“Now, for a while I am as one who has cast off a nightmare,” said Domitia to herself. “He is away—why he has attended Titus to the Sabine land I know not, unless the Emperor could not trust him in Rome—or may be, in his goodness he has done it to relieve me of his presence. I will go see my mother.”

Domitia ordered her litter and bearers. She had no trinkets to put on, save the fish of cornelian. Her mother liked to see her tricked out, and usually when Domitia paid her a visit she adorned herself to please the old lady,—now she could not assume jewelry as she had lost all her articles of precious stones and metal. So she hung the cornelian amulet about her neck.

When a Roman lady went forth in palanquin, it was in some state. Before her went two heralds in livery, to clear the way and announce her coming at the houses where she purposed calling, then she had six bearers, and attendants of her own sex, carrying her scent bottles, kerchiefs, fans, and whatever she might think it possible she would require.

Domitia was impatient of display, but it had been imposed on her by the Emperor. “The Flavians,” said he smiling, “must make a show in public.”

A Roman lady was at this period expected to wear yellow hair, if she would be in the fashion. Under the [pg 230]Flavians, it was a compliment to the reigning princes to affect this color. It was true that the word flavus meant anything in color, from mud upwards to what might be termed yellow by courtesy. It was employed as descriptive of the Tiber, that was of the dingiest of drabs, and of the Campagna when every particle of vegetation was burnt up on it, and the tone was that of the dust-heaps. But now that the parsnip-haired Flavians were divine and all-powerful, the adjective was employed to describe the harvest field and gold. Ladies talked of their hair as “flavan” when it had been dyed with saffron and dusted with gold. Not to have yellow hair was expressive of disaffection to the dynasty—so every lady who would be in the fashion, and every husband who wanted office, first bleached and then dyed their hair, and as hair was occasionally thin, they employed vast masses of padding and borrowed coils from German “fraus” to make the utmost show of their loyalty to the august house of the divine Flavii.

Domitia dared not be out of fashion, and she was constrained to submit to having her chestnut hair dredged with gold-dust before she went forth on her visit. For her, conspicuously to wear her hair in its natural color would at once have provoked animadversion, and been interpreted as a publication, in most defiant manner, of the domestic discord that was a topic of gossip in the saloons of Rome.

When she had entered her palanquin, she gave her orders and was carried lightly down the sloping road into the Forum. This was crossed, and then, drawing back the curtains of her litter, she said:—

“Eboracus, tell the fellows not to go at once to the [pg 231]CarinÆ. I have a fancy to see the wife of Paris the actor, in the Insula of Castor and Pollux.”

She was playing with the fish suspended on her bosom, as she was being conveyed down the hill, and the thought had come to her that she had not seen Glyceria for a long time, and that now was a good occasion as her husband—whom these visits annoyed, and who had in fact forbidden them—was absent from Rome.

The porters at once entered the narrow, tortuous lanes, where the lofty blocks of buildings cut off all sun and made twilight in midday.

As Domitia stepped out of her litter, she saw coming down the street, a man much in the company of Domitian, for whom she entertained a particular dislike. He was a very dark man, and blind; his face was pointed, and his nose long; he ran with projecting head, turning his sharp nose from side to side, like a dog after game. His name was Valerius Messalinus.

One of his slaves whispered something into his ear, and he twisted about his head, and then came trotting in the direction of the litter of Domitia.

“Quick,” said she, “I must go in; I will not speak with that man. If he asks for me, say I am out—out of the litter.”

She at once entered the block of lodgings, and impatiently waved back her heralds, who would have ascended the stairs before her and pompously announced her arrival.

Taking Euphrosyne along with her, Domitia made her way towards the apartments of the crippled woman. But already the news had spread that men in the im[pg 232]perial livery had entered the building, and there was a rush to the balustrade to see them.

When Domitia reached the first landing, she saw that the women and children, and such men as were there, had ranged themselves on either side, to give her passage, every face was smiling, and lit with pleasure, the men raised their forefingers and thumbs to their mouths, and the women and children strove to catch her hand, or kneeling to touch, raise and kiss the hem of her dress.

If, at one time it had caused surprise that she a rich lady, should enter a common haunt of the poor, it was now a matter of more than surprise, of admiration and delight—to welcome the sister-in-law of the Emperor, one who it was whispered would some day be herself Empress, Augusta, and an object of religious worship.

This sort of welcome always went to the heart of Domitia, and gave her a choke in the throat.

The great people never regarded the poor, save as nuisances. An emperor had said of the populace that it was a wolf he held by the ears. And it was wolf-like because brutally treated, pampered as to food given without pay, supplied with scenes of bloodshed, also without cost, in the arena, every encouragement to work taken from it, every demoralizing, barbarizing influence employed to degrade it.

The great people were supremely indifferent to the sufferings of the small, provided no hospitals for the poor who were sick, no orphanages for the homeless children—let them die—and the faster the better,—that was one wish of the great;—then shall we be alone on the earth with our slaves.

Had these poor people hopes, ambitions, cares, sor[pg 233]rows? Did they love their wives, and hold to their hearts their cubs of children? Did they have any desire that their children should grow up to be good men and virtuous women? Oh, no! such rabble were not of one blood with the rich. They had no fine feelings, they were like the beasts; they were without human souls; and so, when the poor died their bodies were rammed down wells contrived to contain a thousand corpses at a time, and then heaped over with a little earth.

But Domitia had learned that it was not as supposed. Amidst the falsity, barbarity of heart, and coarseness of mind of such as were of the noble Roman order,—the cultured, the rich, the philosophic—there was no sincerity, no truth. She felt happier and better after one of these visits to the Insula in the Suburra as though her lungs had inhaled a purer atmosphere. To the smiles and kisses and blessings lavished on her, she answered with kindly courtesy—and then stepped into the room of the paralyzed woman. Glyceria was as much a cripple as when first visited. She was more wasted—some time had passed—but she hardly seemed older, only more beautiful in her purity, a diaphanous lamp of mother-of-pearl through which shone a supernatural light.

Domitia drew a deep sigh.

“Glyceria,” she said, “when I come here, it is to me like seeing a glimpse of blue sky after a day of rain, or—like the scent of violets that came on me the first time I visited you.”

“And when you, lady, come to me, it is as though a sunbeam shone into my dark chamber.”

“Nay, nay—no flattery from thee, or I shall hate [pg 234]thee. I get that till it cloys. But tell me now, times have been better, and why has not Paris moved into superior quarters? Surely he is in better employ and pay than of old.”

“It is so, but only to a small degree,” answered the actor’s wife. “Paris performs in the grand old dramas in Greek only; in those of Æschylus and Eurypides and Sophocles, he is a tragic actor,—and—” the poor woman smiled, “perhaps home troubles have taken the laughter out of him. He is a sad bungler in comedy. Now the taste of Rome is not for the masterpieces of the ancients. The people clamor to see an elephant dance on a tight-rope, and a man crucified who pours forth blood enough to swamp the stage—the Laureolus! that is the piece to bring down the house. Or some bit of buffoonery and indecency. To that the people crowd. However, we live; I hang as a log about my Paris’s neck, but thank God, he loves his log and would not be rid of it, so I am content.”

“But if you will suffer me to assist you,” said Domitia.

Glyceria shook her head. “No, dear lady, do not take it ill if I refuse your kind offer, made, not for the first time. I am very happy here, very—with these dear kind people about me, running in and out all the day, offering their gracious good wishes, lending their ready help. On my word, lady! I do believe that they would all be in tears and feel it as a slight if I were to go; and for myself, I could never be happy away from them.”

Domitia stood up and went to the door. Her heart swelled in her bosom.

“None but the poor know,” said the cripple, “how kind, how tender the poor are to one another. Poverty is a brotherhood—we are all of one blood, and one heart.”