Quo Vadis: a narrative of the time of Nero Part 55

And that surpa.s.sing measure of cruelty was answered by an equal measure of desire for martyrdom,-the confessors of Christ went to death willingly, or even sought death till they were restrained by the stern commands of superiors. By the injunction of these superiors they began to a.s.semble only outside the city, in excavations near the Appian Way, and in vineyards belonging to patrician Christians, of whom none had been imprisoned so far. It was known perfectly on the Palatine that to the confessors of Christ belonged Flavius, Domitilla, Pomponia Graecina, Cornelius Pudens, and Vinicius. Caesar himself, however, feared that the mob would not believe that such people had burned Rome, and since it was important beyond everything to convince the mob, punishment and vengeance were deferred till later days. Others were of the opinion, but erroneously, that those patricians were saved by the influence of Acte. Petronius, after parting with Vinicius, turned to Acte, it is true, to gain a.s.sistance for Lygia; but she could offer him only tears, for she lived in oblivion and suffering, and was endured only in so far as she hid herself from Poppaea and Caesar.

But she had visited Lygia in prison, she had carried her clothing and food, and above all had saved her from injury on the part of the prison-guards, who, moreover, were bribed already.

Petronius, unable to forget that had it not been for him and his plan of taking Lygia from the house of Aulus, probably she would not be in prison at that moment, and, besides, wishing to win the game against Tigellinus, spared neither time nor efforts. In the course of a few days he saw Seneca, Domitius Afer, Crispinilla, and Diodorus, through whom he wished to reach Poppaea; he saw Terpnos, and the beautiful Pythagoras, and finally Aliturus and Paris, to whom Caesar usually refused nothing. With the help of Chrysothemis, then mistress of Vatinius, he tried to gain even his aid, not sparing in this case and in others promises and money.

But all these efforts were fruitless. Seneca, uncertain of the morrow, fell to explaining to him that the Christians, even if they had not burned Rome, should be exterminated, for the good of the city,-in a word, he justified the coming slaughter for political reasons. Terpnos and Diodorus took the money, and did nothing in return for it. Vatinius reported to Caesar that they had been trying to bribe him. Aliturus alone, who at first was hostile to the Christians, took pity on them then, and made bold to mention to Caesar the imprisoned maiden, and to implore in her behalf. He obtained nothing, however, but the answer,-

"Dost thou think that I have a soul inferior to that of Brutus, who spared not his own sons for the good of Rome?"

When this answer was repeated to Petronius, he said,-

"Since Nero has compared himself to Brutus, there is no salvation."

But he was sorry for Vinicius, and dread seized him lest he might attempt his own life. "Now," thought the arbiter, "he is upheld by the efforts which he makes to save her, by the sight of her, and by his own suffering; but when all means fail and the last ray of hope is quenched, by Castor! he will not survive, he will throw himself on his sword." Petronius understood better how to die thus than to love and suffer like Vinicius.

Meanwhile Vinicius did all that he could think of to save Lygia. He visited Augustians; and he, once so proud, now begged their a.s.sistance. Through Vitelius he offered Tigellinus all his Sicilian estates, and whatever else the man might ask; but Tigellinus, not wishing apparently to offend the Augusta, refused. To go to Caesar himself, embrace his knees and implore, would lead to nothing. Vinicius wished, it is true, to do this; but Petronius, hearing of his purpose, inquired,-

"But should he refuse thee, or answer with a jest or a shameless threat, what wouldst thou do?"

At this the young tribune's features contracted with pain and rage, and from his fixed jaws a gritting sound was heard.

"Yes," said Petronius, "I advise thee against this, because thou wouldst close all paths of rescue."

Vinicius restrained himself, and pa.s.sing his palm over his forehead, which was covered with cold sweat, replied,-

"No, no! I am a Christian."

"But thou will forget this, as thou didst a moment ago. Thou hast the right to ruin thyself, but not her. Remember what the daughter of Seja.n.u.s pa.s.sed through before death."

Speaking thus he was not altogether sincere, since he was concerned more for Vinicius than for Lygia. Still he knew that in no way could he restrain him from a dangerous step as well as by telling him that he would bring inexorable destruction on Lygia. Moreover he was right; for on the Palatine they had counted on the visit of the young tribune, and had taken needful precautions.

But the suffering of Vinicius surpa.s.sed human endurance. From the moment that Lygia was imprisoned and the glory of coming martyrdom had fallen on her, not only did he love her a hundred times more, but he began simply to give her in his soul almost religious honor, as he would a superhuman being. And now, at the thought that he must lose this being both loved and holy, that besides death torments might be inflicted on her more terrible than death itself, the blood stiffened in his veins. His soul was turned into one groan, his thoughts were confused. At times it seemed to him that his skull was filled with living fire, which would either burn or burst it. He ceased to understand what was happening; he ceased to understand why Christ, the Merciful, the Divine, did not come with aid to His adherents; why the dingy walls of the Palatine did not sink through the earth, and with them Nero, the Augustians, the pretorian camp, and all that city of crime. He thought that it could not and should not be otherwise; and all that his eyes saw, and because of which his heart was breaking, was a dream. But the roaring of wild beasts informed him that it was reality; the sound of the axes beneath which rose the arena told him that it was reality; the howling of the people and the overfilled prisons confirmed this. Then his faith in Christ was alarmed; and that alarm was a new torture, the most dreadful of all, perhaps.

"Remember what the daughter of Seja.n.u.s endured before death," said Petronius to him, meanwhile.

Chapter LII

AND everything had failed. Vinicius lowered himself to the degree that he sought support from freedmen and slaves, both those of Caesar and Poppaea; he overpaid their empty promises, he won their good will with rich gifts. He found the first husband of Poppaea, Rufus Crispinus, and obtained from him a letter. He gave a villa in Antium to Rufius, her son by the first marriage; but thereby he merely angered Caesar, who hated his step-son. By a special courier he sent a letter to Poppaea's second husband, Otho, in Spain. He sacrificed his property and himself, until he saw at last that he was simply the plaything of people; that if he had pretended that the imprisonment of Lygia concerned him little, he would have freed her sooner.

Petronius saw this, too. Meanwhile day followed day. The amphitheatre was finished. The "tesserae" were distributed,-that is, tickets of entrance, to the ludus matutinus (morning games). But this time the morning games, because of the unheard-of number of victims, were to continue for days, weeks, and months. It was not known where to put the Christians. The prisons were crammed, and fever was raging in them. The puticuli-common pits in which slaves were kept-began to be overfilled. There was fear that diseases might spread over the whole city hence, haste.

All these reports struck the ears of Vinicius, extinguishing in him the last hope. While there was yet time, he might delude himself with the belief that he could do something, but now there was no time. The spectacles must begin. Lygia might find herself any day in a cuniculum of the circus, whence the only exit was to the arena. Vinicius, not knowing whither fate and the cruelty of superior force might throw her, visited all the circuses, bribed guards and beast-keepers, laying before them plans which they could not execute. In time he saw that he was working for this only,-to make death less terrible to her; and just then he felt that instead of brains he had glowing coals in his head.

For the rest he had no thought of surviving her, and determined to perish at the same time. But he feared lest pain might burn his life out before the dreadful hour came. His friends and Petronius thought also that any day might open the kingdom of shadows before him. His face was black, and resembled those waxen masks kept in lararia. In his features astonishment had grown frigid, as if he hid no understanding of what had happened and what might happen. When any one spoke to him, he raised his hands to his face mechanically, and, pressing his temples, looked at the speaker with an inquiring and astonished gaze. He pa.s.sed whole nights with Ursus at Lygia's door in the prison; if she commanded him to go away and rest, he returned to Petronius, and walked in the atrium till morning. The slaves found him frequently kneeling with upraised hands or lying with his face to the earth. He prayed to Christ, for Christ was his last hope. Everything had failed him. Only a miracle could save Lygia; hence he beat the stone flags with his forehead and prayed for the miracle.

But he knew enough yet to understand that Peter's prayers were more important than his own. Peter had promised him Lygia, Peter had baptized him, Peter had performed miracles, let him give aid and rescue.

And a certain night he went to seek the Apostle. The Christians, of whom not many remained, had concealed him now carefully even from other brethren, lest any of the weaker in spirit might betray him wittingly or unwittingly. Vinicius, amid the general confusion and disaster, occupied also in efforts to get Lygia out of prison, had lost sight of Peter, he had barely seen him once from the time of his own baptism till the beginning of the persecution. But betaking himself to that quarryman in whose hut he was baptized, he learned that there would be a meeting outside the Porta Salaria in a vineyard which belonged to Cornelius Pudens. The quarryman offered to guide him, and declared that he would find Peter there. They started about dusk, and, pa.s.sing beyond the wall, through hollows overgrown with reeds, reached the vineyard in a wild and lonely place. The meeting was held in a wine-shed. As Vinicius drew near, the murmur of prayer reached his ears. On entering he saw by dim lamplight a few tens of kneeling figures sunk in prayer. They were saying a kind of litany; a chorus of voices, male and female, repeated every moment, "Christ have mercy on us." In those voices, deep, piercing sadness and sorrow were heard.

Peter was present. He was kneeling in front of the others, before a wooden cross nailed to the wall of the shed, and was praying. From a distance Vinicius recognized his white hair and his upraised hands. The first thought of the young patrician was to pa.s.s through the a.s.sembly, cast himself at the Apostle's feet, and cry, "Save!" but whether it was the solemnity of the prayer, or because weakness bent the knees under Vinicius, he began to repeat while he groaned and clasped his hands: "Christ have mercy!" Had he been conscious, he would have understood that his was not the only prayer in which there was a groan; that he was not the only one who had brought with him his pain, alarm, and grief. There was not in that a.s.sembly one soul which had not lost persons dear to the heart; and when the most zealous and courageous confessors were in prison already, when with every moment new tidings were borne about of insults and tortures inflicted on them in the prisons, when the greatness of the calamity exceeded every imagination, when only that handful remained, there was not one heart there which was not terrified in its faith, which did not ask doubtfully, Where is Christ? and why does He let evil be mightier than G.o.d? Meanwhile they implored Him despairingly for mercy, since in each soul there still smouldered a spark of hope that He would come, hurl Nero into the abyss, and rule the world. They looked yet toward the sky; they listened yet; they prayed yet with trembling. Vinicius, too, in proportion as they repeated, "Christ have mercy on us!" was seized by such an ecstasy as formerly in the quarryman's hut. Now from the depths they call on Him in the profoundness of their sorrow, now Peter calls on Him; so any moment the heavens may be rent, the earth tremble to its foundations, and He appear in infinite glory, with stars at His feet, merciful, but awful. He will raise up the faithful, and command the abysses to swallow the persecutors.

Vinicius covered his face with both hands, and bowed to the earth. Immediately silence was around him, as if fear had stopped further breathing on the lips of all present. And it seemed to him that something must happen surely, that a moment of miracle would follow. He felt certain that when he rose and opened his eyes he would see a light from which mortal eyes would be blinded, and hear a voice from which hearts would grow faint.

But the silence was unbroken. It was interrupted at last by the sobbing of women. Vinicius rose and looked forward with dazed eyes. In the shed, instead of glories not of earth, shone the faint gleam of lanterns, and rays of the moon, entering through an opening in the roof, filled the place with silvery light. The people kneeling around Vinicius raised their tearful eyes toward the cross in silence; here and there sobbing was heard, and from outside came the warning whistles of watchmen. Meanwhile Peter rose, and, turning to the a.s.sembly, said,

"Children, raise your hearts to the Redeemer and offer Him your tears."

After that he was silent.

All at once was heard the voice of a woman, full of sorrowful complaint and pain,-

"I am a widow; I had one son who supported me. Give him back, O Lord!" Silence followed again. Peter was standing before the kneeling audience, old, full of care. In that moment he seemed to them decrepitude and weakness personified. With that a second voice began to complain,

"Executioners insulted my daughter, and Christ permitted them!"

Then a third,-

"I alone have remained to my children, and when I am taken who will give them bread and water?"

Then a fourth,-

"Linus, spared at first, they have taken now and put to torture, O Lord!"

Then a fifth,

"When we return to our houses, pretorians will seize us. We know not where to hide."

"Woe to us! Who will protect us?"

And thus in that silence of the night complaint after complaint was heard. The old fisherman closed his eyes and shook his white head over that human pain and fear. New silence followed; the watchman merely gave out low whistles beyond the shed.

Vinicius sprang up again, so as to break through the crowd to the Apostle and demand salvation; but on a sudden he saw before him, as it were, a precipice, the sight of which took strength from his feet. What if the Apostle were to confess his own weakness, affirm that the Roman Caesar was stronger than Christ the Nazarene? And at that thought terror raised the hair on his head, for he felt that in such a case not only the remnant of his hope would fall into that abyss, but with it he himself, and all through which he had life, and there would remain only night and death, resembling a sh.o.r.eless sea.

Meanwhile Peter began to speak in a voice so low at first that it was barely possible to hear him,-

"My children, on Golgotha I saw them nail G.o.d to the cross. I heard the hammers, and I saw them raise the cross on high, so that the rabble might gaze at the death of the Son of Man. I saw them open His side, and I saw Him die. When returning from the cross, I cried in pain, as ye are crying, 'Woe! woe! O Lord, Thou art G.o.d! Why hast Thou permitted this? Why hast Thou died, and why hast Thou tormented the hearts of us who believed that Thy kingdom would come?'

"But He, our Lord and G.o.d, rose from the dead the third day, and was among us till He entered His kingdom in great glory.

"And we, seeing our little faith, became strong in heart, and from that time we are sowing His grain."

Here, turning toward the place whence the first complaint came, he began in a voice now stronger,-

"Why do ye complain? G.o.d gave Himself to torture and death, and ye wish Him to shield you from the same. People of little faith, have ye received His teaching? Has He promised you nothing but life? He comes to you and says, 'Follow in my path.' He raises you to Himself, and ye catch at this earth with your hands, crying, 'Lord, save us!' I am dust before G.o.d, but before you I am His apostle and viceregent. I speak to you in the name of Christ. Not death is before you, but life; not tortures, but endless delights; not tears and groans, but singing; not bondage, but rule! I, G.o.d's apostle, say this: O widow, thy son will not die; he will be born into glory, into eternal life, and thou wilt rejoin him! To thee, O father, whose innocent daughter was defiled by executioners, I promise that thou shalt find her whiter than the lilies of Hebron! To you, mothers, whom they are tearing away from your orphans; to you who lose fathers; to you who complain; to you who will see the death of loved ones; to you the careworn, the unfortunate, the timid; to you who must die,-in the name of Christ I declare that ye will wake as if from sleep to a happy waking, as if from night to the light of G.o.d. In the name of Christ, let the beam fall from your eyes, and let your hearts be inflamed."