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

meeting, gave the military salute. While passing the pretorian camp, they heard thundering shouts in honor of Galba. Nero understood at last that the hour of death was near. Terror and reproaches of conscience seized him. He declared that he saw darkness in front of him in the form of a black cloud. From that cloud came forth faces in which he saw his mother, his wife, and his brother. His teeth were chattering from fright; still his soul of a comedian found a kind of charm in the horror of the moment. To be absolute lord of the earth and lose all things, seemed to him the height of tragedy; and faithful to himself, he played the first role to the end. A fever for quotations took possession of him, and a passionate wish that those present should preserve them for posterity. At moments he said that he wished to die, and called for Spiculus, the most skilled of all gladiators in killing. At moments he declaimed, “Mother, wife, father, call me to death!” Flashes of hope rose in him, however, from time to time⁠—hope vain and childish. He knew that he was going to death, and still he did not believe it.

They found the Porta Nomentana open. Going farther, they passed near Ostrianum, where Peter had taught and baptized. At daybreak they reached Phaon’s villa.

There the freedmen hid from him no longer the fact that it was time to die. He gave command then to dig a grave, and lay on the ground so that they might take accurate measurement. At sight of the earth thrown up, however, terror seized him. His fat face became pale, and on his forehead sweat stood like drops of dew in the morning. He delayed. In a voice at once abject and theatrical, he declared that the hour had not come yet; then he began again to quote. At last he begged them to burn his body. “What an artist is perishing!” repeated he, as if in amazement.

Meanwhile Phaon’s messenger arrived with the announcement that the Senate had issued the sentence that the “parricide” was to be punished according to ancient custom.

“What is the ancient custom?” asked Nero, with whitened lips.

“They will fix thy neck in a fork, flog thee to death, and hurl thy body into the Tiber,” answered Epaphroditus, abruptly.

Nero drew aside the robe from his breast.

“It is time, then!” said he, looking into the sky. And he repeated once more, “What an artist is perishing!”

At that moment the tramp of a horse was heard. That was the centurion coming with soldiers for the head of Ahenobarbus.

“Hurry!” cried the freedmen.

Nero placed the knife to his neck, but pushed it only timidly. It was clear that he would never have courage to thrust it in. Epaphroditus pushed his hand suddenly⁠—the knife sank to the handle. Nero’s eyes turned in his head, terrible, immense, frightened.

“I bring thee life!” cried the centurion, entering.

“Too late!” said Nero, with a hoarse voice; then he added⁠—

“Here is faithfulness!”

In a twinkle death seized his head. Blood from his heavy neck gushed in a dark stream on the flowers of the garden. His legs kicked the ground, and he died.

On the morrow the faithful Acte wrapped his body in costly stuffs, and burned him on a pile filled with perfumes.

And so Nero passed, as a whirlwind, as a storm, as a fire, as war or death passes; but the basilica of Peter rules till now, from the Vatican heights, the city, and the world.

Near the ancient Porta Capena stands to this day a little chapel with the inscription, somewhat worn: Quo Vadis, Domine?

Endnotes

Household servants. ↩

Nero’s name was originally L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. ↩

Here he is. ↩

The slayer of Caligula. ↩

Ιησούς Χριστός, Θεού Υιός, Σωτήρ (Iesous Christos, Theou Uios, Soter). ↩

ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthus), the Greek word for “fish.” ↩

Aedon turned into a nightingale. ↩

A man who labors with chained feet. ↩

“I came, I saw, I conquered.” ↩

“I came, I saw, I fled.” ↩

The matron who accompanies the bride and explains to her the duties of a wife. ↩

The inhabitants of Italy were freed from military service by Augustus, in consequence of which the so-called cohors Italica, stationed generally in Asia, was composed of volunteers. The pretorian guards, in so far as they were not composed of foreigners, were made up of volunteers. ↩

Yellow hair. ↩

In the time of the Caesars a legion was always 12,000 men. ↩

Of one husband. ↩

Buffoon. ↩

Actor. ↩

A robe with train, worn especially by tragic actors. ↩

The lowest part of the prison, lying entirely underground, with a single opening in the ceiling. Jugurtha died there of hunger. ↩

Morning games. ↩

“I seek not thee, I seek a fish;
Why flee from me O Gaul?”

↩

“Good! he has caught it!” ↩

“Christ reigns!” ↩

A proverbial expression meaning “The dullest of the dull” —⁠Note by the Author ↩

Death. ↩

“The city and the world!” ↩

Colophon

Quo Vadis
was published in 1895 by
Henryk Sienkiewicz.
It was translated from Polish in 1896 by
Jeremiah Curtin.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Matt Chan,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2001 by
David Reed and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Nero’s Torches,
a painting completed