Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (ebook reader macos TXT) đź“•
"By the cloud-scattering Zeus!" said Marcus Vinicius, "what a choice thou hast!"
"I prefer choice to numbers," answered Petronius. "My whole 'familia' [household servants] in Rome does not exceed four hundred, and I judge that for personal attendance only upstarts need a greater number of people."
"More beautiful bodies even Bronzebeard does not possess," said Vinicius, distending his nostrils.
"Thou art my relative," answered Petronius, with a certain friend
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thou wish not to cause misfortunes which thou are unable even to
imagine, answer me truly. Did Cæsar take her?”
“Cæsar did not leave the palace yesterday.”
“By the shade of thy mother, by all the gods, is she not in the palace?”
“By the shade of my mother, Marcus, she is not in the palace, and Cæsar
did not intercept her. The infant Augusta is ill since yesterday, and
Nero has not left her cradle.”
Vinicius drew breath. That which had seemed the most terrible ceased to
threaten him.
“Ah, then,” said he, sitting on the bench and clinching his fists,
“Aulus intercepted her, and in that case woe to him!”
“Aulus Plautius was here this morning. He could not see me, for I was
occupied with the child; but he inquired of Epaphroditus, and others of
Cæsar’s servants, touching Lygia, and told them that he would come again
to see me.”
“He wished to turn suspicion from himself. If he knew not what
happened, he would have come to seek Lygia in my house.”
“He left a few words on a tablet, from which thou wilt see that, knowing
Lygia to have been taken from his house by Cæsar, at thy request and
that of Petronius, he expected that she would be sent to thee, and this
morning early he was at thy house, where they told him what had
happened.”
When she had said this, she went to the cubiculum and returned soon with
the tablet which Aulus had left.
Vinicius read the tablet, and was silent; Acte seemed to read the
thoughts on his gloomy face, for she said after a while,—“No, Marcus.
That has happened which Lygia herself wished.”
“It was known to thee that she wished to flee!” burst out Vinicius.
“I knew that she would not become thy concubine.” And she looked at him
with her misty eyes almost sternly.
“And thou,—what hast thou been all thy life?”
“I was a slave, first of all.”
But Vinicius did not cease to be enraged. Cæsar had given him Lygia;
hence he had no need to inquire what she had been before. He would find
her, even under the earth, and he would do what he liked with her. He
would indeed! She should be his concubine. He would give command to
flog her as often as he pleased. If she grew distasteful to him, he
would give her to the lowest of his slaves, or he would command her to
turn a handmill on his lands in Africa. He would seek her out now, and
find her only to bend her, to trample on her, and conquer her.
And, growing more and more excited, he lost every sense of measure, to
the degree that even Acte saw that he was promising more than he could
execute; that he was talking because of pain and anger. She might have
had even compassion on him, but his extravagance exhausted her patience,
and at last she inquired why he had come to her.
Vinicius did not find an answer immediately. He had come to her because
he wished to come, because he judged that she would give him
information; but really he had come to Cæsar, and, not being able to see
him, he came to her. Lygia, by fleeing, opposed the will of Cæsar;
hence he would implore him to give an order to search for her throughout
the city and the empire, even if it came to using for that purpose all
the legions, and to ransacking in turn every house within Roman
dominion. Petronius would support his prayer, and the search would
begin from that day.
“Have a care,” answered Acte, “lest thou lose her forever the moment she
is found, at command of Cæsar.”
Vinicius wrinkled his brows. “What does that mean?” inquired he.
“Listen to me, Marcus. Yesterday Lygia and I were in the gardens here,
and we met Poppæa, with the infant Augusta, borne by an African woman,
Lilith. In the evening the child fell ill, and Lilith insists that she
was bewitched; that that foreign woman whom they met in the garden
bewitched her. Should the child recover, they will forget this, but in
the opposite case Poppæa will be the first to accuse Lygia of
witchcraft, and wherever she is found there will be no rescue for her.”
A moment of silence followed; then Vinicius said,—“But perhaps she did
bewitch her, and has bewitched me.”
“Lilith repeats that the child began to cry the moment she carried her
past us. And really the child did begin to cry. It is certain that she
was sick when they took her out of the garden. Marcus, seek for Lygia
whenever it may please thee, but till the infant Augusta recovers, speak
not of her to Cæsar, or thou wilt bring on her Poppæa’s vengeance. Her
eyes have wept enough because of thee already, and may all the gods
guard her poor head.”
“Dost thou love her, Acte?” inquired Vinicius, gloomily.
“Yes, I love her.” And tears glittered in the eyes of the freedwoman.
“Thou lovest her because she has not repaid thee with hatred, as she has
me.”
Acte looked at him for a time as if hesitating, or as if wishing to
learn if he spoke sincerely; then she said,—“O blind and passionate
man—she loved thee.”
Vinicius sprang up under the influence of those words, as if possessed.
“It is not true.”
She hated him. How could Acte know? Would Lygia make a confession to
her after one day’s acquaintance? What love is that which prefers
wandering, the disgrace of poverty, the uncertainty of tomorrow, or a
shameful death even, to a wreath-bedecked house, in which a lover is
waiting with a feast? It is better for him not to hear such things, for
he is ready to go mad. He would not have given that girl for all
Cæsar’s treasures, and she fled. What kind of love is that which dreads
delight and gives pain? Who can understand it? Who can fathom it?
Were it not for the hope that he should find her, he would sink a sword
in himself. Love surrenders; it does not take away. There were moments
at the house of Aulus when he himself believed in near happiness, but
now he knows that she hated him, that she hates him, and will die with
hatred in her heart.
But Acte, usually mild and timid, burst forth in her turn with
indignation. How had he tried to win Lygia? Instead of bowing before
Aulus and Pomponia to get her, he took the child away from her parents
by stratagem. He wanted to make, not a wife, but a concubine of her,
the foster daughter of an honorable house, and the daughter of a king.
He had her brought to this abode of crime and infamy; he defiled her
innocent eyes with the sight of a shameful feast; he acted with her as
with a wanton. Had he forgotten the house of Aulus and Pomponia
Græcina, who had reared Lygia? Had he not sense enough to understand
that there are women different from Nigidia or Calvia Crispinilla or
Poppæa, and from all those whom he meets in Cæsar’s house? Did he not
understand at once on seeing Lygia that she is an honest maiden, who
prefers death to infamy? Whence does he know what kind of gods she
worships, and whether they are not purer and better than the wanton
Venus, or than Isis, worshipped by the profligate women of Rome? No!
Lygia had made no confession to her, but she had said that she looked
for rescue to him, to Vinicius: she had hoped that he would obtain for
her permission from Cæsar to return home, that he would restore her to
Pomponia. And while speaking of this, Lygia blushed like a maiden who
loves and trusts. Lygia’s heart beat for him; but he, Vinicius, had
terrified and offended her; had made her indignant; let him seek her now
with the aid of Cæsar’s soldiers, but let him know that should Poppæa’s
child die, suspicion will fall on Lygia, whose destruction will then be
inevitable.
Emotion began to force its way through the anger and pain of Vinicius.
The information that he was loved by Lygia shook him to the depth of his
soul. He remembered her in Aulus’s garden, when she was listening to
his words with blushes on her face and her eyes full of light. It
seemed to him then that she had begun to love him; and all at once, at
that thought, a feeling of certain happiness embraced him, a hundred
times greater than that which he desired. He thought that he might have
won her gradually, and besides as one loving him. She would have
wreathed his door, rubbed it with wolf’s fat, and then sat as his wife
by his hearth on the sheepskin. He would have heard from her mouth the
sacramental: “Where thou art, Caius, there am I, Caia.” And she would
have been his forever. Why did he not act thus? True, he had been
ready so to act. But now she is gone, and it may be impossible to find
her; and should he find her, perhaps he will cause her death, and should
he not cause her death, neither she nor Aulus nor Pomponia Græcina will
favor him. Here anger raised the hair on his head again; but his anger
turned now, not against the house of Aulus, or Lygia, but against
Petronius. Petronius was to blame for everything. Had it not been for
him Lygia would not have been forced to wander; she would be his
betrothed, and no danger would be hanging over her dear head. But now
all is past, and it is too late to correct the evil which will not yield
to correction.
“Too late!” And it seemed to him that a gulf had opened before his
feet. He did not know what to begin, how to proceed, whither to betake
himself. Acte repeated as an echo the words, “Too late,” which from
another’s mouth sounded like a death sentence. He understood one thing,
however, that he must find Lygia, or something evil would happen to him.
And wrapping himself mechanically in his toga, he was about to depart
without taking farewell even of Acte, when suddenly the curtain
separating the entrance from the atrium was pushed aside, and he saw
before him the pensive figure of Pomponia Græcina.
Evidently she too had heard of the disappearance of Lygia, and, judging
that she could see Acte more easily than Aulus, had come for news to
her.
But, seeing Vinicius, she turned her pale, delicate face to him, and
said, after a pause,—“May God forgive thee the wrong, Marcus, which
thou hast done to us and to Lygia.”
He stood with drooping head, with a feeling of misfortune and guilt, not
understanding what God was to forgive him or could forgive him.
Pomponia had no cause to mention forgiveness; she ought to have spoken
of revenge.
At last he went out with a head devoid of counsel, full of grievous
thoughts, immense care, and amazement.
In the court and under the gallery were crowds of anxious people. Among
slaves of the palace were knights and senators who had come to inquire
about the health of the infant, and at the same time to show themselves
in the palace, and exhibit a proof of their anxiety, even in presence of
Nero’s slaves. News of the illness of the “divine” had spread quickly
it was evident, for new forms appeared in the gateway every moment,
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