She was confident too that now neither Aulus nor Pomponia would be
answerable for her actions; she was thinking therefore whether it would
not be better to resist and not go to the feast. On the one hand fear
and alarm spoke audibly in her soul; on the other the wish rose in her
to show courage in suffering, in exposure to torture and death. The
Divine Teacher had commanded to act thus. He had given the example
himself. Pomponia had told her that the most earnest among the
adherents desire with all their souls such a test, and pray for it. And
Lygia, when still in the house of Aulus, had been mastered at moments by
a similar desire. She had seen herself as a martyr, with wounds on her
feet and hands, white as snow, beautiful with a beauty not of earth, and
borne by equally white angels into the azure sky; and her imagination
admired such a vision. There was in it much childish brooding, but
there was in it also something of delight in herself, which Pomponia had
reprimanded. But now, when opposition to Cæsar's will might draw after
it some terrible punishment, and the martyrdom scene of imagination
become a reality, there was added to the beautiful visions and to the
delight a kind of curiosity mingled with dread, as to how they would
punish her, and what kind of torments they would provide. And her soul,
half childish yet, was hesitating on two sides. But Acte, hearing of
these hesitations, looked at her with astonishment as if the maiden were
talking in a fever. To oppose Cæsar's will, expose oneself from the
first moment to his anger? To act thus one would need to be a child
that knows not what it says. From Lygia's own words it appears that she
is, properly speaking, not really a hostage, but a maiden forgotten by
her own people. No law of nations protects her; and even if it did,
Cæsar is powerful enough to trample on it in a moment of anger. It has
pleased Cæsar to take her, and he will dispose of her. Thenceforth she
is at his will, above which there is not another on earth.