Henryk Sienkiewicz, the poetic novelist

[Bonobo]

All Poles know H. Sienkiewicz`s books. In times of partitions, occupations and subjugation, they were considered a medicine for the tormented Polish soul. He wrote fascinating historical tales, in beautifully passionate language, of incredible imaginary. Though they were far from historical precision, generation after generation of Poles learnt their patriotism from his books.

Henryk Sienkiewicz 1846 – 1916, was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. He was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Sienkiewicz






I have found his most known book, Quo Vadis, on the Net.
www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/quvds11.txt

It is about the beginning of Christian faith in Rome of Nero`s times.

I read it when I was about 10 years old. Let me draw your attention to excerpts which I liked the most and always returned to them, year after year..

Vinicius, a young Roman nobleman, falls in love with a Christian woman called Lygia. He concocts a plan to abduct her from her house. He enters the house with a hired strongman/ wrestler, Croton whose task is to get rid of Lygia`s potential defenders.

See what happens.


Chapter XXII

ONLY inside the entrance did Vinicius comprehend the whole difficulty of
the undertaking. The house was large, of several stories, one of the
kind of which thousands were built in Rome, in view of profit from rent;
hence, as a rule, they were built so hurriedly and badly that scarcely a
year passed in which numbers of them did not fall on the heads of
tenants. Real hives, too high and too narrow, full of chambers and
little dens, in which poor people fixed themselves too numerously. In a
city where many streets had no names, those houses had no numbers; the
owners committed the collection of rent to slaves, who, not obliged by
the city government to give names of occupants, were ignorant themselves
of them frequently. To find some one by inquiry in such a house was
often very difficult, especially when there was no gate-keeper.

Vinicius and Croton came to a narrow, corridor-like passage walled in on
four sides, forming a kind of common atrium for the whole house, with a
fountain in the middle whose stream fell into a stone basin fixed in the
ground. At all the walls were internal stairways, some of stone, some
of wood, leading to galleries from which there were entrances to
lodgings. There were lodgings on the ground, also; some provided with
wooden doors, others separated from the yard by woollen screens only.
These, for the greater part, were worn, rent, or patched.

The hour was early, and there was not a living soul in the yard. It was
evident that all were asleep in the house except those who had returned
from Ostrianum.

"What shall we do, lord?" asked Croton, halting.

"Let us wait here; some one may appear," replied Vinicius. "We should
not be seen in the yard."

At this moment, he thought Chilo's counsel practical. If there were
some tens of slaves present, it would be easy to occupy the gate, which
seemed the only exit, search all the lodgings simultaneously, and thus
come to Lygia's; otherwise Christians, who surely were not lacking in
that house, might give notice that people were seeking her. In view of
this, there was risk in inquiring of strangers. Vinicius stopped to
think whether it would not be better to go for his slaves. Just then,
from behind a screen hiding a remoter lodging, came a man with a sieve
in his hand, and approached the fountain.

At the first glance the young tribune recognized Ursus.

"That is the Lygian!" whispered Vinicius.

"Am I to break his bones now?"

"Wait awhile!"

Ursus did not notice the two men, as they were in the shadow of the
entrance, and he began quietly to sink in water vegetables which filled
the sieve. It was evident that, after a whole night spent in the
cemetery, he intended to prepare a meal. After a while the washing was
finished; he took the wet sieve and disappeared behind the screen.
Croton and Vinicius followed him, thinking that they would come directly
to Lygia's lodgings. Their astonishment was great when they saw that
the screen divided from the court, not lodgings, but another dark
corridor, at the end of which was a little garden containing a few
cypresses, some myrtle bushes, and a small house fixed to the windowless
stone wall of another stone building.

Both understood at once that this was for them a favoring circumstance.
In the courtyard all the tenants might assemble; the seclusion of the
little house facilitated the enterprise. They would set aside
defenders, or rather Ursus, quickly, and would reach the street just as
quickly with the captured Lygia; and there they would help themselves.
It was likely that no one would attack them; if attacked, they would say
that a hostage was fleeing from Cćsar. Vinicius would declare himself
then to the guards, and summon their assistance.

Ursus was almost entering the little house, when the sound of steps
attracted his attention; he halted, and, seeing two persons, put his
sieve on the balustrade and turned to them.

"What do ye want here?" asked he.

"Thee!" said Vinicius.

Then, turning to Croton, he said in a low, hurried voice:

"Kill!"

Croton rushed at him like a tiger, and in one moment, before the Lygian
was able to think or to recognize his enemies, Croton had caught him in
his arms of steel.

Vinicius was too confident in the man's preternatural strength to wait
for the end of the struggle. He passed the two, sprang to the door of
the little house, pushed it open and found himself in a room a trifle
dark, lighted, however, by a fire burning in the chimney. A gleam of
this fire fell on Lygia's face directly. A second person, sitting at
the fire, was that old man who had accompanied the young girl and Ursus
on the road from Ostrianum.

Vinicius rushed in so suddenly that before Lygia could recognize him he
had seized her by the waist, and, raising her, rushed toward the door
again. The old man barred the way, it is true; but pressing the girl
with one arm to his breast, Vinicius pushed him aside with the other,
which was free. The hood fell from his head, and at sight of that face,
which was known to her and which at that moment was terrible, the blood
grew cold in Lygia from fright, and the voice died in her throat. She
wished to summon aid, but had not the power. Equally vain was her wish
to grasp the door, to resist. Her fingers slipped along the stone, and
she would have fainted but for the terrible picture which struck her
eyes when Vinicius rushed into the garden.

Ursus was holding in his arms some man doubled back completely, with
hanging head and mouth filled with blood. When he saw them, he struck
the head once more with his fist, and in the twinkle of an eye sprang
toward Vinicius like a raging wild beast.

"Death!" thought the young patrician.

Then he heard, as through a dream, the scream of Lygia, "Kill not!" He
felt that something, as it were a thunderbolt, opened the arms with
which he held Lygia; then the earth turned round with him, and the light
of day died in his eyes.

[Bonobo]

Vinicius doesn`t get killed. Christians spare him, he gets to know them better, and eventually becomes a Christian himself.
Unfortunately, Nero is intent on crushing them and their dangerous faith..... Falsely accused of setting fire to Rome, they will be thrown into the arena of Colosseum among lions.



Read about the fire

Chapter XLIV


Light from the burning city filled the sky as far as human eye could
reach. The moon rose large and full from behind the mountains, and
inflamed at once by the glare took on the color of heated brass. It
seemed to look with amazement on the world-ruling city which was
perishing. In the rose-colored abysses of heaven rose-colored stars
were glittering; but in distinction from usual nights the earth was
brighter than the heavens. Rome, like a giant pile, illuminated the
whole Campania. In the bloody light were seen distant mountains, towns,
villas, temples, mountains, and the aqueducts stretching toward the city
from all the adjacent hills; on the aqueducts were swarms of people, who
had gathered there for safety or to gaze at the burning.

Meanwhile the dreadful element was embracing new divisions of the city.
It was impossible to doubt that criminal hands were spreading the fire,
since new conflagrations were breaking out all the time in places remote
from the principal fire. From the heights on which Rome was founded the
flames flowed like waves of the sea into the valleys densely occupied by
houses,--houses of five and six stories, full of shops, booths, movable
wooden amphitheatres, built to accommodate various spectacles; and
finally storehouses of wood, olives, grain, nuts, pine cones, the
kernels of which nourishcd the more needy population, and clothing,
which through Cćsar's favor was distributed from time to time among the
rabble huddled into narrow alleys. In those places the fire, finding
abundance of inflammable materials, became almost a series of
explosions, and took possession of whole streets with unheard-of
rapidity. People encamping outside the city, or standing on the
aqueducts knew from the color of the flame what was burning. The
furious power of the wind carried forth from the fiery gulf thousands
and millions of burning shells of walnuts and almonds, which, shooting
suddenly into the sky, like countless flocks of bright butterflies,
burst with a crackling, or, driven by the wind, fell in other parts of
the city, on aqueducts, and fields beyond Rome. All thought of rescue
seemed out of place; confusion increased every moment, for on one side
the population of the city was fleeing through every gate to places
outside; on the other the fire had lured in thousands of people from the
neighborhood, such as dwellers in small towns, peasants, and half-wild
shepherds of the Campania, brought in by hope of plunder. The shout,
"Rome is perishing!" did not leave the lips of the crowd; the ruin of
the city seemed at that time to end every rule, and loosen all bonds
which hitherto had joined people in a single integrity. The mob, in
which slaves were more numerous, cared nothing for the lordship of Rome.
Destruction of the city could only free them; hence here and there they
assumed a threatening attitude. Violence and robbery were extending.
It seemed that only the spectacle of the perishing city arrested
attention, and restrained for the moment an outburst of slaughter, which
would begin as soon as the city was turned into ruins. Hundreds of
thousands of slaves, forgetting that Rome, besides temples and walls,
possessed some tens of legions in all parts of the world, appeared
merely waiting for a watchword and a leader. People began to mention the
name of Spartacus, but Spartacus was not alive. Meanwhile citizens
assembled, and armed themselves each with what he could. The most
monstrous reports were current at all the gates. Some declared that
Vulcan, commanded by Jupiter, was destroying the city with fire from
beneath the earth; others that Vesta was taking vengeance for Rubria.
People with these convictions did not care to save anything, but,
besieging the temples, implored mercy of the gods. It was repeated most
generally, however, that Cćsar had given command to burn Rome, so as to
free himself from odors which rose from the Subura, and build a new city
under the name of Neronia. Rage seized the populace at thought of this;
and if, as Vinicius believed, a leader had taken advantage of that
outburst of hatred, Nero's hour would have struck whole years before it
did.

It was said also that Cćsar had gone mad, that he would command
pretorians and gladiators to fall upon the people and make a general
slaughter. Others swore by the gods that wild beasts had been let out
of all the vivaria at Bronzebeard's command. Men had seen on the
streets lions with burning manes, and mad elephants and bisons,
trampling down people in crowds. There was even some truth in this; for
in certain places elephants, at sight of the approaching fire, had burst
the vivaria, and, gaining their freedom, rushed away from the fire in
wild fright, destroying everything before them like a tempest. Public
report estimated at tens of thousands the number of persons who had
perished in the conflagration. In truth a great number had perished.
There were people who, losing all their property, or those dearest their
hearts, threw themselves willingly into the flames, from despair.
Others were suffocated by smoke. In the middle of the city, between the
Capitol, on one side, and the Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Esquiline
on the other, as also between the Palatine and the Cćlian Hill, where
the streets were most densely occupied, the fire began in so many places
at once that whole crowds of people, while fleeing in one direction,
struck unexpectedly on a new wall of fire in front of them, and died a
dreadful death in a deluge of flame.

In terror, in distraction, and bewilderment, people knew not where to
flee. The streets were obstructed with goods, and in many narrow places
were simply closed. Those who took refuge in those markets and squares
of the city, where the Flavian Amphitheatre stood afterward, near the
temple of the Earth, near the Portico of Silvia, and higher up, at the
temples of Juno and Lucinia, between the Clivus Virbius and the old
Esquiline Gate, perished from heat, surrounded by a sea of fire. In
places not reached by the flames were found afterward hundreds of bodies
burned to a crisp, though here and there unfortunates tore up flat
stones and half buried themselves in defence against the heat. Hardly a
family inhabiting the centre of the city survived in full; hence along
the walls, at the gates, on all roads were heard howls of despairing
women, calling on the dear names of those who had perished in the throng
or the fire.

And so, while some were imploring the gods, others blasphemed them
because of this awful catastrophe. Old men were seen coming from the
temple of Jupiter Liberator, stretching forth their hands, and crying,
"If thou be a liberator, save thy altars and the city!" But despair
turned mainly against the old Roman gods, who, in the minds of the
populace, were bound to watch over the city more carefully than others.
They had proved themselves powerless; hence were insulted. On the other
hand it happened on the Via Asinaria that when a company of Egyptian
priests appeared conducting a statue of Isis, which they had saved from
the temple near the Porta Cćlimontana, a crowd of people rushed among
the priests, attached themselves to the chariot, which they drew to the
Appian Gate, and seizing the statue placed it in the temple of Mars,
overwhelming the priests of that deity who dared to resist them. In
other places people invoked Serapis, Baal, or Jehovah, whose adherents,
swarming out of the alleys in the neighborhood of the Subura and the
Trans-Tiber, filled with shouts and uproar the fields near the walls.
In their cries were heard tones as if of triumph; when, therefore, some
of the citizens joined the chorus and glorified "the Lord of the World,"
others, indignant at this glad shouting, strove to repress it by
violence. Here and there hymns were heard, sung by men in the bloom of
life, by old men, by women and children,--hymns wonderful and solemn,
whose meaning they understood not, but in which were repeated from
moment to moment the words, "Behold the Judge cometh in the day of wrath
and disaster." Thus this deluge of restless and sleepless people
encircled the burning city, like a tempest-driven sea.

But neither despair nor blasphemy nor hymn helped in any way. The
destruction seemed as irresistible, perfect, and pitiless as
Predestination itself. Around Pompey's Amphitheatre stores of hemp
caught fire, and ropes used in circuses, arenas, and every kind of
machine at the games, and with them the adjoining buildings containing
barrels of pitch with which ropes were smeared. In a few hours all that
part of the city, beyond which lay the Campus Martius, was so lighted by
bright yellow flames that for a time it seemed to the spectators, only
half conscious from terror, that in the general ruin the order of night
and day had been lost, and that they were looking at sunshine. But
later a monstrous bloody gleam extinguished all other colors of flame.
From the sea of fire shot up to the heated sky gigantic fountains, and
pillars of flame spreading at their summits into fiery branches and
feathers; then the wind bore them away, turned them into golden threads,
into hair, into sparks, and swept them on over the Campania toward the
Alban Hills. The night became brighter; the air itself seemed
penetrated, not only with light, but with flame. The Tiber flowed on as
living fire. The hapless city was turned into one pandemonium. The
conflagration seized more and more space, took hills by storm, flooded
level places, drowned valleys, raged, roared, and thundered.

[Bonobo]

Christians are arrested on Nero`s orders and with the help of Rome residents..

My God, the folly of the crowd is perpetual.....





Chapter LI


THE cry, "Christians to the lions!" was heard increasingly in every part
of the city. At first not only did no one doubt that they were the real
authors of the catastrophe, but no one wished to doubt, since their
punishment was to be a splendid amusement for the populace. Still the
opinion spread that the catastrophe would not have assumed such dreadful
proportions but for the anger of the gods; for this reason "piacula," or
purifying sacrifices, were commanded in the temples. By advice of the
Sibylline books, the Senate ordained solemnities and public prayer to
Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina. Matrons made offerings to Juno; a whole
procession of them went to the seashore to take water and sprinkle with
it the statue of the goddess. Married women prepared feasts to the gods
and night watches. All Rome purified itself from sin, made offerings,
and placated the Immortals. Meanwhile new broad streets were opened
among the ruins. In one place and another foundations were laid for
magnificent houses, palaces, and temples. But first of all they built
with unheard-of haste an enormous wooden amphitheatre in which
Christians were to die. Immediately after that consultation in the house
of Tiberius, orders went to consuls to furnish wild beasts. Tigellinus
emptied the vivaria of all Italian cities, not excepting the smaller
ones. In Africa, at his command, gigantic hunts were organized, in
which the entire local population was forced to take part. Elephants
and tigers were brought in from Asia, crocodiles and hippopotamuses from
the Nile, lions from the Atlas, wolves and bears from the Pyrenees,
savage hounds from Hibernia, Molossian dogs from Epirus, bisons and the
gigantic wild aurochs from Germany. Because of the number of prisoners,
the games were to surpass in greatness anything seen up to that time.
Cćsar wished to drown all memory of the fire in blood, and make Rome
drunk with it; hence never had there been a greater promise of
bloodshed.

The willing people helped guards and pretorians in hunting Christians.
That was no difficult labor for whole groups of them camped with the
other population in the midst of the gardens, and confessed their faith
openly. When surrounded, they knelt, and while singing hymns let
themselves be borne away without resistance. But their patience only
increased the anger of the populace, who, not understanding its origin,
considered it as rage and persistence in crime. A madness seized the
persecutors. It happened that the mob wrested Christians from
pretorians, and tore them to pieces; women were dragged to prison by the
hair; children's heads were dashed against stones. Thousands of people
rushed, howling, night and day through the streets. Victims were sought
in ruins, in chimneys, in cellars. Before the prison bacchanalian
feasts and dances were celebrated at fires, around casks of wine.

In the evening was heard with delight bellowing which was like thunder,
and which sounded throughout the city. The prisons were overflowing
with thousands of people; every day the mob and pretorians drove in new
victims. Pity had died out. It seemed that people had forgotten to
speak, and in their wild frenzy remembered one shout alone: "To the
lions with Christians!" Wonderfully hot days came, and nights more
stifling than ever before; the very air seemed filled with blood, crime,
and madness.

And that surpassing measure of cruelty was answered by an equal measure
of desire for martyrdom,--the confessors of Christ went to death
willingly, or even sought death till they were restrained by the stern
commands of superiors. By the injunction of these superiors they began
to assemble only outside the city, in excavations near the Appian Way,
and in vineyards belonging to patrician Christians, of whom none had
been imprisoned so far. It was known perfectly on the Palatine that to
the confessors of Christ belonged Flavius, Domitilla, Pomponia Grćcina,
Cornelius Pudens, and Vinicius. Cćsar himself, however, feared that the
mob would not believe that such people had burned Rome, and since it was
important beyond everything to convince the mob, punishment and
vengeance were deferred till later days. Others were of the opinion,
but erroneously, that those patricians were saved by the influence of
Acte. Petronius, after parting with Vinicius, turned to Acte, it is
true, to gain assistance for Lygia; but she could offer him only tears,
for she lived in oblivion and suffering, and was endured only in so far
as she hid herself from Poppća and Cćsar.

[Bonobo]

The Colosseum is opened, the games inaugurate...



Chapter LV


BEFORE the Flavii had reared the Colosseum, amphitheatres in Rome were
built of wood mainly; for that reason nearly all of them had burned
during the fire. But Nero, for the celebration of the promised games,
had given command to build several, and among them a gigantic one, for
which they began, immediately after the fire was extinguished, to bring
by sea and the Tiber great trunks of trees cut on the slopes of Atlas;
for the games were to surpass all previous ones in splendor and the
number of victims.

Large spaces were given therefore for people and for animals. Thousands
of mechanics worked at the structure night and day. They built and
ornamented without rest. Wonders were told concerning pillars inlaid
with bronze, amber, ivory, mother of pearl, and transmarine tortoise-
shells. Canals filled with ice-cold water from the mountains and
running along the seats were to keep an agreeable coolness in the
building, even during the greatest heat. A gigantic purple velarium
gave shelter from the rays of the sun. Among the rows of seats were
disposed vessels for the burning of Arabian perfumes; above them were
fixed instruments to sprinkle the spectators with dew of saffron and
verbena. The renowned builders Severus and Celer put forth all their
skill to construct an amphitheatre at once incomparable and fitted for
such a number of the curious as none of those known before had been able
to accommodate.

Hence, the day when the ludus matutinus was to begin, throngs of the
populace were awaiting from daylight the opening of the gates, listening
with delight to the roars of lions, the hoarse growls of panthers, and
the howls of dogs. The beasts had not been fed for two days, but pieces
of bloody flesh had been pushed before them to rouse their rage and
hunger all the more. At times such a storm of wild voices was raised
that people standing before the Circus could not converse, and the most
sensitive grew pale from fear.

With the rising of the sun were intoned in the enclosure of the Circus
hymns resonant but calm. The people heard these with amazement, and
said one to another, "The Christians! the Christians!" In fact, many
detachments of Christians had been brought to the amphitheatre that
night, and not from one place, as planned at first, but a few from each
prison. It was known in the crowd that the spectacles would continue
through weeks and months, but they doubted that it would be possible to
finish in a single day those Christians who had been intended for that
one occasion. The voices of men, women, and children singing the
morning hymn were so numerous that spectators of experience asserted
that even if one or two hundred persons were sent out at once, the
beasts would grow tired, become sated, and not tear all to pieces before
evening. Others declared that an excessive number of victims in the
arena would divert attention, and not give a chance to enjoy the
spectacle properly.

As the moment drew near for opening the vomitoria, or passages which led
to the interior, people grew animated and joyous; they discussed and
disputed about various things touching the spectacle. Parties were
formed praising the greater efficiency of lions or tigers in tearing.
Here and there bets were made. Others however talked about gladiators
who were to appear in the arena earlier than the Christians; and again
there were parties, some in favor of Samnites, others of Gauls, others
of Mirmillons, others of Thracians, others of the retiarii.

Early in the morning larger or smaller detachments of gladiators began
to arrive at the amphitheatre under the lead of masters, called lanistć.
Not wishing to be wearied too soon, they entered unarmed, often entirely
naked, often with green boughs in their hands, or crowned with flowers,
young, beautiful, in the light of morning, and full of life. Their
bodies, shining from olive oil, were strong as if chiselled from marble;
they roused to delight people who loved shapely forms. Many were known
personally, and from moment to moment were heard: "A greeting, Furnius!
A greeting, Leo! A greeting, Maximus! A greeting, Diomed!" Young
maidens raised to them eyes full of admiration; they, selecting the
maiden most beautiful, answered with jests, as if no care weighed on
them, sending kisses, or exclaiming, "Embrace me before death does!"
Then they vanished in the gates, through which many of them were never
to come forth again.

New arrivals drew away the attention of the throngs. Behind the
gladiators came mastigophori; that is, men armed with scourges, whose
office it was to lash and urge forward combatants. Next mules drew, in
the direction of the spoliarium, whole rows of vehicles on which were
piled wooden coffins. People were diverted at sight of this, inferring
from the number of coffins the greatness of the spectacle. Now marched
in men who were to kill the wounded; these were dressed so that each
resembled Charon or Mercury. Next came those who looked after order in
the Circus, and assigned places; after that slaves to bear around food
and refreshments; finally, pretorians, whom every Cćsar had always at
hand in the amphitheatre.

At last the vomitoria were opened, and crowds rushed to the centre. But
such was the number of those assembled that they flowed in and flowed in
for hours, till it was a marvel that the Circus could hold such a
countless multitude. The roars of wild beasts, catching the exhalations
of people, grew louder. While taking their places, the spectators made
an uproar like the sea in time of storm.

Finally, the prefect of the city came, surrounded by guards; and after
him, in unbroken line, appeared the litters of senators, consuls,
pretors, ediles, officials of the government and the palace, of
pretorian officers, patricians, and exquisite ladies. Some litters were
preceded by lictors bearing maces in bundles of rods; others by crowds
of slaves. In the sun gleamed the gilding of the litters, the white and
varied colored stuffs, feathers, earrings, jewels, steel of the maces.
From the Circus came shouts with which the people greeted great
dignitaries. Small divisions of pretorians arrived from time to time.

The priests of various temples came somewhat later; only after them were
brought in the sacred virgins of Vesta, preceded by lictors.

To begin the spectacle, they were waiting now only for Cćsar, who,
unwilling to expose the people to over-long waiting, and wishing to win
them by promptness, came soon, in company with the Augusta and
Augustians.

[Bonobo]

Gladiator fights




In fact, when the shrill sound of trumpets was heard, there was a
stillness of expectation in the amphitheatre. Thousands of eyes were
turned to the great bolts, which a man approached dressed like Charon,
and amid the universal silence struck three times with a hammer, as if
summoning to death those who were hidden behind them. Then both halves
of the gate opened slowly, showing a black gully, out of which
gladiators began to appear in the bright arena. They came in divisions
of twenty-five, Thracians, Mirmillons, Samnites, Gauls, each nation
separately, all heavily armed; and last the retiarii, holding in one
hand a net, in the other a trident. At sight of them, here and there on
the benches rose applause, which soon turned into one immense and
unbroken storm. From above to below were seen excited faces, clapping
hands, and open mouths, from which shouts burst forth. The gladiators
encircled the whole arena with even and springy tread, gleaming with
their weapons and rich outfit; they halted before Cćsar's podium, proud,
calm, and brilliant. The shrill sound of a horn stopped the applause;
the combatants stretched their right hands upward, raised their eyes and
heads toward Cćsar, and began to cry or rather to chant with drawling
voice,--

"Ave, Cćsar imperator! Morituri te salutant!"

Then they pushed apart quickly, occupying their places on the arena.
They were to attack one another in whole detachments; but first it was
permitted the most famous fencers to have a series of single combats, in
which the strength, dexterity, and courage of opponents were best
exhibited. In fact, from among the Gauls appeared a champion, well
known to lovers of the amphitheatre under the name of Lanio, a victor in
many games. With a great helmet on his head, and in mail which formed a
ridge in front of his powerful breast and behind, he looked in the gleam
of the golden arena like a giant beetle. The no less famous retiarius
Calendio came out against him.

Among the spectators people began to bet.

"Five hundred sestertia on the Gaul!"

"Five hundred on Calendio!"

"By Hercules, one thousand!"

"Two thousand!"

Meanwhile the Gaul, reaching the centre of the arena, began to withdraw
with pointed sword, and, lowering his head, watched his opponent
carefully through the opening of his visor; the light retiarius,
stately, statuesque, wholly naked save a belt around his loins, circled
quickly about his heavy antagonist, waving the net with graceful
movement, lowering or raising his trident, and singing the usual song of
the retiarius,--

"Non te peto, piscem peto; Quid me fugis, Galle?"

["I seek not thee, I seek a fish; Why flee from me O Gaul?"]

But the Gaul was not fleeing, for after a while he stopped, and standing
in one place began to turn with barely a slight movement, so as to have
his enemy always in front, in his form and monstrously large head there
was now something terrible. The spectators understood perfectly that
that heavy body encased in bronze was preparing for a sudden throw to
decide the battle. The retiarius meanwhile sprang up to him, then
sprang away, making with his three-toothed fork motions so quick that
the eye hardly followed them. The sound of the teeth on the shield was
heard repeatedly; but the Gaul did not quiver, giving proof by this of
his gigantic strength. All his attention seemed fixed, not on the
trident, but the net which was circling above his head, like a bird of
ill omen. The spectators held the breath in their breasts, and followed
the masterly play of the gladiators. The Gaul waited, chose the moment,
and rushed at last on his enemy; the latter with equal quickness shot
past under his sword, straightened himself with raised arm, and threw
the net.

The Gaul, turning where he stood, caught it on his shield; then both
sprang apart. In the amphitheatre shouts of "Macte!" thundered; in the
lower rows they began to make new bets. Cćsar himself, who at first had
been talking with Rubria, and so far had not paid much attention to the
spectacle, turned his head toward the arena.

They began to struggle again, so regularly and with such precision in
their movements, that sometimes it seemed that with them it was not a
question of life or death, but of exhibiting skill. The Gaul escaping
twice more from the net, pushed toward the edge of the arena; those who
held bets against him, not wishing the champion to rest, began to cry,
"Bear on!" The Gaul obeyed, and attacked. The arm of the retiarius was
covered on a sudden with blood, and his net dropped. The Gaul summoned
his strength, and sprang forward to give the final blow. That instant
Calendio, who feigned inability to wield the net, sprang aside, escaped
the thrust, ran the trident between the knees of his opponent, and
brought him to the earth.

The Gaul tried to rise, but in a twinkle he was covered by the fatal
meshes, in which he was entangled more and more by every movement of his
feet and hands. Meanwhile stabs of the trident fixed him time after
time to the earth. He made one more effort, rested on his arm, and
tried to rise; in vain! He raised to his head his falling hand which
could hold the sword no longer, and fell on his back. Calendio pressed
his neck to the ground with the trident, and, resting both hands on the
handle of it, turned toward Cćsar's box.

The whole Circus was trembling from plaudits and the roar of people.
For those who had bet on Calendio he was at that moment greater than
Cćsar; but for this very reason animosity against the Gaul vanished from
their hearts. At the cost of his blood he had filled their purses. The
voices of the audience were divided. On the upper seats half the signs
were for death, and half for mercy; but the retiarius looked only at the
box of Cćsar and the vestals, waiting for what they would decide.

To the misfortune of the fallen gladiator, Nero did not like him, for at
the last games before the fire he had bet against the Gaul, and had lost
considerable sums to Licinus; hence he thrust his hand out of the
podium, and turned his thumb toward the earth.

The vestals supported the sign at once. Calendio knelt on the breast of
the Gaul, drew a short knife from his belt, pushed apart the armor
around the neck of his opponent, and drove the three-edged blade into
his throat to the handle.

"Peractum est!" sounded voices in the amphitheatre.

The Gaul quivered a time, like a stabbed bullock, dug the sand with his
heels, stretched, and was motionless.

Mercury had no need to try with heated iron if he were living yet. He
was hidden away quickly, and other pairs appeared. After them came a
battle of whole detachments. The audience took part in it with soul,
heart, and eyes. They howled, roared, whistled, applauded, laughed,
urged on the combatants, grew wild. The gladiators on the arena,
divided into two legions, fought with the rage of wild beasts; breast
struck breast, bodies were intertwined in a death grapple, strong limbs
cracked in their joints, swords were buried in breasts and in stomachs,
pale lips threw blood on to the sand. Toward the end such terrible fear
seized some novices that, tearing themselves from the turmoil, they
fled; but the scourgers drove them back again quickly to the battle with
lashes tipped with lead. On the sand great dark spots were formed; more
and more naked and armed bodies lay stretched like grain sheaves. The
living fought on the corpses; they struck against armor and shields, cut
their feet against broken weapons, and fell. The audience lost self-
command from delight; and intoxicated with death breathed it, sated
their eyes with the sight of it, and drew into their lungs the
exhalations of it with ecstasy.

The conquered lay dead, almost every man. Barely a few wounded knelt in
the middle of the arena, and trembling stretched their hands to the
audience with a prayer for mercy. To the victors were given rewards,--
crowns, olive wreaths. And a moment of rest came, which, at command of
the all-powerful Cćsar, was turned into a feast. Perfumes were burned
in vases. Sprinklers scattered saffron and violet rain on the people.
Cooling drinks were served, roasted meats, sweet cakes, wine, olives,
and fruits. The people devoured, talked, and shouted in honor of Cćsar,
to incline him to greater bounteousness. When hunger and thirst had
been satisfied, hundreds of slaves bore around baskets full of gifts,
from which boys, dressed as Cupids, took various objects and threw them
with both hands among the seats. When lottery tickets were distributed,
a battle began. People crowded, threw, trampled one another; cried for
rescue, sprang over rows of seats, stifled one another in the terrible
crush, since whoever got a lucky number might win possibly a house with
a garden, a slave, a splendid dress, or a wild beast which he could sell
to the amphitheatre afterward. For this reason there were such
disorders that frequently the pretorians had to interfere; and after
every distribution they carried out people with broken arms or legs, and
some were even trampled to death in the throng.

But the more wealthy took no part in the fight for tesserć. The
Augustians amused themselves now with the spectacle of Chilo, and with
making sport of his vain efforts to show that he could look at fighting
and blood-spilling as well as any man. But in vain did the unfortunate
Greek wrinkle his brow, gnaw his lips, and squeeze his fists till the
nails entered his palms. His Greek nature and his personal cowardice
were unable to endure such sights. His face grew pale, his forehead was
dotted with drops of sweat, his lips were blue, his eyes turned in, his
teeth began to chatter, and a trembling seized his body. At the end of
the battle he recovered somewhat; but when they attacked him with
tongues, sudden anger seized him, and he defended himself desperately.

[Bonobo]

Christians are attacked by hounds first



The turn of the Christians was at hand. But since that was a new
spectacle for people, and no one knew how the Christians would bear
themselves, all waited with a certain curiosity. The disposition of the
audience was attentive but unfriendly; they were waiting for uncommon
scenes. Those people who were to appear had burned Rome and its ancient
treasures. They had drunk the blood of infants, and poisoned water;
they had cursed the whole human race, and committed the vilest crimes.
The harshest punishment did not suffice the roused hatred; and if any
fear possessed people's hearts, it was this: that the torture of the
Christians would not equal the guilt of those ominous criminals.

Meanwhile the sun had risen high; its rays, passing through the purple
velarium, had filled the amphitheatre with blood-colored light. The
sand assumed a fiery hue, and in those gleams, in the faces of people,
as well as in the empty arena, which after a time was to be filled with
the torture of people and the rage of savage beasts, there was something
terrible. Death and terror seemed hovering in the air. The throng,
usually gladsome, became moody under the influence of hate and silence.
Faces had a sullen expression.

Now the prefect gave a sign. The same old man appeared, dressed as
Charon, who had called the gladiators to death, and, passing with slow
step across the arena amid silence, he struck three times again on the
door.

Throughout the amphitheatre was heard the deep murmur,--

"The Christians! the Christians!"

The iron gratings creaked; through the dark openings were heard the
usual cries of the scourgers, "To the sand!" and in one moment the arena
was peopled with crowds as it were of satyrs covered with skins. All
ran quickly, somewhat feverishly, and, reaching the middle of the
circle, they knelt one by another with raised heads. The spectators,
judging this to be a prayer for pity, and enraged by such cowardice,
began to stamp, whistle, throw empty wine-vessels, bones from which the
flesh had been eaten, and shout, "The beasts! the beasts!" But all at
once something unexpected took place. From out the shaggy assembly
singing voices were raised, and then sounded that hynm heard for the
first time in a Roman amphitheatre, "Christus regnat!" ["Christ
reigns!"]

Astonishment seized the spectators. The condemned sang with eyes raised
to the velarium. The audience saw faces pale, but as it were inspired.
All understood that those people were not asking for mercy, and that
they seemed not to see the Circus, the audience, the Senate, or Cćsar.
"Christus regnat!" rose ever louder, and in the seats, far up to the
highest, among the rows of spectators, more than one asked himself the
question, "What is happening, and who is that Christus who reigns in the
mouths of those people who are about to die?" But meanwhile a new
grating was opened, and into the arena rushed, with mad speed and
barking, whole packs of dogs,--gigantic, yellow Molossians from the
Peloponnesus, pied dogs from the Pyrenees, and wolf-like hounds from
Hibernia, purposely famished; their sides lank, and their eyes
bloodshot. Their howls and whines filled the amphitheatre. When the
Christians had finished their hymn, they remained kneeling, motionless,
as if petrified, merely repeating in one groaning chorus, "Pro Christo!
Pro Christo!" The dogs, catching the odor of people under the skins of
beasts, and surprised by their silence, did not rush on them at once.
Some stood against the walls of the boxes, as if wishing to go among the
spectators; others ran around barking furiously, as though chasing some
unseen beast. The people were angry. A thousand voices began to call;
some howled like wild beasts; some barked like dogs; others urged them
on in every language. The amphitheatre was trembling from uproar. The
excited dogs began to run to the kneeling people, then to draw back,
snapping their teeth, till at last one of the Molossians drove his teeth
into the shoulder of a woman kneeling in front, and dragged her under
him.

Tens of dogs rushed into the crowd now, as if to break through it. The
audience ceased to howl, so as to look with greater attention. Amidst
the howling and whining were heard yet plaintive voices of men and
women: "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!" but on the arena were formed
quivering masses of the bodies of dogs and people. Blood flowed in
streams from the torn bodies. Dogs dragged from each other the bloody
limbs of people. The odor of blood and torn entrails was stronger than
Arabian perfumes, and filled the whole Circus.

At last only here and there were visible single kneeling forms, which
were soon covered by moving squirming masses.

Vinicius, who at the moment when the Christians ran in, stood up and
turned so as to indicate to the quarryman, as he had promised, the
direction in which the Apostle was hidden among the people of Petronius,
sat down again, and with the face of a dead man continued to look with
glassy eyes on the ghastly spectacle. At first fear that the quarryman
might have been mistaken, and that perchance Lygia was among the
victims, benumbed him completely; but when he heard the voices, "Pro
Christo!" when he saw the torture of so many victims who, in dying,
confessed their faith and their God, another feeling possessed him,
piercing him like the most dreadful pain, but irresistible. That
feeling was this,--if Christ Himself died in torment, if thousands are
perishing for Him now, if a sea of blood is poured forth, one drop more
signifies nothing, and it is a sin even to ask for mercy. That thought
came to him from the arena, penetrated him with the groans of the dying,
with the odor of their blood. But still he prayed and repeated with
parched lips, "O Christ! O Christ! and Thy Apostle prayed for her!"
Then he forgot himself, lost consciousness of where he was. It seemed
to him that blood on the arena was rising and rising, that it was coming
up and flowing out of the Circus over all Rome. For the rest he heard
nothing, neither the howling of dogs nor the uproar of the people nor
the voices of the Augustians, who began all at once to cry,--

"Chilo has fainted!"

"Chilo has fainted!" said Petronius, turning toward the Greek.

And he had fainted really; he sat there white as linen, his head fallen
back, his mouth wide open, like that of a corpse.

At that same moment they were urging into the arena new victims, sewed
up in skins.

These knelt immediately, like those who had gone before; but the weary
dogs would not rend them. Barely a few threw themselves on to those
kneeling nearest; but others lay down, and, raising their bloody jaws,
began to scratch their sides and yawn heavily.

[Bonobo]

Christians and lions

The Polish film Quo Vadis shows those drastic scenes


But books are always better than films.




Then the audience, disturbed in spirit, but drunk with blood and wild,
began to cry with hoarse voices,--

"The lions! the lions! Let out the lions!"

The lions were to be kept for the next day; but in the amphitheatres the
people imposed their will on every one, even on Cćsar. Caligula alone,
insolent and changeable in his wishes, dared to oppose them, and there
were cases when he gave command to beat the people with clubs; but even
he yielded most frequently. Nero, to whom plaudits were dearer than all
else in the world, never resisted. All the more did he not resist now,
when it was a question of mollifying the populace, excited after the
conflagration, and a question of the Christians, on whom he wished to
cast the blame of the catastrophe.

He gave the sign therefore to open the cuniculum, seeing which, the
people were calmed in a moment. They heard the creaking of the doors
behind which were the lions. At sight of the lions the dogs gathered
with low whines, on the opposite side of the arena. The lions walked
into the arena one after another, immense, tawny, with great shaggy
heads. Cćsar himself turned his wearied face toward them, and placed
the emerald to his eye to see better. The Augustians greeted them with
applause; the crowd counted them on their fingers, and followed eagerly
the impression which the sight of them would make on the Christians
kneeling in the centre, who again had begun to repeat the words, without
meaning for many, though annoying to all, "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!"

But the lions, though hungry, did not hasten to their victims. The
ruddy light in the arena dazzled them and they half closed their eyes as
if dazed. Some stretched their yellowish bodies lazily; some, opening
their jaws, yawned,--one might have said that they wanted to show their
terrible teeth to the audience. But later the odor of blood and torn
bodies, many of which were lying on the sand, began to act on them.
Soon their movements became restless, their manes rose, their nostrils
drew in the air with hoarse sound. One fell suddenly on the body of a
woman with a torn face, and, lying with his fore paws on the body,
licked with a rough tongue the stiffened blood: another approached a man
who was holding in his arms a child sewed up in a fawn's skin.

The child, trembling from crying, and weeping, clung convulsively to the
neck of its father; he, to prolong its life even for a moment, tried to
pull it from his neck, so as to hand it to those kneeling farther on.
But the cry and the movement irritated the lion. All at once he gave
out a short, broken roar, killed the child with one blow of his paw, and
seizing the head of the father in his jaws, crushed it in a twinkle.

At sight of this all the other lions fell upon the crowd of Christians.
Some women could not restrain cries of terror; but the audience drowned
these with plaudits, which soon ceased, however, for the wish to see
gained the mastery. They beheld terrible things then: heads
disappearing entirely in open jaws, breasts torn apart with one blow,
hearts and lungs swept away; the crushing of bones under the teeth of
lions. Some lions, seizing victims by the ribs or loins, ran with mad
springs through the arena, as if seeking hidden places in which to
devour them; others fought, rose on their hind legs, grappled one
another like wrestlers, and filled the amphitheatre with thunder.
People rose from their places. Some left their seats, went down lower
through the passages to see better, and crowded one another mortally.
It seemed that the excited multitude would throw itself at last into the
arena, and rend the Christians in company with the lions. At moments an
unearthly noise was heard; at moments applause; at moments roaring,
rumbling, the clashing of teeth, the howling of Molossian dogs; at times
only groans.

Cćsar, holding the emerald to his eye, looked now with attention. The
face of Petronius assumed an expression of contempt and disgust. Chilo
had been borne out of the Circus.

But from the cuniculum new victims were driven forth continually.

From the highest row in the amphitheatre the Apostle Peter looked at
them. No one saw him, for all heads were turned to the arena; so he
rose and as formerly in the vineyard of Cornelius he had blessed for
death and eternity those who were intended for imprisonment, so now he
blessed with the cross those who were perishing under the teeth of wild
beasts. He blessed their blood, their torture, their dead bodies turned
into shapeless masses, and their souls flying away from the bloody sand.
Some raised their eyes to him, and their faces grew radiant; they smiled
when they saw high above them the sign of the cross. But his heart was
rent, and he said, "O Lord! let Thy will be done. These my sheep perish
to Thy glory in testimony of the truth. Thou didst command me to feed
them; hence I give them to Thee, and do Thou count them, Lord, take
them, heal their wounds, soften their pain, give them happiness greater
than the torments which they suffered here."

And he blessed them one after another, crowd after crowd, with as much
love as if they had been his children whom he was giving directly into
the hands of Christ. Then Cćsar, whether from madness, or the wish that
the exhibition should surpass everything seen in Rome so far, whispered
a few words to the prefect of the city. He left the podium and went at
once to the cuniculum. Even the populace were astonished when, after a
while, they saw the gratings open again. Beasts of all kinds were let
out this time,--tigers from the Euphrates, Numidian panthers, bears,
wolves, hyenas, and jackals. The whole arena was covered as with a
moving sea of striped, yellow, flax-colored, dark-brown, and spotted
skins. There rose a chaos in which the eye could distinguish nothing
save a terrible turning and twisting of the backs of wild beasts. The
spectacle lost the appearance of reality, and became as it were an orgy
of blood, a dreadful dream, a gigantic kaleidoscope of mad fancy. The
measure was surpassed. Amidst roars, howls, whines, here and there on
the seats of the spectators were heard the terrified and spasmodic
laughter of women, whose strength had given way at last. The people
were terrified. Faces grew dark. Various voices began to cry, "Enough!
enough!"

But it was easier to let the beasts in than drive them back again.
Cćsar, however, found a means of clearing the arena, and a new amusement
for the people. In all the passages between the seats appeared
detachments of Numidians, black and stately, in feathers and earrings,
with bows in their hands. The people divined what was coming, and
greeted the archers with a shout of delight. The Numidians approached
the railing, and, putting their arrows to the strings, began to shoot
from their bows into the crowd of beasts. That was a new spectacle
truly. Their bodies, shapely as if cut from dark marble, bent backward,
stretched the flexible bows, and sent bolt after bolt. The whizzing of
the strings and the whistling of the feathered missiles were mingled
with the howling of beasts and cries of wonder from the audience.
Wolves, bears, panthers, and people yet alive fell side by side. Here
and there a lion, feeling a shaft in his ribs, turned with sudden
movement, his jaws wrinkled from rage, to seize and break the arrow.
Others groaned from pain. The small beasts, falling into a panic, ran
around the arena at random, or thrust their heads into the grating;
meanwhile the arrows whizzed and whizzed on, till all that was living
had lain down in the final quiver of death.

Hundreds of slaves rushed into the arena armed with spades, shovels,
brooms, wheelbarrows, baskets for carrying out entrails, and bags of
sand. They came, crowd after crowd, and over the whole circle there
seethed up a feverish activity. The space was soon cleared of bodies,
blood, and mire, dug over, made smooth, and sprinkled with a thick layer
of fresh sand. That done, Cupids ran in, scattering leaves of roses,
lilies, and the greatest variety of flowers. The censers were ignited
again, and the velarium was removed, for the sun had sunk now
considerably. But people looked at one another with amazement, and
inquired what kind of new spectacle was waiting for them on that day.

[Bonobo]

Christians perish in many ways



Chapter LVII


THREE days' rain, an exceptional phenomenon in Rome during summer, and
hail falling in opposition to the natural order, not only in the day,
but even at night, interrupted the spectacles. People were growing
alarmed. A failure of grapes was predicted, and when on a certain
afternoon a thunderbolt melted the bronze statue of Ceres on the
Capitol, sacrifices were ordered in the temple of Jupiter Salvator. The
priests of Ceres spread a report that the anger of the gods was turned
on the city because of the too hasty punishment of Christians; hence
crowds began to insist that the spectacles be given without reference to
weather. Delight seized all Rome when the announcement was made at last
that the ludus would begin again after three days' interval.

Meanwhile beautiful weather returned. The amphitheatre was filled at
daybreak with thousands of people. Cćsar came early with the vestals
and the court. The spectacle was to begin with a battle among the
Christians, who to this end were arrayed as gladiators and furnished
with all kinds of weapons which served gladiators by profession in
offensive and defensive struggles. But here came disappointment. The
Christians threw nets, darts, tridents, and swords on the arena,
embraced and encouraged one another to endurance in view of torture and
death. At this deep indignation and resentment seized the hearts of the
multitude. Some reproached the Christians with cowardice and
pusillanimity; others asserted that they refused to fight through hatred
of the people, so as to deprive them of that pleasure which the sight of
bravery produces. Finally, at command of Cćsar, real gladiators were
let out, who despatched in one twinkle the kneeling and defenceless
victims.

When these bodies were removed, the spectacle was a series of mythologic
pictures,--Cćsar's own idea. The audience saw Hercules blazing in
living fire on Mount Oeta. Vinicius had trembled at the thought that
the role of Hercules might be intended for Ursus; but evidently the turn
of Lygia's faithful servant had not come, for on the pile some other
Christian was burning,--a man quite unknown to Vinicius. In the next
picture Chilo, whom Cćsar would not excuse from attendance, saw
acquaintances. The death of Dćdalus was represented, and also that of
Icarus. In the rôle of Dćdalus appeared Euricius, that old man who had
given Chilo the sign of the fish; the role of Icarus was taken by his
son, Quartus. Both were raised aloft with cunning machinery, and then
hurled suddenly from an immense height to the arena. Young Quartus fell
so near Cćsar's podium that he spattered with blood not only the
external ornaments but the purple covering spread over the front of the
podium. Chilo did not see the fall, for he closed his eyes; but he
heard the dull thump of the body, and when after a time he saw blood
there close to him, he came near fainting a second time.

The pictures changed quickly. The shameful torments of maidens violated
before death by gladiators dressed as wild beasts, delighted the hearts
of the rabble. They saw priestesses of Cybele and Ceres, they saw the
Danaides, they saw Dirce and Pasiphaë; finally they saw young girls, not
mature yet, torn asunder by wild horses. Every moment the crowd
applauded new ideas of Nero, who, proud of them, and made happy by
plaudits, did not take the emerald from his eye for one instant while
looking at white bodies torn with iron, and the convulsive quivering of
victims.

Pictures were given also from the history of the city. After the
maidens they saw Mucius Scćvola, whose hand fastened over a fire to a
tripod filled the amphitheatre with the odor of burnt flesh; but this
man, like the real Scćvola, remained without a groan, his eyes raised
and the murmur of prayer on his blackening lips. When he had expired
and his body was dragged to the spoliarium, the usual midday interlude
followed. Cćsar with the vestals and the Augustians left the
amphitheatre, and withdrew to an immense scarlet tent erected purposely;
in this was prepared for him and the guests a magnificent prandium. The
spectators for the greater part followed his example, and, streaming
out, disposed themselves in picturesque groups around the tent, to rest
their limbs wearied from long sitting, and enjoy the food which, through
Cćsar's favor, was served by slaves to them. Only the most curious
descended to the arena itself, and, touching with their fingers lumps of
sand held together by blood, conversed, as specialists and amateurs, of
that which had happened and of that which was to follow. Soon even
these went away, lest they might be late for the feast; only those few
were left who stayed not through curiosity, but sympathy for the coming
victims. Those concealed themselves behind seats or in the lower
places.

Meanwhile the arena was levelled, and slaves began to dig holes one near
the other in rows throughout the whole circuit from side to side, so
that the last row was but a few paces distant from Cćsar's podium. From
outside came the murmur of people, shouts and plaudits, while within
they were preparing in hot haste for new tortures. The cunicula were
opened simultaneously, and in all passages leading to the arena were
urged forward crowds of Christians naked and carrying crosses on their
shoulders. The whole arena was filled with them. Old men, bending
under the weight of wooden beams, ran forward; at the side of these went
men in the prime of life, women with loosened hair behind which they
strove to hide their nakedness, small boys, and little children. The
crosses, for the greater part, as well as the victims, were wreathed
with flowers. The servants of the amphitheatre beat the unfortunates
with clubs, forcing them to lay down their crosses near the holes
prepared, and stand themselves there in rows. Thus were to perish those
whom executioners had had no chance to drive out as food for dogs and
wild beasts the first day of the games. Black slaves seized the
victims, laid them face upward on the wood, and fell to nailing their
hands hurriedly and quickly to the arms of the crosses, so that people
returning after the interlude might find all the crosses standing. The
whole amphitheatre resounded with the noise of hammers which echoed
through all the rows, went out to the space surrounding the
amphitheatre, and into the tent where Cćsar was entertaining his suite
and the vestals. There he drank wine, bantered with Chilo, and
whispered strange words in the ears of the priestesses of Vesta; but on
the arena the work was seething,--nails were going into the hands and
feet of the Christians; shovels moved quickly, filling the holes in
which the crosses had been planted.

Among the new victims whose turn was to come soon was Crispus. The
lions had not had time to rend him; hence he was appointed to the cross.
He, ready at all times for death, was delighted with the thought that
his hour was approaching. He seemed another man, for his emaciated body
was wholly naked,--only a girdle of ivy encircled his hips, on his head
was a garland of roses. But in his eyes gleamed always that same
exhaustless energy; that same fanatical stern face gazed from beneath
the crown of roses. Neither had his heart changed; for, as once in the
cuniculum he had threatened with the wrath of God his brethren sewed up
in the skins of wild beasts, so to-day he thundered in place of
consoling them.

"Thank the Redeemer," said Crispus, "that He permits you to die the same
death that He Himself died. Maybe a part of your sins will be remitted
for this cause; but tremble, since justice must be satisfied, and there
cannot be one reward for the just and the wicked."

His words were accompanied by the sound of the hammers nailing the hands
and feet of victims. Every moment more crosses were raised on the
arena; but he, turning to the crowd standing each man by his own cross,
continued,--

"I see heaven open, but I see also the yawning abyss. I know not what
account of my life to give the Lord, though I have believed, and hated
evil. I fear, not death, but resurrection; I fear, not torture, but
judgment, for the day of wrath is at hand."

At that moment was heard from between the nearest rows some voice, calm
and solemn,--

"Not the day of wrath, but of mercy, the day of salvation and happiness;
for I say that Christ will gather you in, will comfort you and seat you
at His right hand. Be confident, for heaven is opening before you."

At these words all eyes were turned to the benches; even those who were
hanging on the crosses raised their pale, tortured faces, and looked
toward the man who was speaking.

But he went to the barrier surrounding the arena, and blessed them with
the sign of the cross.

Crispus stretched out his arm as if to thunder at him; but when he saw
the man's face, he dropped his arm, the knees bent under him, and his
lips whispered, "Paul the Apostle!"

To the great astonishment of the servants of the Circus, all of those
who were not nailed to the crosses yet knelt down. Paul turned to
Crispus and said,

"Threaten them not, Crispus, for this day they will be with thee in
paradise. It is thy thought that they may be condemned. But who will
condemn?

"Will God, who gave His Son for them? Will Christ, who died for their
salvation, condemn when they die for His name? And how is it possible
that He who loves can condemn? Who will accuse the chosen of God? Who
will say of this blood, 'It is cursed'?"

"I have hated evil," said the old priest.

"Christ's command to love men was higher than that to hate evil, for His
religion is not hatred, but love."

"I have sinned in the hour of death," answered Crispus, beating his
breast. The manager of the seats approached the Apostle, and inquired,

"Who art thou, speaking to the condemned?"

"A Roman citizen," answered Paul, calmly. Then, turning to Crispus, he
said: "Be confident, for to-day is a day of grace; die in peace, O
servant of God."

The black men approached Crispus at that moment to place him on the
cross; but he looked around once again, and cried,--

"My brethren, pray for me!"

His face had lost its usual sternness; his stony features had taken an
expression of peace and sweetness. He stretched his arms himself along
the arms of the cross, to make the work easier, and, looking directly
into heaven, began to pray earnestly. He seemed to feel nothing; for
when the nails entered his hands, not the least quiver shook his body,
nor on his face did there appear any wrinkle of pain. He prayed when
they raised the cross and trampled the earth around it. Only when
crowds began to fill the amphitheatre with shouts and laughter did his
brows frown somewhat, as if in anger that a pagan people were disturbing
the calm and peace of a sweet death.

But all the crosses had been raised, so that in the arena there stood as
it were a forest, with people hanging on the trees. On the arms of the
crosses and on the heads of the martyrs fell the gleam of the sun; but
on the arena was a deep shadow, forming a kind of black involved grating
through which glittered the golden sand. That was a spectacle in which
the whole delight of the audience consisted in looking at a lingering
death. Never before had men seen such a density of crosses. The arena
was packed so closely that the servants squeezed between them only with
effort. On the edges were women especially; but Crispus, as a leader,
was raised almost in front of Cćsar's podium, on an immense cross,
wreathed below with honeysuckle. None of the victims had died yet, but
some of those fastened earlier had fainted. No one groaned; no one
called for mercy. Some were hanging with head inclined on one arm, or
dropped on the breast, as if seized by sleep; some were as if in
meditation; some, looking toward heaven, were moving their lips quietly.
In this terrible forest of crosses, among those crucified bodies, in
that silence of victims there was something ominous. The people who,
filled by the feast and gladsome, had returned to the Circus with
shouts, became silent, not knowing on which body to rest their eyes, or
what to think of the spectacle. The nakedness of strained female forms
roused no feeling. They did not make the usual bets as to who would die
first,--a thing done generally when there was even the smallest number
of criminals on the arena. It seemed that Cćsar himself was bored, for
he turned lazily and with drowsy expression to arrange his necklace.

At that moment Crispus, who was hanging opposite, and who, like a man in
a faint or dying, had kept his eyes closed, opened them and looked at
Cćsar. His face assumed an expression so pitiless, and his eyes flashed
with such fire, that the Augustians whispered to one another, pointing
at him with their fingers, and at last Cćsar himself turned to that
cross, and placed the emerald to his eye sluggishly.

Perfect silence followed. The eyes of the spectators were fixed on
Crispus, who strove to move his right hand, as if to tear it from the
tree.

After a while his breast rose, his ribs were visible, and he cried:
"Matricide! woe to thee!"

The Augustians, hearing this mortal insult flung at the lord of the
world in presence of thousands, did not dare to breathe. Chilo was half
dead. Cćsar trembled, and dropped the emerald from his fingers. The
people, too, held the breath in their breasts. The voice of Crispus was
heard, as it rose in power, throughout the amphitheatre,--

"Woe to thee, murderer of wife and brother! woe to thee, Antichrist.
The abyss is opening beneath thee, death is stretching its hands to
thee, the grave is waiting for thee. Woe, living corpse, for in terror
shalt thou die and be damned to eternity!"

Unable to tear his hand from the cross, Crispus strained awfully. He was
terrible,--a living skeleton; unbending as predestination, he shook his
white beard over Nero's podium, scattering, as he nodded, rose leaves
from the garland on his head.

"Woe to thee, murderer! Thy measure is surpassed, and thy hour is at
hand!"

Here he made one more effort. It seemed for a moment that he would free
his hand from the cross and hold it in menace above Cćsar; but all at
once his emaciated arms extended still more, his body settled down, his
head fell on his breast, and he died.

In that forest of crosses the weakest began also the sleep of eternity.

[jeanne]

I read 'Quo Vadis' last year and want to read some other of Sienkiewicz's work this coming summer. What do you recommend?

[Bonobo]

Christians are burnt alive. The so called Nero`s Torches. Read about an amazing act of forgiveness given by a dying Christian to a Greek traitor.

Chapter LXI


DARKNESS had not come when the first waves of people began to flow into
Cćsar's gardens. The crowds, in holiday costume, crowned with flowers,
joyous, singing, and some of them drunk, were going to look at the new,
magnificent spectacle. Shouts of "Semaxii! Sarmentitii!" were heard on
the Via Tecta, on the bridge of Ćmilius, and from the other side of the
Tiber, on the Triumphal Way, around the Circus of Nero, and off towards
the Vatican Hill. In Rome people had been seen burnt on pillars before,
but never had any one seen such a number of victims.

Cćsar and Tigellinus, wishing to finish at once with the Christians and
also to avoid infection, which from the prisons was spreading more and
more through the city, had given command to empty all dungeons, so that
there remained in them barely a few tens of people intended for the
close of the spectacles. So, when the crowds had passed the gates, they
were dumb with amazement. All the main and side alleys, which lay
through dense groves and along lawns, thickets, ponds, fields, and
squares filled with flowers, were packed with pillars smeared with
pitch, to which Christians were fastened. In higher places, where the
view was not hindered by trees, one could see whole rows of pillars and
bodies decked with flowers, myrtle, and ivy, extending into the distance
on high and low places, so far that, though the nearest were like masts
of ships, the farthest seemed colored darts, or staffs thrust into the
earth. The number of them surpassed the expectation of the multitude.
One might suppose that a whole nation had been lashed to pillars for
Rome's amusement and for Cćsar's. The throng of spectators stopped
before single masts when their curiosity was roused by the form or the
sex of the victim; they looked at the faces, the crowns, the garlands of
ivy; then they went farther and farther, asking themselves with
amazement, "Could there have been so many criminals, or how could
children barely able to walk have set fire to Rome?" and astonishment
passed by degrees into fear.

Meanwhile darkness came, and the first stars twinkled in the sky. Near
each condemned person a slave took his place, torch in hand; when the
sound of trumpets was heard in various parts of the gardens, in sign
that the spectacle was to begin, each slave put his torch to the foot of
a pillar. The straw, hidden under the flowers and steeped in pitch,
burned at once with a bright flame which, increasing every instant,
withered the ivy, and rising embraced the feet of the victims. The
people were silent; the gardens resounded with one immense groan and
with cries of pain. Some victims, however, raising their faces toward
the starry sky, began to sing, praising Christ. The people listened.
But the hardest hearts were filled with terror when, on smaller pillars,
children cried with shrill voices, "Mamma! Mamma!" A shiver ran
through even spectators who were drunk when they saw little heads and
innocent faces distorted with pain, or children fainting in the smoke
which began to stifle them. But the flames rose, and seized new crowns
of roses and ivy every instant. The main and side alleys were
illuminated; the groups of trees, the lawns, and the flowery squares
were illuminated; the water in pools and ponds was gleaming, the
trembling leaves on the trees had grown rose-colored, and all was as
visible as in daylight. When the odor of burnt bodies filled the
gardens, slaves sprinkled between the pillars myrrh and aloes prepared
purposely. In the crowds were heard here and there shouts,--whether of
sympathy or delight and joy, it was unknown; and they increased every
moment with the fire, which embraced the pillars, climbed to the breasts
of the victims, shrivelled with burning breath the hair on their heads,
threw veils over their blackened faces, and then shot up higher, as if
showing the victory and triumph of that power which had given command to
rouse it.

At the very beginning of the spectacle Cćsar had appeared among the
people in a magnificent quadriga of the Circus, drawn by four white
steeds. He was dressed as a charioteer in the color of the Greens,--the
court party and his. After him followed other chariots filled with
courtiers in brilliant array, senators, priests, bacchantes, naked and
crowned, holding pitchers of wine, and partly drunk, uttering wild
shouts. At the side of these were musicians dressed as fauns and
satyrs, who played on citharas, formingas, flutes, and horns. In other
chariots advanced matrons and maidens of Rome, drunk also and half
naked. Around the quadriga ran men who shook thyrses ornamented with
ribbons; others beat drums; others scattered flowers.

All that brilliant throng moved forward, shouting, "Evoe!" on the widest
road of the garden, amidst smoke and processions of people. Cćsar,
keeping near him Tigellinus and also Chilo, in whose terror he sought to
find amusement, drove the steeds himself, and, advancing at a walk,
looked at the burning bodies, and heard the shouts of the multitude.
Standing on the lofty gilded chariot, surrounded by a sea of people who
bent to his feet, in the glitter of the fire, in the golden crown of a
circus-victor, he was a head above the courtiers and the crowd. He
seemed a giant. His immense arms, stretched forward to hold the reins,
seemed to bless the multitude. There was a smile on his face and in his
blinking eyes; he shone above the throng as a sun or a deity, terrible
but commanding and mighty.

At times he stopped to look with more care at some maiden whose bosom
had begun to shrink in the flames, or at the face of a child distorted
by convulsions; and again he drove on, leading behind him a wild,
excited retinue. At times he bowed to the people, then again he bent
backward, drew in the golden reins, and spoke to Tigellinus. At last,
when he had reached the great fountain in the middle of two crossing
streets, he stepped from the quadriga, and, nodding to his attendants,
mingled with the throng.

He was greeted with shouts and plaudits. The bacchantes, the nymphs,
the senators and Augustians, the priests, the fauns, satyrs, and
soldiers surrounded him at once in an excited circle; but he, with
Tigellinus on one side and Chilo on the other, walked around the
fountain, about which were burning some tens of torches; stopping before
each one, he made remarks on the victims, or jeered at the old Greek, on
whose face boundless despair was depicted.

At last he stood before a lofty mast decked with myrtle and ivy. The red
tongues of fire had risen only to the knees of the victim; but it was
impossible to see his face, for the green burning twigs had covered it
with smoke. After a while, however, the light breeze of night turned
away the smoke and uncovered the head of a man with gray beard falling
on his breast.

At sight of him Chilo was twisted into a lump like a wounded snake, and
from his mouth came a cry more like cawing than a human voice.

"Glaucus! Glaucus!"

In fact, Glaucus the physician looked down from the burning pillar at
him. Glaucus was alive yet. His face expressed pain, and was inclined
forward, as if to look closely for the last time at his executioner, at
the man who had betrayed him, robbed him of wife and children, set a
murderer on him, and who, when all this had been forgiven in the name of
Christ, had delivered him to executioners. Never had one person
inflicted more dreadful or bloody wrongs on another. Now the victim was
burning on the pitched pillar, and the executioner was standing at his
feet. The eyes of Glaucus did nor leave the face of the Greek. At
moments they were hidden by smoke; but when the breeze blew this away,
Chilo saw again those eyes fixed on him. He rose and tried to flee, but
had not strength. All at once his legs seemed of lead; an invisible
hand seemed to hold him at that pillar with superhuman force. He was
petrified. He felt that something was overflowing in him, something
giving way; he felt that he had had a surfeit of blood and torture, that
the end of his life was approaching, that everything was vanishing,
Cćsar, the court, the multitude, and around him was only a kind of
bottomless, dreadful black vacuum with no visible thing in it, save
those eyes of a martyr which were summoning him to judgment. But
Glaucus, bending his head lower down, looked at him fixedly. Those
present divined that something was taking place between those two men.
Laughter died on their lips, however, for in Chilo's face there was
something terrible: such pain and fear had distorted it as if those
tongues of fire were burning his body. On a sudden he staggered, and,
stretching his arms upward, cried in a terrible and piercing voice,--

"Glaucus! in Christ's name! forgive me!"

It grew silent round about, a quiver ran through the spectators, and all
eyes were raised involuntarily.

The head of the martyr moved slightly, and from the top of the mast was
heard a voice like a groan,--

"I forgive!"

Chilo threw himself on his face, and howled like a wild beast; grasping
earth in both hands, he sprinkled it on his head. Meanwhile the flames
shot up, seizing the breast and face of Glaucus; they unbound the myrtle
crown on his head, and seized the ribbons on the top of the pillar, the
whole of which shone with great blazing.

Chilo stood up after a while with face so changed that to the Augustians
he seemed another man. His eyes flashed with a light new to him,
ecstasy issued from his wrinkled forehead; the Greek, incompetent a
short time before, looked now like some priest visited by a divinity and
ready to reveal unknown truths.

"What is the matter? Has he gone mad?" asked a number of voices.

But he turned to the mulitiude, and, raising his right hand, cried, or
rather shouted, in a voice so piercing that not only the Augustians but
the multitude heard him,--

"Roman people! I swear by my death, that innocent persons are perishing
here. That is the incendiary!"

And he pointed his finger at Nero.

Then came a moment of silence. The courtiers were benumbed. Chilo
continued to stand with outstretched, trembling arm, and with finger
pointed at Nero. All at once a tumult arose. The people, like a wave,
urged by a sudden whirlwind, rushed toward the old man to look at him
more closely. Here and there were heard cries, "Hold!" In another
place, "Woe to us!" In the throng a hissing and uproar began.
"Ahenobarbus! Matricide! Incendiary!" Disorder increased every
instant. The bacchantes screamed in heaven-piercing voices, and began
to hide in the chariots. Then some pillars which were burned through,
fell, scattered sparks, and increased the confusion. A blind dense wave
of people swept away Chilo, and bore him to the depth of the garden.

The pillars began to burn through in every direction and fall across the
streets, filling alleys with smoke, sparks, the odor of burnt wood and
burnt flesh. The nearer lights died. The gardens began to grow dark.
The crowds, alarmed, gloomy, and disturbed, pressed toward the gates.
News of what had happened passed from mouth to mouth, distorted and
increased. Some said that Cćsar had fainted; others that he had
confessed, saying that he had given command to burn Rome; others that he
had fallen seriously ill; and still others that he had been borne out,
as if dead, in the chariot. Here and there were heard voices of sympathy
for the Christians: "If they had not burned Rome, why so much blood,
torture, and injustice? Will not the gods avenge the innocent, and what
piacula can mollify them now?" The words innoxia corpora were repeated
oftener and oftener. Women expressed aloud their pity for children
thrown in such numbers to wild beasts, nailed to crosses or burned in
those cursed gardens! And finally pity was turned into abuse of Cćsar
and Tigellinus. There were persons, too, who, stopping suddenly, asked
themselves or others the question, "What kind of divinity is that which
gives such strength to meet torture and death?" And they returned home
in meditation.

But Chilo was wandering about in the gardens, not knowing where to go or
where to turn. Again he felt himself a weak, helpless, sick old man.

Now he stumbled against partly burnt bodies; now he struck a torch,
which sent a shower of sparks after him; now he sat down, and looked
around with vacant stare. The gardens had become almost dark. The pale
moon moving among the trees shone with uncertain light on the alleys,
the dark pillars lying across them, and the partly burnt victims turned
into shapeless lumps. But the old Greek thought that in the moon he saw
the face of Glaucus, whose eyes were looking at him yet persistently,
and he hid before the light. At last he went out of the shadow, in
spite of himself; as if pushed by some hidden power, he turned toward
the fountain where Glaucus had yielded up the spirit.

Then some hand touched his shoulder. He turned, and saw an unknown
person before him.

"Who art thou?" exclaimed he, with terror.

"Paul of Tarsus."

"I am accursed!--What dost thou wish?"

"I wish to save thee," answered the Apostle.

Chilo supported himself against a tree. His legs bent under him, and
his arms hung parallel with his body.

"For me there is no salvation," said he, gloomily.

"Hast thou heard how God forgave the thief on the cross who pitied Him?"
inquired Paul.

"Dost thou know what I have done?"

"I saw thy suffering, and heard thy testimony to the truth."

"O Lord!"

"And if a servant of Christ forgave thee in the hour of torture and
death, why should Christ not forgive thee?"

Chilo seized his head with both hands, as if in bewilderment.

"Forgiveness! for me, forgiveness!"

"Our God is a God of mercy," said Paul.

"For me?" repeated Chilo; and he began to groan like a man who lacks
strength to control his pain and suffering.

"Lean on me," said Paul, "and go with me."

And taking him he went to the crossing of the streets, guided by the
voice of the fountain, which seemed to weep in the night stillness over
the bodies of those who had died in torture.

"Nero`s Torches" by a Polish painter Siemiradzki in 1876

[Bonobo]

Lygia is saved




Every eye was turned with strained gaze to the place where the
unfortunate lover was sitting. He was exceedingly pale, and his
forehead was covered with drops of sweat; he was in as much doubt as
were other spectators, but alarmed to the lowest depth of his soul.
Petronius knew not what would happen; he was silent, except that, while
turning from Nerva, he asked Vinicius whether he was ready for
everything, and next, whether he would remain at the spectacle. To both
questions Vinicius answered "Yes," but a shudder passed through his
whole body; he divined that Petronius did not ask without reason. For
some time he had lived with only half his life,--he had sunk in death,
and reconciled himself to Lygia's death, since for both it was to be
liberation and marriage; but he learned now that it was one thing to
think of the last moment when it was distant as of a quiet dropping
asleep, and another to look at the torment of a person dearer to one
than life. All sufferings endured formerly rose in him anew. Despair,
which had been set at rest, began again to cry in his soul; the former
desire to save Lygia at any price seized him anew. Beginning with the
morning, he had tried to go to the cunicula to be sure that she was
there; but the pretorians watched every entrance, and orders were so
strict that the soldiers, even those whom he knew, would not be softened
by prayers or gold. It seemed to the tribune that uncertainty would
kill him before he should see the spectacle. Somewhere at the bottom of
his heart the hope was still throbbing, that perhaps Lygia was not in
the amphitheatre, that his fears were groundless. At times he seized on
this hope with all his strength. He said in his soul that Christ might
take her to Himself out of the prison, but could not permit her torture
in the Circus. Formerly he was resigned to the divine will in
everything; now, when repulsed from the doors of the cunicula, he
returned to his place in the amphitheatre, and when he learned, from the
curious glances turned on him, that the most dreadful suppositions might
be true, he began to implore in his soul with passionateness almost
approaching a threat. "Thou canst!" repeated he, clenching his fists
convulsively, "Thou canst!" Hitherto he had not supposed that that
moment when present would be so terrible. Now, without clear
consciousness of what was happening in his mind, he had the feeling that
if he should see Lygia tortured, his love for God would be turned to
hatred, and his faith to despair. But he was amazed at the feeling, for
he feared to offend Christ, whom he was imploring for mercy and
miracles. He implored no longer for her life; he wished merely that she
should die before they brought her to the arena, and from the abyss of
his pain he repeated in spirt: "Do not refuse even this, and I will
love Thee still more than hitherto." And then his thoughts raged as a
sea torn by a whirlwind. A desire for blood and vengeance was roused in
him. He was seized by a mad wish to rush at Nero and stifle him there
in presence of all the spectators; but he felt that desire to be a new
offence against Christ, and a breach of His command. To his head flew
at times flashes of hope that everything before which his soul was
trembling would be turned aside by an almighty and merciful hand; but
they were quenched at once, as if in measureless sorrow that He who
could destroy that Circus with one word and save Lygia had abandoned
her, though she trusted in Him and loved Him with all the strength of
her pure heart. And he thought, moreover, that she was lying there in
that dark place, weak, defenceless, deserted, abandoned to the whim or
disfavor of brutal guards, drawing her last breath, perhaps, while he
had to wait, helpless, in that dreadful amphitheatre, without knowing
what torture was prepared for her, or what he would witness in a moment.
Finally, as a man falling over a precipice grasps at everything which
grows on the edge of it, so did he grasp with both hands at the thought
that faith of itself could save her. That one method remained! Peter
had said that faith could move the earth to its foundations.

Hence he rallied; he crushed doubt in himself, he compressed his whole
being into the sentence, "I believe," and he looked for a miracle.

But as an overdrawn cord may break, so exertion broke him. The pallor
of death covered his face, and his body relaxed. He thought then that
his prayer had been heard, for he was dying. It seemed to him that
Lygia must surely die too, and that Christ would take them to Himself in
that way. The arena, the white togas, the countless spectators, the
light of thousands of lamps and torches, all vanished from his vision.

But his weakness did not last long. After a while he roused himself, or
rather the stamping of the impatient multitude roused him.

"Thou art ill," said Petronius; "give command to bear thee home."

And without regard to what Cćsar would say, he rose to support Vinicius
and go out with him. His heart was filled with pity, and, moreover, he
was irritated beyond endurance because Cćsar was looking through the
emerald at Vinicius, studying his pain with satisfaction, to describe it
afterwards, perhaps, in pathetic strophes, and win the applause of
hearers.

Vinicius shook his head. He might die in that amphitheatre, but he
could not go out of it. Moreover the spectacle might begin any moment.

In fact, at that very instant almost, the prefect of the city waved a
red handkerchief, the hinges opposite Cćsar's podium creaked, and out of
the dark gully came Ursus into the brightly lighted arena.

The giant blinked, dazed evidently by the glitter of the arena; then he
pushed into the centre, gazing around as if to see what he had to meet.
It was known to all the Augustians and to most of the spectators that he
was the man who had stifled Croton; hence at sight of him a murmur
passed along every bench. In Rome there was no lack of gladiators
larger by far than the common measure of man, but Roman eyes had never
seen the like of Ursus. Cassius, standing in Cćsar's podium, seemed
puny compared with that Lygian. Senators, vestals, Cćsar, the
Augustians, and the people gazed with the delight of experts at his
mighty limbs as large as tree-trunks, at his breast as large as two
shields joined together, and his arms of a Hercules. The murmur rose
every instant. For those multitudes there could be no higher pleasure
than to look at those muscles in play in the exertion of a struggle.
The murmur rose to shouts, and eager questions were put: "Where do the
people live who can produce such a giant?" He stood there, in the
middle of the amphitheatre, naked, more like a stone colossus than a
man, with a collected expression, and at the same time the sad look of a
barbarian; and while surveying the empty arena, he gazed wonderingly
with his blue childlike eyes, now at the spectators, now at Cćsar, now
at the grating of the cunicula, whence, as he thought, his executioners
would come.

At the moment when he stepped into the arena his simple heart was
beating for the last time with the hope that perhaps a cross was waiting
for him; but when he saw neither the cross nor the hole in which it
might be put, he thought that he was unworthy of such favor,--that he
would find death in another way, and surely from wild beasts. He was
unarmed, and had determined to die as became a confessor of the "Lamb,"
peacefully and patiently. Meanwhile he wished to pray once more to the
Saviour; so he knelt on the arena, joined his hands, and raised his eyes
toward the stars which were glittering in the lofty opening of the
amphitheatre.

That act displeased the crowds. They had had enough of those Christians
who died like sheep. They understood that if the giant would not defend
himself the spectacle would be a failure. Here and there hisses were
heard. Some began to cry for scourgers, whose office it was to lash
combatants unwilling to fight. But soon all had grown silent, for no
one knew what was waiting for the giant, nor whether he would not be
ready to struggle when he met death eye to eye.

In fact, they had not long to wait. Suddenly the shrill sound of brazen
trumpets was heard, and at that signal a grating opposite Cćsar's podium
was opened, and into the arena rushed, amid shouts of beast-keepers, an
enormous German aurochs, bearing on his head the naked body of a woman.

"Lygia! Lygia!" cried Vinicius.

Then he seized his hair near the temples, squirmed like a man who feels
a sharp dart in his body, and began to repeat in hoarse accents,--

"I believe! I believe! O Christ, a miracle!"

And he did not even feel that Petronius covered his head that moment
with the toga. It seemed to him that death or pain had closed his eyes.
He did not look, he did not see. The feeling of some awful emptiness
possessed him. In his head there remained not a thought; his lips
merely repeated, as if in madness,--

"I believe! I believe! I believe!"

This time the amphitheatre was silent. The Augustians rose in their
places, as one man, for in the arena something uncommon had happened.
That Lygian, obedient and ready to die, when he saw his queen on the
horns of the wild beast, sprang up, as if touched by living fire, and
bending forward he ran at the raging animal.

From all breasts a sudden cry of amazement was heard, after which came
deep silence.

The Lygian fell on the raging bull in a twinkle, and seized him by the
horns.

"Look!" cried Petronius, snatching the toga from the head of Vinicius.
The latter rose and bent back his head; his face was as pale as linen,
and he looked into the arena with a glassy, vacant stare.

All breasts ceased to breathe. In the amphitheatre a fly might be heard
on the wing. People could not believe their own eyes. Since Rome was
Rome, no one had seen such a spectacle.

The Lygian held the wild beast by the horns. The man's feet sank in the
sand to his ankles, his back was bent like a drawn bow, his head was
hidden between his shoulders, on his arms the muscles came out so that
the skin almost burst from their pressure; but he had stopped the bull
in his tracks. And the man and the beast remained so still that the
spectators thought themselves looking at a picture showing a deed of
Hercules or Theseus, or a group hewn from stone. But in that apparent
repose there was a tremendous exertion of two struggling forces. The
bull sank his feet as well as did the man in the sand, and his dark,
shaggy body was curved so that it seemed a gigantic ball. Which of the
two would fail first, which would fall first,--that was the question for
those spectators enamoured of such struggles; a question which at that
moment meant more for them than their own fate, than all Rome and its
lordship over the world. That Lygian was in their eyes then a demigod
worthy of honor and statues. Cćsar himself stood up as well as others.
He and Tigellinus, hearing of the man's strength, had arranged this
spectacle purposely, and said to each other with a jeer, "Let that
slayer of Croton kill the bull which we choose for him"; so they looked
now with amazement at that picture, as if not believing that it could be
real.

In the amphitheatre were men who had raised their arms and remained in
that posture. Sweat covered the faces of others, as if they themselves
were struggling with the beast. In the Circus nothing was heard save
the sound of flame in the lamps, and the crackle of bits of coal as they
dropped from the torches. Their voices died on the lips of the
spectators, but their hearts were beating in their breasts as if to
split them. It seemed to all that the struggle was lasting for ages.
But the man and the beast continued on in their monstrous exertion; one
might have said that they were planted in the earth.

Meanwhile a dull roar resembling a groan was heard from the arena, after
which a brief shout was wrested from every breast, and again there was
silence. People thought themselves dreaming till the enormous head of
the bull began to turn in the iron hands of the barbarian. The face,
neck, and arms of the Lygian grew purple; his back bent still more. It
was clear that he was rallying the remnant of his superhuman strength,
but that he could not last long.

Duller and duller, hoarser and hoarser, more and more painful grew the
groan of the bull as it mingled with the whistling breath from the
breast of the giant. The head of the beast turned more and more, and
from his jaws crept forth a long, foaming tongue.

A moment more, and to the ears of spectators sitting nearer came as it
were the crack of breaking bones; then the beast rolled on the earth
with his neck twisted in death.

The giant removed in a twinkle the ropes from the horns of the bull and,
raising the maiden, began to breathe hurriedly. His face became pale,
his hair stuck together from sweat, his shoulders and arms seemed
flooded with water. For a moment he stood as if only half conscious;
then he raised his eyes and looked at the spectators.

The amphitheatre had gone wild.

The walls of the building were trembling from the roar of tens of
thousands of people. Since the beginning of spectacles there was no
memory of such excitement. Those who were sitting on the highest rows
came down, crowding in the passages between benches to look more nearly
at the strong man. Everywhere were heard cries for mercy, passionate
and persistent, which soon turned into one unbroken thunder. That giant
had become dear to those people enamoured of physical strength; he was
the first personage in Rome.

He understood that the multitude were striving to grant him his life and
restore him his freedom, but clearly his thought was not on himself
alone. He looked around a while; then approached Cćsar's podium, and,
holding the body of the maiden on his outstretched arms, raised his eyes
with entreaty, as if to say,--

"Have mercy on her! Save the maiden. I did that for her sake!"

The spectators understood perfectly what he wanted. At sight of the
unconscious maiden, who near the enormous Lygian seemed a child, emotion
seized the multitude of knights and senators. Her slender form, as
white as if chiselled from alabaster, her fainting, the dreadful danger
from which the giant had freed her, and finally her beauty and
attachment had moved every heart. Some thought the man a father begging
mercy for his child. Pity burst forth suddenly, like a flame. They had
had blood, death, and torture in sufficiency. Voices choked with tears
began to entreat mercy for both.

Meanwhile Ursus, holding the girl in his arms, moved around the arena,
and with his eyes and with motions begged her life for her. Now Vinicius
started up from his seat, sprang over the barrier which separated the
front places from the arena, and, running to Lygia, covered her naked
body with his toga.

Then he tore apart the tunic on his breast, laid bare the scars left by
wounds received in the Armenian war, and stretched out his hands to the
audience.

At this the enthusiasm of the multitude passed everything seen in a
circus before. The crowd stamped and howled. Voices calling for mercy
grew simply terrible. People not only took the part of the athlete, but
rose in defense of the soldier, the maiden, their love. Thousands of
spectators turned to Cćsar with flashes of anger in their eyes and with
clinched fists.

But Cćsar halted and hesitated. Against Vinicius he had no hatred
indeed, and the death of Lygia did not concern him; but he preferred to
see the body of the maiden rent by the horns of the bull or torn by the
claws of beasts. His cruelty, his deformed imagination, and deformed
desires found a kind of delight in such spectacles. And now the people
wanted to rob him. Hence anger appeared on his bloated face. Self-love
also would not let him yield to the wish of the multitude, and still he
did not dare to oppose it, through his inborn cowardice.

So he gazed around to see if among the Augustians at least, he could not
find fingers turned down in sign of death. But Petronius held up his
hand, and looked into Nero's face almost challengingly. Vestinius,
superstitious but inclined to enthusiasm, a man who feared ghosts but
not the living, gave a sign for mercy also. So did Scevinus, the
Senator; so did Nerva, so did Tullius Senecio, so did the famous leader
Ostorius Scapula, and Antistius, and Piso, and Vetus, and Crispinus, and
Minucius Thermus, and Pontius Telesinus, and the most important of all,
one honored by the people, Thrasea.

In view of this, Cćsar took the emerald from his eye with an expression
of contempt and offence; when Tigellinus, whose desire was to spite
Petronius, turned to him and said,--

"Yield not, divinity; we have the pretorians."

Then Nero turned to the place where command over the pretorians was held
by the stern Subrius Flavius, hitherto devoted with whole soul to him,
and saw something unusual. The face of the old tribune was stern, but
covered with tears, and he was holding his hand up in sign of mercy.

Now rage began to possess the multitude. Dust rose from beneath the
stamping feet, and filled the amphitheatre. In the midst of shouts were
heard cries: "Ahenobarbus! matricide! incendiary!"

Nero was alarmed. Romans were absolute lords in the Circus. Former
Cćsars, and especially Caligula, had permitted themselves sometimes to
act against the will of the people; this, however, called forth
disturbance always, going sometimes to bloodshed. But Nero was in a
different position. First, as a comedian and a singer he needed the
people's favor; second, he wanted it on his side against the Senate and
the patricians, and especially after the burning of Rome he strove by
all means to win it, and turn their anger against the Christians. He
understood, besides, that to oppose longer was simply dangerous. A
disturbance begun in the Circus might seize the whole city, and have
results incalculable.

He looked once more at Subrius Flavius, at Scevinus the centurion, a
relative of the senator, at the soldiers; and seeing everywhere frowning
brows, excited faces, and eyes fixed on him, he gave the sign for mercy.

Then a thunder of applause was heard from the highest seats to the
lowest. The people were sure of the lives of the condemned, for from
that moment they went under their protection, and even Cćsar would not
have dared to pursue them any longer with his vengeance.


You can also watch a movie scene but it is pathetic, especially the soundtrack.

[Bonobo]

The death of Nero


Nero was asleep when the messenger came; but when he woke he called in
vain for the night-guard, which watched at the entrance to his chambers.
The palace was empty. Slaves were plundering in the most distant
corners that which could be taken most quickly. But the sight of Nero
frightened them; he wandered alone through the palace, filling it with
cries of despair and fear.

At last his freedmen, Phaon, Sporus, and Epaphroditus, came to his
rescue. They wished him to flee, and said that there was no time to be
lost; but he deceived himself still. If he should dress in mourning and
speak to the Senate, would it resist his prayers and eloquence? If he
should use all his eloquence, his rhetoric and skill of an actor, would
any one on earth have power to resist him? Would they not give him even
the prefecture of Egypt?

The freedmen, accustomed to flatter, had not the boldness yet to refuse
him directly; they only warned him that before he could reach the Forum
the people would tear him to pieces, and declared that if he did not
mount his horse immediately, they too would desert him.

Phaon offered refuge in his villa outside the Nomentan Gate. After a
while they mounted horses, and, covering Nero's head with a mantle, they
galloped off toward the edge of the city. The night was growing pale.
But on the streets there was a movement which showed the exceptional
nature of the time. Soldiers, now singly and now in small groups, were
scattered through the city. Not far from the camp Cćsar's horse sprang
aside suddenly at sight of a corpse. The mantle slipped from his head;
a soldier recognized Nero, and, confused by the unexpected meeting, gave
the military salute. While passing the pretorian camp, they heard
thundering shouts in honor of Galba. Nero understood at last that the
hour of death was near. Terror and reproaches of conscience seized him.
He declared that he saw darkness in front of him in the form of a black
cloud. From that cloud came forth faces in which he saw his mother, his
wife, and his brother. His teeth were chattering from fright; still his
soul of a comedian found a kind of charm in the horror of the moment.
To be absolute lord of the earth and lose all things, seemed to him the
height of tragedy; and faithful to himself, he played the first role to
the end. A fever for quotations took possession of him, and a
passionate wish that those present should preserve them for posterity.
At moments he said that he wished to die, and called for Spiculus, the
most skilled of all gladiators in killing. At moments he declaimed,
"Mother, wife, father, call me to death!" Flashes of hope rose in him,
however, from time to time,--hope vain and childish. He knew that he
was going to death, and still he did not believe it.

They found the Nomentan Gate open. Going farther, they passed near
Ostrianum, where Peter had taught and baptized. At daybreak they
reached Phaon's villa.

There the freedmen hid from him no longer the fact that it was time to
die. He gave command then to dig a grave, and lay on the ground so that
they might take accurate measurement. At sight of the earth thrown up,
however, terror seized him. His fat face became pale, and on his
forehead sweat stood like drops of dew in the morning. He delayed. In
a voice at once abject and theatrical, he declared that the hour had not
come yet; then he began again to quote. At last he begged them to burn
his body. "What an artist is perishing!" repeated he, as if in
amazement.

Meanwhile Phaon's messenger arrived with the announcement that the
Senate had issued the sentence that the "parricide" was to be punished
according to ancient custom.

"What is the ancient custom?" asked Nero, with whitened lips.

"They will fix thy neck in a fork, flog thee to death, and hurl thy body
into the Tiber," answered Epaphroditus, abruptly.

Nero drew aside the robe from his breast.

"It is time, then!" said he, looking into the sky. And he repeated once
more, "What an artist is perishing!"

At that moment the tramp of a horse was heard. That was the centurion
coming with soldiers for the head of Ahenobarbus.

"Hurry!" cried the freedmen.

Nero placed the knife to his neck, but pushed it only timidly. It was
clear that he would never have courage to thrust it in. Epaphroditus
pushed his hand suddenly,--the knife sank to the handle. Nero's eyes
turned in his head, terrible, immense, frightened.

"I bring thee life!" cried the centurion, entering.

"Too late!" said Nero, with a hoarse voice; then he added,--

"Here is faithfulness!"

In a twinkle death seized his head. Blood from his heavy neck gushed in
a dark stream on the flowers of the garden. His legs kicked the ground,
and he died.

On the morrow the faithful Acte wrapped his body in costly stuffs, and
burned him on a pile filled with perfumes.

And so Nero passed, as a whirlwind, as a storm, as a fire, as war or
death passes; but the basilica of Peter rules till now, from the Vatican
heights, the city, and the world.

Near the ancient Porta Capena stands to this day a little chapel with
the inscription, somewhat worn: Quo Vadis, Domine?





More about the film
info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/cinema/QV.html

[Bonobo]

And last but not least - my favourite scene from the book.

Chapter LXIX


About dawn of the following day two dark figures were moving along the
Appian Way toward the Campania.

One of them was Nazarius; the other the Apostle Peter, who was leaving
Rome and his martyred co-religionists.

The sky in the east was assuming a light tinge of green, bordered
gradually and more distinctly on the lower edge with saffron color.
Silver-leafed trees, the white marble of villas, and the arches of
aqueducts, stretching through the plain toward the city, were emerging
from shade. The greenness of the sky was clearing gradually, and
becoming permeated with gold. Then the east began to grow rosy and
illuminate the Alban Hills, which seemed marvellously beautiful, lily-
colored, as if formed of rays of light alone.

The light was reflected in trembling leaves of trees, in the dew-drops.
The haze grew thinner, opening wider and wider views on the plain, on
the houses dotting it, on the cemeteries, on the towns, and on groups of
trees, among which stood white columns of temples.

The road was empty. The villagers who took vegetables to the city had
not succeeded yet, evidently, in harnessing beasts to their vehicles.
From the stone blocks with which the road was paved as far as the
mountains, there came a low sound from the bark shoes on the feet of the
two travellers.

Then the sun appeared over the line of hills; but at once a wonderful
vision struck the Apostle's eyes. It seemed to him that the golden
circle, instead of rising in the sky, moved down from the heights and
was advancing on the road. Peter stopped, and asked,--

"Seest thou that brightness approaching us?"

"I see nothing," replied Nazarius.

But Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, and said after a while,

"Some figure is coming in the gleam of the sun." But not the slightest
sound of steps reached their ears. It was perfectly still all around.
Nazarius saw only that the trees were quivering in the distance, as if
some one were shaking them, and the light was spreading more broadly
over the plain. He looked with wonder at the Apostle.

"Rabbi! what ails thee?" cried he, with alarm.

The pilgrim's staff fell from Peter's hands to the earth; his eyes were
looking forward, motionless; his mouth was open; on his face were
depicted astonishment, delight, rapture.

Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and this
cry left his lips,--

"O Christ! O Christ!"

He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one's feet.

The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man,
broken by sobs,--

"Quo vadis, Domine?"

Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter's ears came a sad and
sweet voice, which said,--

"If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second
time."

The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or
speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he
rose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without
a word toward the seven hills of the city.

The boy, seeing this, repeated as an echo,--

"Quo vadis, Domine?"

"To Rome," said the Apostle, in a low voice.

And he returned.

[Bonobo]

Mar 3, 2008 23:09:12 GMT 1 jeanne said:

I read 'Quo Vadis' last year and want to read some other of Sienkiewicz's work this coming summer. What do you recommend?

Firstly, you should read Potop (The Deluge). Unfortunately, I can`t find it on the Net.

I have found another book, though, The Knights.of the Cross
www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8kncr10.txt

[livia]

Mar 3, 2008 23:09:12 GMT 1 jeanne said:

What do you recommend?

Jeanne, not Henryk Sienkiewicz book, but I think you might like 'Last Mazurka, The: A Tale of War, Passion and Loss' by Andrew Tarnowski.

www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Mazurka-Tale-Passion-Loss/dp/1845131398

www.polishculture.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=245&Itemid=35

It is currently read on Polish radio Program III (Polish translation of course). I find it very interesting. I found the decription from Amazon
very true: "This book is not just a self-indulgent family tale, but a gripping gallop through twentieth century European history, and a poignant reminder of how families and individuals cope with war and dispossession." Tarnowski is a member of a very old aristocratic family - it is worth noting that he was excluded from the World Union of Tarnowskis after the book was first published in UK.

[jeanne]

Hi Livia,

Yes, I have heard of "The Last Mazurka". I think maybe someone on the other forum recommended it. Whenever I hear of an interesting book, I write down the name on slip of paper and put it in my 'to read' envelope. I know 'Mazurka' is in there and hopefully I will get to it soon! Possibly I'll read it before 'The Deluge', as that is part of a trilogy, isn't it? Once I start Sienkiewicz, I have a feeling I'll be reading him for quite awhile!

Jeanne

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross, some excerpts:

Jurand, a powerful Polish knight, is considered a pain in the ass by Teuton knights. They kidnap his daughter to take a revenge. Jurand goes to the Teuton capital to reclaim her. A proud knight must get rid of his dignity, and may only depend on his despair and hope.


Then he once more bent down to the stirrup and disappeared. Jurand
remained on the hill alone and looked in the direction indicated by the
peasant, at a grey, moist veil of fog, which concealed the world before
him. Behind this fog was hidden that ominous castle, to which he was
driven by superior force and misery. It is already near, then, and what
must happen, must happen.... As that thought came into Jurand's heart, in
addition to his fear and anxiety about Danusia, and his readiness to
redeem her from a foe's hands even with his own blood, he experienced a
new, exceedingly bitter, and hitherto unknown feeling of humiliation. And
now Jurand, at the mere mention of whose name the neighboring counts
trembled, was riding to their command with a bowed head. He who had
defeated and trampled under foot so many of them, now felt himself
defeated and trampled upon. It is true, they had not overcome him in the
field with courage and knightly strength, nevertheless he felt himself
subdued. And it was to him something so unusual, that it seemed as if the
entire order of the world were subverted. He was going to submit himself
to the Teutons, he, who would rather meet single-handed the entire Teuton
force, if it were not for Danusia's sake. Had it not happened already,
that a single knight, having to choose between disgrace and death had
attacked whole armies? But he felt that he might meet disgrace, and, at
that thought, his heart groaned with agony as a wolf howls when it feels
the dart within it.

But he was a man with not only a body, but also a soul, of iron. He knew
how to subdue others, he knew also how to subdue himself.

"I will not move," he said to himself, "until I have overcome this anger
with which I should rather lose than deliver my child."

And he wrestled with his hard heart, his inveterate hatred and his desire
to fight. Whoever had seen him on that hill, in armor, on a gigantic
horse, would have said that he was some giant, wrought out of iron, and
would not have recognized that that motionless knight at that moment was
waging the hottest of all the battles of his life. But he fought with
himself until he had entirely overcome and felt that his will would not
fail him. Meanwhile the mist thinned, although it did not disappear
entirely, but finally something darker loomed through it.

Jurand guessed that these were the walls of the castle of Szczytno. At
the sight of it he still did not move from the place, but began to pray
so fervidly and ardently as a man prays, when nothing is left for him in
the world but God's mercy. And when his horse did finally move, he felt
that some sort of confidence was beginning to enter his heart. He was now
prepared to suffer everything that could befall him. There came back to
his memory Saint George, a descendant of the greatest race in Cappadocia,
who suffered various shameful tortures, and nevertheless not only did not
lose any honor, but is placed on the right hand of God and appointed
patron of all knighthood. Jurand had sometimes heard tales of his
exploits from the abbots, who came from distant countries, and now he
strengthened his heart with these recollections.

Slowly even, hope began to awaken in him. The Teutons were indeed famous
for their desire of revenge, therefore he did not doubt that they would
take vengeance on him for all the defeats which he had inflicted upon
them, for the disgrace which had fallen upon them after each encounter,
and for the dread in which they had lived for so many years.

But that very consideration increased his courage. He thought that they
had captured Danusia only in order to get him; therefore of what use
would she be to them, after they had gotten him? Yes! They would
undoubtedly seize him, and, not daring to keep him near Mazowsze, they
would send him to some distant castle, where perhaps he would have to
groan until his life's end under ground, but they would liberate Danusia.
Even if it should prove that they had got him insidiously and by
oppression, neither the grand master nor the assembly would blame them
very much for that, because Jurand was actually very hard on the Teutons,
and shed more of their blood than did any other knight in the world. But
that same grand master would perhaps punish them for the imprisonment of
the innocent girl, who was moreover a foster-daughter of the prince,
whose favor he was seeking on account of the threatening war with the
Polish king.

And his hope constantly increased. At times it seemed to him almost
certain that Danusia would return to Spychow, under Zbyszko's powerful
protection.... "He is a strong man," he thought; "he will not permit
anybody to injure her." And he began to recall with affection all he knew
of Zbyszko: "He defeated the Germans at Wilno, fought single-handed
against the Fryzjans whom he challenged with his uncle and quartered, he
also beat Lichtenstein, saved the child from the wild bull, and he
challenged those four, whom he will surely not pardon." Here Jurand
raised his eyes toward heaven and said: "I gave her to you, O Lord, and
you to Zbyszko!"

And he gained still more confidence, judging that if God had given her to
the youth, then He would certainly not allow the Germans to mock him but
snatch her out of their hands, even if the entire Teuton power should
oppose it. But then he commenced to think again about Zbyszko: "Bah! he
is not only a mighty man but also as true as gold. He will guard her,
love her, and Jesus! be good to her; but it seems to me, that, by his
side she will neither miss the princely court nor paternal love...." At
that thought his eyelids became suddenly moist, and a great yearning
filled us heart. He would like to see his child once more at least in his
life, and at some future time die in Spychow near those two, and not in
the dark Teuton cells. "But God's will be done!" Szczytno was already
visible. The walls became more distinct in the mist, the hour of
sacrifice was approaching; he therefore began to comfort himself, and
said to himself: "Surely, it is God's will! but the end of life is near.
A few years more or less, the result will be the same. Hej! I would like
to see both children yet, but, justly speaking, I have lived long enough.
Whatever I had to experience, I did; whomever to revenge, I revenged. And
what now? Rather to God, than to the world; and since it is necessary to
suffer, then it is necessary. Danusia with Zbyszko, even when most
prosperous, will not forget. Surely, they will sometimes recollect and
ask: where is he? is he alive yet, or already in God's court of justice?
They will inquire and perhaps find out. The Teutons are very revengeful,
but also very greedy for ransom. Zbyszko would not grudge ransoming the
bones at least. And they will surely order more than one mass. The hearts
of both are honest and loving, for which may God and the Most Holy Mother
bless them!"

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross


Jurand passed them, crossing himself,
approached the moat, and, stopping at the place where the drawbridge was
raised before the gate, sounded the horn.

He sounded it a second and a third time and waited. There was no living
soul upon the walls, nor could a voice be heard within the gates. After a
while though, a heavy flap, visible behind a grate built in stone near
the castle gate, was raised with a crash, and in the opening appeared the
bearded head of a German servant.

"_Wer da?_" inquired a harsh voice.

"Jurand of Spychow!" replied the knight.

Immediately the flap was closed again and deep silence followed.

Time passed. No movement was heard behind the gate, only the cawing of
birds reached his ear from the direction of the gallows.

Jurand stood yet a long time before he raised the horn and sounded it
again. But silence again was the sole response.

Now he understood that he was kept before the gate by Teuton pride, which
knew no bounds before the defeated, in order to humiliate him like a
beggar. He also guessed that he would have to wait thus until evening, or
even longer. Consequently his blood began to boil in the first moments;
he was suddenly seized with the desire to dismount, pick up one of the
rocks which lay near the moat, and cast it at the grate. He and every
other Mazovian or Polish knight would have done so, under other
circumstances, and let them come then from behind the gate and fight him.
But recollecting for what purpose he had come, he bethought himself and
desisted.

"Have I not sacrificed myself for my child?" he said in his soul.

And he waited.

Meanwhile something black appeared in the loopholes of the wall. There
appeared heads covered with fur, dark hoods and even iron bars, from
behind which curious eyes gazed at the knight. More came every moment,
because the terrible Jurand, waiting solitarily before the Teuton gate,
was an unusual sight for the garrison. Whoever had seen him hitherto, had
seen death, but now he could be looked at in safety. The heads constantly
multiplied till at last all the loopholes near the gate were occupied by
servants. Jurand thought that also the superiors must be looking at him
through the grates of the windows in the adjacent tower, and he turned
his eyes in that direction, but there the windows were cut in deep walls,
and it was impossible to see through them. But in the apertures, the
group of people who at first looked at him silently, began to talk. One
after another repeated his name, here and there laughter was heard, gruff
voices shouted as if at a wolf, louder and more insolently, and when,
apparently, nobody among them interfered, they finally began to throw
snow at the standing knight. He moved his horse as if involuntarily and
then for a moment the throwing of snow ceased, voices quieted down, and
even some heads disappeared behind the walls. Surely, Jurand's name must
have been very menacing! Soon, however, even the most cowardly bethought
themselves that a moat and a wall separated them from that terrible
Mazovian, therefore the rough soldiery again commenced to throw not only
small lumps of snow, but also ice, and even shards and stones, which
rebounded with a clang from the armor which covered the horse.

"I have sacrificed myself for the child," repeated Jurand to himself.

And he waited. Noontime arrived, the walls were deserted, because the
retainers were called to dinner. A few, those that had to be on guard,
ate their meal on the wall, and, after having eaten, entertained
themselves with throwing the picked bones at the hungry knight. They also
began to tease and question each other who would dare to descend and
strike him with the fist in the neck, or with the handle of the lance.
Others, returning from their meal, called to him that if he disliked
waiting he could hang himself, because there was a vacant hook on the
gallows with a ready rope. And amidst such mockery, cries, bursts of
laughter and cursing, the afternoon hours passed. The short wintry day
gradually drew toward evening, and the drawbridge was still up and the
gate remained closed.

But toward evening a wind arose, dispersed the mist, cleared the sky and
revealed the sunset glow.

The snow became dark-blue, and then violet. There was no frost, but the
night promised to be fair. The walls were again deserted by all but the
guard; the rooks and crows departed from the gallows to the forests.
Finally the sky darkened and complete silence followed.

"They will not open the gate before nightfall," thought Jurand.

And for a moment he thought to return to the city, but he soon gave up
that idea. "They want me to stand here," he said to himself. "If I
return, they will certainly not let me go home, but surround and capture
me, and then they will say that they owe me nothing, because they took me
by force, and if I should ride over them, even then I must return...."

The great endurance of the Polish knights for cold, hunger and hardships,
so admired by foreign chroniclers, frequently enabled them to perform
deeds which the less hardy people from the west could not undertake.
Jurand possessed that endurance to a still greater degree than others;
therefore, although hunger had long since began to gripe him, and the
evening frost penetrated his fur, which was covered with iron plates, he
determined to wait, even if he had to die before this gate.

But suddenly, before it became entirely dark, he heard behind him the
sound of footsteps in the snow.

He looked back: there were coming toward him, from the direction of the
city, six men, armed with lances and halberds; in their midst walked a
seventh man supporting himself on a weapon.

"They will perhaps open the gate for them and then I shall ride in with
them," thought Jurand. "They will not try to take me by force, nor kill
me, because there are too few; should they attack me, however, it will
prove that they do not mean to keep their promise, and then--woe to
them!"

Thus thinking, he raised the steel axe hanging at his saddle, so heavy,
that its weight was too great for the two hands of an ordinary man, and
moved toward them.

But they did not think of attacking him. On the contrary, the servants
planted their lances and halberds in the snow, and as the night was not
entirely dark yet, Jurand saw that the handles somewhat trembled in their
hands.

The seventh, who appeared to be the superior, put out his left arm
quickly, and turning his hand upward, said:

"Are you the knight Jurand of Spychow?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish to hear my message?"

"I listen."

"The powerful and religious Count von Danveld ordered me to tell you,
lord, that until you dismount, the gate will not be opened for you."

Jurand remained motionless for a while, then he dismounted, the horse
being instantly taken away by one of the archers.

"The arms must be surrendered to us," again said the man with the weapon.

The lord of Spychow hesitated. Perhaps they would attack him unarmed, and
kill him like a beast; or capture and cast him under ground? But after a
moment he thought that if it were to be so, they would have sent more
men. But should they throw themselves on him, they would not destroy his
armor at once, and then he could wrench a weapon from the nearest and
kill them all before assistance could arrive. They knew him well.

"And even if they should wish to shed my blood," he said to himself, "I
came for no other purpose than that."

Thus thinking, he threw down first the axe, then the sword, and finally
the _misericordia_, and waited. They took everything, and then the man
who had addressed him previously, withdrawing several steps, stopped and
began to speak in an insolent, loud voice:

"For all the wrongs you have done to the Order, you must, by the count's
orders, put on this sack cloth which I leave here, tie around your neck
the scabbard of your sword with a rope, and wait humbly at the gate until
the count's grace orders it to be opened for you."

And the next moment Jurand remained alone in the darkness and silence. In
the snow before him the penitential robe and rope showed black while he
stood long, feeling something in his soul dissolving, breaking,
agonizing, dying, and that shortly he would be a knight no more, Jurand
of Spychow no more, but a beggar, a slave without a name, without fame,
without respect.

Therefore, a long time passed before he approached the penitential robe,
and said:

"How can I do otherwise? Christ, Thou knowest they will kill the innocent
child, if I do not do all they order. And Thou also knowest that I would
not do that for the sake of my own life! Disgrace is a distasteful
thing!... distasteful!--but Thou also wast disgraced of old. Well then,
in the name of the Father and of the Son...."

He then bent down, put on the robe in which were cut the openings for the
head and hands, then he tied around his neck the scabbard of his sword,
and dragged himself to the gate.

He did not find it open; but now it was immaterial to him whether they
opened it sooner or later. The castle sank into nocturnal silence, only
the guards called now and then to each other on the bastions. In the
tower near the gate there was light in one window high up; the others
were dark.

The night hours flew one after another, on the sky appeared the crescent
moon and threw light upon the gloomy walls of the castle. It became so
quiet that Jurand was able to hear his own heart-beats. But he stiffened
and became entirely petrified, as if his soul were taken from him, and
took no account of anything. One thought remained with him, that he had
ceased to be a knight, Jurand of Spychow, but what he was he did not
know.... Sometimes it also seemed to him that in the middle of the night
death was coming to him across the snow from those hanged men that he had
seen in the morning....

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross

Suddenly he quivered and awoke entirely.

"O gracious Christ! what is that?"

From the high window in the adjacent tower, the sounds of a lute, hardly
heard at first, reached his ear. Jurand, while on the way to Szczytno,
was sure that Danusia was not in the castle, and yet this sound of the
lute at night aroused his heart in an instant. It seemed to him that he
knew those sounds, and that nobody else was playing but she--his child!
his darling.... He therefore fell upon his knees, clasped his hands to
pray, and listened shivering, as in a fever.

Just then a half-childish and as if ardently longing voice began to sing:

"Had I the dear little wings
Of a gosling,
I would fly
To Jasiek at Szlonsk."

Jurand wished to reply, to utter the dear name, but his words were
imprisoned in his throat, as if an iron band squeezed them. A sudden wave
of pain, tears, longing, suffering, collected in his breast; be therefore
cast himself down with his face in the snow and began in ecstasy to call
upon heaven in his soul, as if in thankful prayer:

"O Jesus! I hear my child once again! O Jesus!" ...

And weeping began to tear his gigantic body. Above, the longing voice
continued to sing amid the undisturbed silence of the night:

"Would that I might sit
In the little Szlonsk garden
To gaze upon little Jasiek
The poor orphan!"

In the morning a stout, bearded German retainer began to prod the ribs of
the knight lying at the gate.

"Upon your feet, dog!... The gate is open, and the count orders you to
appear before him."

Jurand awoke, as if from sleep. He did not catch the man by the throat,
he did not crush him in his iron hands, he had a quiet and almost humble
face; he arose, and, without saying a word, followed the soldier through
the gate.

He had hardly crossed, when a clang of chains was heard, and the bridge
began to be drawn up again, while in the gateway itself fell a heavy iron
grating.

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross

Jurand is allowed to enter the castle. When the Knights refuse to give him his daughter back, he falls into fury and massacres them before being overpowered.



But Jurand paid no attention either to the pride or to the contempt which
their words contained: his heart swelled and his eyelashes were moist. He
thought that he would see Danusia in a moment, and that he would see her
actually by their favor; he therefore gazed at the speakers almost with
humility, and finally said:

"True! true! I used to be hard on you but ... not treacherous."

That instant a voice at the other end of the hall suddenly cried: "They
are bringing the girl;" and immediately silence reigned throughout the
hall. The soldiers scattered to both sides, because none of them had ever
seen Jurand's daughter, and the majority of them did not even know of her
presence in the castle on account of the secrecy with which Danveld
surrounded his actions; but those who knew, whispered to one another
about her admirable grace. All eyes turned with extreme curiosity toward
the door through which she was to appear.

Meanwhile a warrior appeared in front followed by the well-known servant
of the Order, the same woman that rode to the court in the forest. After
her entered a girl dressed in white, with loose hair tied with a ribbon
on the forehead.

And suddenly one great outburst of laughter, like the roaring of thunder,
rang through the entire hall. Jurand, who at the first moment had sprung
toward his daughter, suddenly recoiled and stood as pale as linen,
looking with surprise at the ill-shaped head, the bluish lips, and the
expressionless eyes of the wench who was restored to him as Danusia.

"This is not my daughter!" he said, in a terrifying voice.

"Not your daughter?" exclaimed Danveld. "By the holy Liboryusz of
Paderborn! Then either we did not rescue your daughter from the murderers
or some wizard has changed her, because there is no other in Szczytno."

Old Zygfried, Rotgier and Godfried exchanged quick glances with each
other, full of admiration at the shrewdness of Danveld, but none of them
had time enough to speak, because Jurand began to shout with a terrible
voice:

"She is, she is in Szczytno! I heard her sing, I heard the voice of dear
Danusia!"

Upon that Danveld turned to those assembled and said quietly but
pointedly:

"I take you all present as witnesses and especially you, Zygfried of
Insburk, and you pious brothers, Rotgier and Godfried, that, according to
my word and given promise, I restore that girl, who was said by the
robbers whom we defeated, to be the daughter of Jurand of Spychow. If she
is not--it is not our fault, but rather the will of our Lord, who in that
manner wished to deliver Jurand into our hands."

Zygfried and the two younger brethren bowed to signify that they heard
and would testify in case of necessity. Then again they glanced quickly
at each other, because it was more than they ever could have expected to
capture Jurand, not to restore his daughter, and still ostensibly to keep
a promise; who else could do that?

But Jurand threw himself upon his knees and commenced to conjure Danveld
by all the relics in Malborg, then by the ashes and heads of his parents,
to restore to him his true child and not proceed like a swindler and
traitor, breaking oaths and promises. His voice contained so much despair
and truth, that some began to suspect treason; others again thought that
some wizard had actually changed the appearance of the girl.

"God looks upon your treason!" exclaimed Jurand. "By the Saviour's
wounds, by the hour of your death, return my child!"

And arising, he went bent double toward Danveld, as if he wished to
embrace his knees; and his eyes glittered with madness, and his voice
broke alternately with pain, fear, and dread. Danveld, hearing the
accusations of treason and deceit in presence of all, commenced to snort,
and at length his features worked with rage; so that like a flame in his
desire utterly to crush the unfortunate, he advanced and bending down to
his ear, whispered through his set teeth: "If I ever give her up, it will
be with my bastard...."

But at that very moment Jurand roared like a bull, and with both hands he
caught Danveld and raised him high in the air.

The hall still resounded with the terrible cry: "Save me!" when the body
of the count struck the stone floor with such terrible force that the
brains from the shattered skull bespattered Zygfried and Rotgier who
stood by. Jurand sprang to the wall, near which stood the arms, and
snatching a large two-handed weapon, ran like a storm at the Germans, who
were petrified with terror. The people were used to battles, butchery and
blood, and yet their hearts sank to such an extent that even after the
panic had passed, they commenced to retreat and escape like a flock of
sheep before a wolf who kills with one stroke of his claws. The hall
resounded with the cry of terror, with the sound of human footsteps, the
clang of the overturned vessels, the howling of the servants, the
growling of the bear, who, tearing himself out of the hands of the
trainer, started to climb on a high window, and a terror-stricken cry for
arms and targets, weapons and crossbows. Finally weapons gleamed, and a
number of sharp points were directed toward Jurand, but he, not caring
for anything, half crazed, sprang toward them, and there commenced an
unheard-of wild fight, resembling a butchery more than a contest of arms.
The young and fiery Brother Godfried was the first to intercept Jurand's
way, but he severed his head, hand and shoulder-blade with a lightning
swing of his weapon; after him fell by Jurand's hand the captain of the
archers, and the castle administrator, von Bracht and the Englishman
Hugues, who, although he did not very well understand the cause, pitied
Jurand and his sufferings, and only drew his weapon when Danveld was
killed. Others, seeing the terrible force and the fury of the man,
gathered closely together, so as to offer combined resistance, but this
plan brought about a still greater defeat, because he, with his hair
standing upright on his head, with maddened eyes, covered all over with
blood, panting, raging and furious, broke, tore and cut with terrible
strokes of his sword that battered group, casting men to the floor,
splashed all over with clotted blood, as a storm overturns bushes and
trees. Then followed a moment of terrific fright, in which it seemed that
this terrible Mazovian, all by himself, would hew and slay all these
people. Like a pack of barking hounds that cannot overpower a fierce boar
without the assistance of the hunters, so were those armed Germans; they
could not match his might and fierceness in that fight which resulted
only in their death and discomfiture.

"Scatter! surround him! strike from behind!" shrieked old Zygfried von
Löve.

They consequently dispersed through the hall like a flock of starlings in
the field upon which a hawk with crooked beak swoops from a height, but
they could not surround him, because, in the heat of the fight, instead
of looking for a place of defence, he commenced to chase them around the
walls and whoever was overtaken died as if thunderstruck. Humiliation,
despair, disappointed hope, changed into one thirst for blood, seemed to
multiply tenfold his terrific natural strength. A weapon, for which the
most powerful of the Knights of the Cross needed both hands, he managed
to wield with one as if it were a feather. He did not care for his life,
nor look for escape; he did not even crave for victory; he sought
revenge, and like a fire, or like a river, which breaking a dam, blindly
destroys everything obstructing its flow, so he, a terrible, blindfolded
destroyer, tore, broke, trampled, killed and extinguished human beings.
They could not hurt him in his back, because, in the beginning they were
unable to overtake him; moreover the common soldiers feared to come near
him even from behind; they knew that if he happened to turn no human
power could save them from death. Others were simply terror-stricken at
the thought, that an ordinary man could cause so much havoc, and that
they were dealing with a man who was aided by some superhuman power.

But old Zygfried, and with him Brother Rotgier, rushed to the gallery
which extended above the large windows of the hall, and commenced to call
others to take shelter after them; these did so in haste, so that, on the
narrow stairs, they pushed each other in their desire to get up as
quickly as possible and thence to strike the strong knight, with whom any
hand to hand struggle appeared to them impossible.

Finally, the last one banged the door leading to the gallery and Jurand
remained alone below. From the gallery the sounds of joy and triumph
reached him, and soon heavy oak benches and iron collars of torches began
to fall upon the nobleman. One of the missiles struck him on the forehead
and bathed his face with blood. At the same time the large entrance door
opened, and through the upper windows the summoned servants rushed into
the hall in a body, armed with pikes, halberds, axes, crossbows,
palisades, poles, ropes and all varieties of weapons, which they could
hurriedly get hold of. And with his left hand the mad Jurand wiped the
blood from his face, so as not to obstruct his sight, gathered himself
together, and threw himself at the entire throng. In the hall again
resounded groans, the clash of iron, the gnashing of teeth and the
piercing voices of the slain men..

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross

Zbyszko, Jurand`s would-be son-in-law, fights a duel with a knight of the cross.




Then the Teuton advanced a
few steps, proudly raised his head, and measuring them with a haughty
look, said:

"I do not come here as a messenger, but merely as a witness of the affair
and a knight of the Order who is ready to defend the honor of the Order
with his own blood to the last gasp! Who, then, in contradiction to
Jurand's own words, dares to suspect the Order of having captured his
daughter--let him raise this knightly pledge and submit to God's
judgment!"

Having said this, he cast before them his knightly glove, which fell upon
the floor; they again stood in deep silence, because, although more than
one of them would have liked to break his weapon on the Teuton's back,
they all feared God's judgment. Every one knew that Jurand had expressly
stated that the knights of the Order had not captured his child; so they
all thought to themselves, "It is a just cause; consequently Rotgier will
be victorious."

He again became so much the more insolent, and leaning upon his loins,
inquired:

"If it is so, who will raise that glove?"

Just then, a knight, whose entrance nobody had yet observed, and who for
some time had listened at the door to the conversation, advanced to the
centre, raised the gauntlet and said:

"I will!" and so saying, he stared directly into Rotgier's face, and then
began to speak with a voice which in that universal silence resounded
like thunder through the hall:

"Before God, before the august prince and all the honorable knighthood of
this land, I tell you, Teuton, that you bark like a dog against justice
and truth--and I challenge you to a combat on foot, or horseback, with
lance or axe, short or long weapons, and not unto imprisonment but unto
the last gasp, unto death!"

A fly could be heard in the hall. All eyes were turned upon Rotgier and
the challenging knight, whom nobody recognized, because he had a helmet
covering his head, although without a steel cap, but with a circular
visor descending below the ear entirely covering the upper part of the
face, and casting a deep shadow over the lower part. The Teuton was no
less astonished than the rest. Confusion, pallor and raging anger chased
each other over his face, as lightning flashes across a mighty heaven.

He caught the gauntlet and attached it to the hook of his armlet, and
said:

"Who are you that challenge God's justice?"

The other then unbuckled his gorget, removed the helmet, beneath which
appeared a fair, youthful head, and said:

"Zbyszko of Bogdaniec, the husband of Jurand's daughter."

They were all amazed, and Rotgier, with the others, because none of them,
except the prince and his wife, Father Wyszoniek and de Lorche, knew of
Danusia's marriage; the Teutons moreover were confident that Jurand's
daughter had no other natural defender besides her father; but at that
moment de Lorche stood up and said:

"Upon my knightly honor I vouch for the truthfulness of his words; should
anybody dare to doubt it, here is my guage."

Rotgier, who did not know what fear meant, and whose heart swelled with
anger at this moment, would have perhaps accepted even this challenge,
but remembering that the man who cast it was powerful, and moreover a
relative of Duke Geldryi, he refrained, and the more readily, because the
prince himself arose and, wrinkling his brows, said:

"It is forbidden to accept this challenge, because I also declare that
this knight has told the truth."

The Teuton, on hearing this, bowed, and then said to Zbyszko:

"If you wish it, then on foot, in closed lists with axes."

"I have already challenged you in all ways," replied Zbyszko.

"May God give the victory to justice!" exclaimed the Mazovian knights.




CHAPTER III.

There was anxiety about Zbyszko in the whole court, among the knights as
well as among the ladies, because he was universally liked; but,
according to Jurand's letter, nobody doubted that the right was on the
side of the Teuton. On the other hand it was known that Rotgier was one
of the more famous brethren of the Order. The squire van Krist narrated
among the Mazovian nobility, perhaps on purpose, that his lord before
becoming an armed monk, once sat at the Honor-Table of the Teutons, to
which table only world-famous knights were admitted, those who had
accomplished an expedition to the Holy Land, or fought victoriously
against giants, dragons, or mighty magicians. Hearing van Krist tell such
tales, and, at the same time, boast that his lord had repeatedly met five
opponents single-handed with his "dagger of mercy" in one hand and an axe
or sword in the other, the Mazurs were disquieted, and some said: "Oh, if
only Jurand were here, he could give an account of himself with even two;
no German ever escaped him yet, but the youth--bah!--for the other
exceeds him in strength, years and experience."

Therefore others regretted that they had not accepted the challenge,
asserting that they would undoubtedly have done so, if it had not been
for the news from Jurand. "But fear of the judgment of God...." On this
occasion, and for mutual entertainment, they recalled the names of
Mazovian and more often of Polish knights, who, either in courtly jousts
or hunting, had gained numerous victories over the western knights; above
all they mentioned Zawisza of Garbow, with whom no knight of the
Christian kingdom could cope. But there were also those who cherished
great hopes of Zbyszko: "He is not to be despised!" they said "and
according to common report he once admirably broke the heads of Germans
in fair field."

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross

CHAPTER IV.

The prince did not object to the duel, because, according to the customs
of that time, he had no power to do so. He only prevailed upon Rotgier to
write a letter to the master and to Zygfried von Löve, stating that he
was the first to throw down the gauntlet to the Mazovian knights, in
consequence of which he appeared at a combat with the husband of Jurand's
daughter, who had already challenged him once before.

The Teuton also explained to the grand master, that if he appeared at the
duel without permission, he did it for the sake of the honor of the
Order, and to avert ugly suspicions, which might entail disgrace, and
which he, Rotgier, was always prepared to redeem with his own blood. This
letter was sent instantly to the border by one of the knight's footmen,
to be sent thence to Malborg by mail, which the Teutons, some years
before others, invented and introduced into their possessions.

Meanwhile the snow in the courtyard was leveled and strewn with ashes, so
that the feet of the fighters should neither clog nor slip upon the
smooth surface. There was unusual excitement in the whole castle.

The knights and court ladies were so agitated that on the night preceding
the fight nobody slept. They said, that a fight on horseback with spears,
and even with swords, frequently terminates in wounds; on foot on the
contrary, and particularly with terrible axes, it always terminates in
death. All hearts were with Zbyszko, but the very ones who felt most
friendly toward him or Danusia recollected with so much more fear the
stories about the fame and dexterity of the Teuton. Many ladies spent the
night in church, where also Zbyszko confessed to the priest Wyszoniek,
They said one to another as they looked at his almost boyish face: "Why,
he is a child yet! how can he expose his head to the German axe?" And
they prayed the more fervently for aid for him. But when he arose at
daybreak and walked through the chapel, in order to put on his arms in
the hall, they again gained courage, because, although Zbyszko's features
were indeed boyish, his body was of an extraordinary size, and strong, so
that he seemed to them to be a picked man, who could take care of himself
against even the most powerful.

The fight was to take place in the castle yard, which was surrounded by a
porch. When it was broad daylight, the prince and princess arrived
together with their children and took their seats in the centre between
the pillars, from where the whole yard could best be overlooked. Next to
them were the principal courtiers, noble ladies, and the knighthood. All
the corners of the vestibule were filled: the domestics gathered behind
the wall which was made from the swept snow, some clung to the posts, and
even to the roof. There the vulgar muttered among themselves: "God grant
that our champion may not be subdued!"

The day was cold, moist, but clear; the sky swarmed with daws, which
inhabited the roofs and summits of the bastions, and which, scared by the
unusual bustle, moved in circles, with great clapping of wings, over the
castle. Notwithstanding the cold, the people perspired with excitement,
and when the first horn sounded to announce the entrance of the
combatants, all hearts began to beat like hammers.

They entered from opposite sides of the arena and halted at the barriers.
Every one of the onlookers then held his breath, every one thought, that
very soon two souls would escape to the threshold of the Divine Court and
two dead bodies remain on the snow, and the lips, as well as the cheeks
of the women turned pale and livid at that thought; the eyes of the men
again gazed steadfastly at the opponents as at a rainbow, because every
one was trying to forecast, from their postures and armament alone, which
side would be victorious.

The Teuton was dressed in an enameled blue cuirass, with similar armor
for the thighs, as also the helmet with raised visor, and with a
magnificent bunch of peacock feathers on the crest. Zbyszko's breast,
sides and back were encased in splendid Milanese mail, which he had once
captured from the Fryzjans. He had on his head a helmet with an open
visor, and without feathers; on his legs was bull's hide. On their left
shoulders, they carried shields with coat of arms; on the Teuton's at the
top was a chessboard, at the bottom, three lions rampant; on Zbyszko's, a
blunt horseshoe. In the right hand they carried broad, huge, terrible
axes, set in oaken, blackened helves, longer than the arm of a grown man.
The warriors who seconded them were: Hlawa, called by Zbyszko, Glowacz,
and van Krist, both dressed in dark iron mail, both equally with axes and
shields: van Krist had on his shield a St. John's wort; the shield of the
Bohemian resembled that of the _Pomian_, with this difference, that
instead of an axe stuck in a bull's head, it had a short weapon half sunk
in the eye.

The horn sounded the second time, and, at the third, the opponents,
according to agreement, were to advance against each other. A small space
strewn with grey ashes now only separated them; over that space hovered
in the air like an ominous bird--death. But before the third signal was
given, Rotgier approached the pillars between which sat the prince's
family, raised his steel-encased head, and began to speak in such a loud
voice that he was heard in all corners of the vestibule:

"I take God, you, worthy lord, and the whole knighthood of this soil, as
witness that I am not guilty of the blood that is about to be shed."

At these words their hearts were again ready to break with grief, seeing
that the Teuton was so confident of himself and his victory. But Zbyszko,
having a simple soul, turned to his Bohemian, and said:

"That Teutonic boasting stinks; it would be more appropriate after my
death than while I am alive. That boaster moreover has a peacock's plume
on his helmet, and at the very outset I made a vow to obtain three of
them and afterward as many fingers of the hand. God grant it!"

"Lord ..." said the Bohemian, bending down and picking up in his hands
some ashes from the snow, to prevent the axe-handle from slipping in his
hand; "perhaps Christ will permit me quickly to despatch that vile
Prussian, and then perhaps, if not to defeat this Teuton, at least put
the handle of the axe between his knees and upset him."

"God save you!" hastily exclaimed Zbyszko; "you would cover me and
yourself with disgrace."

But at that moment the horn sounded the third time. On hearing it, the
seconds sprang quickly and furiously at each other, while the knights
moved slowly and deliberately, as their dignity and gravity demanded, for
the first bout.

[Bonobo]

The Knights of the Cross

The western knights were already accustomed to comforts and luxuries,
while the landowners in Little Poland and Great Poland, as also in
Mazowsze, led a rigorous and hardy life, wherefore they awoke admiration
by their bodily strength and endurance of all hardships, whether constant
or occasional, even among strangers and foes. Now also it was
demonstrated that Zbyszko was as superior to the Teuton in bodily
strength as his squire was superior to van Krist, but it was also proven
that his youth rendered him the inferior in knightly training.

It was in some measure favorable for Zbyszko that he had chosen a combat
with axes, because fencing with that kind of weapon was impossible. With
long and short swords, with which it was necessary to know the strokes,
thrusts, and how to ward off blows, the German would have had a
considerable superiority. But even so, Zbyszko, as well as the
spectators, recognized from his motions and management of the shield,
that they had before them an experienced and formidable man, who
apparently was not entering a combat of this kind for the first time. To
each of Zbyszko's blows Rotgier offered his shield, slightly withdrawing
it at the concussion, by which means even the most powerful swing lost
its force, and could neither cleave nor crush the smooth surface. He at
times retreated and at times became aggressive, doing it quietly, though
so quickly that the eyes could hardly follow his motions.

The prince was seized with fear for Zbyszko, and the faces of the men
looked gloomy; it seemed that the German was purposely trifling with his
opponent. Sometimes he did not even interpose the shield, but at the
moment when Zbyszko struck, be turned half aside, so that the sharp edge
of the axe cut the empty air. This was the most terrifying thing, because
Zbyszko might thereby lose his balance and fall, and then his destruction
would be inevitable. Seeing this, the Bohemian, standing over the slain
van Krist, also became alarmed, and said to himself: "My God! if my
master falls, I will strike him with the hook of my axe between the
shoulder-blades, and overthrow him also."

However, Zbyszko did not fall, because, being very strong upon his legs
and separating them widely, he was able to support the entire weight of
his body on either as he swung.

Rotgier observed that instantly, and the onlookers were mistaken in
supposing that he underestimated his opponent. On the contrary, after the
first strokes, when, in spite of his utmost skill in withdrawing the
shield, his hand almost stiffened under it, he understood that he would
have a hard time with this youth, and that, if he did not knock him down
by some clever manoeuvre, the combat would prove long and dangerous. He
expected Zbyszko to fall upon the snow after a vain stroke in the air,
and as that did not happen, he immediately became uneasy. He saw, beneath
the steel visor, the closely-drawn nostrils and mouth of his opponent,
and occasionally his gleaming eyes, and he said to himself that the other
would fly into a blind rage and forget himself, lose his head, and madly
think more of striking than of defending himself. But he was mistaken in
this also. Zbyszko did not know how to avoid a stroke by a half-turn, but
he did not forget his shield, and, while raising the axe, did not expose
himself more than was necessary. His attention was apparently redoubled,
and having recognized the experience and skill of his opponent, instead
of forgetting himself he collected his thoughts and became more cautious;
and there was that premeditation in his blows which not hot but cool
anger only can conquer.

Rotgier, who had fought in many wars and battles, either in troop or
singly, knew by experience that there are some people, like birds of
prey, who are born to fight, being specially gifted by Nature, who
bestows all things, with what others only attain after years of training,
and he at the same time observed that he was now dealing with one of
those. He understood from the very first strokes that there was in this
youth something as in a hawk, who sees in his opponent only his prey, and
thinks of nothing but getting him in his claws. Notwithstanding his own
strength, he also noticed that it was not equal to Zbyszko's, and should
he get exhausted before succeeding in giving a final stroke, the combat
with this formidable, although less experienced, stripling, might result
in his ruin. Thus reflecting, he determined to fight with the least
possible effort, drew the shield closer to him, did not move much either
forward or backward, restricted his motions, and gathered all the power
of his soul and arm for one decisive stroke, and awaited his opportunity.

The terrible fight lasted longer than usual. A deathlike silence reigned
in the porches. The only sounds heard were the sometimes ringing and
sometimes hollow blows of the sharp points and edges of the axes against
the shields. Such sights were not strange to the princes, knights and
courtiers; and nevertheless a feeling, resembling terror, seemed to
clutch all hearts as if with tongs. It was understood that this was not a
mere exhibition of strength, skill and courage, but that in this fight
there was a greater fury and despair, a greater and more inexorable
stubbornness, a deeper vengeance. On one side terrible wrongs, love and
fathomless sorrow; on the other, the honor of the entire Order and deep
hatred, met on this field of battle for the Judgment of God.

Meanwhile the wintry, pale morning brightened, the grey fog cleared away,
and the sunrays shone upon the blue cuirass of the Teuton and the silver
Milanese armor of Zbyszko. The bell rang in the chapel for early mass,
and at the sounds of the bell flights of crows again flew from the castle
roofs, flapping their wings and crowing noisily, as if in joy at the
sight of blood and the corpse lying motionless in the snow. Rotgier
looked at it once and again during the fight, and suddenly began to feel
very lonesome. All the eyes that were turned upon him were those of
enemies. All the prayers, wishes and silent vows which the women were
offering were in Zbyszko's favor. Moreover, although the Teuton was fully
convinced that the squire would not cast himself upon him from behind,
nor strike him treacherously, nevertheless, the presence and nearness of
that terrifying figure involuntarily inspired him with such fear as
people are subject to at the sight of a wolf, a bear or a buffalo, from
which they are not separated by bars. And he could not shake off this
feeling, especially as the Bohemian, in his desire to follow closely the
course of the battle, constantly changed his place, stepping in between
the fighters from the side, from behind, from the front--bending his head
at the same time, and looking at him fiercely through the visor of the
helmet, and sometimes slightly raising his bloody weapon, as if
involuntarily.

At last the Teuton began to tire. One after another, he gave two blows,
short but terrible, directing them at Zbyszko's right arm, but they were
met by the shield with such force that the axe trembled in Rotgier's
hand, and he himself was compelled to retreat suddenly to save himself
from falling; and from that moment, he retreated steadily. Finally, not
only his strength but also his coolness and patience began to be
exhausted. At the sight of his retreating, a few triumphant shouts
escaped from the breasts of the spectators, awakening in him anger and
despair. The strokes of the axes became more frequent. Perspiration
flowed from the brows of both fighters, and panting breath escaped from
their breasts through their clenched teeth. The spectators ceased keeping
silence, and now every moment voices, male or female, cried: "Strike! At
him!... God's judgment! God's punishment! God help you!"

The prince motioned with his hand several times to silence them, but he
could not restrain them! Every moment the noise increased, because
children here and there began to cry on the porches, and finally, at the
very side of the princess, a youthful, sobbing, female voice called out:

"For Danusia, Zbyszko! for Danusia!"

Zbyszko knew well that it was for Danusia's sake. He was sure that this
Teuton had assisted in her capture, and in fighting him, he fought for
her wrongs. But being young and eager for battles, during the combat he
had thought of that only. But suddenly, that cry brought back to his mind
her loss and her sufferings. Love, sorrow and vengeance poured fire into
his veins. His heart began to call out with suddenly awakened pain, and
he was plainly seized with a fighting frenzy. The Teuton could not any
longer catch nor avoid the terrible strokes, resembling thunderbolts.
Zbyszko struck his shield against his with such superhuman force, that
the German's arm stiffened suddenly and fell.... He retreated in terror
and half crouched, but that instant there flashed in his eyes the gleam
of the axe, and the sharp edge fell like a thunderbolt upon his right
shoulder.

Only a rending cry reached the ears of the onlookers: "Jesus!"--then
Rotgier retreated one more step and fell upon his back on the ground.
Immediately there was a noise and buzz on the porches, as in a bee-garden
in which the bees, warmed by the sun, commence to move and swarm. The
knights ran down the stairs in whole throngs, the servants jumped over
the snow-walls, to take a look at the corpses. Everywhere resounded the
shouts: "This is God's judgment ... Jurand has an heir! Glory to him and
thanksgiving! This is a man for the axe!" Others again cried: "Look and
marvel! Jurand himself could not strike more nobly." A whole group of
curious ones stood around Rotgier's corpse, and he lay on his back with a
face as white as snow, with gaping mouth and with a bloody arm so
terribly shorn from the neck down to the armpit, that it scarcely held by
a few shreds.

Therefore, others again said: "He was alive just now and walked upon the
earth with arrogance, but now he cannot even move a finger." And thus
speaking, some admired his stature, because he took up a large space on
the battlefield, and appeared even larger in death; others again admired
his peathingy plume, changing colors beautifully in the snow; others again
his armor, which was valued at a good village. But the Bohemian, Hlawa,
now approached with two of Zbyszko's retainers in order to take it off
from the deceased, therefore the curious surrounded Zbyszko, praising and
extolling him to the skies, because they justly thought that his fame
would redound to the credit of the whole Mazovian and Polish knighthood.
Meanwhile the shield and axe were taken from him, to lighten his burden,
and Mrokota of Mocarzew unbuckled his helmet and covered his hair, wet
with perspiration, with a cap of scarlet cloth.

Zbyszko stood, as if petrified, breathing heavily, with the fire not
fully extinguished yet in his eyes, and a face pale with exhaustion and
determination and trembling somewhat with excitement and fatigue. But he
was taken by the hand and led to the princely family, who were waiting
for him in a warm room, by the fireside. There Zbyszko kneeled down
before them and when Father Wyszoniek gave him a blessing and said a
prayer for the eternal rest of the souls of the dead, the prince embraced
the young knight and said:

"God Almighty decided between you two and guided your hand, for which His
name be blessed. Amen!"

[Bonobo]

chomikuj.pl/krask/Polish+literature+in+English+translation

Title: The Lighthouse Keeper
Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Transl. by Adam Gillon and Ludwik Krzyżanowski
CHAPTER I
On a time it happened that the light-house keeper in Aspinwall, not far from Panama, disappeared without a trace. Since he
disappeared during a storm, it was supposed that the ill-fated man went to the very edge of the small, rocky island on which the lighthouse
stood, and was swept out by a wave. This supposition seemed the more likely as his boat was not found next day in its rocky
niche. The place of light-house keeper had become vacant. It was necessary to fill this place at the earliest moment possible, since the
light-house had no small significance for the local movement as well as for vessels going from New York to Panama. Mosquito Bay
abounds in sandbars and banks. Among these navigation, even in the daytime, is difficult; but at night, especially with the fogs which
are so frequent on those waters warmed by the sun of the tropics, it is nearly impossible. The only guide at that time for the numerous
vessels is the light-house.
The task of finding a new keeper fell to the United States consul living in Panama, and this task was no small one: first, because it was
absolutely necessary to find the man within twelve hours; second, the man must be unusually conscientious,--it was not possible, of
course, to take the first comer at random; finally, there was an utter lack of candidates. Life on a tower is uncommonly difficult, and by
no means enticing to people of the South, who love idleness and the freedom of a vagrant life. That light-house keeper is almost a
prisoner. He cannot leave his rocky island except on Sundays. A boat from Aspinwall brings him provisions and water once a day, and
returns immediately; on the whole island, one acre in area, there is no inhabitant. The keeper lives in the light-house; he keeps it in
order. During the day he gives signals by displaying flags of various colors to indicate changes of the barometer; in the evening he
lights the lantern. This would be no great labor were it not that to reach the lantern at the summit of the tower he must pass over more
than four hundred steep and very high steps; sometimes he must make this journey repeatedly during the day. In general, it is the life
of a monk, and indeed more than that,--the life of a hermit. It was not wonderful, therefore, that Mr. Isaac Falconbridge was in no small
anxiety as to where he should find a permanent successor to the recent keeper; and it is easy to understand his joy when a successor
announced himself most unexpectedly on that very day. He was a man already old, seventy years or more, but fresh, erect, with the
movements and bearing of a soldier. His hair was perfectly white, his face as dark as that of a Creole; but, judging from his blue eyes,
he did not belong to a people of the South. His face was somewhat downcast and sad, but honest. At the first glance he pleased
Falconbridge. It remained only to examine him. Therefore the following conversation began:
"Where are you from?"
"I am a Pole."
"Where have you worked up to this time?"
"In one place and another."
"A light-house keeper should like to stay in one place."
"I need rest."
"Have you served? Have you testimonials of honorable government service?"
The old man drew from his bosom a piece of faded silk resembling a strip of an old flag, unwound it, and said:
"Here are the testimonials. I received this cross in 1830. This second one is Spanish from the Carlist War; the third is the French legion;
the fourth I received in Hungary. Afterward I fought in the States against the South; there they do not give crosses."
Falconbridge took the paper and began to read.
"H'm! Skavinski? Is that your name? H'm! Two flags captured in a bayonet attack. You were a gallant soldier."
"I am able to be a conscientious light-house keeper."
"It is necessary to ascend the tower a number of times daily. Have you sound legs?"
"I crossed the plains on foot." (The immense steppes between the East and California are called "the plains.")
"Do you know sea service?"
"I served three years on a whaler."
"You have tried various occupations."
"The only one I have not known is quiet."
"Why is that?"
The old man shrugged his shoulders. "Such is my fate."
"Still you seem to me too old for a light-house keeper."
"Sir," exclaimed the candidate suddenly in a voice of emotion, "I am greatly wearied, knocked about. I have passed through much as
you see. This place is one of those which I have wished for most ardently. I am old, I need rest. I need to say to myself, 'Here you will
remain; this is your port.' Ah, sir, this depends now on you alone. Another time perhaps such a place will not offer itself. What luck that
I was in Panama! I entreat you--as God is dear to me, I am like a ship which if it misses the harbor will be lost. If you wish to make an
old man happy- -I swear to you that I am honest, but--I have enough of wandering."
The blue eyes of the old man expressed such earnest entreaty that Falconbridge, who had a good, simple heart, was touched.
"Well," said he, "I take you. You are light-house keeper."
The old man's face gleamed with inexpressible joy.
"I thank you."
"Can you go to the tower to-day?"
"I can."
"Then good-bye. Another word,--for any failure in service you will be dismissed."
"All right."
That same evening, when the sun had descended on the other side of the isthmus, and a day of sunshine was followed by a night
without twilight, the new keeper was in his place evidently, for the light-house was casting its bright rays on the water as usual. The
night was perfectly calm, silent, genuinely tropical, filled with a transparent haze, forming around the moon a great colored rainbow
with soft, unbroken edges; the sea was moving only because the tide raised it. Skavinski on the balcony seemed from below like a
small black point. He tried to collect his thoughts and take in his new position; but his mind was too much under pressure to move with
regularity. He felt somewhat as a hunted beast feels when at last it has found refuge from pursuit on some inaccessible rock or in a
cave. There had come to him, finally, an hour of quiet; the feeling of safety filled his soul with a certain unspeakable bliss. Now on that
rock he can simply laugh at his previous wanderings, his misfortunes and failures. He was in truth like a ship whose masts, ropes, and
sails had been broken and rent by a tempest, and cast from the clouds to the bottom of the sea,--a ship on which the tempest had
hurled waves and spat foam, but which still wound its way to the harbor. The pictures of that storm passed quickly through his mind as
he compared it with the calm future now beginning. A part of his wonderful adventures he had related to Falconbridge; he had not
mentioned, however, thousands of other incidents. It had been his misfortune that as often as he pitched his tent and fixed his fireplace
to settle down permanently, some wind tore out the stakes of his tent, whirled away the fire, and bore him on toward destruction.
Looking now from the balcony of the tower at the illuminated waves, he remembered everything through which he had passed. He had
campaigned in the four parts of the world, and in wandering had tried almost every occupation. Labor-loving and honest, more than
once had he earned money, and had always lost it in spite of every prevision and the utmost caution. He had been a gold-miner in
Australia, a diamond-digger in Africa, a rifleman in public service in the East Indies. He established a ranch in California,--the drought
ruined him; he tried trading with wild tribes in the interior of Brazil,--his raft was wrecked on the Amazon; he himself alone,
weaponless, and nearly naked, wandered in the forest for many weeks living on wild fruits, exposed every moment to death from the
jaws of wild beasts. He established a forge in Helena, Arkansas, and that was burned in a great fire which consumed the whole town.
Next he fell into the hands of Indians in the Rocky Mountains, and only through a miracle was he saved by Canadian trappers. Then he
served as a sailor on a vessel running between Bahia and Bordeaux, and as harpooner on a whaling-ship; both vessels were wrecked.
He had a cigar factory in Havana, and was robbed by his partner while he himself was lying sick with the vomito. At last he came to
Aspinwall, and there was to be the end of his failures,--for what could reach him on that rocky island? Neither water nor fire nor men.
But from men Skavinski had not suffered much; he had met good men oftener than bad ones.
But it seemed to him that all the four elements were persecuting him. Those who knew him said that he had no luck, and with that they
explained everything. He himself became somewhat of a monomaniac. He believed that some mighty and vengeful hand was pursuing
him everywhere, on all lands and waters. He did not like, however, to speak of this; only at times, when some one asked him whose
hand that could be, he pointed mysteriously to the Polar Star, and said, "It comes from that place." In reality his failures were so
continuous that they were wonderful, and might easily drive a nail into the head, especially of the man who had experienced them. But
Skavinski had the patience of an Indian, and that great calm power of resistance which comes from truth of heart. In his time he had
received in Hungary a number of bayonet- thrusts because he would not grasp at a stirrup which was shown as means of salvation to
him, and cry for quarter. In like manner he did not bend to misfortune. He crept up against the mountain as industriously as an ant.
Pushed down a hundred times, he began his journey calmly for the hundred and first time. He was in his way a most peculiar original.
This old soldier, tempered, God knows in how many fires, hardened in suffering, hammered and forged, had the heart of a child. In the
time of the epidemic in Cuba, the vomito attacked him because he had given to the sick all his quinine, of which he had a considerable
supply, and left not a grain to himself.
There had been in him also this wonderful quality,--that after so many disappointments he was ever full of confidence, and did not lose
hope that all would be well yet. In winter he grew lively, and predicted great events. He waited for these events with impatience, and
lived with the thought of them whole summers. But the winters passed one after another, and Skavinski lived only to this,--that they
whitened his head. At last he grew old, began to lose energy; his endurance was becoming more and more like resignation, his former
calmness was tending toward supersensitiveness, and that tempered soldier was degenerating into a man ready to shed tears for any
cause. Besides this, from time to time he was weighed down by a terrible homesickness which was roused by any circumstance,--the
sight of swallows, gray birds like sparrows, snow on the mountains, or melancholy music like that heard on a time. Finally, there was
one idea which mastered him,--the idea of rest. It mastered the old man thoroughly, and swallowed all other desires and hopes. This
ceaseless wanderer could not imagine anything more to be longed for, anything more precious, than a quiet corner in which to rest, and
wait in silence for the end. Perhaps specially because some whim of fate had so hurried him over all seas and lands that he could hardly
catch his breath, did he imagine that the highest human happiness was simply not to wander. It is true that such modest happiness was
his due; but he was so accustomed to disappointments that he thought of rest as people in general think of something which is beyond
reach. He did not dare to hope for it. Meanwhile, unexpectedly, in the course of twelve hours he had gained a position which was as if
chosen for him out of all the world. We are not to wonder, then, that when he lighted his lantern in the evening he became as it were
dazed,--that he asked himself if that was reality, and he did not dare to answer that it was. But at the same time reality convinced him
with incontrovertible proofs; hence hours one after another passed while he was on the balcony. He gazed, and convinced himself. It
might seem that he was looking at the sea for the first time in his life. The lens of the lantern cast into the darkness an enormous
triangle of light, beyond which the eye of the old man was lost in the black distance completely, in the distance mysterious and awful.
But that distance seemed to run toward the light. The long waves following one another rolled out from the darkness, and went
bellowing toward the base of the island; and then their foaming backs were visible, shining rose-colored in the light of the lantern. The
incoming tide swelled more and more, and covered the sandy bars. The mysterious speech of the ocean came with a fulness more
powerful and louder, at one time like the thunder of cannon, at another like the roar of great forests, at another like the distant dull
sound of the voices of people. At moments it was quiet; then to the ears of the old man came some great sigh, then a kind of sobbing,
and again threatening outbursts. At last the wind bore away the haze, but brought black, broken clouds, which hid the moon. From the
west it began to blow more and more; the waves sprang with rage against the rock of the light-house, licking with foam the foundation
walls. In the distance a storm was beginning to bellow. On the dark, disturbed expanse certain green lanterns gleamed from the masts
of ships. These green points rose high and then sank; now they swayed to the right, and now to the left. Skavinski descended to his
room. The storm began to howl. Outside, people on those ships were struggling with night, with darkness, with waves; but inside the
tower it was calm and still. Even the sounds of the storm hardly came through the thick walls, and only the measured tick-tack of the
clock lulled the wearied old man to his slumber.
CHAPTER II.
Hours, days, and weeks began to pass. Sailors assert that sometimes when the sea is greatly roused, something from out the midst of
night and darkness calls them by name. If the infinity of the sea may call out thus, perhaps when a man is growing old, calls come to
him, too, from another infinity still darker and more deeply mysterious; and the more he is wearied by life the dearer are those calls to
him. But to hear them quiet is needed. Besides old age loves to put itself aside as if with a foreboding of the grave. The light-house had
become for Skavinski such a half grave. Nothing is more monotonous than life on a beacon- tower. If young people consent to take up
this service they leave it after a time. Light-house keepers are generally men not young, gloomy, and confined to themselves. If by
chance one of them leaves his light- house and goes among men, he walks in the midst of them like a person roused from deep
slumber. On the tower there is a lack of minute impressions which in ordinary life teach men to adapt themselves to everything. All that
a light-house keeper comes in contact with is gigantic, and devoid of definitely outlined forms. The sky is one whole, the water another;
and between those two infinities the soul of man is in loneliness. That is a life in which thought is continual meditation, and out of that
meditation nothing rouses the keeper, not even his work. Day is like day as two beads in a rosary, unless changes of weather form the
only variety. But Skavinski felt more happiness than ever in life before. He rose with the dawn, took his breakfast, polished the lens,
and then sitting on the balcony gazed into the distance of the water; and his eyes were never sated with the pictures which he saw
before him. On the enormous turquoise ground of the ocean were to be seen generally flocks of swollen sails gleaming in the rays of
the sun so brightly that the eyes were blinking before the excess of light. Sometimes the ships, favored by the so-called trade winds,
went in an extended line one after another, like a chain of sea-mews or albatrosses. The red casks indicating the channel swayed on the
light wave with gentle movement. Among the sails appeared every afternoon gigantic grayish feather-like plumes of smoke. That was a
steamer from New York which brought passengers and goods to Aspinwall, drawing behind it a frothy path of foam. On the other side of
the balcony Skavinski saw, as if on his palm, Aspinwall and its busy harbor, and in it a forest of masts, boats, and craft; a little farther,
white houses and the towers of the town. From the height of his tower the small houses were like the nests of sea- mews, the boats
were like beetles, and the people moved around like small points on the white stone boulevard. From early morning a light eastern
breeze brought a confused hum of human life, above which predominated the whistle of steamers. In the afternoon six o'clock came;
the movement in the harbor began to cease; the mews hid themselves in the rents of the cliffs; the waves grew feeble and became in
some sort lazy; and then on the land, on the sea, and on the tower came a time of stillness unbroken by anything. The yellow sands
from which the waves had fallen back glittered like golden stripes on the width of the waters; the body of the tower was outlined
definitely in blue. Floods of sunbeams were poured from the sky on the water and the sands and the cliff. At that time a certain
lassitude full of sweetness seized the old man. He felt that the rest which he was enjoying was excellent; and when he thought that it
would be continuous nothing was lacking to him.
Skavinski was intoxicated with his own happiness; and since a man adapts himself easily to improved conditions, he gained faith and
confidence by degrees; for he thought that if men built houses for invalids, why should not God gather up at last His own invalids? Time
passed, and confirmed him in this conviction. The old man grew accustomed to his tower, to the lantern, to the rock, to the sand-bars,
to solitude. He grew accustomed also to the sea-mews which hatched in the crevices of the rock, and in the evening held meetings on
the roof of the light- house. Skavinski threw to them generally the remnants of his food; and soon they grew tame, and afterward,
when he fed them, a real storm of white wings encircled him, and the old man went among the birds like a shepherd among sheep.
When the tide ebbed he went to the low sand-banks, on which he collected savory periwinkles and beautiful pearl shells of the nautilus,
which receding waves had left on the sand. In the night by the moonlight and the tower he went to catch fish, which frequented the
windings of the cliff in myriads. At last he was in love with his rocks and his treeless little island, grown over only with small thick plants
exuding sticky resin. The distant views repaid him for the poverty of the island, however. During afternoon hours, when the air became
very clear he could see the whole isthmus covered with the richest vegetation. It seemed to Skavinski at such times that he saw one
gigantic garden,--bunches of cocoa, and enormous musa, combined as it were in luxurious tufted bouquets, right there behind the
houses of Aspinwall. Farther on, between Aspinwall and Panama, was a great forest over which every morning and evening hung a
reddish haze of exhalations,--a real tropical forest with its feet in stagnant water, interlaced with lianas and filled with the sound of one
sea of gigantic orchids, palms, milk-trees, iron-trees, gum-trees.
Through his field-glass the old man could see not only trees and the broad leaves of bananas, but even legions of monkeys and great
marabous and flocks of parrots, rising at times like a rainbow cloud over the forest. Skavinski knew such forests well, for after being
wrecked on the Amazon he had wandered whole weeks among similar arches and thickets. He had seen how many dangers and deaths
lie concealed under those wonderful and smiling exteriors. During the nights which he had spent in them he heard close at hand the
sepulchral voices of howling monkeys and the roaring of the jaguars; he saw gigantic serpents coiled like lianas on trees; he knew
those slumbering forest lakes full of torpedo-fish and swarming with crocodiles; he knew under what a yoke man lives in those
unexplored wildernesses in which are single leaves that exceed a man's size ten times,--wildernesses swarming with blood-drinking
mosquitoes, tree-leeches, and gigantic poisonous spiders. He had experienced that forest life himself, had witnessed it, had passed
through it; therefore it gave him the greater enjoyment to look from his height and gaze on those matos, admire their beauty, and be
guarded from their treacherousness. His tower preserved him from every evil. He left it only for a few hours on Sunday. He put on then
his blue keeper's coat with silver buttons, and hung his crosses on his breast. His milk-white head was raised with a certain pride when
he heard at the door, while entering the church, the Creoles say among themselves, "We have an honorable light-house keeper and not
a heretic, though he is a Yankee." But he returned straightway after Mass to his island, and returned happy, for he had still no faith in
the mainland. On Sunday also he read the Spanish newspaper which he brought in the town, or the New York Herald, which he
borrowed from Falconbridge; and he sought in it European news eagerly. The poor old heart on that light-house tower, and in another
hemisphere, was beating yet for its birthplace. At times too, when the boat brought his daily supplies and water to the island, he went
down from the tower to talk with Johnson, the guard. But after a while he seemed to grow shy. He ceased to go to the town to read the
papers and to go down to talk politics with Johnson. Whole weeks passed in this way, so that no one saw him and he saw no one. The
only signs that the old man was living were the disappearance of the provisions left on shore, and the light of the lantern kindled every
evening with the same regularity with which the sun rose in the morning from the waters of those regions. Evidently, the old man had
become indifferent to the world. Homesickness was not the cause, but just this,--that even homesickness had passed into resignation.
The whole world began now and ended for Skavinski on his island. He had grown accustomed to the thought that he would not leave
the tower till his death, and he simply forgot that there was anything else besides it. Moreover, he had become a mystic; his mild blue
eyes began to stare like the eyes of a child, and were as if fixed on something at a distance. In presence of a surrounding uncommonly
simple and great, the old man was losing the feeling of personality; he was ceasing to exist as an individual, was becoming merged
more and more in that which inclosed him. He did not understand anything beyond his environment; he felt only unconsciously. At last
it seems to him that the heavens, the water, his rock, the tower, the golden sand-banks, and the swollen sails, the sea-mews, the ebb
and flow of the tide,--all form a mighty unity, one enormous mysterious soul; that he is sinking in that mystery, and feels that soul
which lives and lulls itself. He sinks and is rocked, forgets himself; and in that narrowing of his own individual existence, in that halfwaking,
half-sleeping, he has discovered a rest so great that it nearly resembles half-death.
CHAPTER III.
But the awakening came.
On a certain day, when the boat brought water and a supply of provisions, Skavinski came down an hour later from the tower, and saw
that besides the usual cargo there was an additional package. On the outside of this package were postage stamps of the United
States, and the address: "Skavinski, Esq.," written on coarse canvas.
The old man, with aroused curiosity, cut the canvas, and saw books; he took one in his hand, looked at it, and put it back; thereupon
his hands began to tremble greatly. He covered his eyes as if he did not believe them; it seemed to him as if he were dreaming. The
book was Polish,-- what did that mean? Who could have sent the book? Clearly, it did not occur to him at the first moment that in the
beginning of his light- house career he had read in the Herald, borrowed from the consul, of the formation of a Polish society in New
York, and had sent at once to that society half his month's salary, for which he had, moreover, no use on the tower. The society had
sent him the books with thanks. The books came in the natural way; but at the first moment the old man could not seize those
thoughts. Polish books in Aspinwall, on his tower, amid his solitude,--that was for him something uncommon, a certain breath from past
times, a kind of miracle. Now it seemed to him, as to those sailors in the night, that something was calling him by name with a voice
greatly beloved and nearly forgotten. He sat for a while with closed eyes, and was almost certain that, when he opened them, the
dream would be gone.
The package, cut open, lay before him, shone upon clearly by the afternoon sun, and on it was an open book. When the old man
stretched his hand toward it again, he heard in the stillness the beating of his own heart. He looked; it was poetry. On the outside stood
printed in great letters the title, underneath the name of the author. The name was not strange to Skavinski; he saw that it belonged to
the great poet, [Footnote: Mickiewicz (pronounced Mitskyevich), the greatest poet of Poland.] whose productions he had read in 1830
in Paris. Afterward, when campaigning in Algiers and Spain, he had heard from his countrymen of the growing fame of the great seer;
but he was so accustomed to the musket at that time that he took no book in hand. In 1849 he went to America, and in the
adventurous life which he led he hardly ever met a Pole, and never a Polish book. With the greater eagerness, therefore, and with a
livelier beating of the heart, did he turn to the title-page. It seemed to him then that on his lonely rock some solemnity is about to take
place. Indeed it was a moment of great calm and silence. The clocks of Aspinwall were striking five in the afternoon. Not a cloud
darkened the clear sky; only a few sea-mews were sailing through the air. The ocean was as if cradled to sleep. The waves on the shore
stammered quietly, spreading softly on the sand. In the distance the white houses of Aspinwall, and the wonderful groups of palm, were
smiling. In truth, there was something there solemn, calm, and full of dignity. Suddenly, in the midst of that calm of Nature, was heard
the trembling voice of the old man, who read aloud as if to understand himself better:
"Thou art like health, O my birth-land Litva!
[Footnote: Lithuania.]
How much we should prize thee he only can know who has lost thee.
Thy beauty in perfect adornment this day
I see and describe, because I am yearning for thee."
His voice failed Skavinski. The letters began to dance before his eyes; something broke in his breast, and went like a wave from his
heart higher and higher, choking his voice and pressing his throat. A moment more he controlled himself, and read further:
"O Holy Lady, who guardest bright Chenstohova,
Who shinest in Ostrobrama and preservest
The castle town Novgrodek with its trusty people,
As Thou didst give me back to health in childhood,
When by my weeping mother placed beneath Thy care
I raised my lifeless eyelids upward,
And straightway walked unto Thy holy threshold,
To thank God for the life restored me,--
So by a wonder now restore us to the bosom of our birthplace."
The swollen wave broke through the restraint of his will. The old man sobbed, and threw himself on the ground; his milk-white hair was
mingled with the sand of the sea. Forty years had passed since he had seen his country, and God knows how many since he heard his
native speech; and now that speech had come to him itself,--it had sailed to him over the ocean, and found him in solitude on another
hemisphere,--it so loved, so dear, so beautiful! In the sobbing which shook him there was no pain,-- only a suddenly aroused immense
love, in the presence of which other things are as nothing. With that great weeping he had simply implored forgiveness of that beloved
one, set aside because he had grown so old, had become so accustomed to his solitary rock, and had so forgotten it that in him even
longing had begun to disappear. But now it returned as if by a miracle; therefore the heart leaped in him.
Moments vanished one after another; he lay there continually. The mews flew over the light-house, crying as if alarmed for their old
friend. The hour in which he fed them with the remnants of his food had come; therefore, some of them flew down from the light-house
to him; then more and more came, and began to pick and to shake their wings over his head. The sound of the wings roused him. He
had wept his fill, and had now a certain calm and brightness; but his eyes were as if inspired. He gave unwittingly all his provisions to
the birds, which rushed at him with an uproar, and he himself took the book again. The sun had gone already behind the gardens and
the forest of Panama, and was going slowly beyond the isthmus to the other ocean; but the Atlantic was full of light yet; in the open air
there was still perfect vision; therefore, he read further:
"Now bear my longing soul to those forest slopes, to those green meadows."
At last the dusk obliterates the letters on the white paper,--the dusk short as a twinkle. The old man rested his head on the rock, and
closed his eyes. Then "She who defends bright Chenstohova" took his soul, and transported it to "those fields colored by various grain."
On the sky were burning yet those long stripes, red and golden, and on those brightnesses he was flying to beloved regions. The pinewoods
were sounding in his ears; the streams of his native place were murmuring. He saw everything as it was; everything asked him,
"Dost remember?" He remembers! he sees broad fields; between the fields, woods and villages. It is night now. At this hour his lantern
usually illuminates the darkness of the sea; but now he is in his native village. His old head has dropped on his breast, and he is
dreaming. Pictures are passing before his eyes quickly, and a little disorderly. He does not see the house in which he was born, for war
had destroyed it; he does not see his father and mother, for they died when he was a child; but still the village is as if he had left it
yesterday,--the line of cottages with lights in the windows, the mound, the mill, the two ponds opposite each other, and thundering all
night with a chorus of frogs. Once he had been on guard in that village all night; now that past stood before him at once in a series of
views. He is an Ulan again, and he stands there on guard; at a distance is the public-house; he looks with swimming eyes. There is
thundering and singing and shouting amid the silence of the night with voices of fiddles and bass-viols "U-ha! U-ha!" Then the Ulans
knock out fire with their horseshoes, and it is wearisome for him there on his horse. The hours drag on slowly; at last the lights are
quenched; now as far as the eye reaches there is mist, and mist impenetrable; now the fog rises, evidently from the fields, and
embraces the whole world with a whitish cloud. You would say, a complete ocean. But that is fields; soon the land-rail will be heard in
the darkness, and the bitterns will call from the reeds. The night is calm and cool,--in truth, a Polish night! In the distance the pinewood
is sounding without wind, like the roll of the sea. Soon dawn will whiten the East. In fact, the cocks are beginning to crow behind
the hedges. One answers to another from cottage to cottage; the storks are screaming somewhere on high. The Ulan feels well and
bright. Some one had spoken of a battle to-morrow. Hei! that will go on, like all the others, with shouting, with fluttering of flaglets.
The young blood is playing like a trumpet, though the night cools it. But it is dawning. Already night is growing pale; out of the shadows
come forests, the thicket, a row of cottages, the mill, the poplars. The well is squeaking like a metal banner on a tower. What a beloved
land, beautiful in the rosy gleams of the morning! Oh, the one land, the one land!
Quiet! the watchful picket hears that some one is approaching. Of course, they are coming to relieve the guard.
Suddenly some voice is heard above Skavinski,--
"Here, old man! Get up! What's the matter?"
The old man opens his eyes, and looks with wonder at the person standing before him. The remnants of the dream-visions struggle in
his head with reality. At last the visions pale and vanish. Before him stands Johnson, the harbor guide.
"What's this?" asked Johnson; "are you sick?"
"No."
"You didn't light the lantern. You must leave your place. A vessel from St. Geromo was wrecked on the bar. It is lucky that no one was
drowned, or you would go to trial. Get into the boat with me; you'll hear the rest at the Consulate."
The old man grew pale; in fact he had not lighted the lantern that night.
A few days later, Skavinski was seen on the deck of a steamer, which was going from Aspinwall to New York. The poor man had lost his
place. There opened before him new roads of wandering; the wind had torn that leaf away again to whirl it over lands and seas, to
sport with it till satisfied. The old man had failed greatly during those few days, and was bent over; only his eyes were gleaming. On his
new road of life he held at his breast his book, which from time to time he pressed with his hand as if in fear that that too might go
from him.
-THE ENDHenryk
Sienkiewicz's short story: The Lighthouse Keeper Of AspinWall

[Bonobo]

Remembering famous Polish writer Sienkiewicz
05.05.2016 17:20
Thursday marks the 170th anniversary of the birth of writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, the first Pole to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.



He received the prize in 1905 for “his outstanding merits as an epic writer.”

The Museum of Literature and the Independence Museum in Warsaw have launched special exhibitions to mark the anniversary.

The former is devoted to the writer’s historical novels focusing on 17th century Poland, notably the trilogy “Ogniem i mieczem” (With Fire and Sword), “Potop” (The Deluge) and “Pan Wołodyjowski”, and “Krzyżacy” (The Teutonic Knights).

A separate section is devoted to Sienkiewicz’s greatest success, “Quo Vadis”, a novel about the persecution of Christians at the time of Nero. The book established the writer’s international reputation.

The exhibition at the Independence Museum includes first editions of all of Sienkiewicz’s books and their translations into numerous languages.

Sienkiewicz was immensely popular. In 1900, a national subscription raised enough funds to buy him the small estate of Oblęgorek, south-central Poland, where he lived until 1914. After the outbreak of World War I he went to Switzerland, where he promoted the cause of Polish independence and organized relief for Polish war victims. He died in Vevey in 1916.

Several of Sienkiewicz’s novels have been made into films.
- See more at: www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/251598,Remembering-famous-Polish-writer-Sienkiewicz#sthash.VxpWnQeB.dpuf