Let us follow Him

Copyright, 1897, By Jeremiah Curtin. All rights reserved. Plimpton Press H. M. PLIMPTON & CO., PRINTERS & BINDERS, NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.

Although the story Let Us Follow Him is included in the new volume by Sienkiewicz entitled Hania, just issued in uniform style with Mr. Curtin's translations of the author's other works, its publication in a separate volume has been deemed advisable for the reason that this story gave to its author the idea of writing Quo Vadis, which has been the literary sensation of the past twelve months.
The period of Let Us Follow Him is that of the death of Christ. Antea, the wife of a Roman patrician, ill with terrible visions, is advised by a physician to seek the air of Jerusalem. There she and her husband meet Pilate, who tells them of the doctrine of the Nazarene, Jesus, and his condemnation to death. They are present at the Crucifixion, and Antea gives honor to the condemned Nazarene, saying, Thou art Truth.

Caius Septimius Cinna was a Roman Patrician. He had spent his youth in the legions and in severe camp-life. Later he returned to Rome to enjoy glory, luxury, and a great though somewhat shattered fortune. He used and abused at that time everything which the gigantic city could offer.
His nights were spent at feasts in lordly suburban villas; his days in sword practice with fencers, in discussions with rhetors at the baths, where disputes were held, and where the scandal of the city and the world was related, in circuses, at races, at the struggles of gladiators, or among Greek musicians, Thracian soothsayers, and wonderful dancing-girls from the islands of the Archipelago. He inherited from the renowned Lucullus, a relative on the mother's side, a love for exquisite dishes. At his table were served Grecian wines, Neapolitan oysters, Numidian mice, and locust fat preserved in honey from Pontus.
Whatever Rome possessed Cinna must have, beginning with fish of the Red Sea, and ending with white ptarmigans from the banks of the Borysthenes (Dnieper). He made use of things not only as a soldier run riot, but as a patrician who passes the measure. He had instilled into himself, or had perhaps even roused in himself, a love for the beautiful,—a love for statues rescued from the ruins of Corinth, for pitchers from Attica, for Etruscan vases from foggy Sericum, for Roman mosaics, for fabrics brought from the Euphrates, for Arabian perfumes, and for all the peculiar trifles which filled the void of patrician life.