Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz [e book reader android .TXT] 📗

has passed, Acte, when thou didst recline near Cæsar’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 Cæsar. 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. Cæsar 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,

forbidden 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 æsthete, 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

Cæsar.”

 

“Very well,” answered Petronius. “I have just maintained that thou hast

a glimmer of understanding, but Cæsar insists that thou art an ass pure

and simple.”

 

“Habet!” said Cæsar, 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 Cæsar 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

something 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 Cæsar!”

 

“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 Poppæa 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, Poppæa 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 Poppæa Sabina was one of the vilest women on

earth. She knew from Pomponia that she had brought Cæsar 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

Poppæa, 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 Poppæa; 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