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Read books online » Fiction » Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (detective books to read .TXT) 📖

Book online «Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (detective books to read .TXT) 📖». Author Henryk Sienkiewicz



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by remaining in Rome? If thou fall, thou wilt merely swell

the triumph of the ‘Beast.’ The Lord has not designated the limit of

John’s life; Paul is a Roman citizen, they cannot condemn him without

trial; but if the power of hell rise up against thee, O teacher, those

whose hearts are dejected will ask, ‘Who is above Nero?’ Thou art the

rock on which the church of God is founded. Let us die, but permit not

the victory of Antichrist over the viceregent of God, and return not

hither till the Lord has crushed him who shed innocent blood.”

 

“Look at our tears!” repeated all who were present.

 

Tears flowed over Peter’s face too. After a while he rose, and,

stretching his hands over the kneeling figures, said,—

 

“May the name of the Lord be magnified, and may His will be done!”

Chapter LXIX

About dawn of the following day two dark figures were moving along the

Appian Way toward the Campania.

 

One of them was Nazarius; the other the Apostle Peter, who was leaving

Rome and his martyred co-religionists.

 

The sky in the east was assuming a light tinge of green, bordered

gradually and more distinctly on the lower edge with saffron color.

Silver-leafed trees, the white marble of villas, and the arches of

aqueducts, stretching through the plain toward the city, were emerging

from shade. The greenness of the sky was clearing gradually, and

becoming permeated with gold. Then the east began to grow rosy and

illuminate the Alban Hills, which seemed marvellously beautiful, lily-colored, as if formed of rays of light alone.

 

The light was reflected in trembling leaves of trees, in the dew-drops.

The haze grew thinner, opening wider and wider views on the plain, on

the houses dotting it, on the cemeteries, on the towns, and on groups of

trees, among which stood white columns of temples.

 

The road was empty. The villagers who took vegetables to the city had

not succeeded yet, evidently, in harnessing beasts to their vehicles.

From the stone blocks with which the road was paved as far as the

mountains, there came a low sound from the bark shoes on the feet of the

two travellers.

 

Then the sun appeared over the line of hills; but at once a wonderful

vision struck the Apostle’s eyes. It seemed to him that the golden

circle, instead of rising in the sky, moved down from the heights and

was advancing on the road. Peter stopped, and asked,—

 

“Seest thou that brightness approaching us?”

 

“I see nothing,” replied Nazarius.

 

But Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, and said after a while,

 

“Some figure is coming in the gleam of the sun.” But not the slightest

sound of steps reached their ears. It was perfectly still all around.

Nazarius saw only that the trees were quivering in the distance, as if

some one were shaking them, and the light was spreading more broadly

over the plain. He looked with wonder at the Apostle.

 

“Rabbi! what ails thee?” cried he, with alarm.

 

The pilgrim’s staff fell from Peter’s hands to the earth; his eyes were

looking forward, motionless; his mouth was open; on his face were

depicted astonishment, delight, rapture.

 

Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and this

cry left his lips,—

 

“O Christ! O Christ!”

 

He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one’s feet.

 

The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man,

broken by sobs,—

 

“Quo vadis, Domine?”

 

Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter’s ears came a sad and

sweet voice, which said,—

 

“If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second

time.”

 

The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or

speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he

rose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without

a word toward the seven hills of the city.

 

The boy, seeing this, repeated as an echo,—

 

“Quo vadis, Domine?”

 

“To Rome,” said the Apostle, in a low voice.

 

And he returned.

 

Paul, John, Linus, and all the faithful received him with amazement; and

the alarm was the greater, since at daybreak, just after his departure,

pretorians had surrounded Miriam’s house and searched it for the

Apostle. But to every question he answered only with delight and

peace,—

 

“I have seen the Lord!”

 

And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach and

baptize those who wished to bathe in the water of life.

 

And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasing

numbers. It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors

were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands

of breasts. Cæsar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world

was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness,

those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and

oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came

to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given

Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

 

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which

the society of the time could not give any one,—happiness and love.

 

And Peter understood that neither Cæsar nor all his legions could

overcome the living truth,—that they could not overwhelm it with tears

or blood, and that now its victory was beginning. He understood with

equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road. That city of

pride, crime, wickedness, and power was beginning to be His city, and

the double capital, from which would flow out upon the world government

of souls and bodies.

Chapter LXX

AT last the hour was accomplished for both Apostles. But, as if to

complete his service, it was given to the fisherman of the Lord to win

two souls even in confinement. The soldiers, Processus and Martinianus,

who guarded him in the Mamertine prison, received baptism. Then came

the hour of torture. Nero was not in Rome at that time. Sentence was

passed by Helius and Polythetes, two freedmen to whom Cæsar had confided

the government of Rome during his absence.

 

On the aged Apostle had been inflicted the stripes prescribed by law;

and next day he was led forth beyond the walls of the city, toward the

Vatican Hill, where he was to suffer the punishment of the cross

assigned to him. Soldiers were astonished by the crowd which had

gathered before the prison, for in their minds the death of a common

man, and besides a foreigner, should not rouse such interest; they did

not understand that that retinue was composed not of sightseers, but

confessors, anxious to escort the great Apostle to the place of

execution. In the afternoon the gates of the prison were thrown open at

last, and Peter appeared in the midst of a detachment of pretorians.

The sun had inclined somewhat toward Ostia already; the day was clear

and calm. Because of his advanced age, Peter was not required to carry

the cross; it was supposed that he could not carry it; they had not put

the fork on his neck, either, so as not to retard his pace. He walked

without hindrance, and the faithful could see him perfectly.

 

At moments when his white head showed itself among the iron helmets of

the soldiers, weeping was heard in the crowd; but it was restrained

immediately, for the face of the old man had in it so much calmness, and

was so bright with joy, that all understood him to be not a victim going

to destruction, but a victor celebrating his triumph.

 

And thus it was really. The fisherman, usually humble and stooping,

walked now erect, taller than the soldiers, full of dignity. Never had

men seen such majesty in his bearing. It might have seemed that he was

a monarch attended by people and military. From every side voices were

raised,—

 

“There is Peter going to the Lord!”

 

All forgot, as it were, that torture and death were waiting for him. He

walked with solemn attention, but with calmness, feeling that since the

death on Golgotha nothing equally important had happened, and that as

the first death had redeemed the whole world, this was to redeem the

city.

 

Along the road people halted from wonder at sight of that old man; but

believers, laying hands on their shoulders, said with calm voices,—

 

“See how a just man goes to death,—one who knew Christ and proclaimed

love to the world.”

 

These became thoughtful, and walked away, saying to themselves, “He

cannot, indeed, be unjust!”

 

Along the road noise was hushed, and the cries of the street. The

retinue moved on before houses newly reared, before white columns of

temples, over whose summits hung the deep sky, calm and blue. They went

in quiet; only at times the weapons of the soldiers clattered, or the

murmur of prayer rose. Peter heard the last, and his face grew bright

with increasing joy, for his glance could hardly take in those thousands

of confessors. He felt that he had done his work, and he knew now that

that truth which he had been declaring all his life would overwhelm

everything, like a sea, and that nothing would have power to restrain

it. And thus thinking, he raised his eyes, and said: “O Lord, Thou

didst command me to conquer this world-ruling city; hence I have

conquered it. Thou hast commanded me to found here Thy capital; hence I

have founded it. This is Thy city now, O Lord, and I go to Thee, for I

have toiled greatly.”

 

As he passed before temples, he said to them, “Ye will be temples of

Christ.” Looking at throngs of people moving before his eyes, he said

to them, “Your children will be servants of Christ”; and he advanced

with the feeling that he had conquered, conscious of his service,

conscious of his strength, solaced,—great. The soldiers conducted him

over the Pons Triumphalis, as if giving involuntary testimony to his

triumph, and they led him farther toward the Naumachia and the Circus.

The faithful from beyond the Tiber joined the procession; and such a

throng of people was formed that the centurion commanding the pretonians

understood at last that he was leading a high-priest surrounded by

believers, and grew alarmed because of the small number of soldiers.

But no cry of indignation or rage was given out in the throng. Men’s

faces were penetrated with the greatness of the moment, solemn and full

of expectation. Some believers, remembering that when the Lord died the

earth opened from fright and the dead rose from their graves, thought

that now some evident signs would appear, after which the death of the

Apostle would not be forgotten for ages. Others said to themselves,

“Perhaps the Lord will select the hour of Peter’s death to come from

heaven as He promised, and judge the world.” With this idea they

recommended themselves to the mercy of the Redeemer.

 

But round about there was calm. The hills seemed to be warming

themselves, and resting in the sun. The procession stopped at last

between the Circus and the Vatican Hill. Soldiers began now to dig a

hole; others placed on the ground the cross, hammers, and nails, waiting

till all preparations were finished. The crowd, continuing quiet and

attentive, knelt round about.

 

The Apostle, with his head in the

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