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

set teeth,—“Acte! If life be dear to thee, if

thou wish not to cause misfortunes which thou are unable even to

imagine, answer me truly. Did Cæsar take her?”

 

“Cæsar did not leave the palace yesterday.”

 

“By the shade of thy mother, by all the gods, is she not in the palace?”

 

“By the shade of my mother, Marcus, she is not in the palace, and Cæsar

did not intercept her. The infant Augusta is ill since yesterday, and

Nero has not left her cradle.”

 

Vinicius drew breath. That which had seemed the most terrible ceased to

threaten him.

 

“Ah, then,” said he, sitting on the bench and clinching his fists,

“Aulus intercepted her, and in that case woe to him!”

 

“Aulus Plautius was here this morning. He could not see me, for I was

occupied with the child; but he inquired of Epaphroditus, and others of

Cæsar’s servants, touching Lygia, and told them that he would come again

to see me.”

 

“He wished to turn suspicion from himself. If he knew not what

happened, he would have come to seek Lygia in my house.”

 

“He left a few words on a tablet, from which thou wilt see that, knowing

Lygia to have been taken from his house by Cæsar, at thy request and

that of Petronius, he expected that she would be sent to thee, and this

morning early he was at thy house, where they told him what had

happened.”

 

When she had said this, she went to the cubiculum and returned soon with

the tablet which Aulus had left.

 

Vinicius read the tablet, and was silent; Acte seemed to read the

thoughts on his gloomy face, for she said after a while,—“No, Marcus.

That has happened which Lygia herself wished.”

 

“It was known to thee that she wished to flee!” burst out Vinicius.

 

“I knew that she would not become thy concubine.” And she looked at him

with her misty eyes almost sternly.

 

“And thou,—what hast thou been all thy life?”

 

“I was a slave, first of all.”

 

But Vinicius did not cease to be enraged. Cæsar had given him Lygia;

hence he had no need to inquire what she had been before. He would find

her, even under the earth, and he would do what he liked with her. He

would indeed! She should be his concubine. He would give command to

flog her as often as he pleased. If she grew distasteful to him, he

would give her to the lowest of his slaves, or he would command her to

turn a handmill on his lands in Africa. He would seek her out now, and

find her only to bend her, to trample on her, and conquer her.

 

And, growing more and more excited, he lost every sense of measure, to

the degree that even Acte saw that he was promising more than he could

execute; that he was talking because of pain and anger. She might have

had even compassion on him, but his extravagance exhausted her patience,

and at last she inquired why he had come to her.

 

Vinicius did not find an answer immediately. He had come to her because

he wished to come, because he judged that she would give him

information; but really he had come to Cæsar, and, not being able to see

him, he came to her. Lygia, by fleeing, opposed the will of Cæsar;

hence he would implore him to give an order to search for her throughout

the city and the empire, even if it came to using for that purpose all

the legions, and to ransacking in turn every house within Roman

dominion. Petronius would support his prayer, and the search would

begin from that day.

 

“Have a care,” answered Acte, “lest thou lose her forever the moment she

is found, at command of Cæsar.”

 

Vinicius wrinkled his brows. “What does that mean?” inquired he.

 

“Listen to me, Marcus. Yesterday Lygia and I were in the gardens here,

and we met Poppæa, with the infant Augusta, borne by an African woman,

Lilith. In the evening the child fell ill, and Lilith insists that she

was bewitched; that that foreign woman whom they met in the garden

bewitched her. Should the child recover, they will forget this, but in

the opposite case Poppæa will be the first to accuse Lygia of

witchcraft, and wherever she is found there will be no rescue for her.”

 

A moment of silence followed; then Vinicius said,—“But perhaps she did

bewitch her, and has bewitched me.”

 

“Lilith repeats that the child began to cry the moment she carried her

past us. And really the child did begin to cry. It is certain that she

was sick when they took her out of the garden. Marcus, seek for Lygia

whenever it may please thee, but till the infant Augusta recovers, speak

not of her to Cæsar, or thou wilt bring on her Poppæa’s vengeance. Her

eyes have wept enough because of thee already, and may all the gods

guard her poor head.”

 

“Dost thou love her, Acte?” inquired Vinicius, gloomily.

 

“Yes, I love her.” And tears glittered in the eyes of the freedwoman.

 

“Thou lovest her because she has not repaid thee with hatred, as she has

me.”

 

Acte looked at him for a time as if hesitating, or as if wishing to

learn if he spoke sincerely; then she said,—“O blind and passionate

man—she loved thee.”

 

Vinicius sprang up under the influence of those words, as if possessed.

“It is not true.”

 

She hated him. How could Acte know? Would Lygia make a confession to

her after one day’s acquaintance? What love is that which prefers

wandering, the disgrace of poverty, the uncertainty of tomorrow, or a

shameful death even, to a wreath-bedecked house, in which a lover is

waiting with a feast? It is better for him not to hear such things, for

he is ready to go mad. He would not have given that girl for all

Cæsar’s treasures, and she fled. What kind of love is that which dreads

delight and gives pain? Who can understand it? Who can fathom it?

Were it not for the hope that he should find her, he would sink a sword

in himself. Love surrenders; it does not take away. There were moments

at the house of Aulus when he himself believed in near happiness, but

now he knows that she hated him, that she hates him, and will die with

hatred in her heart.

 

But Acte, usually mild and timid, burst forth in her turn with

indignation. How had he tried to win Lygia? Instead of bowing before

Aulus and Pomponia to get her, he took the child away from her parents

by stratagem. He wanted to make, not a wife, but a concubine of her,

the foster daughter of an honorable house, and the daughter of a king.

He had her brought to this abode of crime and infamy; he defiled her

innocent eyes with the sight of a shameful feast; he acted with her as

with a wanton. Had he forgotten the house of Aulus and Pomponia

Græcina, who had reared Lygia? Had he not sense enough to understand

that there are women different from Nigidia or Calvia Crispinilla or

Poppæa, and from all those whom he meets in Cæsar’s house? Did he not

understand at once on seeing Lygia that she is an honest maiden, who

prefers death to infamy? Whence does he know what kind of gods she

worships, and whether they are not purer and better than the wanton

Venus, or than Isis, worshipped by the profligate women of Rome? No!

Lygia had made no confession to her, but she had said that she looked

for rescue to him, to Vinicius: she had hoped that he would obtain for

her permission from Cæsar to return home, that he would restore her to

Pomponia. And while speaking of this, Lygia blushed like a maiden who

loves and trusts. Lygia’s heart beat for him; but he, Vinicius, had

terrified and offended her; had made her indignant; let him seek her now

with the aid of Cæsar’s soldiers, but let him know that should Poppæa’s

child die, suspicion will fall on Lygia, whose destruction will then be

inevitable.

 

Emotion began to force its way through the anger and pain of Vinicius.

The information that he was loved by Lygia shook him to the depth of his

soul. He remembered her in Aulus’s garden, when she was listening to

his words with blushes on her face and her eyes full of light. It

seemed to him then that she had begun to love him; and all at once, at

that thought, a feeling of certain happiness embraced him, a hundred

times greater than that which he desired. He thought that he might have

won her gradually, and besides as one loving him. She would have

wreathed his door, rubbed it with wolf’s fat, and then sat as his wife

by his hearth on the sheepskin. He would have heard from her mouth the

sacramental: “Where thou art, Caius, there am I, Caia.” And she would

have been his forever. Why did he not act thus? True, he had been

ready so to act. But now she is gone, and it may be impossible to find

her; and should he find her, perhaps he will cause her death, and should

he not cause her death, neither she nor Aulus nor Pomponia Græcina will

favor him. Here anger raised the hair on his head again; but his anger

turned now, not against the house of Aulus, or Lygia, but against

Petronius. Petronius was to blame for everything. Had it not been for

him Lygia would not have been forced to wander; she would be his

betrothed, and no danger would be hanging over her dear head. But now

all is past, and it is too late to correct the evil which will not yield

to correction.

 

“Too late!” And it seemed to him that a gulf had opened before his

feet. He did not know what to begin, how to proceed, whither to betake

himself. Acte repeated as an echo the words, “Too late,” which from

another’s mouth sounded like a death sentence. He understood one thing,

however, that he must find Lygia, or something evil would happen to him.

 

And wrapping himself mechanically in his toga, he was about to depart

without taking farewell even of Acte, when suddenly the curtain

separating the entrance from the atrium was pushed aside, and he saw

before him the pensive figure of Pomponia Græcina.

 

Evidently she too had heard of the disappearance of Lygia, and, judging

that she could see Acte more easily than Aulus, had come for news to

her.

 

But, seeing Vinicius, she turned her pale, delicate face to him, and

said, after a pause,—“May God forgive thee the wrong, Marcus, which

thou hast done to us and to Lygia.”

 

He stood with drooping head, with a feeling of misfortune and guilt, not

understanding what God was to forgive him or could forgive him.

Pomponia had no cause to mention forgiveness; she ought to have spoken

of revenge.

 

At last he went out with a head devoid of counsel, full of grievous

thoughts, immense care, and amazement.

 

In the court and under the gallery were crowds of anxious people. Among

slaves of the palace were knights and senators who had come to inquire

about the health of the infant, and at the same time to show themselves

in the palace, and exhibit a proof of their anxiety, even in presence of

Nero’s slaves. News of the illness of the “divine” had spread quickly

it was evident, for new forms appeared in the gateway every moment,