Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/63

Rh knowest thou what strikes me? 'Tis this, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful. Therefore a man of genuine aesthetic feeling is at the same time a virtuous man. Hence I am virtuous. To-day I must pour out a little wine to the shades of Protagoras, Prodicus, and Gorgias. It seems that sophists too can be of service. Listen, for I am speaking yet. I took Lygia from Aulus to give her to thee. Well. But Lysippus would have made wonderful groups of her and thee. Ye are both beautiful; therefore my act is beautiful, and being beautiful it cannot be bad. Marcus, here sitting before thee is virtue incarnate in Caius Petronius! If Aristides were living, it would be his duty to come to me and offer a hundred minae for a short treatise on virtue."

But Vinicius, as a man more concerned with reality than with treatises on virtue, replied,—

"To-morrow I shall see Lygia, and then have her in my house daily, always, and till death."

"Thou wilt have Lygia, and I shall have Aulus on my head. He will summon against me the vengeance of all the infernal gods. And if the beast would at least take a preliminary lesson in good declamation! He will blame me, however, as my former doorkeeper blamed my clients; but him I sent to prison in the country."

"Aulus has been at my house. I promised to give him news of Lygia."

"Write to him that the will of the 'divine' Cæsar is the highest law, and that thy first son will bear the name Aulus. It is necessary that the old man should have some consolation. I am ready to pray Bronzebeard to invite him tomorrow to the feast. Let him see thee in the triclinium next to Lygia."

"Do not do that. I am sorry for them, especially for Pomponia."

And he sat down to write that letter which took from the old general the remnant of his hope.