NERO played and sang, in honor of the “Lady of Cyprus,” a hymn the verses and music of which were composed by himself. That day he was in voice, and felt that his music really captivated those present. That feeling added such power to the sounds produced and roused his own soul so much that he seemed inspired. At last he grew pale from genuine emotion. This was surely the first time that he had no desire to hear praises from others. He sat for a time with his hands on the cithara and with bowed head; then, rising suddenly, he said,--
“I am tired and need air, Meanwhile ye will tune the citharæ.”
He covered his throat then with a silk kerchief.
“Ye will go with me,” said he, turning to Petronius and Vinicius, who were sitting in a corner of the hall. “Give me thy arm, Vinicius, for strength fails me; Petronius will talk to me of music.”
They went out on the terrace, which was paved with alabaster and sprinkled with saffron.
“Here one can breathe more freely,” said Nero. “My soul is moved and sad, though I see that with what I have sung to thee on trial just now I may appear in public, and my triumph will be such as no Roman has ever achieved.”
“Thou mayst appear here, in Rome, in Achæa. I admire thee with my whole heart and mind, divinity,” answered Petronius.
“I know. Thou art too slothful to force thyself to flattery, and thou art as sincere as Tullius Senecio, but thou hast more knowledge than he. Tell me, what is thy judgment on music?”
“When I listen to poetry, when I look at a quadriga directed by thee in the Circus, when I look at a beautiful statue, temple, or picture, I feel that I comprehend perfectly what I see, that my enthusiasm takes in all that these can give. But when I listen to music, especially thy music, new delights and beauties open before me every instant. I pursue them, I try to seize them; but before I can take them to myself, new and newer ones flow in, just like waves of the sea, which roll on from infinity. Hence I tell thee that music is like the sea. We stand on one shore and gaze at remoteness, but we cannot see the other shore.”
“Ah, what deep knowledge thou hast!” said Nero; and they walked on for a moment, only the slight sound of the saffron leaves under their feet being heard.
“Thou hast expressed my idea,” said Nero at last; “hence I say now, as ever, in all Rome thou art the only man able to understand me. Thus it is, my judgment of music is the same as thine. When I play and sing, I see things which I did not know as existing in my dominions or in the world. I am Cæsar, and the world is mine. I can do everything. But music opens new kingdoms to me, new mountains, new seas, new delights unknown before. Most frequently I cannot name them or grasp them; I only feel them. I feel the gods, I see Olympus. Some kind of breeze from beyond the earth blows in on me; I behold, as in a mist, certain immeasurable greatnesses, but calm and bright as sunshine. The whole Spheros plays around me; and I declare to thee” (here Nero’s voice quivered with genuine wonder) “that I, Cæsar and god, feel at such times as diminutive as dust. Wilt thou believe this?”
“I will. Only great artists have power to feel small in the presence of art.”
“This is a night of sincerity; hence I open my soul to thee as to a friend, and I will say more: dost thou consider that I am blind or deprived of reason? Dost thou think that I am ignorant of this, that people in Rome write insults on the walls against me, call me a matricide, a wife-murderer, hold me a monster and a tyrant, because Tigellinus obtained a few sentences of death against my enemies? Yes, my dear, they hold me a monster, and I know it. They have talked cruelty on me to that degree that at times I put the question to myself, ‘Am I not cruel?’ But they do not understand this, that a man’s deeds may be cruel at times while he himself is not cruel. Ah, no one will believe, and perhaps even thou, my dear, wilt not believe, that at moments when music caresses my soul I feel as kind as a child in the cradle. I swear by those stars which shine above us, that I speak the pure truth to thee. People do not know how much goodness lies in this heart, and what treasures I see in it when music opens the door to them.”
Petronius, who had not the least doubt that Nero was speaking sincerely at that moment, and that music might bring out various more noble inclinations of his soul, which were overwhelmed by mountains of egotism, profligacy, and crime, said,--“Men should know thee as nearly as I do; Rome has never been able to appreciate thee.”
Cæsar leaned more heavily on Vinicius’s arm, as if he were bending under the weight of injustice, and answered,--
“Tigellinus has told me that in the Senate they whisper into one another’s ears that Diodorus and Terpnos play on the cithara better than I. They refuse me even that! But tell me, thou who art truthful always, do they play better, or as well?”
“By no means. Thy touch is finer, and has greater power. In thee the artist is evident, in them the expert. The man who hears their music first understands better what thou art.”
“If that be true, let them live. They will never imagine what a service thou hast rendered them in this moment. For that matter, if I had condemned those two, I should have had to take others in place of them.”
“And people would say, besides, that out of love for music thou destroyest music in thy dominions. Never kill art for art’s sake, O divinity.”
“How different thou art from Tigellinus!” answered Nero. “But seest thou, I am an artist in everything; and since music opens for me spaces the existence of which I had not divined, regions which I do not possess, delight and happiness which I do not know, I cannot live a common life. Music tells me that the uncommon exists, so I seek it with all the power of dominion which the gods have placed in my hands. At times it seems to me that to reach those Olympian worlds I must do something which no man has done hitherto,--I must surpass the stature of man in good or evil. I know that people declare me mad. But I am not mad, I am only seeking. And if I am going mad, it is out of disgust and impatience that I cannot find. I am seeking! Dost understand me? And therefore I wish to be greater than man, for only in that way can I be the greatest as an artist.”
Here he lowered his voice so that Vinicius could not hear him, and, putting his mouth to the ear of Petronius, he whispered,--“Dost know that I condemned my mother and wife to death mainly because I wished to lay at the gate of an unknown world the greatest sacrifice that man could put there? I thought that afterward something would happen, that doors would be opened beyond which I should see something unknown. Let it be wonderful or awful, surpassing human conception, if only great and uncommon. But that sacrifice was not sufficient. To open the empyrean doors it is evident that something greater is needed, and let it be given as the Fates desire.”
“What dost thou intend to do?”
“Thou shalt see sooner than thou thinkest. Meanwhile be assured that there are two Neros,--one such as people know, the other an artist, whom thou alone knowest, and if he slays as does death, or is in frenzy like Bacchus, it is only because the flatness and misery of common life stifle him; and I should like to destroy them, though I had to use fire or iron. Oh, how flat this world will be when I am gone from it! No man has suspected yet, not thou even, what an artist I am. But precisely because of this I suffer, and sincerely do I tell thee that the soul in me is as gloomy as those cypresses which stand dark there in front of us. It is grievous for a man to bear at once the weight of supreme power and the highest talents.”
“I sympathize with thee, O Cæsar; and with me earth and sea, not counting Vinicius, who deifies thee in his soul.”
“He, too, has always been dear to me,” said Cæsar, “though he serves Mars, not the Muses.”
“He serves Aphrodite first of all,” answered Petronius. And suddenly he determined to settle the affair of his nephew at a blow, and at the same time to eliminate every danger which might threaten him. “He is in love, as was Troilus with Cressida. Permit him, lord, to visit Rome, for he is dying on my hands. Dost thou know that that Lygian hostage whom thou gavest him has been found, and Vinicius, when leaving for Antium, left her in care of a certain Linus? I did not mention this to thee, for thou wert composing thy hymn, and that was more important than all besides. Vinicius wanted her as a mistress; but when she turned out to be as virtuous as Lucretia, he fell in love with her virtue, and now his desire is to marry her. She is a king’s daughter, hence she will cause him no detriment; but he is a real soldier: he sighs and withers and groans, but he is waiting for the permission of his Imperator.”
“The Imperator does not choose wives for his soldiers. What good is my permission to Vinicius?”
“I have told thee, O lord, that he deifies thee.”
“All the more may he be certain of permission. That is a comely maiden, but too narrow in the hips. The Augusta Poppæa has complained to me that she enchanted our child in the gardens of the Palatine.”
“But I told Tigellinus that the gods are not subject to evil charms. Thou rememberest, divinity, his confusion and thy exclamation, ‘Habet!’”
“I remember.”
Here he turned to Vinicius,--“Dost thou love her, as Petronius says?”
“I love her, lord,” replied Vinicius.
“Then I command thee to set out for Rome to-morrow, and marry her. Appear not again before my eyes without the marriage ring.”
“Thanks to thee, lord, from my heart and soul.”
“Oh, how pleasant it is to make people happy!” said Nero. “Would that I might do nothing else all my life!”
“Grant us one favor more, O divinity,” said Petronius: “declare thy will in this matter before the Augusta. Vinicius would never venture to wed a woman displeasing to the Augusta; thou wilt dissipate her prejudice, O lord, with a word, by declaring that thou hast commanded this marriage.”
“I am willing,” said Cæsar. “I could refuse nothing to thee or Vinicius.”
He turned toward the villa, and they followed. Their hearts were filled with delight over the victory; and Vinicius had to use self-restraint to avoid throwing himself on the neck of Petronius, for it seemed now that all dangers and obstacles were removed.
In the atrium of the villa young Nerva and Tullius Senecio were entertaining the Augusta with conversation. Terpnos and Diodorus were tuning citharæ.
Nero entered, sat in an armchair inlaid with tortoise-shell, whispered something in the ear of a Greek slave near his side, and waited.
The page returned soon with a golden casket. Nero opened it and took out a necklace of great opals.
“These are jewels worthy of this evening,” said he.
“The light of Aurora is playing in them,” answered Poppæa, convinced that the necklace was for her.
Cæsar, now raising, now lowering the rosy stones, said at last,--“Vinicius, thou wilt give, from me, this necklace to her whom I command thee to marry, the youthful daughter of the Lygian king.”
Poppæa’s glance, filled with anger and sudden amazement, passed from Cæsar to Vinicius. At last it rested on Petronius. But he, leaning carelessly over the arm of the chair, passed his hand along the back of the harp as if to fix its form firmly in his mind.
Vinicius gave thanks for the gift, approached Petronius, and asked,--“How shall I thank thee for what thou hast done this day for me?”
“Sacrifice a pair of swans to Euterpe,” replied Petronius, “praise Cæsar’s songs, and laugh at omens. Henceforth the roaring of lions will not disturb thy sleep, I trust, nor that of thy Lygian lily.”
“No,” said Vinicius; “now I am perfectly at rest.”
“May Fortune favor thee! But be careful, for Cæsar is taking his lute again. Hold thy breath, listen, and shed tears.”
In fact Cæsar had taken the lute and raised his eyes. In the hall conversation had stopped, and people were as still as if petrified. Terpnos and Diodorus, who had to accompany Cæsar, were on the alert, looking now at each other and now at his lips, waiting for the first tones of the song.
Just then a movement and noise began in the entrance; and after a moment Cæsar’s freedman, Phaon, appeared from beyond the curtain. Close behind him was the consul Lecanius.
Nero frowned.
“Pardon, divine Imperator,” said Phaon, with panting voice, “there is a conflagration in Rome! The greater part of the city is in flames!”
At this news all sprang from their seats.
“O gods! I shall see a burning city and finish the Troyad,” said Nero, setting aside his lute.
Then he turned to the consul,--“If I go at once, shall I see the fire?”
“Lord,” answered Lecanius, as pale as a wall, “the whole city is one sea of flame; smoke is suffocating the inhabitants, and people faint, or cast themselves into the fire from delirium. Rome is perishing, lord.”
A moment of silence followed, which was broken by the cry of Vinicius,--
“Væ misero mihi!”
And the young man, casting his toga aside, rushed forth in his tunic. Nero raised his hands and exclaimed,--
