VINICIUS did not lie down that night. Some time after the departure of Petronius,
when the groans of his flogged slaves could allay neither his rage nor his pain,
he collected a crowd of other servants, and, though the night was far advanced,
rushed forth at the head of these to look for Lygia. He visited the district of the
Esquiline, then the Subura, Vicus Sceleratus, and all the adjoining alleys.
Passing next around the Capitol, he went to the island over the bridge of
Fabricius; after that he passed through a part of the TransTiber. But that was a
pursuit without object, for he himself had no hope of finding Lygia, and if he
sought her it was mainly to fill out with something a terrible night. In fact he
returned home about daybreak, when the carts and mules of dealers in
vegetables began to appear in the city, and when bakers were opening their
shops.
On returning he gave command to put away Gubo's corpse, which no one had
ventured to touch. The slaves from whom Lygia had been taken he sent to rural
prisons, -- a punishment almost more dreadful than death. Throwing himself at
last on a couch in the atrium, he began to think confusedly of how he was to find
and seize Lygia.
To resign her, to lose her, not to see her again, seemed to him impossible; and at
this thought alone frenzy took hold of him. For the first time in life the imperious
nature of the youthful soldier met resistance, met another unbending will, and he
could not understand simply how any one could have the daring to thwart his
wishes. Vinicius would have chosen to see the world and the city sink in ruins
rather than fail of his purpose. The cup of delight had been snatched from before
his lips almost; hence it seemed to him that something unheard of had
happened, something crying to divine and human laws for vengeance.
But, first of all, he was unwilling and unable to be reconciled with fate, for never
in life had he so desired anything as Lygia. It seemed to him that he could not
exist without her. He could not tell himself what he was to do without her on the
morrow, how he was to survive the days following. At moments he was
transported by a rage against her, which approached madness. He wanted to
have her, to beat her, to drag her by the hair to the cubiculum, and gloat over
her; then, again, he was carried away by a terrible yearning for her voice, her
form, her eyes, and he felt that he would be ready to lie at her feet. He called to
her, gnawed his fingers, clasped his head with his hands. He strove with all his
might to think calmly about searching for her, -- and was unable. A thousand
methods and means flew through his head, but one wilder than another. At last
the thought flashed on him that no one else had intercepted her but Aulus, that in
every case Aulus must know where she was hiding. And he sprang up to run to
the house of Aulus.
If they will not yield her to him, if they have no fear of his threats, he will go to
Caesar, accuse the old general of disobedience, and obtain a sentence of death
against him; but before that, he will gain from them a confession of where Lygia
is. If they give her, even willingly, he will be revenged. They received him, it is
