Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (read after .TXT) 📗

“I have always been sure that there are witches. Dost thou not dream of something?”

“No, for I do not sleep. I did not think that they would be punished thus.”

“Art thou sorry for them?”

“Why do ye shed so much blood? Hast heard what that one said from the cross? Woe to us!”

“I heard,” answered Vestinius, in a low voice. “But they are incendiaries.”

“Not true!”

“And enemies of the human race.”

“Not true!”

“And poisoners of water.”

“Not true!”

“And murderers of children.”

“Not true!”

“How?” inquired Vestinius, with astonishment. “Thou hast said so thyself, and given them into the hands of Tigellinus.”

“Therefore night has surrounded me, and death is coming toward me. At times it seems to me that I am dead already, and ye also.”

“No! it is they who are dying; we are alive. But tell me, what do they see when they are dying?”

“Christ.”

“That is their god. Is he a mighty god?”

But Chilo answered with a question⁠—

“What kind of torches are to burn in the gardens? Hast thou heard what Caesar said?”

“I heard, and I know. Those torches are called Sarmentitii and Semaxii. They are made by arraying men in painful tunics, steeped in pitch, and binding them to pillars, to which fire is set afterward. May their god not send misfortune on the city. Semaxii! that is a dreadful punishment!”

“I would rather see it, for there will not be blood,” answered Chilo. “Command a slave to hold the goblet to my mouth. I wish to drink, but I spill the wine; my hand trembles from age.”

Others also were speaking of the Christians. Old Domitius Afer reviled them.

“There is such a multitude of them,” said he, “that they might raise a civil war; and, remember, there were fears lest they might arm. But they die like sheep.”

“Let them try to die otherwise!” said Tigellinus.

To this Petronius answered, “Ye deceive yourselves. They are arming.”

“With what?”

“With patience.”

“That is a new kind of weapon.”

“True. But can ye say that they die like common criminals? No! They die as if the criminals were those who condemned them to death⁠—that is, we and the whole Roman people.”

“What raving!” said Tigellinus.

“Hic Abdera!”24 answered Petronius.

But others, struck by the justice of his remark, began to look at one another with astonishment, and repeat⁠—

“True! there is something peculiar and strange in their death.”

“I tell you that they see their divinity!” cried Vestinius, from one side. Thereupon a number of Augustians turned to Chilo⁠—

“Hai, old man, thou knowest them well; tell us what they see.”

The Greek spat out wine on his tunic, and answered⁠—

“The resurrection.” And he began to tremble so that the guests sitting nearer burst into loud laughter.

For some time Vinicius had spent his nights away from home. It occurred to Petronius that perhaps he had formed a new plan, and was working to liberate Lygia from the Esquiline dungeon; he did not wish, however, to inquire about anything, lest he might bring misfortune to the work. This skeptical exquisite had become in a certain sense superstitious. He had failed to snatch Lygia from the Mamertine prison, hence had ceased to believe in his own star.

Besides, he did not count this time on a favorable outcome for the efforts of Vinicius. The Esquiline prison, formed in a hurry from the cellars of houses thrown down to stop the fire, was not, it is true, so terrible as the old Tullianum near the Capitol, but it was a hundred times better guarded. Petronius understood perfectly that Lygia had been taken there only to escape death and not escape the amphitheater. He could understand at once that for this very reason they were guarding her as a man guards the eye in his head.

“Evidently,” said he to himself, “Caesar and Tigellinus have reserved her for some special spectacle, more dreadful than all others, and Vinicius is more likely to perish than rescue her.”

Vinicius, too, had lost hope of being able to free Lygia. Christ alone could do that. The young tribune now thought only of seeing her in prison.

For some time the knowledge that Nazarius had penetrated the Mamertine prison as a corpse-bearer had given him no peace; hence he resolved to try that method also.

The overseer of the “Putrid Pits,” who had been bribed for an immense sum of money, admitted him at last among servants whom he sent nightly to prisons for corpses. The danger that Vinicius might be recognized was really small. He was preserved from it by night, the dress of a slave, and the defective illumination of the prison. Besides, into whose head could it enter that a patrician, the grandson of one consul, the son of another, could be found among servants, corpse-bearers, exposed to the miasma of prisons and the “Putrid Pits”? And he began work to which men were forced only by slavery or the direst need.

When the desired evening came, he girded his loins gladly, covered his head with a cloth steeped in turpentine, and with throbbing heart betook himself, with a crowd of others, to the Esquiline.

The pretorian guards made no trouble, for all had brought proper tesserae, which the centurion examined by the light of a lantern. After a while the great iron doors opened before them, and they entered.

Vinicius saw an extensive vaulted cellar, from which they passed to a series of others. Dim tapers illuminated the interior of each, which was filled with people. Some of these were lying at the walls sunk in sleep, or dead, perhaps. Others surrounded large vessels of water, standing in the middle, out of which they drank as people tormented with fever; others were sitting on the grounds, their elbows on their knees, their heads on their palms; here and there children were sleeping, nestled up to their mothers. Groans, loud hurried breathing of the sick, weeping, whispered prayers, hymns in an undertone, the curses of overseers were heard round about it. In this dungeon was the odor of crowds and corpses.