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

The song passed gradually into an elegy, plaintive and full of pain. In the Circus there was silence. After a while Caesar, himself affected, sang on⁠—

“With the sound of thy heavenly lyre
Thou couldst drown the wailing,
The lament of hearts.
At the sad sound of this song
The eye today is filled with tears,
As a flower is filled with dew,
But who can raise from dust and ashes
That day of fire, disaster, ruin?
O Smintheus, where wert thou then?”

Here his voice quivered and his eyes grew moist. Tears appeared on the lids of the vestals; the people listened in silence before they burst into a long unbroken storm of applause.

Meanwhile from outside through the vomitoria came the sound of creaking vehicles on which were placed the bloody remnants of Christians, men, women, and children, to be taken to the pits called puticuli.

But the Apostle Peter seized his trembling white head with his hands, and cried in spirit⁠—

“O Lord, O Lord! to whom hast Thou given rule over the earth, and why wilt Thou found in this place Thy capital?”

The sun had lowered toward its setting, and seemed to dissolve in the red of the evening. The spectacle was finished. Crowds were leaving the amphitheater and pouring out to the city through the passages called vomitoria. Only Augustians delayed; they were waiting for the stream of people to pass. They had all left their seats and assembled at the podium, in which Caesar appeared again to hear praises. Though the spectators had not spared plaudits at the end of the song, Nero was not satisfied; he had looked for enthusiasm touching on frenzy. In vain did hymns of praise sound in his ears; in vain did vestals kiss his “divine” hand, and while doing so Rubria bent till her reddish hair touched his breast. Nero was not satisfied, and could not hide the fact. He was astonished and also disturbed because Petronius was silent. Some flattering and pointed word from his mouth would have been a great consolation at that moment. Unable at last to restrain himself, Caesar beckoned to the arbiter.

“Speak,” said he, when Petronius entered the podium.

“I am silent,” answered Petronius, coldly, “for I cannot find words. Thou hast surpassed thyself.”

“So it seemed to me too; but still this people⁠—”

“Canst thou expect mongrels to appreciate poetry?”

“But thou too hast noticed that they have not thanked me as I deserve.”

“Because thou hast chosen a bad moment.”

“How?”

“When men’s brains are filled with the odor of blood, they cannot listen attentively.”

“Ah, those Christians!” replied Nero, clenching his fists. “They burned Rome, and injure me now in addition. What new punishment shall I invent for them?”

Petronius saw that he had taken the wrong road, that his words had produced an effect the very opposite of what he intended; so, to turn Caesar’s mind in another direction, he bent toward him and whispered⁠—

“Thy song is marvelous, but I will make one remark: in the fourth line of the third strophe the meter leaves something to be desired.”

Nero, blushing with shame, as if caught in a disgraceful deed, had fear in his look, and answered in a whisper also⁠—

“Thou seest everything. I know. I will rewrite that. But no one else noticed it, I think. And do thou, for the love of the gods, mention it to no one⁠—if life is dear to thee.”

To this Petronius answered, as if in an outburst of vexation and anger⁠—

“Condemn me to death, O divinity, if I deceive thee; but thou wilt not terrify me, for the gods know best of all if I fear death.”

And while speaking he looked straight into Caesar’s eyes, who answered after a while⁠—

“Be not angry; thou knowest that I love thee.”

“A bad sign!” thought Petronius.

“I wanted to invite thee today to a feast,” continued Nero, “but I prefer to shut myself in and polish that cursed line in the third strophe. Besides thee Seneca may have noticed it, and perhaps Secundus Carinas did; but I will rid myself of them quickly.”

Then he summoned Seneca, and declared that with Acratus and Secundus Carinas, he sent him to the Italian and all other provinces for money, which he commanded him to obtain from cities, villages, famous temples⁠—in a word, from every place where it was possible to find money, or from which they could force it. But Seneca, who saw that Caesar was confiding to him a work of plunder, sacrilege, and robbery, refused straightway.

“I must go to the country, lord,” said he, “and await death, for I am old and my nerves are sick.”

Seneca’s Iberian nerves were stronger than Chilos; they were not sick, perhaps, but in general his health was bad, for he seemed like a shadow, and recently his hair had grown white altogether.

Nero, too, when he looked at him, thought that he would not have to wait long for the man’s death, and answered⁠—

“I will not expose thee to a journey if thou art ill, but through affection I wish to keep thee near me. Instead of going to the country, then, thou wilt stay in thy own house, and not leave it.”

Then he laughed, and said, “If I send Acratus and Carinas by themselves, it will be like sending wolves for sheep. Whom shall I set above them?”

“Me, lord,” said Domitius Afer.

“No! I have no wish to draw on Rome the wrath of Mercury, whom ye would put to shame with your villainy. I need some stoic like Seneca, or like my new friend, the philosopher Chilo.”

Then he looked around, and asked⁠—

“But what has happened to Chilo?”

Chilo, who