Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
But her nearness to him began to act on Vinicius also. His nostrils
dilated, like those of an Eastern steed. The beating of his heart with
unusual throb was evident under his scarlet tunic; his breathing grew
short, and the expressions that fell from his lips were broken. For the
first time, too, he was so near her. His thoughts grew disturbed; he
felt a flame in his veins which he tried in vain to quench with wine.
Not wine, but her marvellous face, her bare arms, her maiden breast
heaving under the golden tunic, and her form hidden in the white folds
of the peplus, intoxicated him more and more. Finally, he seized her arm
above the wrist, as he had done once at Aulus’s, and drawing her toward
him whispered, with trembling lips,--“I love thee, Callina,--divine
one.”
“Let me go, Marcus,” said Lygia.
But he continued, his eyes mist-covered, “Love me, my goddess!”
But at that moment was heard the voice of Acte, who was reclining on the
other side of Lygia.
“Cæsar is looking at you both.”
Vinicius was carried away by sudden anger at Cæsar and at Acte. Her
words had broken the charm of his intoxication. To the young man even
a friendly voice would have seemed repulsive at such a moment, but he
judged that Acte wished purposely to interrupt his conversation with
Lygia. So, raising his head and looking over the shoulder of Lygia at
the young freedwoman, he said with malice:
“The hour 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 sacrificed 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