th at last
in an irresistible torrent of words. To Lygia his words appeared
blasphemous, but still her heart began to beat as if it would tear the
tunic enclosing her bosom. She could not resist pity for him and his
suffering. She was moved by the homage with which he spoke to her. She
felt beloved and deified without bounds; she felt that that unbending
and dangerous man belonged to her now, soul and body, like a slave;
and that feeling of his submission and her own power filled her with
happiness. Her recollections revived in one moment. He was for her again
that splendid Vinicius, beautiful as a pagan god; he, who in the house
of Aulus had spoken to her of love, and roused as if from sleep her
heart half childlike at that time; he from whose embraces Ursus had
wrested her on the Palatine, as he might have wrested her from flames.
But at present, with ecstasy, and at the same time with pain in his
eagle face, with pale forehead and imploring eyes,--wounded, broken by
love, loving, full of homage and submissive,--he seemed to her such as
she would have wished him, and such as she would have loved with her
whole soul, therefore dearer than he had ever been before.

All at once she understood that a moment might come in which his love
would seize her and bear her away, as a whirlwind; and when she felt
this, she had the same impression that he had a moment before,--that she
was standing on the edge of a precipice. Was it for this that she had
left the house of Aulus? Was it for this that she had saved herself by
flight? Was it for this that she had hidden so long in wretched parts of
the city? Who was that Vinicius? An Augustian, a soldier, a courtier of
Nero! Moreover he took part in his profligacy and madness, as was shown
by that feast, which she could not forget; and he went with others
to the temples, and made offerings to vile gods, in whom he did not
believe, perhaps, but still he gave them official honor. Still more he
had pursued her to make her his slave and mistress, and at the same time
to thrust her into that terrible world of excess, luxury, crime, and
dishonor which calls for the anger and vengeance of God. He seemed
changed, it is true, but still he had just said to her that if she would
think more of Christ than of him, he was ready to hate Christ. It seemed
to Lygia that the very idea of any other love than the love of Christ
was a sin against Him and against religion. When she saw then that other
feeli