IN THE HOUSE OF THE ACTOR.
Hardly had Eboracus conveyed Domitia out of the Forum into a place of
safety, than a rush of people down the street threatened to drive him back
in the direction whence he had come. The drifting mob, as it cascaded
down, cried: “The Prætorians are coming from their camp!”
It was so. Down the hill by the Tiburtine way marched a compact body of
soldiery.
The danger was imminent; Eboracus and his young charge were between two
masses of military, entangled in a seething mob of frightened people,
mostly of the lowest class.
“My lady!” said the slave. “There is but one thing to be done.”
He drew her to a door, knocked, and when a voice asked who demanded
admittance, answered,
“Open speedily—Paris!”
The door was furtively unbarred and opened sufficiently to admit the slave
and Domitia, and then hastily bolted and locked again.
“Excuse me, dear mistress,” said Eboracus. “I could do no other. In this
_insula_ live the actor Paris and Glyceria. They were both slaves in your
household, but were given their freedom by your father, my late master,
when he went to the East. They will place themselves at your service, and
offer you shelter in their humble dwelling, the first flat on the right.”
The house was one of those _insulæ_, islets of Rome in which great numbers
of the lower classes were housed. They consisted in square blocks, built
about a court, and ran to the height of seven and even more stories. The
several flats were reached by stone stairs that ran from the central yard
to the very summit of these barrack-like buildings. They vastly resembled
our modern model lodging-houses, with one exception, that they had no
exterior windows, or at most only slits looking into the street; doors and
windows opened into the central quadrangle. These houses were little
towns, occupied by numerous families, each family renting two or more
chambers on a flat, and as in a city there are diversities in rank, so was
it in these lodging-houses; the most abjectly poor were at the very top,
or on the ground floor. The first flat commanded the highest rent, and the
price of rooms gradually dwindled, the greater the elevation was. Glass
was too great a luxury, far too costly to be employed except by the most
wealthy for filling their windows. Even talc was expensive; in its place
thin films of agate were sometimes used; but among the poor there was
little protection in their dwellings against cold. The doors admitted
light and air and cold together, and were always open, except at night,
and then a perforation in the wood, or a small window in the wall, too
narrow to allow of ingress, served for ventilation.
In a huge block of building like the _insula_, there were no chimneys. All
cooking was done at the hearth in the room that served as kitchen and
dining-room, often also as bedroom, and the smoke found its way out at the
doorway into the central court.
But, in fact, little cooking of food was done, except the boiling of
pulse. The meals of the poor consisted mainly of salads and fruit, with
oil in abundance.
Dressed always in wool, in cold weather multiplying their wraps, the Roman
citizens felt the cold weather much less than we might suppose possible.
In the rain—and in Rome in winter it raineth almost every day—the
balconies were crowded, and then the women wove, men tinkered or patched
sandals, children romped, boys played marbles and knuckle-bones, and
sometimes a minstrel twanged a lyre and the young girls danced to keep
themselves warm. There were little braziers, moreover, one on every
landing, that were kept alight with charcoal, and here, when the women’s
fingers were numb, they were thawed, and children baked chestnuts or
roasted apples.
Domitia had never been in one of these blocks of habitations of the lower
classes before, and she was surprised. The quadrangle was almost like an
amphitheatre, with its tiers of seats for spectators; but here, in place
of seats, were balconies, and every balcony was alive with women and
children. Men were absent; they had gone out to see the commencement of
the Saturnalia, and of women there were few compared to the numbers that
usually thronged these balconies.
Eboracus conducted his young mistress up the first flight of steps, and at
once a rush of children was made to him to ask for toys and cakes. He
brushed them aside, and when the mothers saw by the purple edge to her
dress that Domitia belonged to a noble family, they called their
youngsters away, and saluted her by raising thumb and forefinger united to
the lips.
The slave at once conducted Domitia through a doorway into a little
chamber, where burnt a fire of olive sticks, and a lamp was suspended, by
the light of which she could see that a sick woman lay on a low bed.
Domitia shrank back; but Eboracus said encouragingly:
“Be not afraid, dear young mistress; this is no catching disorder;
Glyceria suffers from an accident, and will never be well again. She is
the sister of your servant Euphrosyne.”
Then, approaching the sick woman, he hastily explained the reason for his
taking refuge with his mistress in this humble lodging.
The sick woman turned to Domitia with a sweet smile, and in courteous
words entreated her to remain in her chamber so long as was necessary.
“My husband, Paris, the actor, is now out; but he will be home shortly, I
trust—unless,” her face grew paler with sudden dread, “some ill have
befallen him. Yet I think not that can be, he is a quiet, harmless man.”
“I thank you,” answered Domitia, and took a seat offered her by Eboracus.
She looked attentively at the sick woman’s face. She was no longer young,
she had at one time been beautiful, she had large, lustrous dark eyes, and
dark hair, but pain and weakness had sharpened her features. Yet there was
such gentleness, patience, love in her face, a something which to Domitia
was so new, a something so new in that old world, that she could not take
her eyes off her, wondering what the fascination was.
Glyceria did not speak again, modestly waiting till the lady of rank chose
to address her.
Presently Domitia asked:
“Have you been long ill?”
“A year, lady.”
“And may I inquire how it came about?”
“Alas! It is a sad story. My little boy——”
“You have a son?”
“I had——”
“I ask your pardon for the interruption; say on.”
“My little boy was playing in the street, when a chariot was driven
rapidly down the hill, and I saw that he would be under the horses’ feet,
so I made a dart to save him.”
“And then?”
“I was too late to rescue him, and I fell, and the wheel went over me. I
have been unable to rise since.”
“What! like this for all these months! What say the doctors?”
“Alack, lady! they give me no hope.”
“But for how long may this last?”
“I cannot say.”
“As the gods love me! if this befell me, I should refuse my food and
starve myself to death!”
“I cannot do that.”
“What! you lack the resolution?”
“I can bear what is on me laid by God.”
“There is no need to endure what can be avoided. I would make short work
of it, were this my lot. And your husband?”
“He is here.”
Through the door came the actor, a handsome man, of Greek type, with a
package in his arms. He would have walked straight to his wife, but had to
turn at the door and drive off a clamorous pack of urchins who had pursued
him, believing that he was laden with toys.
“There, Glyceria!” he exclaimed joyously; “they are all for you. There is
such a riot and disturbance and such a crush in the street, that I had
hard work to push through. I misdoubt me some are broken.”
“Oh, Paris! do you not observe?”
“What? I see nothing but thy sweet face?”
“Our dear master’s daughter, the lady Domitia Longina.”
The actor turned sharply, and was covered with confusion at the unexpected
sight, and almost let his parcel fall.
Eboracus explained the circumstances. Then Paris expressed his happiness,
and the pride he felt in being honored by the visit under his humble
ceiling, of the lady, the daughter of the good and beloved master who had
given him and Glyceria their freedom.
“Go forth, Eboracus,” said Domitia, “and I prithee learn how it has fared
with my mother. Bring me word speedily, if thou canst.”
When the slave had withdrawn, she addressed Paris and Glyceria.
“I beseech you, suffer me to remain here in quiet, and concern not
yourselves about me. I have been alarmed, and this has shaken me. I would
fain rest in this seat and not speak. Go on with what ye have to say and
do, and consider me not. So will you best please me.”
The actor was somewhat constrained at first, but after a little while
overcame his reserve. He drew a low table beside his wife’s couch, and,
stooping on one knee, began to unlade his bundle. He set out a number of
terra cotta figures on the table, representing cocks and hens, pigs,
horses, cows and men; some infinitely comical; at them Glyceria laughed.
Then, as she put forth a thin white hand to take up one of the quaintest
images, Domitia noticed that Paris laid hold of it, and pressed it to his
lips.
A lump rose in the girl’s throat.
“No,” thought she; “if I had one so to love me and consider me, though I
were sick and in pain, I would not shorten my days. I would live to enjoy
his love.”
Then again, falling into further musing, she said to herself:
“In time to come, if it chance that I become ill, will my Lamia be to me
as is this actor to his poor wife? Will he think of and care for me?
But—and if evil were to befall him, would not I minister to him, care for
him night and day, and seek to relieve his sorrow? Would I grow
indifferent when he most needed me? Then why think that he should become
cold and neglect me? Are women more inclined to be true than men?—Yet see
this actor—this Paris. By the Gods! Is Lamia like to be a more ignoble man
than a poor freedman that gains his living on the stage?—I should even be
happy serving him sick and suffering. Happy in doing my duty.”
And still musing, she said on to herself:
“Duty! Yes, I should find content and rest of mind in that; but to what
would it all lead? Only to a heap of dust in the end. His light would be
extinguished, and then I, having nothing else to live for, would die
also—by mine own hand:—there is nothing beyond. It all leads to an
ash-heap.”
Glyceria, observing the girl’s fixed eye, thought it was looking
inquiringly at her, and said in her gentle voice that vibrated with the
tremulousness given by suffering:
“Ah, lady! the neighbors and their children are very kind. There is more
of goodness and piety in the world than you would suppose, seeing men and
women only in an amphitheatre. I can do but very little. One boy fetches
me water—that is Bibulus, and my Paris has bought him this little
horseman—and Torquata, a little girl, daughter of a cobbler, she sweeps
the floor; and Dosithea, that is a good widow’s child; she does other
neighborly acts for me;—and they thrust me on my bed to the side of the
hearth, and bring me such things as I need, that I may prepare the meals
for my husband. And Claudia, the wife of a seller of nets, she makes my
bed for me; but all the shopping is done for me by Paris, and I warrant
you, lady, he is quite knowing, and can haggle over a fish or a turnip
with a market-woman like any housewife.”
“He is very good to you,” said Domitia.
Then Paris turned, and, putting his hand on his wife’s mouth, said:
“Lady! you can little know what a wife my Glyceria is to me. I had rather
for my own sake have her thus than hale as of old. Somehow, sorrow and
pain draw hearts together wondrously.”
“He is good,” said Glyceria, twisting her mouth from his covering hand.
“We have had a hard year; on account of the troubles, there has been
little desire among the people for the theatre, and he has earned but a
trifle. I have cost him much in physicians that have done me no good, yet
he never grumbles, he is always cheerful, always tender-hearted and
loving.”
“Hush, wife!” said Paris. “The lady desires rest. Keep silence.”
Then again Domitia fell a-musing, and the player and his wife whispered to
each other about the destination of the several toys.
Somehow she had hitherto not thought of the classes of men and women below
her station as having like feelings, like longings, like natures to her
own. They had been to her as puppets, even as those clay figures ranged on
the table, mostly grotesque. Now that great pulse of love that throbs
through the world of humanity made itself felt, it was as though scales
fell from her eyes, and the puppets became beings of flesh and blood to be
considered, capable of happiness and of suffering, of virtue as well as of
vice.
“I have a little lamp here—with a fish—_the_ fish on it,” said Paris in a
whisper. “It is for Luke, the Physician.”
“What!” exclaimed Domitia, starting from her reverie, “you know him? We
had a talk once, and it was broken off and never concluded. I would hear
the end of what he was saying—some day.”