Plautius did not answer that question—a carefulness which touched even Petronius somewhat, for, with all his inability to feel the difference between good and evil, he had never been an informer; and it was possible to talk with him in perfect safety. He changed the conversation again, therefore, and began to praise Plautius’s dwelling and the good taste which reigned in the house.
“It is an ancient seat,” said Plautius, “in which nothing has been changed since I inherited it.”
After the curtain was pushed aside which divided the atrium from the tablinum, the house was open from end to end, so that through the tablinum and the following peristyle and the hall lying beyond it which was called the oecus, the glance extended to the garden, which seemed from a distance like a bright image set in a dark frame. Joyous, childlike laughter came from it to the atrium.
“Oh, general!” said Petronius, “permit us to listen from near by to that glad laughter which is of a kind heard so rarely in these days.”
“Willingly,” answered Plautius, rising; “that is my little Aulus and Lygia, playing ball. But as to laughter, I think, Petronius, that our whole life is spent in it.”
“Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it,” answered Petronius, “but laughter here has another sound.”
“Petronius does not laugh for days in succession,” said Vinicius; “but then he laughs entire nights.”
Thus conversing, they passed through the length of the house and reached the garden, where Lygia and little Aulus were playing with balls, which slaves, appointed to that game exclusively and called spheristae, picked up and placed in their hands. Petronius cast a quick passing glance at Lygia; little Aulus, seeing Vinicius, ran to greet him; but the young tribune, going forward, bent his head before the beautiful maiden, who stood with a ball in her hand, her hair blown apart a little. She was somewhat out of breath, and flushed.
In the garden triclinium, shaded by ivy, grapes, and woodbine, sat Pomponia Graecina; hence they went to salute her. She was known to Petronius, though he did not visit Plautius, for he had seen her at the house of Antistia, the daughter of Rubellius Plautus, and besides at the house of Seneca and Polion. He could not resist a certain admiration with which he was filled by her face, pensive but mild, by the dignity of her bearing, by her movements, by her words. Pomponia disturbed his understanding of women to such a degree that that man, corrupted to the marrow of his bones, and self-confident as no one in Rome, not only felt for her a kind of esteem, but even lost his previous self-confidence. And now, thanking her for her care of Vinicius, he thrust in, as it were involuntarily, domina, which never occurred to him when speaking, for example, to Calvia Crispinilla, Scribonia, Veleria, Solina, and other women of high society. After he had greeted her and returned thanks, he began to complain that he saw her so rarely, that it was not possible to meet her either in the Circus or the Amphitheater; to which she answered calmly, laying her hand on the hand of her husband:
“We are growing old, and love our domestic quiet more and more, both of us.”
Petronius wished to oppose; but Aulus Plautius added in his hissing voice—“And we feel stranger and stranger among people who give Greek names to our Roman divinities.”
“The gods have become for some time mere figures of rhetoric,” replied Petronius, carelessly. “But since Greek rhetoricians taught us, it is easier for me even to say Hera than Juno.”
He turned his eyes then to Pomponia, as if to signify that in presence of her no other divinity could come to his mind: and then he began to contradict what she had said touching old age.
“People grow old quickly, it is true; but there are some who live another life entirely, and there are faces moreover which Saturn seems to forget.”
Petronius said this with a certain sincerity even, for Pomponia Graecina, though descending from the midday of life, had preserved an uncommon freshness of face; and since she had a small head and delicate features, she produced at times, despite her dark robes, despite her solemnity and sadness, the impression of a woman quite young.
Meanwhile little Aulus, who had become uncommonly friendly with Vinicius during his former stay in the house, approached the young man and entreated him to play ball. Lygia herself entered the triclinium after the little boy. Under the climbing ivy, with the light quivering on her face, she seemed to Petronius more beautiful than at the first glance, and really like some nymph. As he had not spoken to her thus far, he rose, inclined his head, and, instead of the usual expressions of greeting, quoted the words with which Ulysses greeted Nausikaa—
“I supplicate thee, O queen, whether thou art some goddess or a mortal! If thou art one of the daughters of men who dwell on earth, thrice blessed are thy father and thy lady mother, and thrice blessed thy brethren.”
The exquisite politeness of this man of the world pleased even Pomponia. As to Lygia, she listened, confused and flushed, without boldness to raise her eyes. But a wayward smile began to quiver at the corners of her lips, and on her face a struggle was evident between the timidity of a maiden and the wish to answer; but clearly the wish was victorious, for, looking quickly at Petronius, she answered him all at once with the words of that same Nausikaa, quoting them at one breath, and a little like a lesson learned—
“Stranger, thou seemest no evil man nor foolish.”
Then she turned and ran out as a frightened bird runs.
This time the turn for astonishment came to Petronius, for he had not expected to hear verses of Homer from the lips of a
