‘Ye gods! how altered I am!’ he murmured; and he hid his face in his hands, as though to shut out the image in the mirror.
And then his dark hour came upon him. The paths of virtue which he had abandoned looked enchantingly beautiful to him. He saw them, and pined his loss. Was amendment hopeless? Might he not dismiss his evil friends, send Tigellinus to an island, banish Poppæa from his thoughts, return to the neglected Octavia, abandon his vicious courses, live like a true Roman? Was he about to develop into a Tiberius or a Caligula—he who had hated not long ago to sign the death-warrant of a criminal? Should history record of him hereafter that he had dyed the commencement of his power with the indelible crimson of a brother’s blood?
‘I am a tyrant and a murderer,’ he cried. ‘I am falling, falling headlong. Cannot I check myself in this career? Ye gods! ye gods!’
Whom had he to help him to choose the difficult course? Who would encourage him to turn his back on his past self? The philosophers, he felt, despised him. He could recall the cold, disapproving glances of Musonius, and Cornutus, and Demetrius the Cynic, on the rare occasions when he had seen them. And as for Seneca, of what use would it be to send for him? ‘I have learnt to distrust Seneca,’ he said to himself. ‘He might have advised me better than he did in the matter of Acte.’
But the powers of evil never lightly resign a soul in which they have once planted their throne, and they took care to bring back upon Nero’s heart a great flood of jealousy, suspicion, and dislike. And as he gave himself up to these ill-feelings, he began to feel how disagreeable it would be to grow up year by year with such a youth as Britannicus beside him. It would be impossible to keep him in leading-strings, or to thrust him wholly into the background. What if the virtues of Britannicus should only throw into relief the vices of Nero? ‘No,’ he said; ‘Britannicus must die.’
So Nero deliberately chose the evil and refused the good, and the narrow wicket-gate of repentance was closed behind him, and the enemies of his soul flung wide open before him the portals of crime, and the wild steeds of his passions, as they sprang forth on their down-hillward path, soon flung from his seat the charioteer who had seemed inclined for one brief instant to tighten the reins and check their headlong speed.
CHAPTER XXIII
PERILS OF BRITANNICUS
‘Cast thine eye
On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;