Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗
- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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for thyself!”
When the golden-haired Eunice heard this, she grew pale in one moment,
and, looking with frightened eyes on Vinicius, seemed to wait for his
answer without breath in her breast.
But he sprang up suddenly, and, pressing his temples with his hands,
said quickly, like a man who is tortured by disease, and will not hear
anything,—“No, no! I care not for her! I care not for others! I
thank thee, but I do not want her. I will seek that one through the
city. Give command to bring me a Gallic cloak with a hood. I will go
beyond the Tiber—if I could see even Ursus.”
And he hurried away. Petronius, seeing that he could not remain in one
place, did not try to detain him. Taking, however, his refusal as a
temporary dislike for all women save Lygia, and not wishing his own
magnanimity to go for naught, he said, turning to the slave,—“Eunice,
thou wilt bathe and anoint thyself, then dress: after that thou wilt go
to the house of Vinicius.”
But she dropped before him on her knees, and with joined palms implored
him not to remove her from the house. She would not go to Vinicius, she
said. She would rather carry fuel to the hypocaustum in his house than
be chief servant in that of Vinicius. She would not, she could not go;
and she begged him to have pity on her. Let him give command to flog
her daily, only not send her away.
And trembling like a leaf with fear and excitement, she stretched her
hands to him, while he listened with amazement. A slave who ventured to
beg relief from the fulfilment of a command, who said “I will not and I
cannot,” was something so unheard-of in Rome that Petronius could not
believe his own ears at first. Finally he frowned. He was too refined
to be cruel. His slaves, especially in the department of pleasure, were
freer than others, on condition of performing their service in an
exemplary manner, and honoring the will of their master, like that of a
god. In case they failed in these two respects, he was able not to
spare punishment, to which, according to general custom, they were
subject. Since, besides this, he could not endure opposition, nor
anything which ruffled his calmness, he looked for a while at the
kneeling girl, and then said,—“Call Tiresias, and return with him.”
Eunice rose, trembling, with tears in her eyes, and went out; after a
time she returned with the chief of the atrium, Tiresias, a Cretan.
“Thou wilt take Eunice,” said Petronius, “and give her five-and-twenty
lashes, in such fashion, however, as not to harm her skin.”
When he had said this, he passed into the library, and, sitting down at
a table of rose-colored marble, began to work on his “Feast of
Trimalchion.” But the flight of Lygia and the illness of the infant
Augusta had disturbed his mind so much that he could not work long.
That illness, above all, was important. It occurred to Petronius that
were Cæsar to believe that Lygia had cast spells on the infant, the
responsibility might fall on him also, for the girl had been brought at
his request to the palace. But he could reckon on this, that at the
first interview with Cæsar he would be able in some way to show the
utter absurdity of such an idea; he counted a little, too, on a certain
weakness which Poppæa had for him,—a weakness hidden carefully, it is
true, but not so carefully that he could not divine it. After a while
he shrugged his shoulders at these fears, and decided to go to the
triclinium to strengthen himself, and then order the litter to bear him
once more to the palace, after that to the Campus Martius, and then to
Chrysothemis.
But on the way to the triclinium at the entrance to the corridor
assigned to servants, he saw unexpectedly the slender form of Eunice
standing, among other slaves, at the wall; and forgetting that he had
given Tiresias no order beyond flogging her, he wrinkled his brow again,
and looked around for the atriensis. Not seeing him among the servants,
he turned to Eunice.
“Hast thou received the lashes?”
She cast herself at his feet a second time, pressed the border of his
toga to her lips, and said,—“Oh, yes, lord, I have received them! Oh,
yes, lord!” In her voice were heard, as it were, joy and gratitude. It
was clear that she looked on the lashes as a substitute for her removal
from the house, and that now she might stay there. Petronius, who
understood this, wondered at the passionate resistance of the girl; but
he was too deeply versed in human nature not to know that love alone
could call forth such resistance.
“Dost thou love some one in this house?” asked he.
She raised her blue, tearful eyes to him, and answered, in a voice so
low that it was hardly possible to hear her,—“Yes, lord.”
And with those eyes, with that golden hair thrown back, with fear and
hope in her face, she was so beautiful, she looked at him so
entreatingly, that Petronius, who, as a philosopher, had proclaimed the
might of love, and who, as a man of æsthetic nature, had given homage to
all beauty, felt for her a certain species of compassion.
“Whom of those dost thou love?” inquired he, indicating the servants
with his head.
There was no answer to that question. Eunice inclined her head to his
feet and remained motionless.
Petronius looked at the slaves, among whom were beautiful and stately
youths. He could read nothing on any face; on the contrary, all had
certain strange smiles. He looked then for a while on Eunice lying at
his feet, and went in silence to the triclinium.
After he had eaten, he gave command to bear him to the palace, and then
to Chrysothemis, with whom he remained till late at night. But when he
returned, he gave command to call Tiresias.
“Did Eunice receive the flogging?” inquired he.
“She did, lord. Thou didst not let the skin be cut, however.”
“Did I give no other command touching her?”
“No, lord,” answered the atriensis with alarm.
“That is well. Whom of the slaves does she love?”
“No one, lord.”
“What dost thou know of her?”
Tiresias began to speak in a somewhat uncertain voice:
“At night Eunice never leaves the cubiculum in which she lives with old
Acrisiona and Ifida; after thou art dressed she never goes to the
bath-rooms. Other slaves ridicule her, and call her Diana.”
“Enough,” said Petronius. “My relative, Vinicius, to whom I offered her
to-day, did not accept her; hence she may stay in the house. Thou art
free to go.”
“Is it permitted me to speak more of Eunice, lord?”
“I have commanded thee to say all thou knowest.”
“The whole familia are speaking of the flight of the maiden who was to
dwell in the house of the noble Vinicius. After thy departure, Eunice
came to me and said that she knew a man who could find her.”
“Ah! What kind of man is he?”
“I know not, lord; but I thought that I ought to inform thee of this
matter.”
“That is well. Let that man wait tomorrow in my house for the arrival
of the tribune, whom thou wilt request in my name to meet me here.”
The atriensis bowed and went out. But Petronius began to think of
Eunice. At first it seemed clear to him that the young slave wished
Vinicius to find Lygia for this reason only, that she would not be
forced from his house. Afterward, however, it occurred to him that the
man whom Eunice was pushing forward might be her lover, and all at once
that thought seemed to him disagreeable. There was, it is true, a
simple way of learning the truth, for it was enough to summon Eunice;
but the hour was late, Petronius felt tired after his long visit with
Chrysothemis, and was in a hurry to sleep. But on the way to the
cubiculum he remembered—it is unknown why—that he had noticed
wrinkles, that day, in the corners of Chrysothemis’s eyes. He thought,
also, that her beauty was more celebrated in Rome than it deserved; and
that Fonteius Capiton, who had offered him three boys from Clazomene for
Eunice, wanted to buy her too cheaply.
NEXT morning, Petronius had barely finished dressing in the unctorium
when Vinicius came, called by Tiresias. He knew that no news had come
from the gates. This information, instead of comforting him, as a proof
that Lygia was still in Rome, weighed him down still more, for he began
to think that Ursus might have conducted her out of the city immediately
after her seizure, and hence before Petronius’s slaves had begun to keep
watch at the gates. It is true that in autumn, when the days become
shorter, the gates are closed rather early; but it is true, also, that
they are opened for persons going out, and the number of these is
considerable. It was possible, also, to pass the walls by other ways,
well known, for instance, to slaves who wish to escape from the city.
Vinicius had sent out his people to all roads leading to the provinces,
to watchmen in the smaller towns, proclaiming a pair of fugitive slaves,
with a detailed description of Ursus and Lygia, coupled with the offer
of a reward for seizing them. But it was doubtful whether that pursuit
would reach the fugitives; and even should it reach them, whether the
local authorities would feel justified in making the arrest at the
private instance of Vinicius, without the support of a pretor. Indeed,
there had not been time to obtain such support. Vinicius himself,
disguised as a slave, had sought Lygia the whole day before, through
every corner of the city, but had been unable to find the least
indication or trace of her. He had seen Aulus’s servants, it is true;
but they seemed to be seeking something also, and that confirmed him in
the belief that it was not Aulus who had intercepted the maiden, and
that the old general did not know what had happened to her.
When Tiresias announced to him, then, that there was a man who would
undertake to find Lygia, he hurried with all speed to the house of
Petronius; and barely had he finished saluting his uncle, when he
inquired for the man.
“We shall see him at once, Eunice knows him,” said Petronius. “She will
come this moment to arrange the folds of my toga, and will give nearer
information concerning him.”
“Oh! she whom thou hadst the wish to bestow on me yesterday?”
“The one whom thou didst reject; for which I am grateful, for she is the
best vestiplica in the whole city.”
In fact, the vestiplica came in before he had finished speaking, and
taking the toga, laid on a chair inlaid with pearl, she opened the
garment to throw it on Petronius’s shoulder. Her face was clear and
calm; joy was in her eyes.
Petronius looked at her. She seemed to him very beautiful. After a
while, when she had covered him with the toga, she began to arrange it,
bending at times to lengthen the folds. He noticed that her arms had a
marvellous pale rose-color, and her bosom and shoulders the transparent
reflections of pearl or alabaster.
“Eunice,” said he,
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