Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
must have a Christian soul, too,” said he. And Vinicius, though every
obstacle angered him, had begun to understand that Glaucus, as a
Christian, said what he ought to say. He had not become clearly
conscious that one of the deepest changes in his nature was this,--that
formerly he had measured people and things only by his own selfishness,
but now he was accustoming himself gradually to the thought that other
eyes might see differently, other hearts feel differently, and that
justice did not mean always the same as personal profit.
He wished often to see Paul of Tarsus, whose discourse made him curious
and disturbed him. He arranged in his mind arguments to overthrow his
teaching, he resisted him in thought; still he wished to see him and to
hear him. Paul, however, had gone to Aricium, and, since the visits of
Glaucus had become rarer, Vinicius was in perfect solitude. He began
again to run through back streets adjoining the Subura, and narrow lanes
of the Trans-Tiber, in the hope that even from a distance he might see
Lygia. When even that hope failed him, weariness and impatience began to
rise in his heart. At last the time came when his former nature was felt
again mightily, like that onrush of a wave to the shore from which it
had receded. It seemed to him that he had been a fool to no purpose,
that he had stuffed his head with things which brought sadness, that he
ought to accept from life what it gives. He resolved to forget Lygia, or
at least to seek pleasure and the use of things aside from her. He felt
that this trial, however, was the last, and he threw himself into it
with all the blind energy of impulse peculiar to him. Life itself seemed
to urge him to this course.
THE APPIAN WAY. From the painting by G. Boulanger.
The city, torpid and depopulated by winter, began to revive with hope
of the near coming of Cæsar. A solemn reception was in waiting for him.
Meanwhile spring was there; the snow on the Alban Hills had vanished
under the breath of winds from Africa. Grass-plots in the gardens were
covered with violets. The Forums and the Campus Martius were filled with
people warmed by a sun of growing heat. Along the Appian Way, the usual
place for drives outside the city, a movement of richly ornamented
chariots had begun. Excursions were made to the Alban Hills. Youthful
women, under pretext of worshipping Juno in Lanuvium, or Diana in
Aricia, left home to seek adventures, society, meetings, and pleasure
beyond the city. Here Vinicius saw one day among lordly chariots the
splendid car of Chrysothemis, preceded by two Molossian dogs; it was
surrounded by a crowd of young men and by old senators, whose position
detained them in the city. Chrysothemis, driving four Corsican ponies
herself, scattered smiles round about, and light strokes of a golden
whip; but when she saw Vinicius she reined in her horses, took him into
her car, and then to a feast at her house, which lasted all night. At
that feast Vinicius drank so much that he did not remember when they
took him home; he recollected, however, that when Chrysothemis mentioned
Lygia he was offended, and, being drunk, emptied a goblet of Falernian
on her head. When he thought of this in soberness, he was angrier still.
But a day later Chrysothemis, forgetting evidently the injury, visited
him at his house, and took him to the Appian Way a second time. Then
she supped at his house, and confessed that not only Petronius, but his
lute-player, had grown tedious to her long since, and that her heart was
free now. They appeared together for a week, but the relation did not
promise permanence. After the Falernian incident, however, Lygia’s name
was never mentioned, but Vinicius could not free himself from thoughts
of her. He had the feeling always that her eyes were looking at his
face, and that feeling filled him, as it were, with fear. He suffered,
and could not escape the thought that he was saddening Lygia, or the
regret which that thought roused in him. After the first scene of
jealousy which Chrysothemis made because of two Syrian damsels whom he
purchased, he let her go in rude fashion. He did not cease at once from
pleasure and license, it is true, but he followed them out of spite, as
it were, toward Lygia. At last he saw that the thought of her did
not leave him for an instant; that she was the one cause of his evil
activity as well as his good; and that really nothing in the world
occupied him except her. Disgust, and then weariness, mastered him.
Pleasure had grown loathsome, and left mere reproaches. It seemed to him
that he was wretched, and this last feeling filled him with measureless
astonishment, for formerly he recognized as good everything which
pleased him. Finally, he lost freedom, self-confidence, and fell into
perfect torpidity, from which even the news of Cæsar’s coming could not
rouse him. Nothing touched him, and he did not visit Petronius till the
latter sent an invitation and his litter.
On seeing his uncle, though greeted with gladness, he replied to his
questions unwillingly; but his feelings and thoughts, repressed for a
long time, burst forth at last, and flowed from his mouth in a torrent
of words. Once more he told in detail the history of his search for
Lygia, his life among the Christians, everything which he had heard and
seen there, everything which had passed through his head and heart; and
finally he complained that he had fallen into a chaos, in which were
lost composure and the gift of distinguishing and judging. Nothing, he
said, attracted him, nothing was pleasing; he did not know what to hold
to, nor how to act. He was ready both to honor and persecute Christ;
he understood the loftiness of His teaching, but he felt also an
irresistible repugnance to it. He understood that, even should he
possess Lygia, he would not possess her completely, for he would have to
share her with Christ. Finally, he was living as if not living,--without
hope, without a morrow, without belief in happiness; around him was
darkness in which he was groping for an exit, and could not find it.
Petronius, during this narrative, looked at his changed face, at his
hands, which while speaking he stretched forth in a strange manner, as
if actually seeking a road in the darkness, and he fell to thinking. All
at once he rose, and, approaching Vinicius, caught with his fingers the
hair above his ear.
“Dost know,” asked he, “that thou hast gray hairs on thy temple?”
“Perhaps I have,” answered Vinicius; “I should not be astonished were
all my hair to grow white soon.”
Silence followed. Petronius was a man of sense, and more than once
he meditated on the soul of man and on life. In general, life, in the
society in which they both lived, might be happy or unhappy externally,
but internally it was at rest. Just as a thunderbolt or an earthquake
might overturn a temple, so might misfortune crush a life. In itself,
however, it was composed of simple and harmonious lines, free of
complication. But there was something else in the words of Vinicius, and
Petronius stood for the first time before a series of spiritual snarls
which no one had straightened out hitherto. He was sufficiently a man of
reason to feel their importance, but with all his quickness he could
not answer the questions put to him. After a long silence, he said at
last,--
“These must be enchantments.”
“I too have thought so,” answered Vinicius; “more than once it seemed to
me that we were enchanted, both of us.”
“And if thou,” said Petronius, “were to go, for example, to the priests
of Serapis? Among them, as among priests in general, there are many
deceivers, no doubt; but there are others who have reached wonderful
secrets.”
He said this, however, without conviction and with an uncertain voice,
for he himself felt how empty and even ridiculous that counsel must seem
on his lips.
Vinicius rubbed his forehead, and said: “Enchantments! I have seen
sorcerers who employed unknown and subterranean powers to their personal
profit; I have seen those who used them to the harm of their enemies.
But these Christians live in poverty, forgive their enemies, preach
submission, virtue, and mercy; what profit could they get from
enchantments, and why should they use them?”
Petronius was angry that his acuteness could find no reply; not wishing,
however, to acknowledge this, he said, so as to offer an answer of some
kind,--“That is a new sect.” After a while he added: “By the divine
dweller in Paphian groves, how all that injures life! Thou wilt admire
the goodness and virtue of those people; but I tell thee that they are
bad, for they are enemies of life, as are diseases, and death itself.
As things are, we have enough of these enemies; we do not need the
Christians in addition. Just count them: diseases, Cæsar, Tigellinus,
Cæsar’s poetry, cobblers who govern the descendants of ancient Quirites,
freedmen who sit in the Senate. By Castor! there is enough of this. That
is a destructive and disgusting sect. Hast thou tried to shake thyself
out of this sadness, and make some little use of life?”
“I have tried,” answered Vinicius.
“Ah, traitor!” said Petronius, laughing; “news spreads quickly through
slaves; thou hast seduced from me Chrysothemis!”
Vinicius waved his hand in disgust.
“In every case I thank thee,” said Petronius. “I will send her a pair of
slippers embroidered with pearls. In my language of a lover that means,
‘Walk away.’ I owe thee a double gratitude,--first, thou didst not
accept Eunice; second, thou hast freed me from Chrysothemis. Listen to
me! Thou seest before thee a man who has risen early, bathed, feasted,
possessed Chrysothemis, written satires, and even at times interwoven
prose with verses, but who has been as wearied as Cæsar, and often
unable to unfetter himself from gloomy thoughts. And dost thou know why
that was so? It was because I sought at a distance that which was near.
A beautiful woman is worth her weight always in gold; but if she loves
in addition, she has simply no price. Such a one thou wilt not buy with
the riches of Verres. I say now to myself as follows: I will fill my
life with happiness, as a goblet with the foremost wine which the earth
has produced, and I will drink till my hand becomes powerless and
my lips grow pale. What will come, I care not; and this is my latest
philosophy.”
“Thou hast proclaimed it always; there is nothing new in it.”
“There is substance, which was lacking.”
When he had said this, he called Eunice, who entered dressed in white
drapery,--the former slave no longer, but as it were a goddess of love
and happiness.
Petronius opened his arms to her, and said,--“Come.”
At this she ran up to him, and, sitting on his knee, surrounded his neck
with her arms, and placed her head on his breast. Vinicius saw how a
reflection of purple began to cover her cheeks, how her eyes melted
gradually in mist. They formed a wonderful group of love and happiness.
Petronius stretched his hand to a flat vase standing at one side on a
table, and, taking a whole handful of violets, covered with them the
head, bosom, and robe of Eunice; then he pushed the tunic from her arms,
and said,--
“Happy he who, like me, has found love enclosed in such a form! At times
it seems to me that we are a pair of gods. Look thyself! Has Praxiteles,
or Miron, or Skopas, or Lysias even, created more wonderful lines? Or
does there exist in Paros or in Pentelicus such marble as this,--warm,
rosy, and full of love? There are people who kiss off the edges of
vases, but I prefer to look for pleasure where it may be found really.”
He began to pass his lips along her shoulders and neck. She was
penetrated with a quivering; her eyes now closed, now opened, with an