Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero Page 54

  Chapter LIV

  LYGIA, in a long letter written hurriedly, took farewell to Viniciusforever. She knew that no one was permitted to enter the prison,and that she could see Vinicius only from the arena. She begged himtherefore to discover when the turn of the Mamertine prisoners wouldcome, and to be at the games, for she wished to see him once more inlife. No fear was evident in her letter. She wrote that she and theothers were longing for the arena, where they would find liberationfrom imprisonment. She hoped for the coming of Pomponia and Aulus; sheentreated that they too be present. Every word of her showed ecstasy,and that separation from life in which all the prisoners lived, and atthe same time an unshaken faith that all promises would be fulfilledbeyond the grave.

  "Whether Christ," wrote she, "frees me in this life or after death,He has promised me to thee by the lips of the Apostle; therefore I amthine." She implored him not to grieve for her, and not to let himselfbe overcome by suffering. For her death was not a dissolution ofmarriage. With the confidence of a child she assured Vinicius thatimmediately after her suffering in the arena she would tell Christ thather betrothed Marcus had remained in Rome, that he was longing for herwith his whole heart. And she thought that Christ would permit her soul,perhaps, to return to him for a moment, to tell him that she was living,that she did not remember her torments, and that she was happy. Herwhole letter breathed happiness and immense hope. There was only onerequest in it connected with affairs of earth,--that Vinicius shouldtake her body from the spoliarium and bury it as that of his wife in thetomb in which he himself would rest sometime.

  He read this letter with a suffering spirit, but at the same time itseemed to him impossible that Lygia should perish under the claws ofwild beasts, and that Christ would not take compassion on her. But justin that were hidden hope and trust. When he returned home, he wrotethat he would come every day to the walls of the Tullianum to wait tillChrist crushed the walls and restored her. He commanded her to believethat Christ could give her to him, even in the Circus; that the greatApostle was imploring Him to do so, and that the hour of liberationwas near. The converted centurion was to bear this letter to her on themorrow.

  But when Vinicius came to the prison next morning, the centurion leftthe rank, approached him first, and said,--

  "Listen to me, lord. Christ, who enlightened thee, has shown thee favor.Last night Caesar's freedman and those of the prefect came to selectChristian maidens for disgrace; they inquired for thy betrothed, but ourLord sent her a fever, of which prisoners are dying in the Tullianum,and they left her. Last evening she was unconscious, and blessed be thename of the Redeemer, for the sickness which has saved her from shamemay save her from death."

  Vinicius placed his hand on the soldier's shoulder to guard himself fromfalling; but the other continued,--

  "Thank the mercy of the Lord! They took and tortured Linus, but, seeingthat he was dying, they surrendered him. They may give her now to thee,and Christ will give back health to her."

  The young tribune stood some time with drooping head; then raised it andsaid in a whisper,--

  "True, centurion. Christ, who saved her from shame, will save her fromdeath." And sitting at the wall of the prison till evening, he returnedhome to send people for Linus and have him taken to one of his suburbanvillas.

  But when Petronius had heard everything, he determined to act also. Hehad visited the Augusta; now he went to her a second time. He found herat the bed of little Rufius. The child with broken head was strugglingin a fever; his mother, with despair and terror in her heart, was tryingto save him, thinking, however, that if she did save him it might beonly to perish soon by a more dreadful death.

  Occupied exclusively with her own suffering, she would not even hear ofVinicius and Lygia; but Petronius terrified her.

  "Thou hast offended," said he to her, "a new, unknown divinity. Thou,Augusta, art a worshipper, it seems, of the Hebrew Jehovah; but theChristians maintain that Chrestos is his son. Reflect, then, if theanger of the father is not pursuing thee. Who knows but it is theirvengeance which has struck thee? Who knows but the life of Rufiusdepends on this,--how thou wilt act?"

  "What dost thou wish me to do?" asked Poppaea, with terror.

  "Mollify the offended deities."

  "How?"

  "Lygia is sick; influence Caesar or Tigellinus to give her to Vinicius."

  "Dost thou think that I can do that?" asked she, in despair.

  "Thou canst do something else. If Lygia recovers, she must die. Gothou to the temple of Vesta, and ask the virgo magna to happen near theTullianum at the moment when they are leading prisoners out to death,and give command to free that maiden. The chief vestal will not refusethee."

  "But if Lygia dies of the fever?"

  "The Christians say that Christ is vengeful, but just; maybe thou wiltsoften Him by thy wish alone."

  "Let Him give me some sign that will heal Rufius."

  Petronius shrugged his shoulders.

  "I have not come as His envoy; O divinity, I merely say to thee, Be onbetter terms with all the gods, Roman and foreign."

  "I will go!" said Poppaea, with a broken voice.

  Petronius drew a deep breath. "At last I have done something," thoughthe, and returning to Vinicius he said to him,--

  "Implore thy God that Lygia die not of the fever, for should shesurvive, the chief vestal will give command to free her. The Augustaherself will ask her to do so."

  "Christ will free her," said Vinicius, looking at him with eyes in whichfever was glittering.

  Poppaea, who for the recovery of Rufius was willing to burn hecatombs toall the gods of the world, went that same evening through the Forum tothe vestals, leaving care over the sick child to her faithful nurse,Silvia, by whom she herself had been reared.

  But on the Palatine sentence had been issued against the child already;for barely had Poppaea's litter vanished behind the great gate when twofreedmen entered the chamber in which her son was resting. One of thesethrew himself on old Silvia and gagged her; the other, seizing a bronzestatue of the Sphinx, stunned the old woman with the first blow.

  Then they approached Rufius. The little boy, tormented with fever andinsensible, not knowing what was passing around him, smiled at them,and blinked with his beautiful eyes, as if trying to recognize the men.Stripping from the nurse her girdle, they put it around his neck andpulled it. The child called once for his mother, and died easily. Thenthey wound him in a sheet, and sitting on horses which were waiting,hurried to Ostia, where they threw the body into the sea.

  Poppaea, not finding the virgo magna, who with other vestals was at thehouse of Vatinius, returned soon to the Palatine. Seeing the empty bedand the cold body of Silvia, she fainted, and when they restored her shebegan to scream; her wild cries were heard all that night and the dayfollowing.

  But Caesar commanded her to appear at a feast on the third day; so,arraying herself in an amethyst-colored tunic, she came and sat withstony face, golden-haired, silent, wonderful, and as ominous as an angelof death.