Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗
- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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lend belief? a species of pity for those wretched people. Among them
are old slaves whom my grandfather, Marcus Vinicius, brought from the
Rhine in the time of Augustus. I shut myself up alone in the library,
and there came stranger thoughts still to my head; namely, that after
what I had heard and seen among the Christians, it did not become me to
act with slaves as I had acted hitherto—that they too were people. For
a number of days they moved about in mortal terror, in the belief that I
was delaying so as to invent punishment the more cruel, but I did not
punish, and did not punish because I was not able. Summoning them on
the third day, I said, ‘I forgive you; strive then with earnest service
to correct your fault!’ They fell on their knees, covering their faces
with tears, stretching forth their hands with groans, and called me lord
and father; but I—with shame do I write this—was equally moved. It
seemed to me that at that moment I was looking at the sweet face of
Lygia, and her eyes filled with tears, thanking me for that act. And,
proh pudor! I felt that my lips too were moist. Dost know what I will
confess to thee? This—that I cannot do without her, that it is ill for
me alone, that I am simply unhappy, and that my sadness is greater than
thou wilt admit. But, as to my slaves, one thing arrested my attention.
The forgiveness which they received not only did not make them insolent,
not only did not weaken discipline, but never had fear roused them to
such ready service as has gratitude. Not only do they serve, but they
seem to vie with one another to divine my wishes. I mention this to
thee because, when, the day before I left the Christians, I told Paul
that society would fall apart because of his religion, as a cask without
hoops, he answered, ‘Love is a stronger hoop than fear.’ And now I see
that in certain cases his opinion may be right. I have verified it also
with references to clients, who, learning of my return, hurried to
salute me. Thou knowest that I have never been penurious with them; but
my father acted haughtily with clients on principle, and taught me to
treat them in like manner. But when I saw their worn mantles and hungry
faces, I had a feeling something like compassion. I gave command to
bring them food, and conversed besides with them,—called some by name,
some I asked about their wives and children,—and again in the eyes
before me I saw tears; again it seemed to me that Lygia saw what I was
doing, that she praised and was delighted. Is my mind beginning to
wander, or is love confusing my feelings? I cannot tell. But this I do
know; I have a continual feeling that she is looking at me from a
distance, and I am afraid to do aught that might trouble or offend her.
“So it is, Caius! but they have changed my soul, and sometimes I feel
well for that reason. At times again I am tormented with the thought,
for I fear that my manhood and energy are taken from me; that, perhaps,
I am useless, not only for counsel, for judgment, for feasts, but for
war even. These are undoubted enchantments! And to such a degree am I
changed that I tell thee this, too, which came to my head when I lay
wounded: that if Lygia were like Nigidia, Poppæa, Crispinilla, and our
divorced women, if she were as vile, as pitiless, and as cheap as they,
I should not love her as I do at present. But since I love her for that
which divides us, thou wilt divine what a chaos is rising in my soul, in
what darkness I live, how it is that I cannot see certain roads before
me, and how far I am from knowing what to begin. If life may be
compared to a spring, in my spring disquiet flows instead of water. I
live through the hope that I shall see her, perhaps, and sometimes it
seems to me that I shall see her surely. But what will happen to me in
a year or two years, I know not, and cannot divine. I shall not leave
Rome. I could not endure the society of the Augustians; and besides,
the one solace in my sadness and disquiet is the thought that I am near
Lygia, that through Glaucus the physician, who promised to visit me, or
through Paul of Tarsus, I can learn something of her at times. No; I
would not leave Rome, even were ye to offer me the government of Egypt.
Know also, that I have ordered the sculptor to make a stone monument for
Gulo, whom I slew in anger. Too late did it come to my mind that he had
carried me in his arms, and was the first to teach me how to put an
arrow on a bow. I know not why it was that a recollection of him rose
in me which was sorrow and reproach. If what I write astonish thee, I
reply that it astonishes me no less, but I write pure truth.—Farewell.”
VINICUS received no answer to this letter. Petronius did not write,
thinking evidently that Cæsar might command a return to Rome any day.
In fact, news of it was spread in the city, and roused great delight in
the hearts of the rabble, eager for games with gifts of grain and
olives, great supplies of which had been accumulated in Ostia. Helius,
Nero’s freedman, announced at last the return in the Senate. But Nero,
having embarked with his court on ships at Misenum, returned slowly,
disembarking at coast towns for rest, or exhibitions in theatres. He
remained between ten and twenty days in Minturna, and even thought to
return to Naples and wait there for spring, which was earlier than
usual, and warm. During all this time Vinicius lived shut up in his
house, thinking of Lygia, and all those new things which occupied his
soul, and brought to it ideas and feelings foreign to it thus far. He
saw, from time to time, only Glaucus the physician, every one of whose
visits delighted him, for he could converse with the man about Lygia.
Glaucus knew not, it is true, where she had found refuge, but he gave
assurance that the elders were protecting her with watchful care. Once
too, when moved by the sadness of Vinicius, he told him that Peter had
blamed Crispus for reproaching Lygia with her love. The young
patrician, hearing this, grew pale from emotion. He had thought more
than once that Lygia was not indifferent to him, but he fell into
frequent doubt and uncertainty. Now for the first time he heard the
confirmation of his desires and hopes from strange lips, and, besides,
those of a Christian. At the first moment of gratitude he wished to run
to Peter. When he learned, however, that he was not in the city, but
teaching in the neighborhood, he implored Glaucus to accompany him
thither, promising to make liberal gifts to the poor community. It
seemed to him, too, that if Lygia loved him, all obstacles were thereby
set aside, as he was ready at any moment to honor Christ. Glaucus,
though he urged him persistently to receive baptism, would not venture
to assure him that he would gain Lygia at once, and said that it was
necessary to desire the religion for its own sake, through love of
Christ, not for other objects. “One must have a Christian soul, too,”
said he. And Vinicius, though every obstacle angered him, had begun to
understand that Glaucus, as a Christian, said what he ought to say. He
had not become clearly conscious that one of the deepest changes in his
nature was this,—that formerly he had measured people and things only
by his own selfishness, but now he was accustoming himself gradually to
the thought that other eyes might see differently, other hearts feel
differently, and that justice did not mean always the same as personal
profit.
He wished often to see Paul of Tarsus, whose discourse made him curious
and disturbed him. He arranged in his mind arguments to overthrow his
teaching, he resisted him in thought; still he wished to see him and to
hear him. Paul, however, had gone to Aricium, and, since the visits of
Glaucus had become rarer, Vinicius was in perfect solitude. He began
again to run through back streets adjoining the Subura, and narrow lanes
of the Trans-Tiber, in the hope that even from a distance he might see
Lygia. When even that hope failed him, weariness and impatience began
to rise in his heart. At last the time came when his former nature was
felt again mightily, like that onrush of a wave to the shore from which
it had receded. It seemed to him that he had been a fool to no purpose,
that he had stuffed his head with things which brought sadness, that he
ought to accept from life what it gives. He resolved to forget Lygia,
or at least to seek pleasure and the use of things aside from her. He
felt that this trial, however, was the last, and he threw himself into
it with all the blind energy of impulse peculiar to him. Life itself
seemed to urge him to this course.
THE APPIAN WAY. From the painting by G. Boulanger.
The city, torpid and depopulated by winter, began to revive with hope of
the near coming of Cæsar. A solemn reception was in waiting for him.
Meanwhile spring was there; the snow on the Alban Hills had vanished
under the breath of winds from Africa. Grass-plots in the gardens were
covered with violets. The Forums and the Campus Martius were filled
with people warmed by a sun of growing heat. Along the Appian Way, the
usual place for drives outside the city, a movement of richly ornamented
chariots had begun. Excursions were made to the Alban Hills. Youthful
women, under pretext of worshipping Juno in Lanuvium, or Diana in
Aricia, left home to seek adventures, society, meetings, and pleasure
beyond the city. Here Vinicius saw one day among lordly chariots the
splendid car of Chrysothemis, preceded by two Molossian dogs; it was
surrounded by a crowd of young men and by old senators, whose position
detained them in the city. Chrysothemis, driving four Corsican ponies
herself, scattered smiles round about, and light strokes of a golden
whip; but when she saw Vinicius she reined in her horses, took him into
her car, and then to a feast at her house, which lasted all night. At
that feast Vinicius drank so much that he did not remember when they
took him home; he recollected, however, that when Chrysothemis mentioned
Lygia he was offended, and, being drunk, emptied a goblet of Falernian
on her head. When he thought of this in soberness, he was angrier
still. But a day later Chrysothemis, forgetting evidently the injury,
visited him at his house, and took him to the Appian Way a second time.
Then she supped at his house, and confessed that not only Petronius, but
his lute-player, had grown tedious to her long since, and that her heart
was free now. They appeared together for a week, but the relation did
not promise permanence. After the Falernian incident, however, Lygia’s
name was never mentioned, but Vinicius could not free himself from
thoughts of her. He had the feeling always that her eyes were looking
at his face, and that feeling filled him, as it were, with fear. He
suffered, and could not escape
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