Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (ebook reader macos TXT) 📕
"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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and the light fell directly on his face. Glaucus sprang from his seat
and, coming up quickly, stood before him.
“Dost thou not recognize me, Cephas?” asked he. In his voice there was
something so terrible that a shiver ran through all present.
Chilo raised the candle, and dropped it to the earth almost the same
instant; then he bent nearly double and began to groan,—“I am not he—I
am not he! Mercy!”
Glaucus turned toward the faithful, and said,—“This is the man who
betrayed—who ruined me and my family!”
That history was known to all the Christians and to Vinicius, who had
not guessed who that Glaucus was,—for this reason only, that he fainted
repeatedly from pain during the dressing of his wound, and had not heard
his name. But for Ursus that short moment, with the words of Glaucus,
was like a lightning-flash in darkness. Recognizing Chilo, he was at his
side with one spring, and, seizing his arm, bent it back, exclaiming,—
“This is the man who persuaded me to kill Glaucus!”
“Mercy!” groaned Chilo. “I will give you—O lord!” exclaimed he,
turning his head to Vinicius, “save me! I trusted in thee, take my
part. Thy letter—I will deliver it. O lord, lord!”
But Vinicius, who looked with more indifference than any one at what was
passing, first because all the affairs of the Greek were more or less
known to him, and second because his heart knew not what pity was,
said,—“Bury him in the garden; some one else will take the letter.”
It seemed to Chilo that those words were his final sentence. His bones
were shaking in the terrible hands of Ursus; his eyes were filled with
tears from pain.
“By your God, pity!” cried he; “I am a Christian! Pax vobiscum! I am a
Christian; and if ye do not believe me, baptize me again, baptize me
twice, ten times! Glaucus, that is a mistake! Let me speak, make me a
slave! Do not kill me! Have mercy!”
His voice, stifled with pain, was growing weaker and weaker, when the
Apostle Peter rose at the table; for a moment his white head shook,
drooping toward his breast, and his eyes were closed; but he opened them
then, and said amid silence,—
“The Saviour said this to us: ‘If thy brother has sinned against thee,
chastise him; but if he is repentant, forgive him. And if he has
offended seven times in the day against thee, and has turned to thee
seven times, saying, “Have mercy on me!” forgive him.’”
Then came a still deeper silence. Glaucus remained a long time with his
hands covering his face; at last he removed them and said,—“Cephas,
may God forgive thy offences, as I forgive them in the name of Christ.”
Ursus, letting go the arms of the Greek, added at once:
“May the Saviour be merciful to thee as I forgive thee.”
Chilo dropped to the ground, and, supported on it with his hands, turned
his head like a wild beast caught in a snare, looking around to see
whence death might come. He did not trust his eyes and ears yet, and
dared not hope for forgiveness. Consciousness returned to him slowly;
his blue lips were still trembling from terror.
“Depart in peace!” said the Apostle, meanwhile.
Chilo rose, but could not speak. He approached the bed of Vinicius, as
if seeking protection in it still; for he had not time yet to think that
that man, though he had used his services and was still his accomplice,
condemned him, while those against whom he had acted forgave. This
thought was to come to him later. At present simply astonishment and
incredulity were evident in his look. Though he had seen that they
forgave him, he wished to bear away his head at the earliest from among
these incomprehensible people, whose kindness terrified him almost as
much as their cruelty would have terrified. It seemed to him that
should he remain longer, something unexpected would happen again; hence,
standing above Vinicius, he said with a broken voice,—
“Give the letter, lord,—give the letter!”
And snatching the tablet which Vinicius handed him, he made one
obeisance to the Christians, another to the sick man, pushed along
sidewise by the very wall, and hurried out through the door. In the
garden, when darkness surrounded him, fear raised the hair on his head
again, for he felt sure that Ursus would rush out and kill him in the
night. He would have run with all his might, but his legs would not
move; next moment they were perfectly uncontrollable, for Ursus stood
near him really.
Chilo fell with his face to the earth, and began to groan: “Urban—in
Christ’s name”—
But Urban said: “Fear not. The Apostle commanded me to lead thee out
beyond the gate, lest thou might go astray in the darkness, and, if
strength failed thee, to conduct thee home.”
“What dost thou say?” asked Chilo, raising his face. “What? Thou wilt
not kill me?”
“No, I will not; and if I seized thee too roughly and harmed a bone in
thee, pardon me.”
“Help me to rise,” said the Greek. “Thou wilt not kill me? Thou wilt
not? Take me to the Street; I will go farther alone.”
Ursus raised him as he might a feather, and placed him on his feet; then
he conducted him through the dark corridor to the second court. From
there was a passage to the entrance and the street. In the corridor
Chilo repeated again in his soul, “It is all over with me!” Only when
he found himself on the street did he recover and say, “I can go on
alone.”
“Peace be with thee.”
“And with thee! and with thee! Let me draw breath.”
And after Ursus had gone, he breathed with a full breast. He felt his
waist and hips, as if to convince himself that he was living, and then
moved forward with hurried step.
“But why did they not kill me?” And in spite of all his talk with
Euricius about Christian teaching, in spite of his conversation at the
river with Urban, and in spite of all that he had heard in Ostrianum, he
could find no answer to that question.
NEITHER could Vinicius discover the cause of what had happened; and in
the bottom of his soul he was almost as much astonished as Chilo. That
those people should treat him as they had, and, instead of avenging his
attack, dress his wounds carefully, he ascribed partly to the doctrine
which they confessed, more to Lygia, and a little, also, to his great
significance. But their conduct with Chilo simply went beyond his
understanding of man’s power of forgiveness. And the question thrust
itself into his mind: Why did they not kill the Greek? They might have
killed him with impunity. Ursus would have buried him in the garden, or
borne him in the dark to the Tiber, which during that period of night-murders, committed by Cæsar himself even, cast up human bodies so
frequently in the morning that no one inquired whence they came. To his
thinking, the Christians had not only the power, but the right to kill
Chilo. True, pity was not entirely a stranger to that world to which
the young patrician belonged. The Athenians raised an altar to pity,
and opposed for a long time the introduction of gladiatorial combats
into Athens. In Rome itself the conquered received pardon sometimes,
as, for instance, Calicratus, king of the Britons, who, taken prisoner
in the time of Claudius, and provided for by him bountifully, dwelt in
the city in freedom. But vengeance for a personal wrong seemed to
Vinicius, as to all, proper and justified. The neglect of it was
entirely opposed to his spirit. True, he had heard in Ostrianum that
one should love even enemies; that, however, he considered as a kind of
theory without application in life. And now this passed through his
head: that perhaps they had not killed Chilo because the day was among
festivals, or was in some period of the moon during which it was not
proper for Christians to kill a man. He had heard that there are days
among various nations on which it is not permitted to begin war even.
But why, in such a case, did they not deliver the Greek up to justice?
Why did the Apostle say that if a man offended seven times, it was
necessary to forgive him seven times; and why did Glaucus say to Chilo,
“May God forgive thee, as I forgive thee”?
Chilo had done him the most terrible wrong that one man could do
another. At the very thought of how he would act with a man who killed
Lygia, for instance, the heart of Vinicius seethed up, as does water in
a caldron; there were no torments which he would not inflict in his
vengeance! But Glaucus had forgiven; Ursus, too, had forgiven,—Ursus,
who might in fact kill whomever he wished in Rome with perfect impunity,
for all he needed was to kill the king of the grove in Nemi, and take
his place. Could the gladiator holding that office to which he had
succeeded only by killing the previous “king,” resist the man whom
Croton could not resist? There was only one answer to all these
questions: that they refrained from killing him through a goodness so
great that the like of it had not been in the world up to that time, and
through an unbounded love of man, which commands to forget one’s self,
one’s wrongs, one’s happiness and misfortune, and live for others. What
reward those people were to receive for this, Vinicius heard in
Ostrianum, but he could not understand it. He felt, however, that the
earthly life connected with the duty of renouncing everything good and
rich for the benefit of others must be wretched. So in what he thought
of the Christians at that moment, besides the greatest astonishment,
there was pity, and as it were a shade of contempt. It seemed to him
that they were sheep which earlier or later must be eaten by wolves; his
Roman nature could yield no recognition to people who let themselves be
devoured. This one thing struck him, however,—that after Chilo’s
departure the faces of all were bright with a certain deep joy. The
Apostle approached Glaucus, placed his hand on his head, and said,—“In
thee Christ has triumphed.”
The other raised his eyes, which were full of hope, and as bright with
joy as if some great unexpected happiness had been poured on him.
Vinicius, who could understand only joy or delight born of vengeance,
looked on him with eyes staring from fever, and somewhat as he would on
a madman. He saw, however, and saw not without internal indignation,
that Lygia pressed her lips of a queen to the hand of that man, who had
the appearance of a slave; and it seemed to him that the order of the
world was inverted utterly. Next Ursus told how he had conducted Chilo
to the street, and had asked forgiveness for the harm which he might
have done his bones; for this the Apostle blessed him also. Crispus
declared that it was a day of great victory. Hearing of this victory,
Vinicius lost the thread of his thought altogether.
But when Lygia gave him a cooling draught again, he held her hand for a
moment, and asked,—“Then must thou also forgive me?”
“We are Christians; it is not permitted us to keep anger in the heart.”
“Lygia,” said he,
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