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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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>pulled his tunic.

 

“Lord,” asked he, “how didst thou come, and hast thou come here to save

her?”

 

Vinicius rose, and struggled for a time with his emotion. “Show me the

means,” replied he.

 

“I thought that thou wouldst find them, lord. Only one method came to

my head—”

 

Here he turned toward the grating in the wall, as if in answer to

himself, and said,—

 

“In that way—but there are soldiers outside—”

 

“A hundred pretorians.”

 

“Then we cannot pass?”

 

“No!”

 

The Lygian rubbed his forehead, and asked again,—

 

“How didst thou enter?”

 

“I have a tessera from the overseer of the ‘Putrid Pits.’” Then Vinicius

stopped suddenly, as if some idea had flashed through his head.

 

“By the Passion of the Redeemer,” said he, in a hurried voice, “I will

stay here. Let her take my tessera; she can wrap her head in a cloth,

cover her shoulders with a mantle, and pass out. Among the slaves who

carry out corpses there are several youths not full grown; hence the

pretorians will not notice her, and once at the house of Petronius she

is safe.”

 

But the Lygian dropped his head on his breast, and said,—“She would not

consent, for she loves thee; besides, she is sick, and unable to stand

alone. If thou and the noble Petronius cannot save her from prison, who

can?” said he, after a while.

 

“Christ alone.”

 

Then both were silent.

 

“Christ could save all Christians,” thought the Lygian, in his simple

heart; “but since He does not save them, it is clear that the hour of

torture and death has come.”

 

He accepted it for himself, but was grieved to the depth of his soul for

that child who had grown up in his arms, and whom he loved beyond life.

 

Vinicius knelt again near Lygia. Through the grating in the wall

moonbeams came in, and gave better light than the one candle burning yet

over the entrance. Lygia opened her eyes now, and said, placing her

feverish hand on the arm of Vinicius,

 

“I see thee; I knew that thou wouldst come.”

 

He seized her hands, pressed them to his forehead and his heart, raised

her somewhat, and held her to his breast.

 

“I have come, dearest. May Christ guard and free thee, beloved Lygia!”

He could say no more, for the heart began to whine in his breast from

pain and love, and he would not show pain in her presence.

 

“I am sick, Marcus,” said Lygia, “and I must die either on the arena or

here in prison—I have prayed to see thee before death; thou hast come,

—Christ has heard me.”—

 

Unable to utter a word yet, he pressed her to his bosom, and she

continued,—

 

“I saw thee through the window in the Tullianum. I saw that thou hadst

the wish to come to me. Now the Redeemer has given me a moment of

consciousness, so that we may take farewell of each other. I am going

to Him, Marcus, but I love thee, and shall love always.”

 

Vinicius conquered himself; he stifled his pain and began to speak in a

voice which he tried to make calm,—

 

“No, dear Lygia, thou wilt not die. The Apostle commanded me to

believe, and he promised to pray for thee; he knew Christ,—Christ loved

him and will not refuse him. Hadst thou to die, Peter would not have

commanded me to be confident; but he said, ‘Have confidence!’—No,

Lygia! Christ will have mercy. He does not wish thy death. He will

not permit it. I Swear to thee by the name of the Redeemer that Peter

is praying for thee.”

 

Silence followed. The one candle hanging above the entrance went out,

but moonlight entered through the whole opening. In the opposite corner

of the cellar a child whined and was silent. From outside came the

voices of pretorians, who, after watching their turn out, were playing

under the wall at scriptœ duodecim.

 

“O Marcus,” said Lygia, “Christ Himself called to the Father, ‘Remove

this bitter cup from Me’; still He drank it. Christ Himself died on the

cross, and thousands are perishing for His sake. Why, then, should He

spare me alone? Who am I, Marcus? I have heard Peter say that he too

would die in torture. Who am I, compared with Peter? When the

pretorians came to us, I dreaded death and torture, but I dread them no

longer. See what a terrible prison this is, but I am going to heaven.

Think of it: Cæsar is here, but there the Redeemer, kind and merciful.

And there is no death there. Thou lovest me; think, then, how happy I

shall be. Oh, dear Marcus, think that thou wilt come to me there.”

 

Here she stopped to get breath in her sick breast, and then raised his

hand to her lips,—

 

“Marcus?”

 

“What, dear one?”

 

“Do not weep for me, and remember this,—thou wilt come to me. I have

lived a short time, but God gave thy soul to me; hence I shall tell

Christ that though I died, and thou wert looking at my death, though

thou wert left in grief, thou didst not blaspheme against His will, and

that thou lovest Him always. Thou wilt love Him, and endure my death

patiently? For then He will unite us. I love thee and I wish to be

with thee.”

 

Breath failed her then, and in a barely audible voice she finished,

 

“Promise me this, Marcus!”

 

Vinicius embraced her with trembling arms, and said,

 

“By thy sacred head! I promise.”

 

Her pale face became radiant in the sad light of the moon, and once more

she raised his hand to her lips, and whispered,—

 

“I am thy wife!”

 

Beyond the wall the pretorians playing scriptœ duodecim raised a louder

dispute; but Vinicius and Lygia forgot the prison, the guards, the

world, and, feeling within them the souls of angels, they began to pray.

Chapter LX

FOR three days, or rather three nights, nothing disturbed their peace.

When the usual prison work was finished, which consisted in separating

the dead from the living and the grievously sick from those in better

health, when the wearied guards had lain down to sleep in the corridors,

Vinicius entered Lygia’s dungeon and remained there till daylight. She

put her head on his breast, and they talked in low voices of love and of

death. In thought and speech, in desires and hopes even, both were

removed unconsciously more and more from life, and they lost the sense

of it. Both were like people who, having sailed from land in a ship,

saw the shore no more, and were sinking gradually into infinity. Both

changed by degrees into sad souls in love with each other and with

Christ, and ready to fly away. Only at times did pain start up in the

heart of Vinicius like a whirlwind, at times there flashed in him like

lightning, hope, born of love and faith in the crucified God; but he

tore himself away more and more each day from the earth, and yielded to

death. In the morning, when he went from the prison, he looked on the

world, on the city, on acquaintances, on vital interests, as through a

dream. Everything seemed to him strange, distant, vain, fleeting. Even

torture ceased to terrify, since one might pass through it while sunk in

thought and with eyes fixed on another thing. It seemed to both that

eternity had begun to receive them. They conversed of how they would

love and live together, but beyond the grave; and if their thoughts

returned to the earth at intervals, these were thoughts of people who,

setting out on a long journey, speak of preparations for the road.

Moreover they were surrounded by such silence as in some desert

surrounds two columns far away and forgotten. Their only care was that

Christ should not separate them; and as each moment strengthened their

conviction that He would not, they loved Him as a link uniting them in

endless happiness and peace. While still on earth, the dust of earth

fell from them. The soul of each was as pure as a tear. Under terror

of death, amid misery and suffering, in that prison den, heaven had

begun, for she had taken him by the hand, and, as if saved and a saint,

had led him to the source of endless life.

 

Petronius was astonished at seeing in the face of Vinicius increasing

peace and a certain wonderful serenity which he had not noted before.

At times even he supposed that Vinicius had found some mode of rescue,

and he was piqued because his nephew had not confided his hopes to him.

At last, unable to restrain himself, he said,—

 

“Now thou hast another look; do not keep from me secrets, for I wish and

am able to aid thee. Hast thou arranged anything?”

 

“I have,” said Vinicius; “but thou canst not help me. After her death I

will confess that I am a Christian and follow her.”

 

“Then thou hast no hope?”

 

“On the contrary, I have. Christ will give her to me, and I shall never

be separated from her.”

 

Petronius began to walk in the atrium; disillusion and impatience were

evident on his face.

 

“Thy Christ is not needed for this,—our Thanatos [death] can render the

same service.”

 

Vinicius smiled sadly, and said,—“No, my dear, thou art unwilling to

understand.”

 

“I am unwilling and unable. It is not the time for discussion, but

remember what I said when we failed to free her from the Tullianum. I

lost all hope, and on the way home thou didst say, ‘But I believe that

Christ can restore her to me.’ Let Him restore her. If I throw a costly

goblet into the sea, no god of ours can give it back to me; if yours is

no better, I know not why I should honor Him beyond the old ones.”

 

“But He will restore her to me.”

 

Pettonius shrugged his shoulders. “Dost know,” inquired he, “that

Christians are to illuminate Cæsar’s gardens tomorrow?”

 

“Tomorrow?” repeated Vinicius.

 

And in view of the near and dreadful reality his heart trembled with

pain and fear. “This is the last night, perhaps, which I can pass with

Lygia,” thought he. So bidding farewell to Petronius, he went hurriedly

to the overseer of the “Putrid Pits” for his tessera. But disappointment

was in waiting,—the overseer would not give the tessera.

 

“Pardon me,” said he, “I have done what I could for thee, but I cannot

risk my life. To-night they are to conduct the Christians to Cæsar’s

gardens. The prisons will be full of soldiers and officials. Shouldst

thou be recognized, I and my children would be lost.”

 

Vinicius understood that it would be vain to insist. The hope gleamed

in him, however, that the soldiers who had seen him before would admit

him even without a tessera; so, with the coming of night, he disguised

himself as usual in the tunic of a corpse-bearer, and, winding a cloth

around his head, betook himself to the prison.

 

But that day the tesseræ were verified with greater care than usual; and

what was more, the centurion Scevinus, a strict soldier, devoted soul

and body to Cæsar, recognized Vinicius. But evidently in his iron-clad

breast there glimmered yet some spark of pity for misfortunes. Instead

of striking his spear in token of alarm, he led Vinicius aside and

said,—

 

“Return to thy house, lord. I recognize thee; but not wishing thy ruin,

I am silent. I cannot admit thee;

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