Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis (1897 Curtin translation).djvu/86

70 And hiding his head on the arm of a Syrian bacchanal, he burst into tears. "What is a future life! Achilles was right, better be a slave in the world beneath the sun than a king in Cimmerian regions. And still the question whether there arc any gods since it is unbelief is destroying the youth." Lucan meanwhile had blown all the gold powder from Nigidia's hair, and she being drunk had fallen asleep. Next he took wreaths of ivy from the vase before him, put them on her while asleep, and when he had finished looked at those present with a delighted and inquiring glance. He arrayed himself in ivy too, repeating, in a voice of deep conviction, " I am not a man at all, but a faun." Petronius was not drunk ; but Nero, who drank little at first, out of regard for his "heavenly" voice, emptied gob- let after goblet toward the end, and was drunk. He wanted even to sing more of his verses, this time in Greek, but he had forgotten them, and by mistake sang an ode of Anacreon. Pythagoras, Diodorus, and Terpnos accom- panied him; but since they did not keep time, they stopped. Nero as a judge and an aesthete was enchanted with the beauty of Pythagoras, and fell to kissing his hands in ecstasy. " Such beautiful hands I have seen only once, and whose were they ? " Then placing his palm on his moist forehead, he tried to remember. After a while terror was reflected on his face. Ah ! His mother's Agrippina's ! And a gloomy vision seized him forthwith. " They say," said he, " that she wanders by moonlight on the sea around Baire and Bauli. She merely walks, walks as if seeking for something. When she comes near a boat, she looks at it and goes away ; but the fisherman on whom she has fixed her eye dies." "Not a bad theme," said Petronius. But Vestinius, stretching his neck like a stork, whispered mysteriously, "I do not believe in gods; but I believe in spirits Oi!" Nero paid no attention to their words, and continued, " I celebrated the Lemuria, and have no wish to see her. This is the fifth year I had to condemn her, for she sent assassins against me ; and, had I not been quicker than she, ye would not be listening to-night to my song."