________________________________________________
_ WHEN they alighted in front of the arbiter's house, the chief of the
atrium answered them that of slaves sent to the gates none had
returned yet. The atriensis had given orders to take food to them,
and a new command, that under penalty of rods they were to watch
carefully all who left the city.
"Thou seest," said Petronius, "that they are in Rome, beyond doubt,
and in that case we shall find them. But command thy people also
to watch at the gates, -- those, namely, who were sent for Lygia, as
they will recognize her easily."
"I have given orders to send them to rural prisons," said Vinicius,
"but I will recall the orders at once, and let them go to the gates."
And writing a few words on a wax-covered tablet, he handed it to
Petronius, who gave directions to send it at once to the house of
Vinicius. Then they passed into the interior portico, and, sitting on
a marble bench, began to talk. The golden-haired Eunice and has
pushed bronze footstools under their feet, and poured wine for
them into goblets, out of wonderful narrow-necked pitchers from
Volaterr~ and Qecina.
"Hast thou among thy people any one who knows that giant
Lygian?" asked Petronius.
"Atacinus and Gulo knew him; but Atacinus fell yesterday at the
litter, and Gulo I killed."
"I am sorry for him," said Petronius. "He carried not only thee, but
me, in his arms."
"I intended to free him," answered Vinicius; "but do not mention
him. Let us speak of Lygia. Rome is a sea--"
"A sea is just the place where men fish for pearls. Of course we
shall not find her to-day, or to-morrow, but we shall find her
surely. Thou hast accused me just now of giving thee this method;
but the method was good in itself, and became bad only when
turned to bad. Thou hast heard from Aulus himself, that he intends
to go to Sicily with his whole family. In that case the girl would be
far from thee."
"I should follow them," said Vinicius, "and in every case she
would be out of danger; but now, if that child dies, Poppae will
believe, and will persuade Caesar, that she died because of Lygia."
"True; that alarmed me, too. But that little doll may recover.
Should she die, we shall find some way of escape."
Here Petronius meditated a while and added, -- "Poppae, it is said,
follows the religion of the Jews, and believes in evil spirits. Caesar
is superstitious. If we spread the report that evil spirits carried
off Lygia, the news will find belief, especially as neither Caesar
nor Aulus Plautius intercepted her; her escape was really
mysterious. The Lygian could not have effected it alone; he must
have had help. And where could a slave find so many people in the
course of one day?"
"Slaves help one another in Rome."
"Some person pays for that with blood at times. True, they support
one another, but not some against others. In this case it was known
that responsibility and punishment would fall on thy people. If
thou give thy people the idea of evil spirits, they will say at once
that they saw such with their own eyes, because that will justify
them in thy sight. Ask one of them, as a test, if he did not see
spirits carrying off Lygia through the air, he will swear at once by
the Aegis of Zeus that he saw them."
Vinicius, who was superstitious also, looked at Petronius with
sudden and great fear.
"If Ursus could not have men to help him, and was not able to take
her alone, who could take her?"
Petronius began to laugh.
"See," said he, "they will believe, since thou art half a believer
thyself. Such is our society, which ridicules the gods. They, too,
will believe, and they will not look for her. Meanwhile we shall
put her away somewhere far off from the city, in some villa of
mine or thine."
"But who could help her?"
"Her co-religionists," answered Petronius.
"Who are they? What deity does she worship? I ought to know that
better than thou."
"Nearly every woman in Rome honors a different one. It is almost
beyond doubt that Pomponia reared her in the religion of that deity
which she herself worships; what one she worships 1 know not.
One thing is certain, that no person has seen her make an offering
to our gods in any temple. They have accused her even of being a
Christian; but that is not possible; a domestic tribunal cleared her
of the charge. They say that Christians not only worship an ass's
head, but are enemies of the human race, and permit the foulest
crimes. Pomponia cannot be a Christian, as her virtue is known,
and an enemy of the human race could not treat slaves as she
does."
"In no house are they treated as at Aulus's," interrupted Vinicius.
"Ah! Pomponia mentioned to me sonie god, who must be one
powerful and merciful. Where she has put away all the others is
her affair; it is enough that that Logos of hers cannot be very
mighty, or rather he must be a very weak god, since he has had
only two adherents, -- Pomponia and Lygia, -- and Ursus in
addition. It must be that there are more of those adherents, and that
they assisted Lygia."
"That faith commands forgiveness," said Vinicius. "At Acte's I met
Pomponia, who said to me: 'May God forgive thee the evil which
thou hast done to us and to Lygia.'"
"Evidently their God is some curator who is very mild. Ha! let him
forgive thee, and in sign of forgiveness return thee the maiden."
"I would offer him a hecatomb to-morrow! I have no wish for
food, or the bath, or sleep. I will take a dark lantern and wander
through the city. Perhaps I shall find her in disguise. I am sick."
Petronius looked at him with commiseration. In fact, there was
blue under his eyes, his pupils were gleaming with fever, his
unshaven beard indicated a dark strip on his firmly outlined jaws,
his hair was in disorder, and he wa~ really like a sick man. Iras and
the golden-haired Eunice looked at him also with sympathy; but he
seemed not to see them, and he and Petronius took no notice
whatever of the slave women, just as they would not have noticed
dogs moving around them.
"Fever is tormenting thee," said Petronius.
"It is."
"Then listen to me. I know not what the doctor has prescribed to
thee, but I know how I should act in thy place. Till this lost one is
found I should seek in another that which for the moment has gone
from me with her. I saw splendid forms at thy villa. Do not
contradict me. I know what love is; and I know that when one is
desired another cannot take her place. But in a beautiful slave it is
possible to find even momentary distraction."
"I do not need it," said Vinicius.
But Petronius, who had for him a real weakness, and who wished
to soften his pain, began to meditate how he might do so.
"Perhaps thine have not for thee the charm of novelty," said he,
after a while (and here he began to look in turn at Iras and Eunice,
and finally he placed his palm on the hip of the golden-haired
Eunice). "Look at this grace! for whom some days since Fonteius
Capiton the younger offered three wonderful boys from
Clazomene. A more beautiful figure than hers even Skopas himself
has not chiselled. I myself cannot tell why I have remained
indifferent to her thus far, since thoughts of Chrysothemis have not
restrained me. Well, I give her to thee; take her for thyself!"
When the golden-haired Eunice heard this, she grew pale in one
moment, and, looking with frightened eyes on Vinicius, seemed to
wait for his answer without breath in her breast.
But he sprang up suddenly, and, pressing his temples with his
hands, said quickly, like a man who is tortured by disease, and will
not hear anything, -- "No, no! I care not for her! I care not for
others! I thank thee, but I do not want her. I will seek that one
through the city. Give command to bring me a Gallic cloak with a
hood. I will go beyond the Tiber -- if I could see even Ursus."
And he hurried away. Petronius, seeing that he could not remain in
one place, did not try to detain him. Taking, however, his refusal
as a temporary dislike for all women save Lygia, and not wishing
his own magnanimity to go for naught, he said, turning to the
slave, -- "Eunice, thou wilt bathe and anoint thyself, then dress:
after that thou wilt go to the house of Vinicius."
But she dropped before him on her knees, and with joined palms
implored him not to remove her from 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
Trimaichion." 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Poppaea 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 trielinium to strengthen
himself, and then order the litter to bear him once more to the
palace, after that to the Campus Martins, and then to
Chrysothemis.
But on the way to the trielinium 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 aesthetic 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 trielinium.
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 cuhiculum 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
celebrated in Rome than it deserved; and that Fonteius Capiton,
who had offered him three boys from Clazomenc for Eunice,
wanted to buy her too cheaply. _
Read next: CHAPTER XIII
Read previous: CHAPTER XI
Table of content of Quo Vadis
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
