Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Chapter LXIII

  AFTER the spectacle in Caesar's gardens the prisons were emptiedconsiderably. It is true that victims suspected of the Orientalsuperstition were seized yet and imprisoned, but pursuit brought infewer and fewer persons,--barely enough for coming exhibitions, whichwere to follow quickly. People were sated with blood; they showedgrowing weariness, and increasing alarm because of the unparalleledconduct of the condemned. Fears like those of the superstitiousVestinius seized thousands of people. Among the crowds tales more andmore wonderful were related of the vengefulness of the Christian God.Prison typhus, which had spread through the city, increased the generaldread. The number of funerals was evident, and it was repeated fromear to ear that fresh piacula were needed to mollify the unknown god.Offerings were made in the temples to Jove and Libitina. At last, inspite of every effort of Tigellinus and his assistants, the opinion keptspreading that the city had been burned at command of Caesar, and thatthe Christians were suffering innocently.

  But for this very reason Nero and Tigellinus were untiring inpersecution. To calm the multitude, fresh orders were issued todistribute wheat, wine, and olives. To relieve owners, new rules werepublished to facilitate the building of houses; and others touchingwidth of streets and materials to be used in building so as to avoidfires in future. Caesar himself attended sessions of the Senate, andcounselled with the "fathers" on the good of the people and the city;but not a shadow of favor fell on the doomed. The ruler of the worldwas anxious, above all, to fix in people's minds a conviction that suchmerciless punishments could strike only the guilty. In the Senate novoice was heard on behalf of the Christians, for no one wished to offendCaesar; and besides, those who looked farther into the future insistedthat the foundations of Roman rule could not stand against the newfaith.

  The dead and the dying were given to their relatives, as Roman law tookno vengeance on the dead. Vinicius received a certain solace from thethought that if Lygia died he would bury her in his family tomb,and rest near her. At that time he had no hope of rescuing her; halfseparated from life, he was himself wholly absorbed in Christ, anddreamed no longer of any union except an eternal one. His faith hadbecome simply boundless; for it eternity seemed something incomparablytruer and more real than the fleeting life which he had lived up to thattime. His heart was overflowing with concentrated enthusiasm. Thoughyet alive, he had changed into a being almost immaterial, which desiringcomplete liberation for itself desired it also for another. He imaginedthat when free he and Lygia would each take the other's hand and go toheaven, where Christ would bless them, and let them live in light aspeaceful and boundless as the light of dawn. He merely implored Christto spare Lygia the torments of the Circus, and let her fall asleepcalmly in prison; he felt with perfect certainty that he himself woulddie at the same time. In view of the sea of blood which had been shed,he did not even think it permitted to hope that she alone would bespared. He had heard from Peter and Paul that they, too, must die asmartyrs. The sight of Chilo on the cross had convinced him that even amartyr's death could be sweet; hence he wished it for Lygia and himselfas the change of an evil, sad, and oppressive fate for a better.

  At times he had a foretaste of life beyond the grave. That sadness whichhung over the souls of both was losing its former burning bitterness,and changing gradually into a kind of trans-terrestrial, calm abandon tothe will of God. Vinicius, who formerly had toiled against the current,had struggled and tortured himself, yielded now to the stream, believingthat it would bear him to eternal calm. He divined, too, that Lygia, aswell as he, was preparing for death,--that, in spite of the prison wallsseparating them, they were advancing together; and he smiled at thatthought as at happiness.

  In fact, they were advancing with as much agreement as if they hadexchanged thoughts every day for a long time. Neither had Lygia anydesire, any hope, save the hope of a life beyond the grave. Death waspresented to her not only as a liberation from the terrible walls of theprison, from the hands of Caesar and Tigellinus,--not only as liberation,but as the hour of her marriage to Vinicius. In view of this unshakencertainty, all else lost importance. After death would come herhappiness, which was even earthly, so that she waited for it also as abetrothed waits for the wedding-day.

  And that immense current of faith, which swept away from life and borebeyond the grave thousands of those first confessors, bore away Ursusalso. Neither had he in his heart been resigned to Lygia's death;but when day after day through the prison walls came news of what washappening in the amphitheatres and the gardens, when death seemed thecommon, inevitable lot of all Christians and also their good, higherthan all mortal conceptions of happiness, he did not dare to pray toChrist to deprive Lygia of that happiness or to delay it for long years.In his simple barbarian soul he thought, besides, that more of thoseheavenly delights would belong to the daughter of the Lygian chief, thatshe would have more of them than would a whole crowd of simple ones towhom he himself belonged, and that in eternal glory she would sit nearerto the "Lamb" than would others. He had heard, it is true, that beforeGod men are equal; but a conviction was lingering at the bottom of hissoul that the daughter of a leader, and besides of a leader of all theLygians, was not the same as the first slave one might meet. He hopedalso that Christ would let him continue to serve her. His one secretwish was to die on a cross as the "Lamb" died. But this seemed ahappiness so great that he hardly dared to pray for it, though he knewthat in Rome even the worst criminals were crucified. He thought thatsurely he would be condemned to die under the teeth of wild beasts;and this was his one sorrow. From childhood he had lived in impassableforests, amid continual hunts, in which, thanks to his superhumanstrength, he was famous among the Lygians even before he had grown tomanhood. This occupation had become for him so agreeable that later,when in Rome, and forced to live without hunting, he went to vivaria andamphitheatres just to look at beasts known and unknown to him. The sightof these always roused in the man an irresistible desire for struggleand killing; so now he feared in his soul that on meeting them in theamphitheatre he would be attacked by thoughts unworthy of a Christian,whose duty it was to die piously and patiently. But in this he committedhimself to Christ, and found other and more agreeable thoughts tocomfort him. Hearing that the "Lamb" had declared war against the powersof hell and evil spirits with which the Christian faith connected allpagan divinities, he thought that in this war he might serve the "Lamb"greatly, and serve better than others, for he could not help believingthat his soul was stronger than the souls of other martyrs. Finally, heprayed whole days, rendered service to prisoners, helped overseers, andcomforted his queen, who complained at times that in her short life shehad not been able to do so many good deeds as the renowned Tabitha ofwhom Peter the Apostle had told her. Even the prison guards, who fearedthe terrible strength of this giant, since neither bars nor chains couldrestrain it, came to love him at last for his mildness. Amazed at hisgood temper, they asked more than once what its cause was. He spoke withsuch firm certainty of the life waiting after death for him, that theylistened with surprise, seeing for the first time that happiness mightpenetrate a dungeon which sunlight could not reach. And when he urgedthem to believe in the "Lamb," it occurred to more than one of thosepeople that his own service was the service of a slave, his own life thelife of an unfortunate; and he fell to thinking over his evil fate, theonly end to which was death.

  But death brought new fear, and promised nothing beyond; while thatgiant and that maiden, who was like a flower cast on the straw of theprison, went toward it with delight, as toward the gates of happiness.