians and to most of the spectators that he was the man who had stifled Croton; hence at sight of him a murmur passed along every bench. In Rome there was no lack of gladiators larger by far than the common measure of man, but Roman eyes had never seen the like of Ursus. Cassius, standing in CΓ¦sarβs podium, seemed puny compared with that Lygian. Senators, vestals, CΓ¦sar, the Augustians, and the people gazed with the delight of experts at his mighty limbs as large as tree-trunks, at his breast as large as two shields joined together, and his arms of a Hercules. The murmur rose every instant. For those multitudes there could be no higher pleasure than to look at those muscles in play in the exertion of a struggle. The murmur rose to shouts, and eager questions were put: βWhere do the people live who can produce such a giant?β He stood there, in the middle of the amphitheatre, naked, more like a stone colossus than a man, with a collected expression, and at the same time the sad look of a barbarian; and while surveying the empty arena, he gazed wonderingly with his blue childlike eyes, now at the spectators, now at CΓ¦sar, now at the grating of the cunicula, whence, as he thought, his executioners would come.
At the moment when he stepped into the arena his simple heart was beating for the last time with the hope that perhaps a cross was waiting for him; but when he saw neither the cross nor the hole in which it might be put, he thought that he was unworthy of such favor,βthat he would find death in another way, and surely from wild beasts. He was unarmed, and had determined to die as became a confessor of the βLamb,β peacefully and patiently. Meanwhile he wished to pray once more to the Saviour; so he knelt on the arena, joined his hands, and raised his eyes toward the stars which were glittering in the lofty opening of the amphitheatre.
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