Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/65

Rh were willing to jeer at their own gods. At the side of these was a rabble of every sort, composed of singers, mimes, musicians, dancers of both sexes; poets who, while declaiming, were thinking of the sesterces which might fall to them for praise of Cæsar’s verses; of hungry philosophers following the dishes with eager eyes; finally, of noted charioteers, tricksters, miracle-wrights, tale-tellers, jesters, and of the most varied adventurers brought through fashion or folly to a few days’ notoriety. Among these were not lacking even men who with long hair covered their ears pierced in sign of slavery.

The most noted sat directly at the tables; the lesser served to amuse in time of eating, and waited for the moment in which the servants would permit them to rush at the remnants of food and drink. Guests of this kind were furnished by Tigellinus, Vatinius, and Vitelius; for these guests they were forced more than once to find clothing befitting the chambers of Cæsar, who however liked society of this sort, feeling most free in it. The excess of the court gilded everything, and covered everything with glitter. High and low, the descendants of great families, and the needy from the pavements of the city, great artists, and the miserable scrapings of talent, thronged to the palace to sate their dazzled eyes with a splendor almost surpassing human understanding, and to approach the giver of every favor, wealth, and property,—whose single glance might, it is true, abase, but might also elevate beyond measure.

That day Lygia too had to take part in such a feast. Fear, uncertainty, and a dazed feeling, not to be wondered at after the sudden change, were struggling in her with a wish to resist. She feared Nero; she feared the people and the palace whose uproar deprived her of presence of mind; she feared the feasts of whose shamelessness she had heard from Aulus, Pomponia Græcina, and their friends. Though a young girl, she was not without knowledge, for knowledge of evil in those times reached even the ears of children early. She knew, therefore, that in the palace ruin was threatening her. Pomponia, moreover, had warned her of this at the moment of parting. But having a youthful spirit, unacquainted with corruption, and confessing a lofty faith, implanted in her by her foster mother, she had promised to defend herself against that destruction; she had promised her mother, herself and also that Divine Teacher in whom she not only believed, but whom she had come to love with