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Home -> Henryk Sienkiewicz -> Quo Vadis -> Chapter LIV

Quo Vadis - Chapter LIV

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter II

3. Chapter III

4. Chapter IV

5. Chapter V

6. Chapter VI

7. Chapter VII

8. Chapter VIII

9. Chapter IX

10. Chapter X

11. Chapter XI

12. Chapter XII

13. Chapter XIII

14. Chapter XIV

15. Chapter XV

16. Chapter XVI

17. Chapter XVII

18. Chapter XVIII

19. Chapter XIX

20. Chapter XX

21. Chapter XXI

22. Chapter XXII

23. Chapter XXIII

24. Chapter XXIV

25. Chapter XXV

26. Chapter XXVI

27. Chapter XXVII

28. Chapter XXVIII

29. Chapter XXIX

30. Chapter XXX

31. Chapter XXXI

32. Chapter XXXII

33. Chapter XXXIII

34. Chapter XXXIV

35. Chapter XXXV

36. Chapter XXXVI

37. Chapter XXXVII

38. Chapter XXXVIII

39. Chapter XXXIX

40. Chapter XL

41. Chapter XLI

42. Chapter XLII

43. Chapter XLIII

44. Chapter XLIV

45. Chapter XLV

46. Chapter XLVI

47. Chapter XLVII

48. Chapter XLVIII

49. Chapter XLIX

50. Chapter L

51. Chapter LI

52. Chapter LII

53. Chapter LIII

54. Chapter LIV

55. Chapter LV

56. Chapter LVI

57. Chapter LVII

58. Chapter LVIII

59. Chapter LIX

60. Chapter LX

61. Chapter LXI

62. Chapter LXII

63. Chapter LXIII

64. Chapter LXIV

65. Chapter LXV

66. Chapter LXVI

67. Chapter LXVII

68. Chapter LXVIII

69. Chapter LXIX

70. Chapter LXX

71. Chapter LXXI

72. Chapter LXXII

73. Chapter LXXIII

74. Epilogue







Chapter LIV

LYGIA, in a long letter written hurriedly, took farewell to Vinicius
forever. She knew that no one was permitted to enter the prison, and
that she could see Vinicius only from the arena. She begged him
therefore to discover when the turn of the Mamertine prisoners would
come, and to be at the games, for she wished to see him once more in
life. No fear was evident in her letter. She wrote that she and the
others were longing for the arena, where they would find liberation from
imprisonment. She hoped for the coming of Pomponia and Aulus; she
entreated that they too be present. Every word of her showed ecstasy,
and that separation from life in which all the prisoners lived, and at
the same time an unshaken faith that all promises would be fulfilled
beyond the grave.

"Whether Christ," wrote she, "frees me in this life or after death, He
has promised me to thee by the lips of the Apostle; therefore I am
thine." She implored him not to grieve for her, and not to let himself
be overcome by suffering. For her death was not a dissolution of
marriage. With the confidence of a child she assured Vinicius that
immediately after her suffering in the arena she would tell Christ that
her betrothed Marcus had remained in Rome, that he was longing for her
with his whole heart. And she thought that Christ would permit her
soul, perhaps, to return to him for a moment, to tell him that she was
living, that she did not remember her torments, and that she was happy.
Her whole letter breathed happiness and immense hope. There was only
one request in it connected with affairs of earth,--that Vinicius should
take her body from the spoliarium and bury it as that of his wife in the
tomb in which he himself would rest sometime.

He read this letter with a suffering spirit, but at the same time it
seemed to him impossible that Lygia should perish under the claws of
wild beasts, and that Christ would not take compassion on her. But just
in that were hidden hope and trust. When he returned home, he wrote
that he would come every day to the walls of the Tullianum to wait till
Christ crushed the walls and restored her. He commanded her to believe
that Christ could give her to him, even in the Circus; that the great
Apostle was imploring Him to do so, and that the hour of liberation was
near. The converted centurion was to bear this letter to her on the
morrow.

But when Vinicius came to the prison next morning, the centurion left
the rank, approached him first, and said,--

"Listen to me, lord. Christ, who enlightened thee, has shown thee
favor. Last night Cćsar's freedman and those of the prefect came to
select Christian maidens for disgrace; they inquired for thy betrothed,
but our Lord sent her a fever, of which prisoners are dying in the
Tullianum, and they left her. Last evening she was unconscious, and
blessed be the name of the Redeemer, for the sickness which has saved
her from shame may save her from death."

Vinicius placed his hand on the soldier's shoulder to guard himself from
falling; but the other continued,--

"Thank the mercy of the Lord! They took and tortured Linus, but, seeing
that he was dying, they surrendered him. They may give her now to thee,
and Christ will give back health to her."

The young tribune stood some time with drooping head; then raised it and
said in a whisper,--

"True, centurion. Christ, who saved her from shame, will save her from
death." And sitting at the wall of the prison till evening, he returned
home to send people for Linus and have him taken to one of his suburban
villas.

But when Petronius had heard everything, he determined to act also. He
had visited the Augusta; now he went to her a second time. He found her
at the bed of little Rufius. The child with broken head was struggling
in a fever; his mother, with despair and terror in her heart, was trying
to save him, thinking, however, that if she did save him it might be
only to perish soon by a more dreadful death.

Occupied exclusively with her own suffering, she would not even hear of
Vinicius and Lygia; but Petronius terrified her.

"Thou hast offended," said he to her, "a new, unknown divinity. Thou,
Augusta, art a worshipper, it seems, of the Hebrew Jehovah; but the
Christians maintain that Chrestos is his son. Reflect, then, if the
anger of the father is not pursuing thee. Who knows but it is their
vengeance which has struck thee? Who knows but the life of Rufius
depends on this,--how thou wilt act?"

"What dost thou wish me to do?" asked Poppća, with terror.

"Mollify the offended deities."

"How?"

"Lygia is sick; influence Cćsar or Tigellinus to give her to Vinicius."

"Dost thou think that I can do that?" asked she, in despair.

"Thou canst do something else. If Lygia recovers, she must die. Go
thou to the temple of Vesta, and ask the virgo magna to happen near the
Tullianum at the moment when they are leading prisoners out to death,
and give command to free that maiden. The chief vestal will not refuse
thee."

"But if Lygia dies of the fever?"

"The Christians say that Christ is vengeful, but just; maybe thou wilt
soften Him by thy wish alone."

"Let Him give me some sign that will heal Rufius."

Petronius shrugged his shoulders.

"I have not come as His envoy; O divinity, I merely say to thee, Be on
better terms with all the gods, Roman and foreign."

"I will go!" said Poppća, with a broken voice.

Petronius drew a deep breath. "At last I have done something." thought
he, and returning to Vinicius he said to him,--

"Implore thy God that Lygia die not of the fever, for should she
survive, the chief vestal will give command to free her. The Augusta
herself will ask her to do so."

"Christ will free her," said Vinicius, looking at him with eyes in which
fever was glittering.

Poppća, who for the recovery of Rufius was willing to burn hecatombs to
all the gods of the world, went that same evening through the Forum to
the vestals, leaving care over the sick child to her faithful nurse,
Silvia, by whom she herself had been reared.

But on the Palatine sentence had been issued against the child already;
for barely had Poppća's litter vanished behind the great gate when two
freedmen entered the chamber in which her son was resting. One of these
threw himself on old Silvia and gagged her; the other, seizing a bronze
statue of the Sphinx, stunned the old woman with the first blow.

Then they approached Rufius. The little boy, tormented with fever and
insensible, not knowing what was passing around him, smiled at them, and
blinked with his beautiful eyes, as if trying to recognize the men.
Stripping from the nurse her girdle, they put it around his neck and
pulled it. The child called once for his mother, and died easily. Then
they wound him in a sheet, and sitting on horses which were waiting,
hurried to Ostia, where they threw the body into the sea.

Poppća, not finding the virgo magna, who with other vestals was at the
house of Vatinius, returned soon to the Palatine. Seeing the empty bed
and the cold body of Silvia, she fainted, and when they restored her she
began to scream; her wild cries were heard all that night and the day
following.

But Cćsar commanded her to appear at a feast on the third day; so,
arraying herself in an amethyst-colored tunic, she came and sat with
stony face, golden-haired, silent, wonderful, and as ominous as an angel
of death.




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