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

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and could not inquire for him.”

 

“Seek him, and find him for me.”

 

“I will occupy myself with that,” said Tigellinus.

 

But Nero spoke further to Vinicius: “I thank thee for having supported

me; I might have broken my head by a fall. On a time thou wert a good

companion, but campaigning and service with Corbulo have made thee wild

in some way; I see thee rarely.

 

“How is that maiden too narrow in the hips, with whom thou wert in

love,” asked he after a while, “and whom I took from Aulus for thee?”

 

Vinicius was confused, but Petronius came to his aid at that moment. “I

will lay a wager, lord,” said he, “that he has forgotten. Dost thou see

his confusion? Ask him how many of them there were since that time, and

I will not give assurance of his power to answer. The Vinicius are good

soldiers, but still better gamecocks. They need whole flocks. Punish

him for that, lord, by not inviting him to the feast which Tigellinus

promises to arrange in thy honor on the pond of Agrippa.”

 

“I will not do that. I trust, Tigellinus, that flocks of beauty will

not be lacking there.”

 

“Could the Graces be absent where Amor will be present?” answered

Tigellinus.

 

“Weariness tortures me,” said Nero. “I have remained in Rome at the

will of the goddess, but I cannot endure the city. I will go to Antium.

I am stifled in these narrow streets, amid these tumble-down houses,

amid these alleys. Foul air flies even here to my house and my gardens.

Oh, if an earthquake would destroy Rome, if some angry god would level

it to the earth! I would show how a city should be built, which is the

head of the world and my capital.”

 

“Cæsar,” answered Tigellinus, “thou sayest, ‘If some angry god would

destroy the city,’—is it so?”

 

“It is! What then?”

 

“But art thou not a god?”

 

Nero waved his hand with an expression of weariness, and said,—“We

shall see thy work on the pond of Agrippa. Afterward I go to Antium.

Ye are all little, hence do not understand that I need immense things.”

 

Then he closed his eyes, giving to understand in that way that he needed

rest. In fact, the Augustians were beginning to depart. Petronius went

out with Vinicius, and said to him,—“Thou art invited, then, to share

in the amusement. Bronzebeard has renounced the journey, but he will be

madder than ever; he has fixed himself in the city as in his own house.

Try thou, too, to find in these madnesses amusement and forgetfulness.

Well! we have conquered the world, and have a right to amuse ourselves.

Thou, Marcus, art a very comely fellow, and to that I ascribe in part

the weakness which I have for thee. By the Ephesian Diana! if thou

couldst see thy joined brows, and thy face in which the ancient blood of

the Quirites is evident! Others near thee looked like freedmen. True!

were it not for that mad religion, Lygia would be in thy house to-day.

Attempt once more to prove to me that they are not enemies of life and

mankind. They have acted well toward thee, hence thou mayst be grateful

to them; but in thy place I should detest that religion, and seek

pleasure where I could find it. Thou art a comely fellow, I repeat, and

Rome is swarming with divorced women.”

 

“I wonder only that all this does not torture thee yet?”

 

“Who has told thee that it does not? It tortures me this long time, but

I am not of thy years. Besides, I have other attachments which are

lacking thee. I love books, thou hast no love for them; I love poetry,

which annoys thee; I love pottery, gems, a multitude of things, at which

thou dost not look; I have a pain in my loins, which thou hast not; and,

finally, I have found Eunice, but thou hast found nothing similar. For

me, it is pleasant in my house, among masterpieces; of thee I can never

make a man of æsthetic feeling. I know that in life I shall never find

anything beyond what I have found; thou thyself knowest not that thou

art hoping yet continually, and seeking. If death were to visit thee,

with all thy courage and sadness, thou wouldst die with astonishment

that it was necessary to leave the world; but I should accept death as a

necessity, with the conviction that there is no fruit in the world which

I have not tasted. I do not hurry, neither shall I loiter; I shall try

merely to be joyful to the end. There are cheerful sceptics in the

world. For me, the Stoics are fools; but stoicism tempers men, at

least, while thy Christians bring sadness into the world, which in life

is the same as rain in nature. Dost thou know what I have learned?

That during the festivities which Tigellinus will arrange at the pond of

Agrippa, there will be lupanaria, and in them women from the first

houses of Rome. Will there be not even one sufficiently beautiful to

console thee? There will be maidens, too, appearing in society for the

first time—as nymphs. Such is our Roman Cæsardom! The air is mild

already; the midday breeze will warm the water and not bring pimples on

naked bodies. And thou, Narcissus, know this, that there will not be

one to refuse thee,—not one, even though she be a vestal virgin.”

 

Vinicius began to strike his head with his palm, like a man occupied

eternally with one thought.

 

“I should need luck to find such a one.”

 

“And who did this for thee, if not the Christians? But people whose

standard is a cross cannot be different. Listen to me: Greece was

beautiful, and created wisdom; we created power; and what, to thy

thinking, can this teaching create? If thou know, explain; for, by

Pollux! I cannot divine it.”

 

“Thou art afraid, it seems, lest I become a Christian,” said Vinicius,

shrugging his shoulders.

 

“I am afraid that thou hast spoiled life for thyself. If thou canst not

be a Grecian, be a Roman; possess and enjoy. Our madnesses have a

certain sense, for there is in them a kind of thought of our own. I

despise Bronzebeard, because he is a Greek buffoon. If he held himself

a Roman, I should recognize that he was right in permitting himself

madness. Promise me that if thou find some Christian on returning home,

thou wilt show thy tongue to him. If he be Glaucus the physician, he

will not wonder.—Till we meet on the pond of Agrippa.”

Chapter XXXI

PRETORIANS surrounded the groves on the banks of the pond of Agrippa,

lest over-numerous throngs of spectators might annoy Cæsar and his

guests; though it was said that everything in Rome distinguished for

wealth, beauty, or intellect was present at that feast, which had no

equal in the history of the city. Tigellinus wished to recompense Cæsar

for the deferred journey to Achæa, to surpass all who had ever feasted

Nero, and prove that no man could entertain as he could. With this

object in view, while with Cæsar in Naples, and later in Beneventum, he

had made preparations and sent orders to bring from the remotest regions

of the earth beasts, birds, rare fish, and plants, not omitting vessels

and cloths, which were to enhance the splendor of the feast. The

revenues of whole provinces went to satisfy mad projects; but the

powerful favorite had no need to hesitate. His influence grew daily.

Tigellinus was not dearer than others to Nero yet, perhaps, but he was

becoming more and more indispensable. Petronius surpassed him

infinitely in polish, intellect, wit; in conversation he knew better how

to amuse Cæsar: but to his misfortune he surpassed in conversation Cæsar

himself, hence he roused his jealousy; moreover he could not be an

obedient instrument in everything, and Cæsar feared his opinion when

there were questions in matters of taste. But before Tigellinus, Nero

never felt any restraint. The very title, Arbiter Elegantiarum, which

had been given to Petronius, annoyed Nero’s vanity, for who had the

right to bear that title but himself? Tigellinus had sense enough to

know his own deficiencies; and seeing that he could not compete with

Petronius, Lucan, or others distinguished by birth, talents, or

learning, he resolved to extinguish them by the suppleness of his

services, and above all by such a magnificence that the imagination of

Nero himself would be struck by it. He had arranged to give the feast

on a gigantic raft, framed of gilded timbers. The borders of this raft

were decked with splendid shells found in the Red Sea and the Indian

Ocean, shells brilliant with the colors of pearls and the rainbow. The

banks of the pond were covered with groups of palm, with groves of

lotus, and blooming roses. In the midst of these were hidden fountains

of perfumed water, statues of gods and goddesses, and gold or silver

cages filled with birds of various colors. In the centre of the raft

rose an immense tent, or rather, not to hide the feasters, only the roof

of a tent, made of Syrian purple, resting on silver columns; under it

were gleaming, like suns, tables prepared for the guests, loaded with

Alexandrian glass, crystal, and vessels simply beyond price,—the

plunder of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. The raft, which because of

plants accumulated on it had the appearance of an island and a garden,

was joined by cords of gold and purple to boats shaped like fish, swans,

mews, and flamingoes, in which sat at painted oars naked rowers of both

sexes, with forms and features of marvellous beauty, their hair dressed

in Oriental fashion, or gathered in golden nets. When Nero arrived at

the main raft with Poppæa and the Augustians, and sat beneath the purple

tent-roof, the oars struck the water, the boats moved, the golden cords

stretched, and the raft with the feast and the guests began to move and

describe circles on the pond. Other boats surrounded it, and other

smaller rafts, filled with women playing on citharæ and harps, women

whose rosy bodies on the blue background of the sky and the water and in

the reflections from golden instruments seemed to absorb that blue and

those reflections, and to change and bloom like flowers.

 

From the groves at the banks, from fantastic buildings reared for that

day and hidden among thickets, were heard music and song. The

neighborhood resounded, the groves resounded; echoes bore around the

voices of horns and trumpets. Cæsar himself, with Poppæa on one side of

him, and Pythagoras on the other, was amazed; and more especially when

among the boats young slave maidens appeared as sirens, and were covered

with green network in imitation of scales, he did not spare praises on

Tigellinus. But he looked at Petronius from habit, wishing to learn the

opinion of the “arbiter,” who seemed indifferent for a long time, and

only when questioned outright, answered,—“I judge, lord, that ten

thousand naked maidens make less impression than one.”

 

But the “floating feast” pleased Cæsar, for it was something new.

Besides, such exquisite dishes were served that the imagination of

Apicius would have failed at sight of them, and wines of so many kinds

that Otho, who used to serve eighty, would have hidden under water with

shame, could he have witnessed the luxury of that feast. Besides women,

the Augustians sat down at the table, among whom Vinicius excelled all

with his beauty. Formerly his figure and face indicated too clearly the

soldier by profession; now mental suffering and the physical pain

through which he had passed

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