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

the house. She would not go to Vinicius, she said. She would rather carry fuel to the hypocaustum in his house than be chief servant in that of Vinicius. She would not, she could not go; and she begged him to have pity on her. Let him give command to flog her daily, only not send her away.

And trembling like a leaf with fear and excitement, she stretched her hands to him, while he listened with amazement. A slave who ventured to beg relief from the fulfilment of a command, who said “I will not and I cannot,” was something so unheard-of in Rome that Petronius could not believe his own ears at first. Finally he frowned. He was too refined to be cruel. His slaves, especially in the department of pleasure, were freer than others, on condition of performing their service in an exemplary manner, and honoring the will of their master, like that of a god. In case they failed in these two respects, he was able not to spare punishment, to which, according to general custom, they were subject. Since, besides this, he could not endure opposition, nor anything which ruffled his calmness, he looked for a while at the kneeling girl, and then said,—“Call Tiresias, and return with him.”

Eunice rose, trembling, with tears in her eyes, and went out; after a time she returned with the chief of the atrium, Tiresias, a Cretan.

“Thou wilt take Eunice,” said Petronius, “and give her five-and-twenty lashes, in such fashion, however, as not to harm her skin.”

When he had said this, he passed into the library, and, sitting down at a table of rose-colored marble, began to work on his “Feast of Trimalchion.” But the flight of Lygia and the illness of the infant Augusta had disturbed his mind so much that he could not work long. That illness, above all, was important. It occurred to Petronius that were Cæsar to believe that Lygia had cast spells on the infant, the responsibility might fall on him also, for the girl had been brought at his request to the palace. But he could reckon on this, that at the first interview with Cæsar he would be able in some way to show the utter absurdity of such an idea; he counted a little, too, on a certain weakness which Poppæa had for him,—a weakness hidden carefully, it is true, but not so carefully that he could not divine it. After a while he shrugged his shoulders at these fears, and decided to go to the triclinium to strengthen himself, and then order the litter to bear him once more to the palace, after that to the Campus Martius, and then to Chrysothemis.

But on the way to the triclinium at the entrance to the corridor assigned to servants, he saw unexpectedly the slender form of Eunice standing, among other slaves, at the wall; and forgetting that he had given Tiresias no order beyond flogging her, he wrinkled his brow again, and looked around for the atriensis. Not seeing him among the servants, he turned to Eunice.

“Hast thou received the lashes?”

She cast herself at his feet a second time, pressed the border of his toga to her lips, and said,—“Oh, yes, lord, I have received them! Oh, yes, lord!” In her voice were heard, as it were, joy and gratitude. It was clear that she looked on the lashes as a substitute for her removal from the house, and that now she might stay there. Petronius, who understood this, wondered at the passionate resistance of the girl; but he was too deeply versed in human nature not to know that love alone could call forth such resistance.

“Dost thou love some one in this house?” asked he.

She raised her blue, tearful eyes to him, and answered, in a voice so low that it was hardly possible to hear her,—“Yes, lord.”

And with those eyes, with that golden hair thrown back, with fear and hope in her face, she was so beautiful, she looked at him so entreatingly, that Petronius, who, as a philosopher, had proclaimed the might of love, and who, as a man of æsthetic nature, had given homage to all beauty, felt for her a certain species of compassion.

“Whom of those dost thou love?” inquired he, indicating the servants with his head.

There was no answer to that question. Eunice inclined her head to his feet and remained motionless.

Petronius looked at the slaves, among whom were beautiful and stately youths. He could read nothing on any face; on the contrary, all had certain strange smiles. He looked then for a while on Eunice lying at his feet, and went in silence to the triclinium.

After he had eaten, he gave command to bear him to the palace, and then to Chrysothemis, with whom he remained till late at night. But when he returned, he gave command to call Tiresias.

“Did Eunice receive the flogging?” inquired he.

“She did, lord. Thou didst not let the skin be cut, however.”

“Did I give no other command touching her?”

“No, lord,” answered the atriensis with alarm.

“That is well. Whom of the slaves does she love?”

“No one, lord.”

“What dost thou know of her?”

Tiresias began to speak in a somewhat uncertain voice:

“At night Eunice never leaves the cubiculum in which she lives with old Acrisiona and Ifida; after thou art dressed she never goes to the bath-rooms. Other slaves ridicule her, and call her Diana.”

“Enough,” said Petronius. “My relative, Vinicius, to whom I offered her to-day, did not accept her; hence she may stay in the house. Thou art free to go.”

“Is it permitted me to speak more of Eunice, lord?”

“I have commanded thee to say all thou knowest.”

“The whole familia are speaking of the flight of the maiden who was to dwell in the house of the noble Vinicius. After thy departure, Eunice came to me and said that she knew a man who could find her.”

“Ah! What kind of man is he?”

“I know not, lord; but I thought that I ought to inform thee of this matter.”

“That is well. Let that man wait to-morrow in my house for the arrival of the tribune, whom thou wilt request in my name to meet me here.”

The atriensis bowed and went out. But Petronius began to think of Eunice. At first it seemed clear to him that the young slave wished Vinicius to find Lygia for this reason only, that she would not be forced from his house. Afterward, however, it occurred to him that the man whom Eunice was pushing forward might be her lover, and all at once that thought seemed to him disagreeable. There was, it is true, a simple way of learning the truth, for it was enough to summon Eunice; but the hour was late, Petronius felt tired after his long visit with Chrysothemis, and was in a hurry to sleep. But on the way to the cubiculum he remembered—it is unknown why—that he had noticed wrinkles, that day, in the corners of Chrysothemis’s eyes. He thought, also, that her beauty was more