Lucius lay on his cushions sobbing like a child. Beside him sat old
Thrasyllus, with his hand on his master's heaving shoulder:
"Lucius, pray control yourself," he said. "Master yourself and yield
piously to Fate. Ilia is gone, she is gone. She is probably gone for
ever. She has disappeared. Pirates must have kidnapped her while
she was bathing.... Do not think of her any more. Life is rich in
promise. Fortune has favoured you not only with untold treasures,
but also with genius and soul. You love beauty and study, every
art and every science. You did well to follow my advice at last
and not to go on languishing with grief in the villa at Baiae. Yes,
it is sold. We shall never go back there. The villa is sold to
Caesar. For almost nothing. Tiberius can look upon it as a gift! What
does it matter? Forget the villa and ... forget Ilia.... We are now
sailing towards Egypt, the birthplace of all wisdom, the cradle of
humanity. You did well to follow my advice: you needed distraction,
my dear young master; and this distraction will bring healing to
your sick soul. To-morrow we shall reach Alexandria. The voyage is
auspicious and will probably be completed without storms. Try to
sleep now; and, once again, thank you for your kind word. You are
generous. I had nothing to forgive, but I am grateful that you love me
better than you would a simple slave. Good-night. Good-night, Lucius."
The tutor left the pavilion:
"Draw the curtains close, Tarrar," he said to the Libyan
boy. "Noiselessly."
"Yes, Thrasyllus," said the child.
The tutor walked to the end of the long deck. The sailors' song
was hushed, the hymn was hushed; only the rowers' melancholy phrase
sounded very softly, muffled in undertone.
The old man stopped. On a pile of cushions lay Catullus, Lucius'
penniless uncle, pot-bellied as Silenus and with a bald and shining
pate; and on a low chair sat Cora, the Greek slave from Cos. Her
harp stood like a rounded bow by her side; and she leant her head
against it.
"Well, Thrasyllus," mumbled Catullus, sleepily, "how goes it with
my nephew?"
"He has spoken a kind word to me," replied the tutor, joyfully.
"A kind word?" cried Catullus, raising himself, with his hands still
behind the grey fringe of his cranium. "I shall become jealous! I
have not had a kind word since that wench bolted...."
"Ssh! Be silent, worthy Catullus," said Thrasyllus. "He believes that
she has been kidnapped. Leave him in that belief."
"And every one knows--the steersman told me so himself--that she
ran away with Carus the Cypriote, the sailor! Every one knows it,
all the sailors and rowers...."
"Ssh!" Thrasyllus repeated. "Never tell him! He worshipped the woman
and she was not worth it! She reigned as queen in his house ... and
she ran away with Carus the Cypriote! She left a master like Lucius
for a scoundrel like Carus!"
"And Lucius still believes that Venus watches over him!"
"Why should the goddess not watch over him, my Lord Catullus? Ilia
was not worthy of Lucius: the goddess was in very truth watching
over Lucius when she aroused that mad passion in Ilia. Who knows what
great and high happiness she has in store for him in the future?"
"I don't believe in the gods, Thrasyllus, not even in Bacchus," said
Catullus. "You know I don't. Since the gods ordained that I should
be born as poor as a rat and my nephew surrounded by every earthly
treasure, since ... since I was a babe at the breast, I have not
believed in the gods! And least of all in Venus ... though I could
almost begin to believe in her when Cora sings to her as she has
been doing."
The Greek slave raised her head from the harp on which she was leaning:
"Did I sing well?" she asked. "Thrasyllus, did I sing well?"
"Very well indeed, Cora," said Thrasyllus.
"Did he say anything about my song?"
"No," said Thrasyllus, "he did not."
"Has he never said anything about my singing?"
"No, Cora; he is suffering too much to take notice of it."
"Poor Cora!" said Catullus. "She has been singing hymns to Aphrodite
for three months now, ever since Ilia went away and since you,
Thrasyllus, bought Cora for her beautiful voice, to divert Lucius
a little; and I believe that Lucius has not even observed that Cora
can sing ... much less realized that she exists!"
"It doesn't matter," said the Greek slave, leaning her head against
the harp again.
Catullus yawned and puffed out his stomach:
"I shall stay and sleep here in my cushions," he said. "I shall not go
to my pavilion. I shall stay and sleep here, under the stars. To-morrow
we shall be at Alexandria! Alexandria! The city with the most exquisite
cooking, so they say! I am tired of Rome and Baiae; I am really tired
of roast peacock and oysters. Nothing but Rome and roast peacock;
nothing but Baiae and oysters: I shall end by turning into a peacock or
an oyster! Change of diet is the secret of good health. I was losing
my gaiety and had not a joke left in me to charm an occasional laugh
out of Lucius. He did not even listen to me, Cora, when I was witty
... and you expect him to listen to your song! He listens to nothing
and nobody since Ilia is gone."
"Was she so very beautiful?" asked Cora.
"She was very beautiful," said Thrasyllus, with grave appreciation.
"She was beautiful," Catullus echoed, in airy praise, "but she was
too heavy and too big. Her ankles were not slender. Her wrists were
as thick as a man's."
"She was very beautiful," Thrasyllus repeated. "She was as beautiful
as a goddess."
"That is just where I never agreed," cried Catullus, vehemently,
"either with you or with my nephew. You both said that she was like
a goddess...."
"She was like the Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles," Thrasyllus persisted.
"I could never see it!" Catullus persisted, in his turn. "I could
never see it. There may have been something of Praxiteles' Venus in
the lines of her body ... something, perhaps, though much coarser;
but her face certainly lacked the charm, the smile of that divine
statue. Now, though I do not believe in the gods, though I do not
believe in Venus, I do believe in my own correct and sometimes
sober opinion! I was not in love with Ilia as Thrasyllus and Lucius
were! And really, between ourselves, I can understand her bolting,
though she did reign as queen in the house. She was far too much
admired for her divine ankles and wrists and for her big feet and
hands! Did she not sometimes have to turn and turn for a hour, while
Lucius lay looking at her, to turn on a revolving pedestal, which two
slaves under the floor moved round and round and round, and did not
Lucius grow angry if she stirred? 'I can't endure this, uncle!' she
would often declare to me; and I can well understand it. To play at
being a living statue strikes me as wearisome; and I also should say,
'Thank you for nothing,' if my nephew were to take it into his head,
because nature has at least blessed me with a fairly perfect form,
to make me turn and turn on a revolving pedestal as Cupid with his
bow and arrow or as Ganymede with a drinking-cup in his hand! What
do you say, dreamy Cora?"
"I don't know," said Cora. "No one will ask me to pose as the Cnidian
Venus. I have nothing but my voice...."
"And I nothing but a terrible sleepy feeling!" yawned Catullus. "I
shall stay and sleep here, under the stars...."
He stretched himself and heaved his body over; two slaves approached
and covered him carefully with silken sheets and woollen blankets and
pushed pillows under his head, his loins and his feet. He accepted
their attentions like a child. And, when he had turned over, he at
once fell asleep like a child, with not a wrinkle of care in his bald
forehead, which shone like ivory in the soft light of the stars.
Cora had risen to her feet:
"Good-night, Thrasyllus," she said.
"Good-night, Cora," said the tutor, paternally.
The Greek slave, her harp tucked into her arm, moved away slowly. She
lifted the hanging of a cabin which she shared above-deck with some
other slaves. These were sleeping in six or seven narrow beds close
together. A rose-coloured lantern shed a vague glimmer, here over
a hip rounded in sleep, there over a face with shut eyes, framed in
black tresses and white, raised arms.
The slave undressed in silence. Her muslin peplos woven with gold
flowers fell from her. She stood naked. She looked at her wrists,
which were slim, like a patrician's. She stooped and looked at her
ankles. She arched the instep of her narrow, shapely foot. And she
passed her slender fingers over her hips, which were like a virgin's,
and over her waist, round which she could almost make her two hands
meet. Then she took up a metal hand-mirror and looked at herself in
the light of the rose-coloured lantern. She half-closed her big eyes,
which were like gigantic sapphires in mother-o'-pearl shells, very
soft, very bright, very big, with the streak of antimony stretching
to the temples. Then she smiled.
But next she gave a very deep sigh. She lay down on her little narrow
bed between two other beds. A slave had moved slightly in her sleep,
muttering. Cora drew a sheet over herself; and her great eyes stared,
without seeing, into the rose-coloured lantern.
In the windless night the ship glided over the sea, which was calm
as a lake; and there was nothing but the beating of the oars and the
lulling melodious phrase of the rowers....
Sometimes ... a sing-song order from the steersman, up in his look-out
turret....
And then a creaking of heavy ropes over great pulleys....