Quo Vadis. Henryk Sienkiewicz
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childlike head on the breast of Lucan, who, drunk in like degree, fell to blowing the golden powder from her hair, and raising his eyes with immense delight. Vestinius, with the stubbornness of intoxication, repeated for the tenth time the answer of Mopsus to the sealed letter of the proconsul. Tullius, who reviled the gods, said, with a drawling voice broken by hiccoughs—“If the spheros of Xenophanes is round, then consider, such a god might be pushed along before one with the foot, like a barrel.”
But Domitius Afer, a hardened criminal and informer, was indignant at the discourse, and through indignation spilled Falernian over his whole tunic. He had always believed in the gods. People say that Rome will perish, and there are some even who contend that it is perishing already. And surely! But if that should come, it is because the youth are without faith, and without faith there can be no virtue. People have abandoned also the strict habits of former days, and it never occurs to them that Epicureans will not stand against barbarians. As for him, he—As for him, he was sorry that he had lived to such times, and that he must seek in pleasures a refuge against griefs which, if not met, would soon kill him.
When he had said this, he drew toward him a Syrian dancer, and kissed her neck and shoulders with his toothless mouth. Seeing this, the consul Memmius Regulus laughed, and, raising his bald head with wreath awry, exclaimed—“Who says that Rome is perishing? What folly! I, a consul, know better. Videant consules! Thirty legions are guarding our pax romana!”
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
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