Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by Henryk Sienkiewicz (good ebook reader txt) 📖

them in this moment. For that matter, if I had condemned those two, I should have had to take others in place of them.”

“And people would say, besides, that out of love for music thou destroyest music in thy dominions. Never kill art for art’s sake, O divinity.”

“How different thou art from Tigellinus!” answered Nero. “But seest thou, I am an artist in everything; and since music opens for me spaces the existence of which I had not divined, regions which I do not possess, delight and happiness which I do not know, I cannot live a common life. Music tells me that the uncommon exists, so I seek it with all the power of dominion which the gods have placed in my hands. At times it seems to me that to reach those Olympian worlds I must do something which no man has done hitherto,—I must surpass the stature of man in good or evil. I know that people declare me mad. But I am not mad, I am only seeking. And if I am going mad, it is out of disgust and impatience that I cannot find. I am seeking! Dost understand me? And therefore I wish to be greater than man, for only in that way can I be the greatest as an artist.”

Here he lowered his voice so that Vinicius could not hear him, and, putting his mouth to the ear of Petronius, he whispered,—“Dost know that I condemned my mother and wife to death mainly because I wished to lay at the gate of an unknown world the greatest sacrifice that man could put there? I thought that afterward something would happen, that doors would be opened beyond which I should see something unknown. Let it be wonderful or awful, surpassing human conception, if only great and uncommon. But that sacrifice was not sufficient. To open the empyrean doors it is evident that something greater is needed, and let it be given as the Fates desire.”

“What dost thou intend to do?”

“Thou shalt see sooner than thou thinkest. Meanwhile be assured that there are two Neros,—one such as people know, the other an artist, whom thou alone knowest, and if he slays as does death, or is in frenzy like Bacchus, it is only because the flatness and misery of common life stifle him; and I should like to destroy them, though I had to use fire or iron. Oh, how flat this world will be when I am gone from it! No man has suspected yet, not thou even, what an artist I am. But precisely because of this I suffer, and sincerely do I tell thee that the soul in me is as gloomy as those cypresses which stand dark there in front of us. It is grievous for a man to bear at once the weight of supreme power and the highest talents.”

“I sympathize with thee, O Cæsar; and with me earth and sea, not counting Vinicius, who deifies thee in his soul.”

“He, too, has always been dear to me,” said Cæsar, “though he serves Mars, not the Muses.”

“He serves Aphrodite first of all,” answered Petronius. And suddenly he determined to settle the affair of his nephew at a blow, and at the same time to eliminate every danger which might threaten him. “He is in love, as was Troilus with Cressida. Permit him, lord, to visit Rome, for he is dying on my hands. Dost thou know that that Lygian hostage whom thou gavest him has been found, and Vinicius, when leaving for Antium, left her in care of a certain Linus? I did not mention this to thee, for thou wert composing thy hymn, and that was more important than all besides. Vinicius wanted her as a mistress; but when she turned out to be as virtuous as Lucretia, he fell in love with her virtue, and now his desire is to marry her. She is a king’s daughter, hence she will cause him no detriment; but he is a real soldier: he sighs and withers and groans, but he is waiting for the permission of his Imperator.”

“The Imperator does not choose wives for his soldiers. What good is my permission to Vinicius?”

“I have told thee, O lord, that he deifies thee.”

“All the more may he be certain of permission. That is a comely maiden, but too narrow in the hips. The Augusta Poppæa has complained to me that she enchanted our child in the gardens of the Palatine.”

“But I told Tigellinus that the gods are not subject to evil charms. Thou rememberest, divinity, his confusion and thy exclamation, ‘Habet!’”

“I remember.”

Here he turned to Vinicius,—“Dost thou love her, as Petronius says?”

“I love her, lord,” replied Vinicius.

“Then I command thee to set out for Rome to-morrow, and marry her. Appear not again before my eyes without the marriage ring.”

“Thanks to thee, lord, from my heart and soul.”

“Oh, how pleasant it is to make people happy!” said Nero. “Would that I might do nothing else all my life!”

“Grant us one favor more, O divinity,” said Petronius: “declare thy will in this matter before the Augusta. Vinicius would never venture to wed a woman displeasing to the Augusta; thou wilt dissipate her prejudice, O lord, with a word, by declaring that thou hast commanded this marriage.”

“I am willing,” said Cæsar. “I could refuse nothing to thee or Vinicius.”

He turned toward the villa, and they followed. Their hearts were filled with delight over the victory; and Vinicius had to use self-restraint to avoid throwing himself on the neck of Petronius, for it seemed now that all dangers and obstacles were removed.

In the atrium of the villa young Nerva and Tullius Senecio were entertaining the Augusta with conversation. Terpnos and Diodorus were tuning citharæ.

Nero entered, sat in an armchair inlaid with tortoise-shell, whispered something in the ear of a Greek slave near his side, and waited.

The page returned soon with a golden casket. Nero opened it and took out a necklace of great opals.

“These are jewels worthy of this evening,” said he.

“The light of Aurora is playing in them,” answered Poppæa, convinced that the necklace was for her.

Cæsar, now raising, now lowering the rosy stones, said at last,—“Vinicius, thou wilt give, from me, this necklace to her whom I command thee to marry, the youthful daughter of the Lygian king.”

Poppæa’s glance, filled with anger and sudden amazement, passed from Cæsar to Vinicius. At last it rested on Petronius. But he, leaning carelessly over the arm of the chair, passed his hand along the back of the harp as if to fix its form firmly in his mind.

Vinicius gave thanks for the gift, approached Petronius, and asked,—“How shall I thank thee for what thou hast done this day for me?”

“Sacrifice a pair of swans to Euterpe,” replied Petronius, “praise Cæsar’s songs, and laugh at omens. Henceforth the roaring of lions will not disturb thy sleep, I trust, nor that of thy Lygian lily.”

“No,” said Vinicius; “now I am perfectly at rest.”

“May Fortune favor thee! But