ENMITY SOFTENED. LOVE THE SAME, BECAUSE THE ONE LOVING IS BLIND.
THE night was somewhat advanced, and the gay lounging places of the Pompeians were still crowded. You might observe in the countenances of the various idlers a more earnest expression than usual. They talked in large knots and groups, as if they sought by numbers to divide the half-painful, half-pleasurable anxiety which belonged to the subject on which they conversed: it was a subject of life and death.
A young man passed briskly by the graceful portico of the Temple of Fortune--so briskly, indeed, that he came with no slight force full against the rotund and comely form of that respectable citizen Diomed, who was retiring homeward to his suburban villa.
'Holloa!' groaned the merchant, recovering with some difficulty his equilibrium; 'have you no eyes? or do you think I have no feeling? By Jupiter! you have well nigh driven out the divine particle; such another shock, and my soul will be in Hades!'
'Ah, Diomed! is it you? forgive my inadvertence. I was absorbed in thinking of the reverses of life. Our poor friend, Glaucus, eh! who could have guessed it?'
'Well, but tell me, Clodius, is he really to be tried by the senate?'
'Yes; they say the crime is of so extraordinary a nature that the senate itself must adjudge it; and so the lictors are to induct him formally.'
'He has been accused publicly, then?'
'To be sure; where have you been not to hear that?'
'Why, I have only just returned from Neapolis, whither I went on business the very morning after his crime--so shocking, and at my house the same night that it happened!'
'There is no doubt of his guilt,' said Clodius, shrugging his shoulders;'and as these crimes take precedence of all little undignified peccadilloes, they will hasten to finish the sentence previous to the games.'
'The games! Good gods!' replied Diomed, with a slight shudder: 'can they adjudge him to the beasts?--so young, so rich!'
'True; but then he is a Greek. Had he been a Roman, it would have been a thousand pities. These foreigners can be borne with in their prosperity;but in adversity we must not forget that they are in reality slaves.
However, we of the upper classes are always tender-hearted; and he would certainly get off tolerably well if he were left to us: for, between ourselves, what is a paltry priest of Isis!--what Isis herself? But the common people are superstitious; they clamor for the blood of the sacrilegious one. It is dangerous not to give way to public opinion.'
'And the blasphemer--the Christian, or Nazarene, or whatever else he be called?'
'Oh, poor dog! if he will sacrifice to Cybele or Isis, he will be pardoned--if not, the tiger has him. At least, so I suppose; but the trial will decide. We talk while the urn's still empty. And the Greek may yet escape the deadly Theta of his own alphabet. But enough of this gloomy subject. How is the fair Julia?'
'Well, I fancy.'
'Commend me to her. But hark! the door yonder creaks on its hinges; it is the house of the praetor. Who comes forth? By Pollux! it is the Egyptian!
What can he want with our official friend!'
'Some conference touching the murder, doubtless,' replied Diomed; 'but what was supposed to be the inducement to the crime? Glaucus was to have married the priest's sister.'
'Yes: some say Apaecides refused the alliance. It might have been a sudden quarrel. Glaucus was evidently drunk--nay, so much so as to have been quite insensible when taken up, and I hear is still delirious--whether with wine, terror, remorse, the Furies, or the Bacchanals, I cannot say.'
'Poor fellow!--he has good counsel?'
'The best--Caius Pollio, an eloquent fellow enough. Pollio has been hiring all the poor gentlemen and well-born spendthrifts of Pompeii to dress shabbily and sneak about, swearing their friendship to Glaucus (who would not have spoken to them to be made emperor!--I will do him justice, he was a gentleman in his choice of acquaintance), and trying to melt the stony citizens into pity. But it will not do; Isis is mightily popular just at this moment.'
'And, by-the-by, I have some merchandise at Alexandria. Yes, Isis ought to be protected.'
'True; so farewell, old gentleman: we shall meet soon; if not, we must have a friendly bet at the Amphitheatre. All my calculations are confounded by this cursed misfortune of Glaucus! He had bet on Lydon the gladiator; Imust make up my tablets elsewhere. Vale!'
Leaving the less active Diomed to regain his villa, Clodius strode on, humming a Greek air, and perfuming the night with the odorous that steamed from his snowy garments and flowing locks.
'If,' thought he, 'Glaucus feed the lion, Julia will no longer have a person to love better than me; she will certainly doat on me--and so, I suppose, Imust marry. By the gods! the twelve lines begin to fail--men look suspiciously at my hand when it rattles the dice. That infernal Sallust insinuates cheating; and if it be discovered that the ivory is clogged, why farewell to the merry supper and the perfumed billet--Clodius is undone!
Better marry, then, while I may, renounce gaming, and push my fortune (or rather the gentle Julia's) at the imperial court.'
Thus muttering the schemes of his ambition, if by that high name the projects of Clodius may be called, the gamester found himself suddenly accosted; he turned and beheld the dark brow of Arbaces.
'Hail, noble Clodius! pardon my interruption; and inform me, I pray you, which is the house of Sallust?'
'It is but a few yards hence, wise Arbaces. But does Sallust entertain to-night?'
'I know not,' answered the Egyptian; 'nor am I, perhaps, one of those whom he would seek as a boon companion. But thou knowest that his house holds the person of Glaucus, the murderer.'
