Domitia

“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When the slave had withdrawn, she addressed Paris and Glyceria.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.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SATURNALIA OF 69

Eboracus brushed aside some urchins and girls blocking the door, looking in with eager, twinkling eyes at the strange lady and at the set out of dolls on the table.

There passed whispers and nudges from one to another – but all ceased as the British slave put together his hands as a swimmer and plunged through them.

“Get away you sprats and gudgeons,” said he, good-humoredly.

Then entering, he said to Domitia: