Books: Quo Vadis A Narrative of the Time of Nero

H >> Henryk Sienkiewicz >> Quo Vadis A Narrative of the Time of Nero

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"I knew that I should see thee in Caesar's house," continued he;
"but still, when I saw thee, such delight shook my whole soul, as if
a happiness entirely unexpected had met me."

Lygia, having recovered herself and feeling that in that throng and
in that house he was the only being who was near to her, began to
converse with him, and ask about everything which she did not
understand and which filled her with fear. Whence did he know
that he would find her in Caesar's house? Why is she there? Why
did Ciesar take her from Pomponia? She is full of fear where she
is, and wishes to return to Pomponia. She would die from alarm
and grief were it not for the hope that Petronius and he will
intercede for her before Caesar.

Vinicius explained that he learned from Aulus himself that she had
been taken. Why she is there, he knows not. Caesar gives account
to no one of his orders and commands But let her not fear. He,
Vinicius, is near her and will stay near her. He would rather lose
his eyes than not see her; he would rather lose his life than desert
her. She is his soul, and hence he will guard her as his soul. In his
house he will build to her, as to a divinity, an altar on which he
will offer myrrh and aloes, and in spring saffron and
apple-blossoms; and since she has a dread of Caesar's house, he
promises that she shall not stay in it.

And though he spoke evasively and at times invented, truth was to
be felt in his voice, because his feelings were real. Genuine pity
possessed him, too, and her words went to his soul so thoroughly
that when she began to thank him and assure him that Pomponia
would love him for his goodness, and that she herself would be
grateful to him all her life, he could not master his emotion, and it
seemed to him that he would never be able in life to resist her
prayer. The heart began to melt in him. Her beauty intoxicated his
senses, and he desired her; but at the same time he felt that she
was very dear to him, and that in truth he might do homage to her,
as to a divinity; he felt also irresistible need of speaking of her
beauty and of his own homage. As the noise at the feast increased,
he drew nearer to her, whispered kind, sweet words flowing from
the depth of his soul, words as resonant as music and intoxicating
as wine.

And he intoxicated her. Amid those strange people he seemed to
her ever nearer, ever dearer, altogether true, and devoted with his
whole soul. He pacified her; he promised to rescue her from the
house of Caesar; he promised not to desert her, and said that he
would serve her. Besides, he had spoken before at Aulus's only in
general about love and the happiness which it can give; but now he
said directly that he loved her, and that she was dear and most
precious to him. Lygia heard such words from a man's lips for the
first time; and as she heard them it seemed to her that something
was wakening in her as from a sleep, that some species of
happiness was embracing her in which immense delight was
mingled with immense alarm. Her cheeks began to burn, her heart
to beat, her mouth opened as in wonder. She was seized with fear
because she was listening to such things, still she did not wish for
any cause on earth to lose one word. At moments she dropped her
eyes; then again she raised her clear glance to Vinicius, timid and
also inquiring, as if she wished to say to him, "Speak on!" The
sound of the music, the odor of flowers and of Arabian perfumes,
began to daze her. In Rome it was the custom to recline at
banquets, but at home Lygia occupied a place between Pomponia
and little Aulus. Now Vinicius was reclining near her, youthful,
immense, in love, burning; and she, feeling the heat that issued
from him, felt both delight and shame. A kind of sweet weakness,
a kind of faintness and forgetfulness seized her; it was as if
drowsiness tortured her.

But her nearness to him began to act on Vinicius also. His nostrils
dilated, like those of an Eastern steed. The beating of his heart
with unusual throb was evident under his scarlet tunic; his
breathing grew short, and the expressions that fell from his lips
were broken. For the first time, too, he was so near her. His
thoughts grew disturbed; he felt a flame in his veins which he tried
in vain to quench with wine. Not wine, but her marvellous face,
her bare arms, her maiden breast heaving under the golden tunic,
and her form hidden in the white folds of the peplus, intoxicated
him more and more. Finally, he seized her arm above the wrist, as
he had done once at Aulus's, and drawing her toward him
whispered, with trembling lips, -- "I love thee, Callina, -- divine
one."

"Let me go, Marcus," said Lygia.

But he continued, his eyes mist-covered, "Love me, my goddess!"

But at that moment was heard the voice of Acte, who was reclining
on the other side of Lygia.

"Caesar is looking at you both."

Vinicius was carried away by sudden anger at Caesar and at Acre.
Her words had broken the charm of his intoxication. To the young
man even a friendly voice would have seemed repulsive at such a
moment, but he judged that Acte wished purposely to interrupt his
conversation with Lygia. So, raising his head and looking over the
shoulder of Lygia at the young freed-woman, he said with malice:

"The hour has passed, Acte, when thou didst recline near Caesar's
side at banquets, and they say that blindness is threatening thee;
how then canst thou see him?"

But she answered as if in sadness: "Still I see him. He, too, has
short sight, and is looking at thee through an emerald."

Everything that Nero did roused attention, even in those nearest
him; hence Vinicius was alarmed. He regained self-control, and
began imperceptibly to look toward Caesar. Lygia, who,
embarrassed at the beginning of the banquet, had seen Nero as in a
mist, and afterward, occupied by the presence and conversation of
Vinicius, had not looked at him at all, turned to him eyes at once
curious and terrified.

Acte spoke truly. Caesar had bent over the table, half-closed one
eye, and holding before the other a round polished emerald, which
he used, was looking at them. For a moment his glance met Lygia's
eyes, and the heart of the maiden was straitened with terror. When
still a child on Aulus's Sicilian estate, an old Egyptian slave had
told her of dragons which occupied dens in the mountains, and it
seemed to her now that all at once the greenish eye of such a
monster was gazing at her. She caught at Vinicius's hand as a
frightened child would, and disconnected, quick impressions
pressed into her head:

Was not that he, the terrible, the all-powerful? She had not seen
him hitherto, and she thought that he looked differently. She had
imagined some kind of ghastly face, with malignity petrified in its
features; now she saw a great head, fixed on a thick neck, terrible,
it is true, but almost ridiculous, for from a distance it resembled
the head of a child. A tunic of amethyst color, f orbidden to
ordinary mortals, cast a bluish tinge on his broad and short face.
He had dark hair, dressed, in the fashion introduced by Otho, in
four curls.

He had no beard, because he had sacrified it recently to Jove, -- for
which all Rome gave him thanks, though people whispered to each
other that he had sacrificed it because his beard, like that of his
whole family, was red. In his forehead, projecting strongly above
his brows, there remained something Olympian. In his contracted
brows the consciousness of supreme power was evident; but under
that forehead of a demigod was the face of a monkey, a drunkard,
and a comedian, -- vain, full of changing desires, swollen with fat,
notwithstanding his youth; besides, it was sickly and foul. To
Lygia he seemed ominous, but above all repulsive.

After a while he laid down the emerald and ceased to look at her.
Then she saw his prominent blue eyes, blinking before the excess
of light, glassy, without thought, resembling the eyes of the dead.

"Is that the hostage with whom Vinicius is in love?" asked he,
turning to Petronius.

"That is she," answered Petronius.

"What are her people called?"

"The Lygians."

"Does Vinicius think her beautiful?"

"Array a rotten olive trunk in the peplus of a woman, and Vinicius
will declare it beautiful. But on thy countenance, incomparable
judge, I read her sentence already. Thou hast no need to pronounce
it! The sentence is true: she is too dry, thin, a mere blossom on a
slender stalk; and thou, O divine aesthete, esteemest the stalk in a
woman. Thrice and four times art thou right! The face alone does
not signify. I have learned much in thy company, but even now I
have not a perfect cast of the eye. But I am ready to lay a wager
with Tullius Senecio concerning his mistress, that, although at a
feast, when all are reclining, it is difficult to judge the whole form,
thou hast said in thy mind already, 'Too narrow in the hips.'"

"Too narrow in the hips," answered Nero, blinking.

On Petronius's lips appeared a scarcely perceptible smile; but
Tullius Senecio, who till that moment was occupied in conversing
with Vestinius, or rather in reviling dreams, while Vestinius
believed in them, turned to Petronius, and though he had not the
least idea touching that of which they were talking, he said, --
"Thou art mistaken! I hold with Casar."

"Very well," answered Petronius. "I have just maintained that thou
hast a glimmer of understanding, but Caesar insists that thou art an
ass pure and simple."

"Habet!" said Caesar, laughing, and turning down the thumb, as
was done in the Circus, in sign that the gladiator had received a
blow and was to be finished.

But Vestinius, thinking that the question was of dreams,
exclaimed, -- "But I believe in dreams, and Seneca told me on a
time that he believes too." "Last night I dreamt that I had become a
vestal virgin," said Calvia Crispinilla, bending over the table.

At this Nero clapped his hands, other followed, and in a moment
clapping of hands was heard all around, -- for Crispinilla had been
divorced a number of times, and was known throughout Rome for
her fabulous debauchery.

But she, not disconcerted in the least, said, -- "Well! They are all
old and ugly. Rubria alone has a human semblance, and so there
would be two of us, though Rubria gets freckles in summer." "But
admit, purest Calvia," said Petronius, "that thou couldst become a
vestal only in dreams." "But if Caesar commanded?"

"I should believe that even the most impossible dreams might
come true."

"But they do come true," said Vestinius. "I understand those who
do not believe in the gods, but how is it possible not to believe in
dreams?"

"But predictions?" inquired Nero. "It was predicted once to me,
that Rome would cease to exist, and that I should rule the whole
Orient."

"Predictions and dreams are connected," said Vestinius. "Once a
certain proconsul, a great disbeliever, sent a slave to the temple of
Mopsus with a sealed letter which he would not let any one open;
he did this to try if the god could answer the question contained in
the letter. The slave slept a night in the temple to have a prophetic
dream; he returned then and said: 'I saw a youth in my dreams; he
was as bright as the sun, and spoke only one word, "Black."' The
proconsul, when he heard this, grew pale, and turning to his guests,
disbelievers like himself, said: 'Do ye know what was in the
letter?'" Here Vestinius stopped, and, raising his goblet with wine,
began to drink.

"What was in the letter?" asked Senecio.

"In the letter was the question: 'What is the color of the bull which
I am to sacrifice: white or black?'"

But the interest roused by the narrative was interrupted by Vitelius,
who, drunk when he came to the feast, burst forth on a sudden and
without cause in senseless laughter.

"What is that keg of tallow laughing at?" asked Nero.

"Laughter distinguishes men from animals," said Petronius, "and
he has no other proof that he is not a wild boar."

Vitelius stopped half-way in his laughter, and smacking his lips,
shining from fat and sauces, looked at those present with as much
astonishment as if he had never seen them before; then he raised
his two hands, which were like cushions, and said in a hoarse
voice, -- "The ring of a knight has fallen from my finger, and it was
inherited from my father."

"Who was a tailor," added Nero.

But Vitelius burst forth again in unexpected laughter, and began to
search for his ring in the peplus of Calvia Crispinilla.

Hereupon Vestinius fell to imitating the cries of a frightened
woman. Nigidia, a friend of Calvia, -- a young widow with the face
of a child and the eyes of a wanton, -- said aloud, -- "He is seeking
what he has not lost."

"And which will be useless to him if he finds it," finished the poet
Lucan. The feast grew more animated. Crowds of slaves bore
around successive courses; from great vases filled with snow and
garlanded with ivy, smaller vessels with various kinds of wine
were brought forth unceasingly. All drank freely. On the guests,
roses fell from the ceiling at intervals.

Petronius entreated Nero to dignify the feast with his song before
the guests drank too deeply. A chorus of voices supported his
words, but Nero refused at first. It was not a question of courage
alone, he said, though that failed him always. The gods knew what
efforts every success cost him. He did not avoid them, however,
for it was needful to do sonlething for art; and besides, if Apollo
had gifted him with a certain voice, it was not proper to let divine
gifts be wasted. He understood, even, that it was his duty to the
State not to let them be wasted. But that day he was really hoarse.
In the night he had placed leaden weights on his chest, but that had
not helped in any way. He was thinking even to go to Antium, to
breathe the sea air.

Lucan implored him in the name of art and humanity. All knew
that the divine poet and singer had composed a new hymn to
Venus, compared with which Lucretius's hymn was as the howl of
a yearling wolf. Let that feast be a genuine feast. So kind a ruler
should not cause such tortures to his subjects. "Be not cruel, O
Caesar!"

"Be not cruel!" repeated all who were sitting near.

Nero spread his hands in sign that he had to yield. All faces
assumed then an expression of gratitude, and all eyes were turned
to him; but he gave command first to announce to Poppan that he
would sing; he informed those present that she had not come to the
feast, because she did not feel in good health; but since no
medicine gave her such relief as his singing, he would be sorry to
deprive her of this opportunity.

In fact, Poppae came soon. Hitherto she had ruled Nero as if he
had been her subject, but she knew that when his vanity as a
singer, a charioteer, or a poet was involved, there was danger in
provoking it. She came in therefore, beautiful as a divinity,
arrayed, like Nero, in robes of amethyst color, and wearing a
necklace of immense pearls, stolen on a time from Massinissa; she
was golden-haired, sweet, and though divorced from two husbands
she had the face and the look of a virgin.

She was greeted with shouts, and the appellation "Divine
Augusta." Lygia had never seen any one so beautiful, and she
could not believe her own eyes, for she knew that Popp~ra Sabina
was one of the vilest women on earth. She knew from Pomponia
that she had brought Caesar to murder his mother and his wife; she
knew her from accounts given by Aulus's guests and the servants;
she had heard that statues to her had been thrown down at night in
the city; she had heard of inscriptions, the writers of which had
been condemned to severest punishment, but which still appeared
on the city walls every morning. Yet at sight of the notorious
Poppxa, considered by the confessors of Christ as crime and evil
incarnate, it seemed to her that angels or spirits of heaven might
look like her. She was unable simply to take her eyes from
Poppae; and from her lips was wrested involuntarily the question,
-- "Ah, Marcus, can it be possible?"

But he, roused by wine, and as it were impatient that so many
things had scattered her attention, and taken her from him and his
words, said, -- "Yes, she is beautiful, but thou art a hundred times
more beautiful. Thou dost not know thyself, or thou wouldst be in
love with thyself, as Narcissus was; she bathes in asses' milk, but
Venus bathed thee in her own milk. Thou dost not know thyself,
Ocelle mi! Look not at her. Turn thy eyes to me, Ocelle mi! Touch
this goblet of wine with thy lips, and I will put mine on the same
place."

And he pushed up nearer and nearer, and she began to withdraw
toward Acte. But at that moment silence was enjoined because
Caesar had risen. The singer Diodorus had given him a lute of the
kind called delta; another singer named Terpnos, who had to
accompany him in playing, approached with an instrument called
the nablium. Nero, resting the delta on the table, raised his eyes;
and for a moment silence reigned in the triclinium, broken only by
a rustle, as roses fell from the ceiling.

Then he began to chant, or rather to declaim, singingly and
rhythmically, to the accompaniment of the two lutes, his own
hymn to Venus. Neither the voice, though somewhat injured, nor
the verses were bad, so that reproaches of conscience took
possession of Lygia again; for the hymn, though glorifying the
impure pagan Venus, seemed to her more than beautiful, and
Caesar himself, with a laurel crown on his head and uplifted eyes,
nobler, much less terrible, and less repulsive than at the beginning
of the feast.

The guests answered with a thunder of applause. Cries of, "Oh,
heavenly voice!" were heard round about; some of the women
raised their hands, and held them thus, as a sign of delight, even
after the end of the hymn; others wiped their tearful eyes; the
whole hall was seething as in a beehive. Poppae, bending her
golden-haired head, raised Nero's hand to her lips, and held it long
in silence. Pythagoras, a young Greek of marvellous beauty, -- the
same to whom later the half-insane Nero commanded the flamens
to marry him, with the observance of all rites, -- knelt now at his
feet.

But Nero looked carefully at Petronius, whose praises were desired
by him always before every other, and who said, -- "If it is a
question of music, Orpheus must at this moment be as yellow from
envy as Lucan, who is here present; and as to the verses, I am sorry
that they are not worse; if they were I might find proper words to
praise them."

Lucan did not take the mention of envy evil of him; on the
contrary, he looked at Petronius with gratitude, and, affecting
ill-humor, began to murmur, -- "Cursed fate, which commanded
me to live contemporary with such a poet. One might have a place
in the memory of man, and on Parnassus; but now one will
quench, as a candle in sunlight."

Petronius, who had an amazing memory, began to repeat extracts
from the hymn and cite single verses, exalt, and analyze the more
beautiful expressions. Lucan, forgetting as it were his envy before
the charm of the poetry, joined his ecstasy to Petronius's words. On
Nero's face were reflected delight and fathomless vanity, not only
nearing stupidity, but reaching it perfectly. He indicated to them
verses which he considered the most beautiful; and finally he
began to comfort Lucan, and tell him not to lose heart, for though
whatever a man is born that he is, the honor which people give
Jove does not exclude respect for other divinities.

Then he rose to conduct Poppae, who, being really in ill health,
wished to withdraw. But he commanded the guests who remained
to occupy their places anew, and promised to return, In fact, he
returned a little later, to stupefy himself with the smoke of incense,
and gaze at further spectacles which he himself, Petronius, or
Tigellinus had prepared for the feast.

Again verses were read or dialogues listened to in which
extravagance took the place of wit. After that Paris, the celebrated
mime, represented the adventures of Io, the daughter of Inachus.
To the guests, and especially to Lygia, unaccustomed to such
scenes, it seemed that they were gazing at miracles and
enchantment. Paris, with motions of his hands and body, was able
to express things apparently impossible in a dance. His hands
dimmed the air, creating a cloud, bright, living, quivering,
voluptuous, surrounding the half-fainting form of a maiden shaken
by a spasm of delight. That was a picture, nor a dance; an
expressive picture, disclosing the secrets of love, bewitching and
shameless; and when at the end of it Corybantes rushed in and
began a bacchic dance with girls of Syria to the sounds of cithara,
lutes, drums, and cymbals, -- a dance filled with wild shouts and
still wilder license,-- it seemed to Lygia that living fire was
burning her, and that a thunderbolt ought to strike that house, or
the ceiling fall on the heads of those feasting there.

But from the golden net fastened to the ceiling only roses fell, and
the now half-drunken Vinicius said to her, -- "I saw thee in the
house of Aulus, at the fountain. It was daylight, and thou didst
think that no one saw thee; but I saw thee. And I see thee thus yet,
though that peplus hides thee. Cast aside the peplus, like
Crispinilla. See, gods and men seek love. There is nothing in the
world but love. Lay thy head on my breast and close thy eyes."

The pulse beat oppressively in Lygia's hands and temples. A
feeling seized her that she was flying into some abyss, and that
Vinicius, who before had seemed so near and so trustworthy,
instead of saving was drawing her toward it. And she felt sorry for
him. She began again to dread the feast and him and herself. Some
voice, like that of Pomponia, was calling yet in her soul, "O Lygia,
save thyself!" But something told her also that it was too late; that
the one whom such a flame had embraced as that which had
embraced her, the one who had seen what was done at that feast
and whose heart had beaten as hers had on hearing the words of
Vinicius, the one through whom such a shiver had passed as had
passed through her when he approached, was lost beyond recovery.
She grew weak. It seemed at moments to her that she would faint,
and then something terrible would happen. She knew that, under
penalty of Caesar's anger, it was not permitted any one to rise till
Caesar rose; but even were that not the case, she had not strength
now to rise.

Meanwhile it was far to the end of the feast yet. Slaves brought
new courses, and filled the goblets unceasingly with wine; before
the table, on a platform open at one side, appeared two athletes to
give the guests a spectacle of wrestling.

They began the struggle at once, and the powerful bodies, shining
from olive oil, formed one mass; bones cracked in their iron arms,
and from their set jaws came an ominous gritting of teeth. At
moments was heard the quick, dull thump of their feet on the
platform strewn with saffron; again they were motionless, silent,
and it seemed to the spectators that they had before them a group
chiselled out of stone. Roman eyes followed with delight the
movement of tremendously exerted backs, thighs, and arms. But
the struggle was not too prolonged; for Croton, a master, and the
founder of a school of gladiators, did not pass in vain for the
strongest man in the empire. His opponent began to breathe more
and more quickly: next a rattle was heard in his throat; then his
face grew blue; finally he threw blood from his mouth and fell.

A thunder of applause greeted the end of the struggle, and Croton,
resting his foot on the breast of his opponent, crossed his gigantic
arms on his breast, and cast the eyes of a victor around the hail.

Next appeared men who mimicked beasts and their voices,
ball-players and buffoons. Only a few persons looked at them,
however, since wine had darkened the eyes of the audience. The
feast passed by degrees into a drunken revel and a dissolute orgy.
The Syrian damsels, who appeared at first in the bacchic dance,
mingled now with the guests. The music changed into a disordered
and wild outburst of citharas, lutes, Armenian cymbals, Egyptian
sistra, trumpets, and horns. As some of the guests wished to talk,
they shouted at the musicians to disappear. The air, filled with the
odor of flowers and the perfume of oils with which beautiful boys
had sprinkled the feet of the guests during the feast, permeated
with saffron and the exhalations of people, became stilling; lamps
burned with a dim flame; the wreaths dropped side-wise on the
heads of guests; faces grew pale and were covered with sweat.
Vitelius rolled under the table. Nigidia, stripping herself to the
waist, dropped her drunken childlike head on the breast of Lucan,
who, drunk in like degree, fell to blowing the golden powder from
her hair, and raising his eyes with immense delight. Vestinius, with
the stubbornness of intoxication, repeated for the tenth time the
answer of Mopsus to the sealed letter of the proconsul. Tullius,
who reviled the gods, said, with a drawling voice broken by
hiccoughs, -- "If the spheros of Xenophanes is round, then
consider, such a god might be pushed along before one with the
foot, like a barrel."