Chapter LXIX
About dawn of the following day two dark figures were moving along theAppian Way toward the Campania.
One of them was Nazarius; the other the Apostle Peter, who was leavingRome and his martyred co-religionists.
The sky in the east was assuming a light tinge of green, borderedgradually and more distinctly on the lower edge with saffron color.Silver-leafed trees, the white marble of villas, and the arches ofaqueducts, stretching through the plain toward the city, were emergingfrom shade. The greenness of the sky was clearing gradually, andbecoming permeated with gold. Then the east began to grow rosy andilluminate 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, onthe houses dotting it, on the cemeteries, on the towns, and on groups oftrees, among which stood white columns of temples.
The road was empty. The villagers who took vegetables to the city hadnot succeeded yet, evidently, in harnessing beasts to their vehicles.From the stone blocks with which the road was paved as far as themountains, there came a low sound from the bark shoes on the feet of thetwo travellers.
Then the sun appeared over the line of hills; but at once a wonderfulvision struck the Apostle's eyes. It seemed to him that the goldencircle, instead of rising in the sky, moved down from the heights andwas 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 slightestsound of steps reached their ears. It was perfectly still all around.Nazarius saw only that the trees were quivering in the distance, as ifsome one were shaking them, and the light was spreading more broadlyover 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 eyeswere looking forward, motionless; his mouth was open; on his face weredepicted astonishment, delight, rapture.
Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and thiscry 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 andsweet voice, which said,--
"If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a secondtime."
The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion orspeech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but herose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned withouta 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.
Paul, John, Linus, and all the faithful received him with amazement; andthe alarm was the greater, since at daybreak, just after his departure,pretorians had surrounded Miriam's house and searched it for theApostle. But to every question he answered only with delight andpeace,--
"I have seen the Lord!"
And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach andbaptize those who wished to bathe in the water of life.
And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasingnumbers. It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessorswere born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousandsof breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan worldwas mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness,those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery andoppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, cameto hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had givenHimself to be crucified and redeem their sins.
When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that whichthe society of the time could not give any one,--happiness and love.
And Peter understood that neither Caesar nor all his legions couldovercome the living truth,--that they could not overwhelm it with tearsor blood, and that now its victory was beginning. He understood withequal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road. That city ofpride, crime, wickedness, and power was beginning to be His city, andthe double capital, from which would flow out upon the world governmentof souls and bodies.