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

a bronze tube at his breast and rolls of paper in the tube.

“Dost wish to listen?” asked Petronius.

“If it is thy creation, gladly!” answered the young tribune; “if not, I prefer conversation. Poets seize people at present on every street corner.”

“Of course they do. Thou wilt not pass any basilica, bath, library, or bookshop without seeing a poet gesticulating like a monkey. Agrippa, on coming here from the East, mistook them for madmen. And it is just such a time now. Caesar writes verses; hence all follow in his steps. Only it is not permitted to write better verses than Caesar, and for that reason I fear a little for Lucan. But I write prose, with which, however, I do not honor myself or others. What the lector has to read are codicilli of that poor Fabricius Veiento.”

“Why ‘poor’?”

“Because it has been communicated to him that he must dwell in Odessa and not return to his domestic hearth till he receives a new command. That Odyssey will be easier for him than for Ulysses, since his wife is no Penelope. I need not tell thee, for that matter, that he acted stupidly. But here no one takes things otherwise than superficially. His is rather a wretched and dull little book, which people have begun to read passionately only when the author is banished. Now one hears on every side, ‘Scandala! scandala!’ and it may be that Veiento invented some things; but I, who know the city, know our patres and our women, assure thee that it is all paler than reality. Meanwhile every man is searching in the book⁠—for himself with alarm, for his acquaintances with delight. At the bookshop of Avirnus a hundred copyists are writing at dictation, and its success is assured.”

“Are not thy affairs in it?”

“They are; but the author is mistaken, for I am at once worse and less flat than he represents me. Seest thou we have lost long since the feeling of what is worthy or unworthy⁠—and to me even it seems that in real truth there is no difference between them, though Seneca, Musonius, and Trasca pretend that they see it. To me it is all one! By Hercules, I say what I think! I have preserved loftiness, however, because I know what is deformed and what is beautiful; but our poet, Bronzebeard, for example, the charioteer, the singer, the actor, does not understand this.”

“I am sorry, however, for Fabricius! He is a good companion.”

“Vanity ruined the man. Everyone suspected him, no one knew certainly; but he could not contain himself, and told the secret on all sides in confidence. Hast heard the history of Rufinus?”

“No.”

“Then come to the frigidarium to cool; there I will tell thee.”

They passed to the frigidarium, in the middle of which played a fountain of bright rose-color, emitting the odor of violets. There they sat in niches which were covered with velvet, and began to cool themselves. Silence reigned for a time. Vinicius looked awhile thoughtfully at a bronze faun which, bending over the arm of a nymph, was seeking her lips eagerly with his lips.

“He is right,” said the young man. “That is what is best in life.”

“More or less! But besides this thou lovest war, for which I have no liking, since under tents one’s fingernails break and cease to be rosy. For that matter, every man has his preferences. Bronzebeard loves song, especially his own; and old Scaurus his Corinthian vase, which stands near his bed at night, and which he kisses when he cannot sleep. He has kissed the edge off already. Tell me, dost thou not write verses?”

“No; I have never composed a single hexameter.”

“And dost thou not play on the lute and sing?”

“No.”

“And dost thou drive a chariot?”

“I tried once in Antioch, but unsuccessfully.”

“Then I am at rest concerning thee. And to what party in the hippodrome dost thou belong?”

“To the Greens.”

“Now I am perfectly at rest, especially since thou hast a large property indeed, though thou art not so rich as Pallas or Seneca. For seest thou, with us at present it is well to write verses, to sing to a lute, to declaim, and to compete in the Circus; but better, and especially safer, not to write verses, not to play, not to sing, and not to compete in the Circus. Best of all, is it to know how to admire when Bronzebeard admires. Thou art a comely young man; hence Poppaea may fall in love with thee. This is thy only peril. But no, she is too experienced; she cares for something else. She has had enough of love with her two husbands; with the third she has other views. Dost thou know that that stupid Otho loves her yet to distraction? He walks on the cliffs of Spain, and sighs; he has so lost his former habits, and so ceased to care for his person, that three hours each day suffice him to dress his hair. Who could have expected this of Otho?”

“I understand him,” answered Vinicius; “but in his place I should have done something else.”

“What, namely?”

“I should have enrolled faithful legions of mountaineers of that country. They are good soldiers⁠—those Iberians.”

“Vinicius! Vinicius! I almost wish to tell thee that thou wouldst not have been capable of that. And knowest why? Such things are done, but they are not mentioned even conditionally. As to me, in his place, I should have laughed at Poppaea, laughed at Bronzebeard, and formed for myself legions, not of Iberian men, however, but Iberian women. And what is more, I should have written epigrams which I should not have read to anyone⁠—not like that poor Rufinus.”

“Thou wert to tell me his history.”

“I will tell it in the unctorium.”

But in the unctorium the attention of Vinicius was turned to other objects; namely, to wonderful slave women who were waiting for the bathers. Two of them, Africans, resembling noble statues of ebony, began to anoint their