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

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sadness, the impression of a woman quite young.

 

Meanwhile little Aulus, who had become uncommonly friendly with Vinicius

during his former stay in the house, approached the young man and

entreated him to play ball. Lygia herself entered the triclinium after

the little boy. Under the climbing ivy, with the light quivering on her

face, she seemed to Petronius more beautiful than at the first glance,

and really like some nymph. As he had not spoken to her thus far, he

rose, inclined his head, and, instead of the usual expressions of

greeting, quoted the words with which Ulysses greeted Nausikaa,—

 

“I supplicate thee, O queen, whether thou art some goddess or a mortal!

If thou art one of the daughters of men who dwell on earth, thrice

blessed are thy father and thy lady mother, and thrice blessed thy

brethren.”

 

The exquisite politeness of this man of the world pleased even Pomponia.

As to Lygia, she listened, confused and flushed, without boldness to

raise her eyes. But a wayward smile began to quiver at the corners of

her lips, and on her face a struggle was evident between the timidity of

a maiden and the wish to answer; but clearly the wish was victorious,

for, looking quickly at Petronius, she answered him all at once with the

words of that same Nausikaa, quoting them at one breath, and a little

like a lesson learned,—

 

“Stranger, thou seemest no evil man nor foolish.”

 

Then she turned and ran out as a frightened bird runs.

 

This time the turn for astonishment came to Petronius, for he had not

expected to hear verses of Homer from the lips of a maiden of whose

barbarian extraction he had heard previously from Vinicius. Hence he

looked with an inquiring glance at Pomponia; but she could not give him

an answer, for she was looking at that moment, with a smile, at the

pride reflected on the face of her husband.

 

He was not able to conceal that pride. First, he had become attached to

Lygia as to his own daughter; and second, in spite of his old Roman

prejudices, which commanded him to thunder against Greek and the spread

of the language, he considered it as the summit of social polish. He

himself had never been able to learn it well; over this he suffered in

secret. He was glad, therefore, that an answer was given in the

language and poetry of Homer to this exquisite man both of fashion and

letters, who was ready to consider Plautius’s house as barbarian.

 

“We have in the house a pedagogue, a Greek,” said he, turning to

Petronius, “who teaches our boy, and the maiden overhears the lessons.

She is a wagtail yet, but a dear one, to which we have both grown

attached.”

 

Petronius looked through the branches of woodbine into the garden, and

at the three persons who were playing there. Vinicius had thrown aside

his toga, and, wearing only his tunic, was striking the ball, which

Lygia, standing opposite, with raised arms was trying to catch. The

maiden did not make a great impression on Petronius at the first glance;

she seemed to him too slender. But from the moment when he saw her more

nearly in the triclinium he thought to himself that Aurora might look

like her; and as a judge he understood that in her there was something

uncommon. He considered everything and estimated everything; hence her

face, rosy and clear, her fresh lips, as if set for a kiss, her eyes

blue as the azure of the sea, the alabaster whiteness of her forehead,

the wealth of her dark hair, with the reflection of amber or Corinthian

bronze gleaming in its folds, her slender neck, the divine slope of her

shoulders, the whole posture, flexible, slender, young with the youth of

May and of freshly opened flowers. The artist was roused in him, and

the worshipper of beauty, who felt that beneath a statue of that maiden

one might write “Spring.” All at once he remembered Chrysothemis, and

pure laughter seized him. Chrysothemis seemed to him, with golden powder

on her hair and darkened brows, to be fabulously faded,—something in

the nature of a yellowed rose-tree shedding its leaves. But still Rome

envied him that Chrysothemis. Then he recalled Poppæa; and that most

famous Poppæa also seemed to him soulless, a waxen mask. In that maiden

with Tanagrian outlines there was not only spring, but a radiant soul,

which shone through her rosy body as a flame through a lamp.

 

“Vinicius is right,” thought he, “and my Chrysothemis is old, old!—as

Troy!”

 

Then he turned to Pomponia Græcina, and, pointing to the garden, said,—

“I understand now, domina, why thou and thy husband prefer this house to

the Circus and to feasts on the Palatine.”

 

“Yes,” answered she, turning her eyes in the direction of little Aulus

and Lygia.

 

But the old general began to relate the history of the maiden, and what

he had heard years before from Atelius Hister about the Lygian people

who lived in the gloom of the North.

 

The three outside had finished playing ball, and for some time had been

walking along the sand of the garden, appearing against the dark

background of myrtles and cypresses like three white statues. Lygia held

little Aulus by the hand. After they had walked a while they sat on a

bench near the fish-pond, which occupied the middle of the garden. After

a time Aulus sprang up to frighten the fish in the transparent water,

but Vinicius continued the conversation begun during the walk.

 

“Yes,” said he, in a low, quivering voice, scarcely audible; “barely had

I cast aside the pretexta, when I was sent to the legions in Asia. I

had not become acquainted with the city, nor with life, nor with love.

I know a small bit of Anacreon by heart, and Horace; but I cannot like

Petronius quote verses, when reason is dumb from admiration and unable

to find its own words. While a youth I went to school to Musonius, who

told me that happiness consists in wishing what the gods wish, and

therefore depends on our will. I think, however, that it is something

else,—something greater and more precious, which depends not on the

will, for love only can give it. The gods themselves seek that

happiness; hence I too, O Lygia, who have not known love thus far,

follow in their footsteps. I also seek her who would give me happiness—”

 

He was silent—and for a time there was nothing to be heard save the

light plash of the water into which little Aulus was throwing pebbles to

frighten the fish; but after a while Vinicius began again in a voice

still softer and lower,—“But thou knowest of Vespasian’s son Titus?

They say that he had scarcely ceased to be a youth when he so loved

Berenice that grief almost drew the life out of him. So could I too

love, O Lygia! Riches, glory, power are mere smoke, vanity! The rich

man will find a richer than himself; the greater glory of another will

eclipse a man who is famous; a strong man will be conquered by a

stronger. But can Cæsar himself, can any god even, experience greater

delight or be happier than a simple mortal at the moment when at his

breast there is breathing another dear breast, or when he kisses beloved

lips? Hence love makes us equal to the gods, O Lygia.”

 

And she listened with alarm, with astonishment, and at the same time as

if she were listening to the sound of a Grecian flute or a cithara. It

seemed to her at moments that Vinicius was singing a kind of wonderful

song, which was instilling itself into her ears, moving the blood in

her, and penetrating her heart with a faintness, a fear, and a kind of

uncomprehended delight. It seemed to her also that he was telling

something which was in her before, but of which she could not give

account to herself. She felt that he was rousing in her something which

had been sleeping hitherto, and that in that moment a hazy dream was

changing into a form more and more definite, more pleasing, more

beautiful.

 

Meanwhile the sun had passed the Tiber long since, and had sunk low over

the Janiculum. On the motionless cypresses ruddy light was falling, and

the whole atmosphere was filled with it. Lygia raised on Vinicius her

blue eyes as if roused from sleep; and he, bending over her with a

prayer quivering in his eyes, seemed on a sudden, in the reflections of

evening, more beautiful than all men, than all Greek and Roman gods

whose statues she had seen on the façades of temples. And with his

fingers he clasped her arm lightly just above the wrist and asked,—

“Dost thou not divine what I say to thee, Lygia?”

 

“No,” whispered she as answer, in a voice so low that Vinicius barely

heard it.

 

But he did not believe her, and, drawing her hand toward him more

vigorously, he would have drawn it to his heart, which, under the

influence of desire roused by the marvellous maiden, was beating like a

hammer, and would have addressed burning words to her directly had not

old Aulus appeared on a path set in a frame of myrtles, who said, while

approaching them,—“The sun is setting; so beware of the evening

coolness, and do not trifle with Libitina.”

 

“No,” answered Vinicius; “I have not put on my toga yet, and I do not

feel the cold.”

 

“But see, barely half the sun’s shield is looking from behind the hill.

That is a sweet climate of Sicily, where people gather on the square

before sunset and take farewell of disappearing Phœbus with a choral

song.”

 

And, forgetting that a moment earlier he had warned them against

Libitina, he began to tell about Sicily, where he had estates and large

cultivated fields which he loved. He stated also that it had come to

his mind more than once to remove to Sicily, and live out his life there

in quietness. “He whose head winters have whitened has bad enough of

hoar frost. Leaves are not falling from the trees yet, and the sky

smiles on the city lovingly; but when the grapevines grow yellow-leaved,

when snow falls on the Alban hills, and the gods visit the Campania with

piercing wind, who knows but I may remove with my entire household to my

quiet country-seat?”

 

“Wouldst thou leave Rome?” inquired Vinicius, with sudden alarm.

 

“I have wished to do so this long time, for it is quieter in Sicily and

safer.”

 

And again he fell to praising his gardens, his herds, his house hidden

in green, and the hills grown over with thyme and savory, among which

were swarms of buzzing bees. But Vinicius paid no heed to that bucolic

note; and from thinking only of this, that he might lose Lygia, he

looked toward Petronius as if expecting salvation from him alone.

 

Meanwhile Petronius, sitting near Pomponia, was admiring the view of the

setting sun, the garden, and the people standing near the fish-pond.

Their white garments on the dark background of the myrtles gleamed like

gold from the evening rays. On the sky the evening light had begun to

assume purple and violet hues, and to change like an opal. A strip of

the sky became lily-colored. The dark silhouettes of the cypresses grew

still more pronounced than during bright daylight. In the people, in

the trees, in the whole garden there reigned an evening calm.

 

That calm struck Petronius, and it struck him especially in the people.

In the faces of Pomponia, old Aulus, their son, and