Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz [e book reader android .TXT] 📗
- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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“Lord,” asked he, “how didst thou come, and hast thou come here to save
her?”
Vinicius rose, and struggled for a time with his emotion. “Show me the
means,” replied he.
“I thought that thou wouldst find them, lord. Only one method came to
my head—”
Here he turned toward the grating in the wall, as if in answer to
himself, and said,—
“In that way—but there are soldiers outside—”
“A hundred pretorians.”
“Then we cannot pass?”
“No!”
The Lygian rubbed his forehead, and asked again,—
“How didst thou enter?”
“I have a tessera from the overseer of the ‘Putrid Pits.’” Then Vinicius
stopped suddenly, as if some idea had flashed through his head.
“By the Passion of the Redeemer,” said he, in a hurried voice, “I will
stay here. Let her take my tessera; she can wrap her head in a cloth,
cover her shoulders with a mantle, and pass out. Among the slaves who
carry out corpses there are several youths not full grown; hence the
pretorians will not notice her, and once at the house of Petronius she
is safe.”
But the Lygian dropped his head on his breast, and said,—“She would not
consent, for she loves thee; besides, she is sick, and unable to stand
alone. If thou and the noble Petronius cannot save her from prison, who
can?” said he, after a while.
“Christ alone.”
Then both were silent.
“Christ could save all Christians,” thought the Lygian, in his simple
heart; “but since He does not save them, it is clear that the hour of
torture and death has come.”
He accepted it for himself, but was grieved to the depth of his soul for
that child who had grown up in his arms, and whom he loved beyond life.
Vinicius knelt again near Lygia. Through the grating in the wall
moonbeams came in, and gave better light than the one candle burning yet
over the entrance. Lygia opened her eyes now, and said, placing her
feverish hand on the arm of Vinicius,
“I see thee; I knew that thou wouldst come.”
He seized her hands, pressed them to his forehead and his heart, raised
her somewhat, and held her to his breast.
“I have come, dearest. May Christ guard and free thee, beloved Lygia!”
He could say no more, for the heart began to whine in his breast from
pain and love, and he would not show pain in her presence.
“I am sick, Marcus,” said Lygia, “and I must die either on the arena or
here in prison—I have prayed to see thee before death; thou hast come,
—Christ has heard me.”—
Unable to utter a word yet, he pressed her to his bosom, and she
continued,—
“I saw thee through the window in the Tullianum. I saw that thou hadst
the wish to come to me. Now the Redeemer has given me a moment of
consciousness, so that we may take farewell of each other. I am going
to Him, Marcus, but I love thee, and shall love always.”
Vinicius conquered himself; he stifled his pain and began to speak in a
voice which he tried to make calm,—
“No, dear Lygia, thou wilt not die. The Apostle commanded me to
believe, and he promised to pray for thee; he knew Christ,—Christ loved
him and will not refuse him. Hadst thou to die, Peter would not have
commanded me to be confident; but he said, ‘Have confidence!’—No,
Lygia! Christ will have mercy. He does not wish thy death. He will
not permit it. I Swear to thee by the name of the Redeemer that Peter
is praying for thee.”
Silence followed. The one candle hanging above the entrance went out,
but moonlight entered through the whole opening. In the opposite corner
of the cellar a child whined and was silent. From outside came the
voices of pretorians, who, after watching their turn out, were playing
under the wall at script duodecim.
“O Marcus,” said Lygia, “Christ Himself called to the Father, ‘Remove
this bitter cup from Me’; still He drank it. Christ Himself died on the
cross, and thousands are perishing for His sake. Why, then, should He
spare me alone? Who am I, Marcus? I have heard Peter say that he too
would die in torture. Who am I, compared with Peter? When the
pretorians came to us, I dreaded death and torture, but I dread them no
longer. See what a terrible prison this is, but I am going to heaven.
Think of it: Cæsar is here, but there the Redeemer, kind and merciful.
And there is no death there. Thou lovest me; think, then, how happy I
shall be. Oh, dear Marcus, think that thou wilt come to me there.”
Here she stopped to get breath in her sick breast, and then raised his
hand to her lips,—
“Marcus?”
“What, dear one?”
“Do not weep for me, and remember this,—thou wilt come to me. I have
lived a short time, but God gave thy soul to me; hence I shall tell
Christ that though I died, and thou wert looking at my death, though
thou wert left in grief, thou didst not blaspheme against His will, and
that thou lovest Him always. Thou wilt love Him, and endure my death
patiently? For then He will unite us. I love thee and I wish to be
with thee.”
Breath failed her then, and in a barely audible voice she finished,
“Promise me this, Marcus!”
Vinicius embraced her with trembling arms, and said,
“By thy sacred head! I promise.”
Her pale face became radiant in the sad light of the moon, and once more
she raised his hand to her lips, and whispered,—
“I am thy wife!”
Beyond the wall the pretorians playing script duodecim raised a louder
dispute; but Vinicius and Lygia forgot the prison, the guards, the
world, and, feeling within them the souls of angels, they began to pray.
FOR three days, or rather three nights, nothing disturbed their peace.
When the usual prison work was finished, which consisted in separating
the dead from the living and the grievously sick from those in better
health, when the wearied guards had lain down to sleep in the corridors,
Vinicius entered Lygia’s dungeon and remained there till daylight. She
put her head on his breast, and they talked in low voices of love and of
death. In thought and speech, in desires and hopes even, both were
removed unconsciously more and more from life, and they lost the sense
of it. Both were like people who, having sailed from land in a ship,
saw the shore no more, and were sinking gradually into infinity. Both
changed by degrees into sad souls in love with each other and with
Christ, and ready to fly away. Only at times did pain start up in the
heart of Vinicius like a whirlwind, at times there flashed in him like
lightning, hope, born of love and faith in the crucified God; but he
tore himself away more and more each day from the earth, and yielded to
death. In the morning, when he went from the prison, he looked on the
world, on the city, on acquaintances, on vital interests, as through a
dream. Everything seemed to him strange, distant, vain, fleeting. Even
torture ceased to terrify, since one might pass through it while sunk in
thought and with eyes fixed on another thing. It seemed to both that
eternity had begun to receive them. They conversed of how they would
love and live together, but beyond the grave; and if their thoughts
returned to the earth at intervals, these were thoughts of people who,
setting out on a long journey, speak of preparations for the road.
Moreover they were surrounded by such silence as in some desert
surrounds two columns far away and forgotten. Their only care was that
Christ should not separate them; and as each moment strengthened their
conviction that He would not, they loved Him as a link uniting them in
endless happiness and peace. While still on earth, the dust of earth
fell from them. The soul of each was as pure as a tear. Under terror
of death, amid misery and suffering, in that prison den, heaven had
begun, for she had taken him by the hand, and, as if saved and a saint,
had led him to the source of endless life.
Petronius was astonished at seeing in the face of Vinicius increasing
peace and a certain wonderful serenity which he had not noted before.
At times even he supposed that Vinicius had found some mode of rescue,
and he was piqued because his nephew had not confided his hopes to him.
At last, unable to restrain himself, he said,—
“Now thou hast another look; do not keep from me secrets, for I wish and
am able to aid thee. Hast thou arranged anything?”
“I have,” said Vinicius; “but thou canst not help me. After her death I
will confess that I am a Christian and follow her.”
“Then thou hast no hope?”
“On the contrary, I have. Christ will give her to me, and I shall never
be separated from her.”
Petronius began to walk in the atrium; disillusion and impatience were
evident on his face.
“Thy Christ is not needed for this,—our Thanatos [death] can render the
same service.”
Vinicius smiled sadly, and said,—“No, my dear, thou art unwilling to
understand.”
“I am unwilling and unable. It is not the time for discussion, but
remember what I said when we failed to free her from the Tullianum. I
lost all hope, and on the way home thou didst say, ‘But I believe that
Christ can restore her to me.’ Let Him restore her. If I throw a costly
goblet into the sea, no god of ours can give it back to me; if yours is
no better, I know not why I should honor Him beyond the old ones.”
“But He will restore her to me.”
Pettonius shrugged his shoulders. “Dost know,” inquired he, “that
Christians are to illuminate Cæsar’s gardens tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” repeated Vinicius.
And in view of the near and dreadful reality his heart trembled with
pain and fear. “This is the last night, perhaps, which I can pass with
Lygia,” thought he. So bidding farewell to Petronius, he went hurriedly
to the overseer of the “Putrid Pits” for his tessera. But disappointment
was in waiting,—the overseer would not give the tessera.
“Pardon me,” said he, “I have done what I could for thee, but I cannot
risk my life. To-night they are to conduct the Christians to Cæsar’s
gardens. The prisons will be full of soldiers and officials. Shouldst
thou be recognized, I and my children would be lost.”
Vinicius understood that it would be vain to insist. The hope gleamed
in him, however, that the soldiers who had seen him before would admit
him even without a tessera; so, with the coming of night, he disguised
himself as usual in the tunic of a corpse-bearer, and, winding a cloth
around his head, betook himself to the prison.
But that day the tesseræ were verified with greater care than usual; and
what was more, the centurion Scevinus, a strict soldier, devoted soul
and body to Cæsar, recognized Vinicius. But evidently in his iron-clad
breast there glimmered yet some spark of pity for misfortunes. Instead
of striking his spear in token of alarm, he led Vinicius aside and
said,—
“Return to thy house, lord. I recognize thee; but not wishing thy ruin,
I am silent. I cannot admit thee;
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