Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz [fox in socks read aloud .txt] 📗

the city by that time, and there will be no further hindrance, I will seat thee at my hearth. Oh, carissima! carissima!”

And he stretched forth his hand, as if taking Heaven as witness of his love; and Lygia, raising her clear eyes to him, said⁠—

“And then I shall say, ‘Wherever thou art, Caius, there am I, Caia.’ ”

“No, Lygia,” cried Vinicius, “I swear to thee that never has woman been so honored in the house of her husband as thou shalt be in mine.”

For a time they walked on in silence, without being able to take in with their breasts their happiness, in love with each other, like two deities, and as beautiful as if spring had given them to the world with the flowers.

They halted at last under the cypress growing near the entrance of the house. Lygia leaned against his breast, and Vinicius began to entreat again with a trembling voice⁠—“Tell Ursus to go to the house of Aulus for thy furniture and playthings of childhood.”

But she, blushing like a rose or like the dawn, answered⁠—“Custom commands otherwise.”

“I know that. The pronuba11 usually brings them behind the bride, but do this for me. I will take them to my villa in Antium, and they will remind me of thee.”

Here he placed his hands together and repeated, like a child who is begging for something⁠—“It will be some days before Pomponia returns; so do this, diva, do this, carissima.”

“But Pomponia will do as she likes,” answered Lygia, blushing still more deeply at mention of the pronuba.

And again they were silent, for love had begun to stop the breath in their breasts. Lygia stood with shoulders leaning against the cypress, her face whitening in the shadow, like a flower, her eyes drooping, her bosom heaving with more and more life. Vinicius changed in the face, and grew pale. In the silence of the afternoon they only heard the beating of their hearts, and in their mutual ecstasy that cypress, the myrtle bushes, and the ivy of the summerhouse became for them a paradise of love. But Miriam appeared in the door, and invited them to the afternoon meal. They sat down then with the Apostles, who gazed at them with pleasure, as on the young generation which after their death would preserve and sow still further the seed of the new faith. Peter broke and blessed bread. There was calm on all faces, and a certain immense happiness seemed to overflow the whole house.

“See,” said Paul at last, turning to Vinicius, “are we enemies of life and happiness?”

“I know how that is,” answered Vinicius, “for never have I been so happy as among you.”

XXXV

On the evening of that day Vinicius, while returning home through the Forum, saw at the entrance to the Vicus Tuscus the gilded litter of Petronius, carried by eight stalwart Bithynians, and, stopping it with a sign of his hand, he approached the curtains.

“Thou hast had a pleasant dream, I trust, and a happy one!” cried he, laughing at sight of the slumbering Petronius.

“Oh, is it thou?” said Petronius, waking up. “Yes; I dropped asleep for a moment, as I passed the night at the Palatine. I have come out to buy something to read on the road to Antium. What is the news?”

“Art thou visiting the bookshops?” inquired Vinicius.

“Yes, I do not like to bring disorder into my library, so I am collecting a special supply for the journey. It is likely that some new things of Musonius and Seneca have come out. I am looking also for Persius, and a certain edition of the Eclogues of Virgilius, which I do not possess. Oh, how tired I am; and how my hands ache from covers and rings! For when a man is once in a bookshop curiosity seizes him to look here and there. I was at the shop of Avirnus, and at that of Atractus on the Argiletum, and with the Sozii on Vicus Sandalarius. By Castor! how I want to sleep!”

“Thou wert on the Palatine? Then I would ask thee what is it to be heard there? Or, knowest what?⁠—send home the litter and the tubes with books, and come to my house. We will talk of Antium, and of something else.”

“That is well,” answered Petronius, coming out of the litter. “Thou must know, besides, that we start for Antium the day after tomorrow.”

“Whence should I know that?”

“In what world art thou living? Well, I shall be the first to announce the news to thee. Yes; be ready for the day after tomorrow in the morning. Peas in olive oil have not helped, a cloth around his thick neck has not helped, and Bronzebeard is hoarse. In view of this, delay is not to be mentioned. He curses Rome and its atmosphere, with what the world stands on; he would be glad to level it to the earth or to destroy it with fire, and he longs for the sea at the earliest. He says that the smells which the wind brings from the narrow streets are driving him into the grave. Today great sacrifices were offered in all the temples to restore his voice; and woe to Rome, but especially to the Senate, should it not return quickly!”

“Then there would be no reason for his visit to Achaea?”

“But is that the only talent possessed by our divine Caesar?” asked Petronius, smiling. “He would appear in the Olympic games, as a poet, with his ‘Burning of Troy’; as a charioteer, as a musician, as an athlete⁠—nay, even as a dancer, and would receive in every case all the crowns intended for victors. Dost know why that monkey grew hoarse? Yesterday he wanted to equal our Paris in dancing, and danced for us the adventures of Leda, during which he sweated and caught cold. He was as wet and slippery as an eel freshly taken from water.