Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/51

Rh unusual voice. Lygia listened to his words, blinking, as it were, not understanding what the question was. Pomponia’s cheeks were pale. In the doors leading from the corridor to the œcus, the terrified faces of slaves began to show themselves a second time.

“The will of Cæsar must be accomplished,” said Aulus.

“Aulus!” exclaimed Pomponia, embracing the maiden with her arms, as if wishing to defend her, “it would be better for her to die.”

Lygia, nestling up to her breast, repeated, “Mother, mother!” unable in her sobbing to find other words.

On Aulus’s face anger and pain were reflected again. “If I were alone in the world,” said he, gloomily, “I would not surrender her alive, and my relatives might give offerings this day to ‘Jupiter Liberator.’ But I have not the right to ruin also our child, who may live to happier times. I will go this day to Cæsar, and implore him to change his command. Whether he will listen to me, I know not. Meanwhile farewell, Lygia, and know that I and Pomponia bless always the day in which thou didst take thy seat at our hearth.”

Thus speaking, he placed his hand on her head; but though he strove to preserve his calmness, still when Lygia turned to him, her eyes filled with tears, and seizing his hand pressed it to her lips, there breathed in his voice a deep fatherly sorrow.

“Farewell, our joy and the light of our eyes,” said he.

And he went to the atrium quickly, so as not to let himself be conquered by emotion unworthy of a Roman and a general.

Meanwhile Pomponia, when she had conducted Lygia to the cubiculum, began to comfort, console, encourage her, and utter words which sounded strangely in that house, in which near them in an adjoining chamber was the lararium, and the hearth on which Aulus Plautius, faithful to ancient usage, made offerings to the domestic divinities. Now the hour of trial had come. On a time Virginius had pierced the bosom of his own daughter to save her from the hands of Appius; still earlier Lucretia had redeemed her shame with her life. The house of Cæsar is a den of infamy, of evil, of crime. But we, Lygia, know why we have not the right to raise hands on ourselves! Yes! The law under which we both live is another, a greater, a holier, but it gives permission to defend oneself from evil and shame,