Quo Vadis

Here he put his fists to his temples and shouted, in a voice heard throughout the triclinium, – “Thirty legions! thirty legions! from Britain to the Parthian boundaries!” But he stopped on a sudden, and, putting a finger to his forehead, said, – “As I live, I think there are thirty-two.” He rolled under the table, and began soon to send forth flamingo tongues, roast and chilled mushrooms, locusts in honey, fish, meat, and everything which he had eaten or drunk.

But the number of the legions guarding Roman peace did not pacify Domitius.

No, no! Rome must perish; for faith in the gods was lost, and so were strict habits! Rome must perish; and it was a pity, for still life was pleasant there. Cæsar was gracious, wine was good! Oh, what a pity!

And hiding his head on the arm of a Syrian bacchanal, he burst into tears. “What is a future life! Achilles was right, – better be a slave in the world beneath the sun than a king in Cimmerian regions. And still the question whether there are any gods – since it is unbelief – is destroying the youth.”

Lucan meanwhile had blown all the gold powder from Nigidia’s hair, and she being drunk had fallen asleep. Next he took wreaths of ivy from the vase before him, put them on the sleeping woman, and when he had finished looked at those present with a delighted and inquiring glance. He arrayed himself in ivy too, repeating, in a voice of deep conviction, “I am not a man at all, but a faun.”

Petronius was not drunk; but Nero, who drank little at first, out of regard for his “heavenly” voice, emptied goblet after goblet toward the end, and was drunk. He wanted even to sing more of his verses, – this time in Greek, – but he had forgotten them, and by mistake sang an ode of Anacreon. Pythagoras, Diodorus, and Terpnos accompanied him; but failing to keep time, they stopped. Nero as a judge and an æsthete was enchanted with the beauty of Pythagoras, and fell to kissing his hands in ecstasy. “Such beautiful hands I have seen only once, and whose were they?” Then placing his palm on his moist forehead, he tried to remember. After a while terror was reflected on his face.

Ah! His mother’s – Agrippina’s!

And a gloomy vision seized him forthwith.

“They say,” said he, “that she wanders by moonlight on the sea around Baiæ and Bauli. She merely walks, – walks as if seeking for something. When she comes near a boat, she looks at it and goes away; but the fisherman on whom she has fixed her eye dies.”

“Not a bad theme,” said Petronius.

But Vestinius, stretching his neck like a stork, whispered mysteriously, – “I do not believe in the gods; but I believe in spirits – Oi!”

Nero paid no attention to their words, and continued, – “I celebrated the Lemuria, and have no wish to see her. This is the fifth year – I had to condemn her, for she sent assassins against me; and, had I not been quicker than she, ye would not be listening to-night to my song.”

“Thanks be to Cæsar, in the name of the city and the world!” cried Domitius Afer.

“Wine! and let them strike the tympans!”

The uproar began anew. Lucan, all in ivy, wishing to outshout him, rose and cried, – “I am not a man, but a faun; and I dwell in the forest. Eho-o-o-oo!” Cæsar drank himself drunk at last; men were drunk, and women were drunk. Vinicius was not less drunk than others; and in addition there was roused in him, besides desire, a wish to quarrel, which happened always when he passed the measure. His dark face became paler, and his tongue stuttered when he spoke, in a voice now loud and commanding, – “Give me thy lips! To-day, to-morrow, it is all one! Enough of this!

“Cæsar took thee from Aulus to give thee to me, dost understand? To-morrow, about dusk, I will send for thee, dost understand? Cæsar promised thee to me before he took thee. Thou must be mine! Give me thy lips! I will not wait for to-morrow, – give thy lips quickly.”

And he moved to embrace her; but Acte began to defend her, and she defended herself with the remnant of her strength, for she felt that she was perishing. But in vain did she struggle with both hands to remove his hairless arm; in vain, with a voice in which terror and grief were quivering, did she implore him not to be what he was, and to have pity on her. Sated with wine, his breath blew around her nearer and nearer, and his face was there near her face. He was no longer the former kind Vinicius, almost dear to her soul; he was a drunken, wicked satyr, who filled her with repulsion and terror. But her strength deserted her more and more. In vain did she bend and turn away her face to escape his kisses. He rose to his feet, caught her in both arms, and drawing her head to his breast, began, panting, to press her pale lips with his.

But at this instant a tremendous power removed his arms from her neck with as much ease as if they had been the arms of a child, and pushed him aside, like a dried limb or a withered leaf. What had happened? Vinicius rubbed his astonished eyes, and saw before him the gigantic figure of the Lygian, called Ursus, whom he had seen at the house of Aulus.

Ursus stood calmly, but looked at Vinicius so strangely with his blue eyes that the blood stiffened in the veins of the young man; then the giant took his queen on his arm, and walked out of the triclinium with an even, quiet step.

Acte in that moment went after him.

Vinicius sat for the twinkle of an eye as if petrified; then he sprang up and ran toward the entrance crying, – “Lygia! Lygia!”

But desire, astonishment, rage, and wine cut the legs from under him. He staggered once and a second time, seized the naked arm of one of the bacchanals, and began to inquire, with blinking eyes, what had happened. She, taking a goblet of wine, gave it to him with a smile in her mist-covered eyes.

“Drink!” said she.

Vinicius drank, and fell to the floor.

The greater number of the guests were lying under the table; others were walking with tottering tread through the triclinium, while others were sleeping on couches at the table, snoring, or giving forth the excess of wine. Meanwhile, from the golden network, roses were dropping and dropping on those drunken consuls and senators, on those drunken knights, philosophers, and poets, on those drunken dancing damsels and patrician ladies, on that society all dominant as yet but with the soul gone from it, on that society garlanded and ungirdled but perishing.

Dawn had begun out of doors.

Chapter VIII

No one stopped Ursus, no one inquired even what he was doing. Those guests who were not under the table had not kept their own places; hence the servants, seeing a giant carrying a guest on his arm, thought him some slave bearing out his intoxicated mistress. Moreover, Acte was with them, and her presence removed all suspicion.

In this way they went from the triclinium to the adjoining chamber, and thence to the gallery leading to Acte’s apartments. To such a degree had her strength deserted Lygia, that she hung as if dead on the arm of Ursus. But when the cool, pure breeze of morning beat around her, she opened her eyes. It was growing clearer and clearer in the open air. After they had passed along the colonnade awhile, they turned to a side portico, coming out, not in the courtyard, but the palace gardens, where the tops of the pines and cypresses were growing ruddy from the light of morning. That part of the building was empty, so that echoes of music and sounds of the feast came with decreasing distinctness. It seemed to Lygia that she had been rescued from hell, and borne into God’s bright world outside. There was something, then, besides that disgusting triclinium. There was the sky, the dawn, light, and peace. Sudden weeping seized the maiden, and, taking shelter on the arm of the giant, she repeated, with sobbing, – “Let us go home, Ursus! home, to the house of Aulus.”

“Let us go!” answered Ursus.

They found themselves now in the small atrium of Acte’s apartments. Ursus placed Lygia on a marble bench at a distance from the fountain. Acte strove to pacify her; she urged her to sleep, and declared that for the moment there was no danger, – after the feast the drunken guests would sleep till evening. For a long time Lygia could not calm herself, and, pressing her temples with both hands, she repeated like a child, – “Let us go home, to the house of Aulus!”

Ursus was ready. At the gates stood pretorians, it is true, but he would pass them. The soldiers would not stop out-going people. The space before the arch was crowded with litters. Guests were beginning to go forth in throngs. No one would detain them. They would pass with the crowd and go home directly. For that matter, what does he care? As the queen commands, so must it be. He is there to carry out her orders.

“Yes, Ursus,” said Lygia, “let us go.”

Acte was forced to find reason for both. They would pass out, true; no one would stop them. But it is not permitted to flee from the house of Cæsar; whoso does that offends Cæsar’s majesty. They may go; but in the evening a centurion at the head of soldiers will take a death sentence to Aulus and Pomponia Græcina; they will bring Lygia to the palace again, and then there will be no rescue for her. Should Aulus and his wife receive her under their roof, death awaits them to a certainty.

Lygia’s arms dropped. There was no other outcome. She must choose her own ruin or that of Plautius. In going to the feast, she had hoped that Vinicius and Petronius would win her from Cæsar, and return her to Pomponia; now she knew that it was they who had brought Cæsar to remove her from the house of Aulus. There was no help. Only a miracle could save her from the abyss, – a miracle and the might of God.

“Acte,” said she, in despair, “didst thou hear Vinicius say that Cæsar had given me to him, and that he will send slaves here this evening to take me to his house?”

“I did,” answered Acte; and, raising her arms from her side, she was silent. The despair with which Lygia spoke found in her no echo. She herself had been Nero’s favorite. Her heart, though good, could not feel clearly the shame of such a relation. A former slave, she had grown too much inured to the law of slavery; and, besides, she loved Nero yet. If he returned to her, she would stretch her arms to him, as to happiness. Comprehending clearly that Lygia must become the mistress of the youthful and stately Vinicius, or expose Aulus and Pomponia to ruin, she failed to understand how the girl could hesitate.

“In Cæsar’s house,” said she, after a while, “it would not be safer for thee than in that of Vinicius.”

And it did not occur to her that, though she told the truth, her words meant, “Be resigned to fate and become the concubine of Vinicius.”

As to Lygia, who felt on her lips yet his kisses, burning as coals and full of beastly desire, the blood rushed to her face with shame at the mere thought of them.

“Never,” cried she, with an outburst, “will I remain here, or at the house of Vinicius, – never!”

“But,” inquired Acte, “is Vinicius hateful to thee?”

Lygia was unable to answer, for weeping seized her anew. Acte gathered the maiden to her bosom, and strove to calm her excitement. Ursus breathed heavily, and balled his giant fists; for, loving his queen with the devotion of a dog, he could not bear the sight of her tears. In his half-wild Lygian heart was the wish to return to the triclinium, choke Vinicius, and, should the need come, Cæsar himself; but he feared to sacrifice thereby his mistress, and was not certain that such an act, which to him seemed very simple, would befit a confessor of the Crucified Lamb.

But Acte, while caressing Lygia, asked again, “Is he so hateful to thee?”

“No,” said Lygia; “it is not permitted me to hate, for I am a Christian.”

“I know, Lygia. I know also from the letters of Paul of Tarsus, that it is not permitted to defile one’s self, nor to fear death more than sin; but tell me if thy teaching permits one person to cause the death of others?”

“No.”

“Then how canst thou bring Cæsar’s vengeance on the house of Aulus?” A moment of silence followed. A bottomless abyss yawned before Lygia again.

“I ask,” continued the young freedwoman, “for I have compassion on thee – and I have compassion on the good Pomponia and Aulus, and on their child. It is long since I began to live in this house, and I know what Cæsar’s anger is. No! thou art not at liberty to flee from here. One way remains to thee: implore Vinicius to return thee to Pomponia.”

But Lygia dropped on her knees to implore some one else. Ursus knelt down after a while, too, and both began to pray in Cæsar’s house at the morning dawn.