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

at the middle of tile manuscript; “but here I see prose thickly

interwoven with them.”

 

“When thou art reading, turn attention to Trimalchion’s feast. As to

verses, they have disgusted me, since Nero is writing an epic. Vitelius,

when he wishes to relieve himself, uses ivory fingers to thrust down his

throat; others serve themselves with flamingo feathers steeped in olive

oil or in a decoction of wild thyme. I read Nero’s poetry, and the

result is immediate. Straightway I am able to praise it, if not with a

clear conscience, at least with a clear stomach.”

 

When he had said this, he stopped the litter again before the shop of

Idomeneus the goldsmith, and, having settled the affair of the gems,

gave command to bear the litter directly to Aulus’s mansion.

 

“On the road I will tell thee the story of Rufinus,” said he, “as proof

of what vanity in an author may be.”

 

But before he had begun, they turned in to the Vicus Patricius, and soon

found themselves before the dwelling of Aulus. A young and sturdy

“janitor” opened the door leading to the ostium, over which a magpie

confined in a cage greeted them noisily with the word, “Salve!”

 

On the way from the second antechamber, called the ostium, to the atrium

itself, Vinicius said,—“Hast noticed that thee doorkeepers are without

chains?” “This is a wonderful house,” answered Petronius, in an

undertone. “Of course it is known to thee that Pomponia Græcina is

suspected of entertaining that Eastern superstition which consists in

honoring a certain Chrestos. It seems that Crispinilla rendered her

this service,—she who cannot forgive Pomponia because one husband has

sufficed her for a lifetime. A one-man Woman! To-day, in Rome, it is

easier to get a half-plate of fresh mushrooms from Noricum than to find

such. They tried her before a domestic court—”

 

“To thy judgment this is a wonderful house. Later on I will tell thee

what I heard and saw in it.”

 

Meanwhile they had entered the atrium. The slave appointed to it,

called atriensis, sent a nomenclator to announce the guests; and

Petronius, who, imagining that eternal sadness reigned in this severe

house, had never been in it, looked around with astonishment, and as it

were with a feeling of disappointment, for the atrium produced rather an

impression of cheerfulness. A sheaf of bright light falling from above

through a large opening broke into a thousand sparks on a fountain in a

quadrangular little basin, called the impluvium, which was in the middle

to receive rain falling through the opening during bad weather; this was

surrounded by anemones and lilies. In that house a special love for

lilies was evident, for there were whole clumps of them, both white and

red; and, finally, sapphire irises, whose delicate leaves were as if

silvered from the spray of the fountain. Among the moist mosses, in

which lily-pots were hidden, and among the bunches of lilies were little

bronze statues representing children and water-birds. In one corner a

bronze fawn, as if wishing to drink, was inclining its greenish head,

grizzled, too, by dampness. The floor of the atrium was of mosaic; the

walls, faced partly with red marble and partly with wood, on which were

painted fish, birds, and griffins, attracted the eye by the play of

colors. From the door to the side chamber they were ornamented with

tortoise-shell or even ivory; at the walls between the doors were

statues of Aulus’s ancestors. Everywhere calm plenty was evident,

remote from excess, but noble and self-trusting.

 

Petronius, who lived with incomparably greater show and elegance, could

find nothing which offended his taste; and had just turned to Vinicius

with that remark, when a slave, the velarius, pushed aside the curtain

separating the atrium from the tablinum, and in the depth of the

building appeared Aulus Plautius approaching hurriedly.

 

He was a man nearing the evening of life, with a head whitened by hoar

frost, but fresh, with an energetic face, a trifle too short, but still

somewhat eagle-like. This time there was expressed on it a certain

astonishment, and even alarm, because of the unexpected arrival of

Nero’s friend, companion, and suggester.

 

Petronius was too much a man of the world and too quick not to notice

this; hence, after the first greetings, he announced with all the

eloquence and ease at his command that he had come to give thanks for

the care which his sister’s son had found in that house, and that

gratitude alone was the cause of the visit, to which, moreover, he was

emboldened by his old acquaintance with Aulus.

 

Aulus assured him that he was a welcome guest; and as to gratitude, he

declared that he had that feeling himself, though surely Petronius did

not divine the cause of it.

 

In fact, Petronius did not divine it. In vain did he raise his hazel

eyes, endeavoring to remember the least service rendered to Aulus or to

any one. He recalled none, unless it might be that which he intended to

show Vinicius. Some such thing, it is true, might have happened

involuntarily, but only involuntarily.

 

“I have great love and esteem for Vespasian, whose life thou didst

save,” said Aulus, “when he had the misfortune to doze while listening

to Nero’s verses.”

 

“He was fortunate,” replied Petronius, “for he did not hear them; but I

will not deny that the matter might have ended with misfortune.

Bronzebeard wished absolutely to send a centurion to him with the

friendly advice to open his veins.”

 

“But thou, Petronius, laughed him out of it.”

 

“That is true, or rather it is not true. I told Nero that if Orpheus

put wild beasts to sleep with song, his triumph was equal, since he had

put Vespasian to sleep. Ahenobarbus may be blamed on condition that to

a small criticism a great flattery be added. Our gracious Augusta,

Poppæa, understands this to perfection.”

 

“Alas! such are the times,” answered Aulus. “I lack two front teeth,

knocked out by a stone from the hand of a Briton, I speak with a hiss;

still my happiest days were passed in Britain.”

 

“Because they were days of victory,” added Vinicius.

 

But Petronius, alarmed lest the old general might begin a narrative of

his former wars, changed the conversation.

 

“See,” said he, “in the neighborhood of Præneste country people found a

dead wolf whelp with two heads; and during a storm about that time

lightning struck off an angle of the temple of Luna,—a thing

unparalleled, because of the late autumn. A certain Cotta, too, who had

told this, added, while telling it, that the priests of that temple

prophesied the fall of the city or, at least, the ruin of a great

house,—ruin to be averted only by uncommon sacrifices.”

 

Aulus, when he had heard the narrative, expressed the opinion that such

signs should not be neglected; that the gods might be angered by an

over-measure of wickedness. In this there was nothing wonderful; and in

such an event expiatory sacrifices were perfectly in order.

 

“Thy house, Plautius, is not too large,” answered Petronius, “though a

great man lives in it. Mine is indeed too large for such a wretched

owner, though equally small. But if it is a question of the ruin of

something as great, for example, as the domus transitoria, would it be

worth while for us to bring offerings to avert that ruin?”

 

Plautius did not answer that question,—a carefulness which touched even

Petronius somewhat, for, with all his inability to feel the difference

between good and evil, he had never been an informer; and it was

possible to talk with him in perfect safety. He changed the

conversation again, therefore, and began to praise Plautius’s dwelling

and the good taste which reigned in the house.

 

“It is an ancient seat,” said Plautius, “in which nothing has been

changed since I inherited it.”

 

After the curtain was pushed aside which divided the atrium from the

tablinum, the house was open from end to end, so that through the

tablinum and the following peristyle and the hall lying beyond it which

was called the œcus, the glance extended to the garden, which seemed

from a distance like a bright image set in a dark frame. Joyous,

childlike laughter came from it to the atrium.

 

“Oh, general!” said Petronius, “permit us to listen from near by to that

glad laughter which is of a kind heard so rarely in these days.”

 

“Willingly,” answered Plautius, rising; “that is my little Aulus and

Lygia, playing ball. But as to laughter, I think, Petronius, that our

whole life is spent in it.”

 

“Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it,” answered Petronius,

“but laughter here has another sound.”

 

“Petronius does not laugh for days in succession,” said Vinicius; “but

then he laughs entire nights.”

 

Thus conversing, they passed through the length of the house and reached

the garden, where Lygia and little Aulus were playing with balls, which

slaves, appointed to that game exclusively and called spheristæ, picked

up and placed in their hands. Petronius cast a quick passing glance at

Lygia; little Aulus, seeing Vinicius, ran to greet him; but the young

tribune, going forward, bent his head before the beautiful maiden, who

stood with a ball in her hand, her hair blown apart a little. She was

somewhat out of breath, and flushed.

 

In the garden triclinium, shaded by ivy, grapes, and woodbine, sat

Pomponia Græcina; hence they went to salute her. She was known to

Petronius, though he did not visit Plautius, for he had seen her at the

house of Antistia, the daughter of Rubelius Plautus, and besides at the

house of Seneca and Polion. He could not resist a certain admiration

with which he was filled by her face, pensive but mild, by the dignity

of her bearing, by her movements, by her words. Pomponia disturbed his

understanding of women to such a degree that that man, corrupted to the

marrow of his bones, and self-confident as no one in Rome, not only felt

for her a kind of esteem, but even lost his previous self-confidence.

And now, thanking her for her care of Vinicius, he thrust in, as it were

involuntarily, “domina,” which never occurred to him when speaking, for

example, to Calvia Crispinilla, Scribonia, Veleria, Solina, and other

women of high society. After he had greeted her and returned thanks, he

began to complain that he saw her so rarely, that it was not possible to

meet her either in the Circus or the Amphitheatre; to which she answered

calmly, laying her hand on the hand of her husband:

 

“We are growing old, and love our domestic quiet more and more, both of

us.”

 

Petronius wished to oppose; but Aulus Plautius added in his hissing

voice,—“And we feel stranger and stranger among people who give Greek

names to our Roman divinities.”

 

“The gods have become for some time mere figures of rhetoric,” replied

Petronius, carelessly. “But since Greek rhetoricians taught us, it is

easier for me even to say Hera than Juno.”

 

He turned his eyes then to Pomponia, as if to signify that in presence

of her no other divinity could come to his mind: and then he began to

contradict what she had said touching old age.

 

“People grow old quickly, it is true; but there are some who live

another life entirely, and there are faces moreover which Saturn seems

to forget.”

 

Petronius said this with a certain sincerity even, for Pomponia Græcina,

though descending from the midday of life, had preserved an uncommon

freshness of face; and since she had a small head and delicate features,

she produced at times, despite her dark robes, despite her solemnity