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

VINICUS received no answer to this letter. Petronius did not write,

thinking evidently that Cæsar might command a return to Rome any day.

In fact, news of it was spread in the city, and roused great delight in

the hearts of the rabble, eager for games with gifts of grain and

olives, great supplies of which had been accumulated in Ostia. Helius,

Nero’s freedman, announced at last the return in the Senate. But Nero,

having embarked with his court on ships at Misenum, returned slowly,

disembarking at coast towns for rest, or exhibitions in theatres. He

remained between ten and twenty days in Minturna, and even thought to

return to Naples and wait there for spring, which was earlier than

usual, and warm. During all this time Vinicius lived shut up in his

house, thinking of Lygia, and all those new things which occupied his

soul, and brought to it ideas and feelings foreign to it thus far. He

saw, from time to time, only Glaucus the physician, every one of whose

visits delighted him, for he could converse with the man about Lygia.

Glaucus knew not, it is true, where she had found refuge, but he gave

assurance that the elders were protecting her with watchful care. Once

too, when moved by the sadness of Vinicius, he told him that Peter had

blamed Crispus for reproaching Lygia with her love. The young

patrician, hearing this, grew pale from emotion. He had thought more

than once that Lygia was not indifferent to him, but he fell into

frequent doubt and uncertainty. Now for the first time he heard the

confirmation of his desires and hopes from strange lips, and, besides,

those of a Christian. At the first moment of gratitude he wished to run

to Peter. When he learned, however, that he was not in the city, but

teaching in the neighborhood, he implored Glaucus to accompany him

thither, promising to make liberal gifts to the poor community. It

seemed to him, too, that if Lygia loved him, all obstacles were thereby

set aside, as he was ready at any moment to honor Christ. Glaucus,

though he urged him persistently to receive baptism, would not venture

to assure him that he would gain Lygia at once, and said that it was

necessary to desire the religion for its own sake, through love of

Christ, not for other objects. “One must have a Christian soul, too,”

said he. And Vinicius, though every obstacle angered him, had begun to

understand that Glaucus, as a Christian, said what he ought to say. He

had not become clearly conscious that one of the deepest changes in his

nature was this,—that formerly he had measured people and things only

by his own selfishness, but now he was accustoming himself gradually to

the thought that other eyes might see differently, other hearts feel

differently, and that justice did not mean always the same as personal

profit.

He wished often to see Paul of Tarsus, whose discourse made him curious

and disturbed him. He arranged in his mind arguments to overthrow his

teaching, he resisted him in thought; still he wished to see him and to

hear him. Paul, however, had gone to Aricium, and, since the visits of

Glaucus had become rarer, Vinicius was in perfect solitude. He began

again to run through back streets adjoining the Subura, and narrow lanes

of the Trans-Tiber, in the hope that even from a distance he might see

Lygia. When even that hope failed him, weariness and impatience began

to rise in his heart. At last the time came when his former nature was

felt again mightily, like that onrush of a wave to the shore from which

it had receded. It seemed to him that he had been a fool to no purpose,

that he had stuffed his head with things which brought sadness, that he

ought to accept from life what it gives. He resolved to forget Lygia,

or at least to seek pleasure and the use of things aside from her. He

felt that this trial, however, was the last, and he threw himself into

it with all the blind energy of impulse peculiar to him. Life itself

seemed to urge him to this course.

THE APPIAN WAY. From the painting by G. Boulanger.

The city, torpid and depopulated by winter, began to revive with hope of

the near coming of Cæsar. A solemn reception was in waiting for him.

Meanwhile spring was there; the snow on the Alban Hills had vanished

under the breath of winds from Africa. Grass-plots in the gardens were

covered with violets. The Forums and the Campus Martius were filled

with people warmed by a sun of growing heat. Along the Appian Way, the

usual place for drives outside the city, a movement of richly ornamented

chariots had begun. Excursions were made to the Alban Hills. Youthful

women, under pretext of worshipping Juno in Lanuvium, or Diana in

Aricia, left home to seek adventures, society, meetings, and pleasure

beyond the city. Here Vinicius saw one day among lordly chariots the

splendid car of Chrysothemis, preceded by two Molossian dogs; it was

surrounded by a crowd of young men and by old senators, whose position

detained them in the city. Chrysothemis, driving four Corsican ponies

herself, scattered smiles round about, and light strokes of a golden

whip; but when she saw Vinicius she reined in her horses, took him into

her car, and then to a feast at her house, which lasted all night. At

that feast Vinicius drank so much that he did not remember when they

took him home; he recollected, however, that when Chrysothemis mentioned

Lygia he was offended, and, being drunk, emptied a goblet of Falernian

on her head. When he thought of this in soberness, he was angrier

still. But a day later Chrysothemis, forgetting evidently the injury,

visited him at his house, and took him to the Appian Way a second time.

Then she supped at his house, and confessed that not only Petronius, but

his lute-player, had grown tedious to her long since, and that her heart

was free now. They appeared together for a week, but the relation did

not promise permanence. After the Falernian incident, however, Lygia’s

name was never mentioned, but Vinicius could not free himself from

thoughts of her. He had the feeling always that her eyes were looking

at his face, and that feeling filled him, as it were, with fear. He

suffered, and could not escape