Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗

ONCE the highest heads in Rome inclined before Acte, the former favorite

of Nero. But even at that period she showed no desire to interfere in

public questions, and if on any occasion she used her influence over the

young ruler, it was only to implore mercy for some one. Quiet and

unassuming, she won the gratitude of many, and made no one her enemy.

Even Octavia was unable to hate her. To those who envied her she seemed

exceedingly harmless. It was known that she continued to love Nero with

a sad and pained love, which lived not in hope, but only in memories of

the time in which that Nero was not only younger and loving, but better.

It was known that she could not tear her thoughts and soul from those

memories, but expected nothing; since there was no real fear that Nero

would return to her, she was looked upon as a person wholly inoffensive,

and hence was left in peace. Poppæa considered her merely as a quiet

servant, so harmless that she did not even try to drive her from the

palace.

But since Cæsar had loved her once and dropped her without offence in a

quiet and to some extent friendly manner, a certain respect was retained

for her. Nero, when he had freed her, let her live in the palace, and

gave her special apartments with a few servants. And as in their time

Pallas and Narcissus, though freedmen of Claudius, not only sat at

feasts with Claudius, but also held places of honor as powerful

ministers, so she too was invited at times to Cæsar’s table. This was

done perhaps because her beautiful form was a real ornament to a feast.

Cæsar for that matter had long since ceased to count with any

appearances in his choice of company. At his table the most varied

medley of people of every position and calling found places. Among them

were senators, but mainly those who were content to be jesters as well.

There were patricians, old and young, eager for luxury, excess, and

enjoyment. There were women with great names, who did not hesitate to

put on a yellow wig of an evening and seek adventures on dark streets

for amusement’s sake. There were also high officials, and priests who

at full goblets were willing to jeer at their own gods. At the side of

these was a rabble of every sort: singers, mimes, musicians, dancers of

both sexes; poets who, while declaiming, were thinking of the sesterces

which might fall to them for praise of Cæsar’s verses; hungry

philosophers following the dishes with eager eyes; finally, noted

charioteers, tricksters, miracle-wrights, tale-tellers, jesters, and the

most varied adventurers brought through fashion or folly to a few days’

notoriety. Among these were not lacking even men who covered with long

hair their ears pierced in sign of slavery.

The most noted sat directly at the tables; the lesser served to amuse in

time of eating, and waited for the moment in which the servants would

permit them to rush at the remnants of food and drink. Guests of this

sort were furnished by Tigellinus, Vatinius, and Vitelius; for these

guests they were forced more than once to find clothing befitting the

chambers of Cæsar, who, however, liked their society, through feeling

most free in it. The luxury of the court gilded everything, and covered

all things with glitter. High and low, the descendants of great

families, and the needy from the pavements of the city, great artists,

and vile scrapings of talent, thronged to the palace to sate their

dazzled eyes with a splendor almost surpassing human estimate, and to

approach the giver of every favor, wealth, and property,—whose single

glance might abase, it is true, but might also exalt beyond measure.

That day Lygia too had to take part in such a feast. Fear, uncertainty,

and a dazed feeling, not to be wondered at after the sudden change, were

struggling in her with a wish to resist. She feared Nero; she feared

the people and the palace whose uproar deprived her of presence of mind;

she feared the feasts of whose shamelessness she had heard from Aulus,

Pomponia Græcina, and their friends. Though young, she was not without

knowledge, for knowledge of evil in those times reached even children’s

ears early. She knew, therefore, that ruin was threatening her in the

palace. Pomponia, moreover, had warned her of this at the moment of

parting. But having a youthful spirit, unacquainted with corruption,

and confessing a lofty faith, implanted in her by her foster mother, she

had promised to defend herself against that ruin; she had promised her

mother, herself and also that Divine Teacher in whom she not only

believed, but whom she had come to love with her half-childlike heart

for the sweetness of his doctrine, the bitterness of his death, and the

glory of his resurrection.

She was confident too that now neither Aulus nor Pomponia would be

answerable for her actions; she was thinking therefore whether it would

not be better to resist and not go to the feast. On the one hand fear

and alarm spoke audibly in her soul; on the other the wish rose in her

to show courage in suffering, in exposure to torture and death. The

Divine Teacher had commanded to act thus. He had given the example

himself. Pomponia had told her that the most earnest among the

adherents desire with all their souls such a test, and pray for it. And

Lygia, when still in the house of Aulus, had been mastered at moments by

a similar desire. She had seen herself as a martyr, with wounds on her

feet and hands, white as snow, beautiful with a beauty not of earth, and

borne by equally white angels into the azure sky; and her imagination

admired such a vision. There was in it much childish brooding, but

there was in it also something of delight in herself, which Pomponia had

reprimanded. But now, when opposition to Cæsar’s will might draw after

it some terrible punishment, and the martyrdom scene of imagination

become a reality, there was added to the beautiful visions and to the

delight a kind of curiosity mingled with dread, as to how they would

punish her, and what kind of torments they would provide. And her soul,

half childish yet, was hesitating on two sides. But Acte, hearing of

these hesitations, looked at her with astonishment as if the maiden were

talking in a fever. To oppose Cæsar’s will, expose oneself from the

first moment to his anger? To act thus one would need to be a child

that knows not what it says. From Lygia’s own words it appears that she

is, properly speaking, not really a hostage, but a maiden forgotten by

her own people. No law of nations protects her; and even if it did,

Cæsar is powerful enough to trample on it in a moment of anger. It has

pleased Cæsar to take her, and he will dispose of her. Thenceforth she

is at his will, above which there is not another on earth.

“So it is,” continued Acte. “I too have read the letters of Paul of

Tarsus, and I know that above the earth is God, and the Son of God, who

rose from the dead; but on the earth there is only Cæsar. Think of this,

Lygia. I know too that thy doctrine does not permit thee to be what I

was, and that to you as to the Stoics,—of whom Epictetus has told me,—

when it comes to a choice between shame and death, it is permitted to

choose only death. But canst thou say that death awaits thee and not

shame too? Hast thou heard of the daughter of Sejanus, a young maiden,

who at command of Tiberius had to pass through shame