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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together; and he smiled at that thought as at happiness.
In fact, they were advancing with as much agreement as if they had
exchanged thoughts every day for a long time. Neither had Lygia any
desire, any hope, save the hope of a life beyond the grave. Death was
presented to her not only as a liberation from the terrible walls of the
prison, from the hands of Cæsar and Tigellinus,—not only as liberation,
but as the hour of her marriage to Vinicius. In view of this unshaken
certainty, all else lost importance. After death would come her
happiness, which was even earthly, so that she waited for it also as a
betrothed waits for the wedding-day.
And that immense current of faith, which swept away from life and bore
beyond the grave thousands of those first confessors, bore away Ursus
also. Neither had he in his heart been resigned to Lygia’s death; but
when day after day through the prison walls came news of what was
happening in the amphitheatres and the gardens, when death seemed the
common, inevitable lot of all Christians and also their good, higher
than all mortal conceptions of happiness, he did not dare to pray to
Christ to deprive Lygia of that happiness or to delay it for long years.
In his simple barbarian soul he thought, besides, that more of those
heavenly delights would belong to the daughter of the Lygian chief, that
she would have more of them than would a whole crowd of simple ones to
whom he himself belonged, and that in eternal glory she would sit nearer
to the “Lamb” than would others. He had heard, it is true, that before
God men are equal; but a conviction was lingering at the bottom of his
soul that the daughter of a leader, and besides of a leader of all the
Lygians, was not the same as the first slave one might meet. He hoped
also that Christ would let him continue to serve her. His one secret
wish was to die on a cross as the “Lamb” died. But this seemed a
happiness so great that he hardly dared to pray for it, though he knew
that in Rome even the worst criminals were crucified. He thought that
surely he would be condemned to die under the teeth of wild beasts; and
this was his one sorrow. From childhood he had lived in impassable
forests, amid continual hunts, in which, thanks to his superhuman
strength, he was famous among the Lygians even before he had grown to
manhood. This occupation had become for him so agreeable that later,
when in Rome, and forced to live without hunting, he went to vivaria and
amphitheatres just to look at beasts known and unknown to him. The sight
of these always roused in the man an irresistible desire for struggle
and killing; so now he feared in his soul that on meeting them in the
amphitheatre he would be attacked by thoughts unworthy of a Christian,
whose duty it was to die piously and patiently. But in this he
committed himself to Christ, and found other and more agreeable thoughts
to comfort him. Hearing that the “Lamb” had declared war against the
powers of hell and evil spirits with which the Christian faith connected
all pagan divinities, he thought that in this war he might serve the
“Lamb” greatly, and serve better than others, for he could not help
believing that his soul was stronger than the souls of other martyrs.
Finally, he prayed whole days, rendered service to prisoners, helped
overseers, and comforted his queen, who complained at times that in her
short life she had not been able to do so many good deeds as the
renowned Tabitha of whom Peter the Apostle had told her. Even the
prison guards, who feared the terrible strength of this giant, since
neither bars nor chains could restrain it, came to love him at last for
his mildness. Amazed at his good temper, they asked more than once what
its cause was. He spoke with such firm certainty of the life waiting
after death for him, that they listened with surprise, seeing for the
first time that happiness might penetrate a dungeon which sunlight could
not reach. And when he urged them to believe in the “Lamb,” it occurred
to more than one of those people that his own service was the service of
a slave, his own life the life of an unfortunate; and he fell to
thinking over his evil fate, the only end to which was death.
But death brought new fear, and promised nothing beyond; while that
giant and that maiden, who was like a flower cast on the straw of the
prison, went toward it with delight, as toward the gates of happiness.
ONE evening Scevinus, a Senator, visited Petronius and began a long
conversation, touching the grievous times in which they were living, and
also touching Cæsar. He spoke so openly that Petronius, though his
friend, began to be cautious. Scevinus complained that the world was
living madly and unjustly, that all must end in some catastrophe more
dreadful still than the burning of Rome. He said that even Augustians
were dissatisfied; that Fenius Rufus, second prefect of the pretorians,
endured with the greatest effort the vile orders of Tigellinus; and that
all Seneca’s relatives were driven to extremes by Cæsar’s conduct as
well toward his old master as toward Lucan. Finally, he began to hint
of the dissatisfaction of the people, and even of the pretorians, the
greater part of whom had been won by Fenius Rufus.
“Why dost thou say this?” inquired Petronius.
“Out of care for Cæsar,” said Scevinus. “I have a distant relative
among the pretorians, also Scevinus; through him I know what takes place
in the camp. Disaffection is growing there also; Caligula, knowest
thou, was mad too, and see what happened. Cassius Chærea appeared. That
was a dreadful deed, and surely there is no one among us to praise it;
still Chærea freed the world of a monster.”
“Is thy meaning as follows: ‘I do not praise Chærea, but he was a
perfect man, and would that the gods had given us as many such as
possible’?” inquired Petronius.
But Scevinus changed the conversation, and began all at once to praise
Piso, exalting his family, his nobility of mind, his attachment to his
wife, and, finally, his intellect, his calmness, and his wonderful gift
of winning people.
“Cæsar is childless,” said he, “and all see his successor in Piso.
Doubtless, too, every man would help him with whole soul to gain power.
Fenius Rufus loves him; the relatives of Annæus are devoted to him
altogether. Plautius Lateranus and Tullius Senecio would spring into
fire for him; as would Natalis, and Subrius Flavius, and Sulpicius
Asper, and Afranius Quinetianus, and even Vestinius.”
“From this last man not much will result to Piso,” replied Petronius.
“Vestinius is afraid of his own shadow.”
“Vestinius fears dreams and spirits,” answered Scevinus, “but he is a
practical man, whom people wish wisely to make consul. That in his soul
he is opposed to persecuting Christians, thou shouldst not take ill of
him, for it concerns thee too that this madness should cease.”
“Not me, but Vinicius,” answered Petronius. “Out of concern for
Vinicius, I should like to save a certain maiden; but I cannot, for I
have fallen out of favor with Ahenobarbus.”
“How is that? Dost thou not notice that Cæsar is approaching thee
again, and beginning to talk with thee? And I will tell thee why. He
is preparing again for Achæa, where he is to sing songs in Greek of his
own composition. He is burning for that journey; but also he trembles
at thought of the cynical genius of the Greeks. He imagines that either
the greatest triumph may meet him or the greatest failure. He needs
good counsel, and he knows that no one can give it better than thou.
This is why thou art returning to favor.”
“Lucan might take my place.”
“Bronzebeard hates Lucan, and in his soul has written down death for the
poet. He is merely seeking a pretext, for he seeks pretexts always.”
“By Castor!” said Petronius, “that may be. But I might have still
another way for a quick return to favor.”
“What?”
“To repeat to Bronzebeard what thou hast told me just now.”
“I have said nothing!” cried Scevinus, with alarm.
Petronius placed his hand upon the Senator’s shoulder. “Thou hast
called Cæsar a madman, thou hast foreseen the heirship of Piso, and hast
said, ‘Lucan understands that there is need to hasten.’ What wouldst
thou hasten, carissime?”
Scevinus grew pale, and for a moment each looked into the eyes of the
other.
“Thou wilt not repeat!”
“By the hips of Kypris, I will not! How well thou knowest me! No; I
will not repeat. I have heard nothing, and, moreover, I wish to hear
nothing. Dost understand? Life is too short to make any undertaking
worth the while. I beg thee only to visit Tigellinus to-day, and talk
with him as long as thou hast with me of whatever may please thee.”
“Why?”
“So that should Tigellinus ever say to me, ‘Scevinus was with thee,’ I
might answer, ‘He was with thee, too, that very day.’”
Scevinus, when he heard this, broke the ivory cane which he had in his
hand, and said,—“May the evil fall on this stick! I shall be with
Tigellinus to-day, and later at Nerva’s feast. Thou, too, wilt be
there? In every case till we meet in the amphitheatre, where the last
of the Christians will appear the day after tomorrow. Till we meet!”
“After tomorrow!” repeated Petronius, when alone. “There is no time to
lose. Ahenobarbus will need me really in Achæa; hence he may count with
me.”
And he determined to try the last means.
In fact, at Nerva’s feast Cæsar himself asked that Petronius recline
opposite, for he wished to speak with the arbiter about Achæa and the
cities in which he might appear with hopes of the greatest success. He
cared most for the Athenians, whom he feared. Other Augustians listened
to this conversation with attention, so as to seize crumbs of the
arbiter’s opinions, and give them out later on as their own.
“It seems to me that I have not lived up to this time,” said Nero, “and
that my birth will come only in Greece.”
“Thou wilt be born to new glory and immortality,” answered Petronius.
“I trust that this is true, and that Apollo will not seem jealous. If I
return in triumph, I will offer him such a hecatomb as no god has had so
far.”
Scevinus fell to repeating the lines of Horace:—
“Sic te diva potens Cypri, Sic fratres Helenæ, lucida sidera,
Ventorumque regat Pater-”
“The vessel is ready at Naples,” said Cæsar. “I should like to go even
tomorrow.”
At this Petronius rose, and, looking straight into Nero’s eyes, said,
“Permit me, O divinity, to celebrate a wedding-feast, to which I shall
invite thee before others.”
“A wedding-feast! What wedding-feast?” inquired Nero.
“That of Vinicius with thy hostage the daughter of the Lygian king. She
is in prison at present, it is true; but as a hostage she is not subject
to imprisonment, and, secondly, thou thyself hast permitted Vinicius to
marry her; and as thy sentences, like those of Zeus, are unchangeable,
thou wilt give command to free her from prison, and I will give her to
thy favorite.”
The cool blood and calm self-possession with which Petronius spoke
disturbed Nero, who was disturbed whenever any
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