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

Petronius only said, in Nero’s presence at some supper, that he saw a hostage of the Lygians at Aulus’s, and Nero, who is jealous of his own power, demanded thee only because hostages belong to Caesar. But he does not like Aulus and Pomponia. No! it does not seem to me that if Petronius wished to take thee from Aulus he would use such a method. I do not know whether Petronius is better than others of Caesar’s court, but he is different. Maybe too thou wilt find someone else who would be willing to intercede for thee. Hast thou not seen at Aulus’s someone who is near Caesar?”

“I have seen Vespasian and Titus.”

“Caesar does not like them.”

“And Seneca.”

“If Seneca advised something, that would be enough to make Nero act otherwise.”

The bright face of Lygia was covered with a blush. “And Vinicius⁠—”

“I do not know him.”

“He is a relative of Petronius, and returned not long since from Armenia.”

“Dost thou think that Nero likes him?”

“All like Vinicius.”

“And would he intercede for thee?”

“He would.”

Acte smiled tenderly, and said, “Then thou wilt see him surely at the feast. Thou must be there, first, because thou must⁠—only such a child as thou could think otherwise. Second, if thou wish to return to the house of Aulus, thou wilt find means of beseeching Petronius and Vinicius to gain for thee by their influence the right to return. If they were here, both would tell thee as I do, that it would be madness and ruin to try resistance. Caesar might not notice thy absence, it is true; but if he noticed it and thought that thou hadst the daring to oppose his will, here would be no salvation for thee. Go, Lygia! Dost thou hear the noise in the palace? The sun is near setting; guests will begin to arrive soon.”

“Thou art right,” answered Lygia, “and I will follow thy advice.”

How much desire to see Vinicius and Petronius there was in this resolve, how much of woman’s curiosity there was to see such a feast once in life, and to see at it Caesar, the court, the renowned Poppaea and other beauties, and all that unheard-of splendor, of which wonders were narrated in Rome, Lygia could not give account to herself of a certainty. But Acte was right, and Lygia felt this distinctly. There was need to go; therefore, when necessity and simple reason supported the hidden temptation, she ceased to hesitate.

Acte conducted her to her own unctorium to anoint and dress her; and though there was no lack of slave women in Caesar’s house, and Acte had enough of them for her personal service, still, through sympathy for the maiden whose beauty and innocence had caught her heart, she resolved to dress her herself. It became clear at once that in the young Grecian, in spite of her sadness and her perusal of the letters of Paul of Tarsus, there was yet much of the ancient Hellenic spirit, to which physical beauty spoke with more eloquence than aught else on earth. When she had undressed Lygia, she could not restrain an exclamation of wonder at sight of her form, at once slender and full, created, as it were, from pearl and roses; and stepping back a few paces, she looked with delight on that matchless, springlike form.

“Lygia,” exclaimed she at last, “thou art a hundred times more beautiful than Poppaea!”

But, reared in the strict house of Pomponia, where modesty was observed, even when women were by themselves, the maiden, wonderful as a wonderful dream, harmonious as a work of Praxiteles or as a song, stood alarmed, blushing from modesty, with knees pressed together, with her hands on her bosom, and downcast eyes. At last, raising her arms with sudden movement, she removed the pins which held her hair, and in one moment, with one shake of her head, she covered herself with it as with a mantle.

Acte, approaching her and touching her dark tresses, said⁠—

“Oh, what hair thou hast! I will not sprinkle golden powder on it; it gleams of itself in one place and another with gold, where it waves. I will add, perhaps, barely a sprinkle here and there; but lightly, lightly, as if a sun ray had freshened it. Wonderful must thy Lygian country be where such maidens are born!

“I do not remember it,” answered Lygia; “but Ursus has told me that with us it is forests, forests, and forests.”

“But flowers bloom in those forests,” said Acte, dipping her hand in a vase filled with verbena, and moistening Lygia’s hair with it. When she had finished this work, Acte anointed her body lightly with odoriferous oils from Arabia, and then dressed her in a soft gold-colored tunic without sleeves, over which was to be put a snow-white peplus. But since she had to dress Lygia’s hair first, she put on her meanwhile a kind of roomy dress called synthesis, and, seating her in an armchair, gave her for a time into the hands of slave women, so as to stand at a distance herself and follow the hairdressing. Two other slave women put on Lygia’s feet white sandals, embroidered with purple, fastening them to her alabaster ankles with golden lacings drawn crosswise. When at last the hairdressing was finished, they put a peplus on her in very beautiful, light folds; then Acte fastened pearls to her neck, and touching her hair at the folds with gold dust, gave command to the women to dress her, following Lygia with delighted eyes meanwhile.

But she was ready soon; and when the first litters began to appear before the main gate, both entered the side portico from which were visible the chief entrance, the interior galleries, and the courtyard surrounded by a colonnade of Numidian marble.

Gradually people passed in greater and greater numbers under the lofty arch of the entrance, over which the splendid quadrigae of Lysias seemed to bear Apollo and Diana into space. Lygia’s eyes were struck by that magnificence, of