Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Category: Nonfiction
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Chapter XX
THEY went through the Vicus Patricius, along the Viminal to the formerViminal gate, near the plain on which Diocletian afterward builtsplendid baths. They passed the remains of the wall of ServiusTullius, and through places more and more deserted they reached the ViaNomentana; there, turning to the left, towards the Via Salaria, theyfound themselves among hills full of sand-pits, and here and there theyfound graveyards.
Meanwhile it had grown dark completely, and since the moon had not risenyet, it would have been rather difficult for them to find the road wereit not that the Christians themselves indicated it, as Chilo foresaw.
In fact, on the right, on the left, and in front, dark forms wereevident, making their way carefully toward sandy hollows. Some of thesepeople carried lanterns,--covering them, however, as far as possiblewith mantles; others, knowing the road better, went in the dark. Thetrained military eye of Vinicius distinguished, by their movements,younger men from old ones, who walked with canes, and from women,wrapped carefully in long mantles. The highway police, and villagersleaving the city, took those night wanderers, evidently, for laborers,going to sand-pits; or grave-diggers, who at times celebrated ceremoniesof their own in the night-time. In proportion, however, as the youngpatrician and his attendants pushed forward, more and more lanternsgleamed, and the number of persons grew greater. Some of them sang songsin low voices, which to Vinicius seemed filled with sadness. Atmoments a separate word or a phrase of the song struck his ear, as,for instance, "Awake, thou that sleepest," or "Rise from the dead"; attimes, again, the name of Christ was repeated by men and women.
But Vinicius turned slight attention to the words, for it came to hishead that one of those dark forms might be Lygia. Some, passing near,said, "Peace be with thee!" or "Glory be to Christ!" but disquiet seizedhim, and his heart began to beat with more life, for it seemed to himthat he heard Lygia's voice. Forms or movements like hers deceived himin the darkness every moment, and only when he had corrected mistakesmade repeatedly did he begin to distrust his own eyes.
The way seemed long to him. He knew the neighborhood exactly, but couldnot fix places in the darkness. Every moment they came to some narrowpassage, or piece of wall, or booths, which he did not remember as beingin the vicinity of the city. Finally the edge of the moon appeared frombehind a mass of clouds, and lighted the place better than dim lanterns.Something from afar began at last to glimmer like a fire, or the flameof a torch. Vinicius turned to Chilo.
"Is that Ostrianum?" asked he.
Chilo, on whom night, distance from the city, and those ghostlike formsmade a deep impression, replied in a voice somewhat uncertain,--"I knownot, lord; I have never been in Ostrianum. But they might praise God insome spot nearer the city."
After a while, feeling the need of conversation, and of strengtheninghis courage, he added,--"They come together like murderers; stillthey are not permitted to murder, unless that Lygian has deceived meshamefully."
Vinicius, who was thinking of Lygia, was astonished also by the cautionand mysteriousness with which her co-religionists assembled to heartheir highest priest; hence he said,--"Like all religions, this has itsadherents in the midst of us; but the Christians are a Jewish sect.Why do they assemble here, when in the Trans-Tiber there are temples towhich the Jews take their offerings in daylight?"
"The Jews, lord, are their bitterest enemies. I have heard that, beforethe present Caesar's time, it came to war, almost, between Jews andChristians. Those outbreaks forced Claudius Caesar to expell all theJews, but at present that edict is abolished. The Christians, however,hide themselves from Jews, and from the populace, who, as is known tothee, accuse them of crimes and hate them."
They walked on some time in silence, till Chilo, whose fear increasedas he receded from the gates, said,--"When returning from the shop ofEuricius, I borrowed a wig from a barber, and have put two beans in mynostrils. They must not recognize me; but if they do, they will not killme. They are not malignant! They are even very honest. I esteem and lovethem."
"Do not win them to thyself by premature praises," retorted Vinicius.
They went now into a narrow depression, closed, as it were, by twoditches on the side, over which an aqueduct was thrown in one place. Themoon came out from behind clouds, and at the end of the depressionthey saw a wall, covered thickly with ivy, which looked silvery in themoonlight. That was Ostrianum.
Vinicius's heart began to beat now with more vigor. At the gate twoquarryrnen took the signs from them. In a moment Vinicius and hisattendants were in a rather spacious place enclosed on all sides by awall. Here and there were separate monuments, and in the centre wasthe entrance to the hypogeum itself, or crypt. In the lower part of thecrypt, beneath the earth, were graves; before the entrance a fountainwas playing. But it was evident that no very large number of personscould find room in the hypogeum; hence Vinicius divined withoutdifficulty that the ceremony would take place outside, in the spacewhere a very numerous throng was soon gathered.
As far as the eye could reach, lantern gleamed near lantern, but manyof those who came had no light whatever. With the exception of a fewuncovered heads, all were hooded, from fear of treason or the cold; andthe young patrician thought with alarm that, should they remain thus, hewould not be able to recognize Lygia in that crowd and in the dim light.
But all at once, near the crypt, some pitch torches were ignited and putinto a little pile. There was more light. After a while the crowdbegan to sing a certain strange hymn, at first in a low voice, and thenlouder. Vinicius had never heard such a hymn before. The same yearningwhich had struck him in the hymns murmured by separate persons onthe way to the cemetery, was heard now in that, but with far moredistinctness and power; and at last it became as penetrating and immenseas if together with the people, the whole cemetery, the hills, the pits,and the region about, had begun to yearn. It might seem, also, thatthere was in it a certain calling in the night, a certain humble prayerfor rescue in wandering and darkness.
Eyes turned upward seemed to see some one far above, there on high,and outstretched hands seemed to implore him to descend. When the hymnceased, there followed a moment as it were of suspense,--so impressivethat Vinicius and his companions looked unwittingly toward the stars,as if in dread that something uncommon would happen, and that some onewould really descend to them.
Vinicius had seen a multitude of temples of most various structure inAsia Minor, in Egypt, and in Rome itself; he had become acquainted witha multitude of religions, most varied in character, and had heard manyhymns; but here, for the first time, he saw people calling on a divinitywith hymns,--not to carry out a fixed ritual, but calling from thebottom of the heart, with the genuine yearning which children mightfeel for a father or a mother. One had to be blind not to see that thosepeople not merely honored their God, but loved him with the wholesoul. Vinicius had not seen the like, so far, in any land, during anyceremony, in any sanctuary; for in Rome and in Greece those who stillrendered honor to the gods did so to gain aid for themselves orthrough fear; but it had not even entered any one's head to love thosedivinities.
Though his mind was occupied with Lygia, and his attention with seekingher in the crowd, he could not avoid seeing those uncommon and wonderfulthings which were happening around him. Meanwhile a few more torcheswere thrown on the fire, which filled the cemetery with ruddy light anddarkened the gleam of the lanterns. That moment an old man, wearing ahooded mantle but with a bare head, issued from the hypogeum. This manmounted a stone which lay near the fire.
The crowd swayed before him. Voices near Vinicius whispered, "Peter!Peter!" Some knelt, others extended their hands toward him. Therefollowed a silence so deep that one heard every charred particle thatdropped from the torches, the distant rattle of wheels on the ViaNomentana, and the sound of wind through the few pines which grew closeto the cemetery.
Chilo bent toward Vinicius and whispered,--"This is he! The foremostdisciple of Christ-a fisherman!"
The old man raised his
hand, and with the sign of the cross blessedthose present, who fell on their knees simultaneously. Vinicius and hisattendants, not wishing to betray themselves, followed the example ofothers. The young man could not seize his impressions immediately, forit seemed to him that the form which he saw there before him was bothsimple and uncommon, and, what was more, the uncommonness flowed justfrom the simplicity. The old man had no mitre on his head, no garland ofoak-leaves on his temples, no palm in his hand, no golden tablet on hisbreast, he wore no white robe embroidered with stars; in a word, hebore no insignia of the kind worn by priests--Oriental, Egyptian,or Greek--or by Roman flamens. And Vinicius was struck by that samedifference again which he felt when listening to the Christian hymns;for that "fisherman," too, seemed to him, not like some high priestskilled in ceremonial, but as it were a witness, simple, aged, andimmensely venerable, who had journeyed from afar to relate a truth whichhe had seen, which he had touched, which he believed as he believedin existence, and he had come to love this truth precisely becausehe believed it. There was in his face, therefore, such a power ofconvincing as truth itself has. And Vinicius, who had been a sceptic,who did not wish to yield to the charm of the old man, yielded, however,to a certain feverish curiosity to know what would flow from the lips ofthat companion of the mysterious "Christus," and what that teaching wasof which Lygia and Pomponia Graecina were followers.
Meanwhile Peter began to speak, and he spoke from the beginning likea father instructing his children and teaching them how to live. Heenjoined on them to renounce excess and luxury, to love poverty, purityof life, and truth, to endure wrongs and persecutions patiently, to obeythe government and those placed above them, to guard against treason,deceit, and calumny; finally, to give an example in their own society toeach other, and even to pagans.
Vinicius, for whom good was only that which could bring back to himLygia, and evil everything which stood as a barrier between them, wastouched and angered by certain of those counsels. It seemed to him thatby enjoining purity and a struggle with desires the old man dared, notonly to condemn his love, but to rouse Lygia against him and confirm herin opposition. He understood that if she were in the assembly listeningto those words, and if she took them to heart, she must think of him asan enemy of that teaching and an outcast.
Anger seized him at this thought. "What have I heard that is new?"thought he. "Is this the new religion? Every one knows this, everyone has heard it. The Cynics enjoined poverty and a restriction ofnecessities; Socrates enjoined virtue as an old thing and a good one;the first Stoic one meets, even such a one as Seneca, who has fivehundred tables of lemon-wood, praises moderation, enjoins truth,patience in adversity, endurance in misfortune,--and all that is likestale, mouse-eaten grain; but people do not wish to eat it because itsmells of age."
And besides anger, he had a feeling of disappointment, for he expectedthe discovery of unknown, magic secrets of some kind, and thought thatat least he would hear a rhetor astonishing by his eloquence; meanwhilehe heard only words which were immensely simple, devoid of everyornament. He was astonished only by the mute attention with which thecrowd listened.
But the old man spoke on to those people sunk in listening,--told themto be kind, poor, peaceful, just, and pure; not that they might havepeace during life, but that they might live eternally with Christ afterdeath, in such joy and such glory, in such health and delight, as no oneon earth had attained at any time. And here Vinicius, though predisposedunfavorably, could not but notice that still there was a differencebetween the teaching of the old man and that of the Cynics, Stoics, andother philosophers; for they enjoin good and virtue as reasonable, andthe only thing practical in life, while he promised immortality,and that not some kind of hapless immortality beneath the earth, inwretchedness, emptiness, and want, but a magnificent life, equal to thatof the gods almost. He spoke meanwhile of it as of a thing perfectlycertain; hence, in view of such a faith, virtue acquired a value simplymeasureless, and the misfortunes of this life became incomparablytrivial. To suffer temporally for inexhaustible happiness is a thingabsolutely different from suffering because such is the order of nature.But the old man said further that virtue and truth should be lovedfor themselves, since the highest eternal good and the virtue existingbefore ages is God; whoso therefore loves them loves God, and by thatsame becomes a cherished child of His.
Vinicius did not understand this well, but he knew previously, fromwords spoken by Pomponia Graecina to Petronius, that, according to thebelief of Christians, God was one and almighty; when, therefore,he heard now again that He is all good and all just, he thoughtinvoluntarily that, in presence of such a demiurge, Jupiter, Saturn,Apollo, Juno, Vesta, and Venus would seem like some vain and noisyrabble, in which all were interfering at once, and each on his or herown account.
But the greatest astonishment seized him when the old man declaredthat God was universal love also; hence he who loves man fulfils God'ssupreme command. But it is not enough to love men of one's own nation,for the God-man shed his blood for all, and found among pagans suchelect of his as Cornelius the Centurion; it is not enough either to lovethose who do good to us, for Christ forgave the Jews who delivered himto death, and the Roman soldiers who nailed him to the cross, we shouldnot only forgive but love those who injure us, and return them good forevil; it is not enough to love the good, we must love the wicked also,since by love alone is it possible to expel from them evil.
Chilo at these words thought to himself that his work had gone fornothing, that never in the world would Ursus dare to kill Glaucus,either that night or any other night. But he comforted himself at onceby another inference from the teaching of the old man; namely, thatneither would Glaucus kill him, though he should discover and recognizehim.
Vinicius did not think now that there was nothing new in the words ofthe old man, but with amazement he asked himself: "What kind of God isthis, what kind of religion is this, and what kind of people are these?"All that he had just heard could not find place in his head simply. Forhim all was an unheard-of medley of ideas. He felt that if he wished,for example, to follow that teaching, he would have to place on aburning pile all his thoughts, habits, and character, his whole natureup to that moment, burn them into ashes, and then fill himself with alife altogether different, and an entirely new soul. To him the scienceor the religion which commanded a Roman to love Parthians, Syrians,Greeks, Egyptians, Gauls, and Britons, to forgive enemies, to returnthem good for evil, and to love them, seemed madness. At the sametime he had a feeling that in that madness itself there was somethingmightier than all philosophies so far. He thought that because of itsmadness it was impracticable, but because of its impracticability it wasdivine. In his soul he rejected it; but he felt that he was parting asif from a field full of spikenard, a kind of intoxicating incense;when a man has once breathed of this he must, as in the land of thelotus-eaters, forget all things else ever after, and yearn for it only.
It seemed to him that there was nothing real in that religion, but thatreality in presence of it was so paltry that it deserved not the timefor thought. Expanses of some kind, of which hitherto he had not had asuspicion, surrounded him,--certain immensities, certain clouds. Thatcemetery began to produce on him the impression of a meeting-place formadmen, but also of a place mysterious and awful, in which, as on amystic bed, something was in progress of birth the like of which hadnot been in the world so far. He brought before his mind all that, whichfrom the first moment of his speech, the old man had said touching life,truth, love, God; and his thoughts were dazed from the brightness, asthe eyes are blinded from lightning flashes which follow each otherunceasingly.
As is usual with people for whom life has been turned into one singlepassion, Vinicius thought of all this through the medium of his love forLygia; and in the light of those flashes he saw one thing distinctly,that if Lygia was in the cemetery, if she confessed that religion,obeyed and felt it, she never could and never would be his mistress.
For the first time, then, since he h
ad made her acquaintance at Aulus's,Vinicius felt that though now he had found her he would not get her.Nothing similar had come to his head so far, and he could not explain itto himself then, for that was not so much an express understanding asa dim feeling of irreparable loss and misfortune. There rose in himan alarm, which was turned soon into a storm of anger against theChristians in general, and against the old man in particular. Thatfisherman, whom at the first cast of the eye he considered a peasant,now filled him with fear almost, and seemed some mysterious powerdeciding his fate inexorably and therefore tragically.
The quarrymen again, unobserved, added torches to the fire; the windceased to sound in the pines; the flame rose evenly, with a slenderpoint toward the stars, which were twinkling in a clear sky. Havingmentioned the death of Christ, the old man talked now of Him only. Allheld the breath in their breasts, and a silence set in which was deeperthan the preceding one, so that it was possible almost to hear thebeating of hearts. That man had seen! and he narrated as one in whosememory every moment had been fixed in such a way that were he to closehis eyes he would see yet. He told, therefore, how on their return fromthe Cross he and John had sat two days and nights in the supper-chamber,neither sleeping nor eating, in suffering, in sorrow, in doubt, inalarm, holding their heads in their hands, and thinking that He haddied. Oh, how grievous, how grievous that was! The third day had dawnedand the light whitened the walls, but he and John were sitting in thechamber, without hope or comfort. How desire for sleep tortured them(for they had spent the night before the Passion without sleep)! Theyroused themselves then, and began again to lament. But barely had thesun risen when Mary of Magdala, panting, her hair dishevelled, rushed inwith the cry, "They have taken away the Lord!" When they heard this,he and John sprang up and ran toward the sepulchre. But John, beingyounger, arrived first; he saw the place empty, and dared not enter.Only when there were three at the entrance did he, the person nowspeaking to them, enter, and find on the stone a shirt with a windingsheet; but the body he found not.
Fear fell on them then, because they thought that the priests hadborne away Christ, and both returned home in greater grief still. Otherdisciples came later and raised a lament, now in company, so that theLord of Hosts might hear them more easily, and now separately and inturn. The spirit died within them, for they had hoped that the Masterwould redeem Israel, and it was now the third day since his death; hencethey did not understand why the Father had deserted the Son, and theypreferred not to look at the daylight, but to die, so grievous was theburden.
The remembrance of those terrible moments pressed even then from theeyes of the old man two tears, which were visible by the light of thefire, coursing down his gray beard. His hairless and aged head wasshaking, and the voice died in his breast.
"That man is speaking the truth and is weeping over it," said Viniciusin his soul. Sorrow seized by the throat the simple-hearted listenersalso. They had heard more than once of Christ's sufferings, and it wasknown to them that joy succeeded sorrow; but since an apostle who hadseen it told this, they wrung their hands under the impression, andsobbed or beat their breasts.
But they calmed themselves gradually, for the wish to hear more gainedthe mastery. The old man closed his eyes, as if to see distant thingsmore distinctly in his soul, and continued,--"When the disciples hadlamented in this way, Mary of Magdala rushed in a second time, cryingthat she had seen the Lord. Unable to recognize him, she thought himthe gardener: but He said, 'Mary!' She cried 'Rabboni!' and fell at hisfeet. He commanded her to go to the disciples, and vanished. But they,the disciples, did not believe her; and when she wept for joy, someupbraided her, some thought that sorrow had disturbed her mind, forshe said, too, that she had seen angels at the grave, but they, runningthither a second time, saw the grave empty. Later in the eveningappeared Cleopas, who had come with another from Emmaus, and theyreturned quickly, saying: 'The Lord has indeed risen!' And theydiscussed with closed doors, out of fear of the Jews. Meanwhile He stoodamong them, though the doors had made no sound, and when they feared, Hesaid, 'Peace be with you!'
"And I saw Him, as did all, and He was like light, and like thehappiness of our hearts, for we believed that He had risen from thedead, and that the seas will dry and the mountains turn to dust, but Hisglory will not pass.
"After eight days Thomas Didymus put his finger in the Lord's wounds andtouched His side; Thomas fell at His feet then, and cried, 'My Lord andmy God!' 'Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed; blessed are theywho have not seen and have believed!' said the Lord. And we heard thosewords, and our eyes looked at Him, for He was among us."
Vinicius listened, and something wonderful took place in him. He forgotfor a moment where he was; he began to lose the feeling of reality, ofmeasure, of judgment. He stood in the presence of two impossibilities.He could not believe what the old man said; and he felt that it would benecessary either to be blind or renounce one's own reason, to admitthat that man who said "I saw" was lying. There was something in hismovements, in his tears, in his whole figure, and in the details ofthe events which he narrated, which made every suspicion impossible. ToVinicius it seemed at moments that he was dreaming. But round about hesaw the silent throng; the odor of lanterns came to his nostrils; at adistance the torches were blazing; and before him on the stone stoodan aged man near the grave, with a head trembling somewhat, who, whilebearing witness, repeated, "I saw!"
And he narrated to them everything up to the Ascension into heaven. Atmoments he rested, for he spoke very circumstantially; but it could befelt that each minute detail had fixed itself in his memory, as a thingis fixed in a stone into which it has been engraved. Those who listenedto him were seized by ecstasy. They threw back their hoods to hear himbetter, and not lose a word of those which for them were priceless. Itseemed to them that some superhuman power had borne them to Galilee;that they were walking with the disciples through those groves and onthose waters; that the cemetery was turned into the lake of Tiberius;that on the bank, in the mist of morning, stood Christ, as he stoodwhen John, looking from the boat, said, "It is the Lord," and Peter casthimself in to swim, so as to fall the more quickly at the beloved feet.In the faces of those present were evident enthusiasm beyond bounds,oblivion of life, happiness, and love immeasurable. It was clear thatduring Peter's long narrative some of them had visions. When he beganto tell how, at the moment of Ascension, the clouds closed in underthe feet of the Saviour, covered Him, and hid Him from the eyes of theApostles, all heads were raised toward the sky unconsciously, and amoment followed as it were of expectation, as if those people hoped tosee Him or as if they hoped that He would descend again from the fieldsof heaven, and see how the old Apostle was feeding the sheep confided tohim, and bless both the flock and him.
Rome did not exist for those people, nor did the man Caesar; there wereno temples of pagan gods; there was only Christ, who filled the land,the sea, the heavens, and the world.
At the houses scattered here and there along the Via Nomentana, thecocks began to crow, announcing midnight. At that moment Chilo pulledthe corner of Vinicius's mantle and whispered,--"Lord, I see Urban overthere, not far from the old man, and with him is a maiden."
Vinicius shook himself, as if out of a dream, and, turning in thedirection indicated by the Greek, he saw Lygia.