Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗
- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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have dared to pursue them any longer with his vengeance.
FOUR Bithynians carried Lygia carefully to the house of Petronius.
Vinicius and Ursus walked at her side, hurrying so as to give her into
the hands of the Greek physician as quickly as possible. They walked in
silence, for after the events of the day they had not power to speak.
Vinicius so far was as if half conscious. He kept repeating to himself
that Lygia was saved; that she was threatened no longer by imprisonment,
or death in the Circus; that their misfortunes had ended once and
forever; that he would take her home and not separate again from her.
This appeared to him the beginning of some other life rather than
reality. From moment to moment he bent over the open litter to look on
the beloved face, which in the moonlight seemed sleeping, and he
repeated mentally, “This is she! Christ has saved her!” He remembered
also that while he and Ursus were carrying her from the spoliarium an
unknown physician had assured him that she was living and would recover.
At this thought delight so filled his breast that at moments he grew
weak, and being unable to walk with his own strength leaned on the arm
of Ursus. Ursus meanwhile was looking into the sky filled with stars,
and was praying.
They advanced hurriedly along streets where newly erected white
buildings shone brightly in the moonlight. The city was empty, save
here and there where crowds of people crowned with ivy, sang and danced
before porticos to the sound of flutes, thus taking advantage of the
wonderful night and the festive season, unbroken from the beginning of
the games. Only when they were near the house did Ursus stop praying,
and say in a low voice, as if he feared to waken Lygia,—
“Lord, it was the Saviour who rescued her from death. When I saw her on
the horns of the aurochs, I heard a voice in my soul saying, ‘Defend
her!’ and that was the voice of the Lamb. The prison took strength from
me, but He gave it back in that moment, and inspired that cruel people
to take her part. Let His will be done!”
And Vinicius answered,—
“Magnified be His name!”
He had not power to continue, for all at once he felt that a mighty
weeping was swelling his breast. He was seized by an overpowering wish
to throw himself on the earth and thank the Saviour for His miracles and
His mercy.
Meanwhile they had come to the house; the servants, informed by a slave
despatched in advance, crowded out to meet them. Paul of Tarsus had
sent back from Antium the greater part of those people. The misfortune
of Vinicius was known to them perfectly; therefore their delight at
seeing those victims which had been snatched from the malice of Nero was
immense, and increased still more when the physician Theocles declared
that Lygia had not suffered serious injury, and that when the weakness
caused by prison fever had passed, she would regain health.
Consciousness returned to her that night. Waking in the splendid
chamber lighted by Corinthian lamps, amidst the odor of verbena and
nard, she knew not where she was, or what was taking place with her.
She remembered the moment in which she had been lashed to the horns of
the chained bull; and now, seeing above her the face of Vinicius,
lighted by the mild rays of the lamp, she supposed herself no longer on
earth. The thoughts were confused in her weakened head; it seemed to
her natural to be detained somewhere on the way to heaven, because of
her tortures and weakness. Feeling no pain, however, she smiled at
Vinicius, and wanted to ask where they were; but from her lips came
merely a low whisper in which he could barely detect his own name.
Then he knelt near her, and, placing his hand on her forehead lightly,
he said,—
“Christ saved thee, and returned thee to me!”
Her lips moved again with a meaningless whisper; her lids closed after a
moment, her breast rose with a light sigh, and she fell into a deep
sleep, for which the physician had been waiting, and after which she
would return to health, he said.
Vinicius remained kneeling near her, however, sunk in prayer. His soul
was melting with a love so immense that he forgot himself utterly.
Theocles returned often to the chamber, and the golden-haired Eunice
appeared behind the raised curtain a number of times; finally cranes,
reared in the gardens, began to call, heralding the coming day, but
Vinicius was still embracing in his mind the feet of Christ, neither
seeing nor hearing what was passing around him, with a heart turned into
a thanksgiving, sacrificial flame, sunk in ecstasy, and though alive,
half seized into heaven.
PETRONIUS, after the liberation of Lygia, not wishing to irritate Cæsar,
went to the Palatine with other Augustians. He wanted to hear what they
were saying, and especially to learn if Tigellinus was devising
something new to destroy Lygia. Both she and Ursus had passed under the
protection of the people, it is true, and no one could place a hand on
them without raising a riot; still Petronius, knowing the hatred toward
him of the all-powerful pretorian prefect, considered that very likely
Tigellinus, while unable to strike him directly, would strive to find
some means of revenge against his nephew.
Nero was angry and irritated, since the spectacle had ended quite
differently from what he had planned. At first he did not wish even to
look at Petronius; but the latter, without losing cool blood, approached
him, with all the freedom of the “arbiter elegantiarum,” and said,—
“Dost thou know, divinity, what occurs to me? Write a poem on the
maiden who, at command of the lord of the world, was freed from the
horns of the wild bull and given to her lover. The Greeks are
sensitive, and I am sure that the poem will enchant them.”
This thought pleased Nero in spite of all his irritation, and it pleased
him doubly, first, as a subject for a poem, and second, because in it he
could glorify himself as the magnanimous lord of the earth; hence he
looked for a time at Petronius, and then said,—
“Yes! perhaps thou art right. But does it become me to celebrate my own
goodness?”
“There is no need to give names. In Rome all will know who is meant,
and from Rome reports go through the whole world.”
“But art thou sure that this will please the people in Achæa?”
“By Poilux, it will!” said Petronius.
And he went away satisfied, for he felt certain that Nero, whose whole
life was an arrangement of reality to literary plans, would not spoil
the subject, and by this alone he would tie the hands of Tigellinus.
This, however, did not change his plan of sending Vinicius out of Rome
as soon as Lygia’s health should permit. So when he saw him next day,
he said,—
“Take her to Sicily. As things have happened, on Cæsar’s part thou art
threatened by nothing; but Tigellinus is ready to use even poison,—if
not out of hatred to you both, out of hatred to me.”
Vinicius smiled at him, and said: “She was on the horns of the wild
bull; still Christ saved her.”
“Then honor Him with a hecatomb,” replied Petronius, with an accent of
impatience, “but do not beg Him to save her a second time. Dost
remember how Eolus received Ulysses when he returned to ask a second
time for favoring winds? Deities do not like to repeat themselves.”
“When her health returns, I will take her to Pomponia Græcina,” said
Vinicius.
“And thou wilt do that all the better since Pomponia is ill; Antistius,
a relative of Aulus, told me so. Meanwhile things will happen here to
make people forget thee, and in these times the forgotten are the
happiest. May Fortune be thy sun in winter, and thy shade in summer.”
Then he left Vinicius to his happiness, but went himself to inquire of
Theocles touching the life and health of Lygia.
Danger threatened her no longer. Emaciated as she was in the dungeon
after prison fever, foul air and discomfort would have killed her; but
now she had the most tender care, and not only plenty, but luxury. At
command of Theocles they took her to the gardens of the villa after two
days; in these gardens she remained for hours. Vinicius decked her
litter with anemones, and especially with irises, to remind her of the
atrium of the house of Aulus. More than once, hidden in the shade of
spreading trees, they spoke of past sufferings and fears, each holding
the other’s hand. Lygia said that Christ had conducted him through
suffering purposely to change his soul and raise it to Himself.
Vinicius felt that this was true, and that there was in him nothing of
the former patrician, who knew no law but his own desire. In those
memories there was nothing bitter, however. It seemed to both that
whole years had gone over their heads, and that the dreadful past lay
far behind. At the same time such a calmness possessed them as they had
never known before. A new life of immense happiness had come and taken
them into itself. In Rome Cæsar might rage and fill the world with
terror—they felt above them a guardianship a hundred times mightier
than his power, and had no further fear of his rage or his malice, just
as if for them he had ceased to be the lord of life or death. Once,
about sunset, the roar of lions and other beasts reached them from
distant vivaria. Formerly those sounds filled Vinicius with fear
because they were ominous; now he and Lygia merely looked at each other
and raised their eyes to the evening twilight. At times Lygia, still
very weak and unable to walk alone, fell asleep in the quiet of the
garden; he watched over her, and, looking at her sleeping face, thought
involuntarily that she was not that Lygia whom he had met at the house
of Aulus. In fact, imprisonment and disease had to some extent quenched
her beauty. When he saw her at the house of Aulus, and later, when he
went to Miriam’s house to seize her, she was as wonderful as a statue
and also as a flower; now her face had become almost transparent, her
hands thin, her body reduced by disease, her lips pale, and even her
eyes seemed less blue than formerly. The golden-haired Eunice who
brought her flowers and rich stuffs to cover her feet was a divinity of
Cyprus in comparison. Petronius tried in vain to find the former charms
in her, and, shrugging his shoulders, thought that that shadow from
Elysian fields was not worth those struggles, those pains, and those
tortures which had almost sucked the life out of Vinicius. But
Vinicius, in love now with her spirit, loved it all the more; and when
he was watching over her while asleep, it seemed to him that he was
watching over the whole world.
NEWS of the miraculous rescue of Lygia was circulated quickly among
those scattered Christians who had escaped destruction. Confessors came
to look at her to whom Christ’s favor had been shown clearly. First
came Nazarius and Miriam, with whom Peter the Apostle was hiding thus
far; after them came others. All, as well as Vinicius, Lygia, and the
Christian slaves of Petronius, listened with attention to the narrative
of Ursus about the
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