The tutor left the pavilion:
“Draw the curtains close, Tarrar,” he said to the Libyan boy. “Noiselessly.”
“Yes, Thrasyllus,” said the child.
The tutor walked to the end of the long deck. The sailors’ song was hushed, the hymn was hushed; only the rowers’ melancholy phrase sounded very softly, muffled in undertone.
The old man stopped. On a pile of cushions lay Catullus, Lucius’ penniless uncle, potbellied as Silenus and with a bald and shining pate; and on a low chair sat Cora, the Greek slave from Cos. Her harp stood like a rounded bow by her side; and she leant her head against it.
“Well, Thrasyllus,” mumbled Catullus, sleepily, “how goes it with my nephew?”
“He has spoken a kind word to me,” replied the tutor, joyfully.
“A kind word?” cried Catullus, raising himself, with his hands still behind the grey fringe of his cranium. “I shall become jealous! I have not had a kind word since that wench bolted. …”
“Ssh! Be silent, worthy Catullus,” said Thrasyllus. “He believes that she has been kidnapped. Leave him in that belief.”
“And everyone knows—the steersman told me so himself—that she ran away with Carus the Cypriote, the sailor! Everyone knows it, all the sailors and rowers. …”
“Ssh!” Thrasyllus repeated. “Never tell him! He worshipped the woman and she was not worth it! She reigned as queen in his house … and she ran away with Carus the Cypriote! She left a master like Lucius for a scoundrel like Carus!”
“And Lucius still believes that Venus watches over him!”
“Why should the goddess not watch over him, my Lord Catullus? Ilia was not worthy of Lucius: the goddess was in very truth watching over Lucius when she aroused that mad passion in Ilia. Who knows what great and high happiness she has in store for him in the future?”
“I don’t believe in the gods, Thrasyllus, not even in Bacchus,” said Catullus. “You know I don’t. Since the gods ordained that I should be born as poor as a rat and my nephew surrounded by every earthly treasure, since … since I was a babe at the breast, I have not believed in the gods! And least of all in Venus … though I could almost begin to believe in her when Cora sings to her as she has been doing.”
The Greek slave raised her head from the harp on which she was leaning:
“Did I sing well?” she asked. “Thrasyllus, did I sing well?”
“Very well indeed, Cora,” said Thrasyllus.
“Did he say anything about my song?”
“No,” said Thrasyllus, “he did not.”
“Has he never said anything about my singing?”
“No, Cora; he is suffering too much to take notice of it.”
“Poor Cora!” said Catullus. “She has been singing hymns to Aphrodite for three months now, ever since Ilia went away and since you, Thrasyllus, bought Cora for her beautiful voice, to divert Lucius a little; and I believe that Lucius has not even observed that Cora can sing … much less realized that she exists!”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Greek slave, leaning her head against the harp again.
Catullus yawned and puffed out his stomach:
“I shall stay and sleep here in my cushions,” he said. “I shall not go to my pavilion. I shall stay and sleep here, under the stars. Tomorrow we shall be at Alexandria! Alexandria! The city with the most exquisite cooking, so they say! I am tired of Rome and Baiae; I am really tired of roast peacock and oysters. Nothing but Rome and roast peacock; nothing but Baiae and oysters: I shall end by turning into a peacock or an oyster! Change of diet is the secret of good health. I was losing my gaiety and had not a joke left in me to charm an occasional laugh out of Lucius. He did not even listen to me, Cora, when I was witty … and you expect him to listen to your song! He listens to nothing and nobody since Ilia is gone.”
“Was she so very beautiful?” asked Cora.
“She was very beautiful,” said Thrasyllus, with grave appreciation.
“She was beautiful,” Catullus echoed, in airy praise, “but she was too heavy and too big. Her ankles were not slender. Her wrists were as thick as a man’s.”
“She was very beautiful,” Thrasyllus repeated. “She was as beautiful as a goddess.”
“That is just where I never agreed,” cried Catullus, vehemently, “either with you or with my nephew. You both said that she was like a goddess. …”
“She was like the Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles,” Thrasyllus persisted.
“I could never see it!” Catullus persisted, in his turn. “I could never see it. There may have been something of Praxiteles’ Venus in the lines of her body … something, perhaps, though much coarser; but her face certainly lacked the charm, the smile of that divine statue. Now, though I do not believe in the gods, though I do not believe in Venus, I do believe in my own correct and sometimes sober opinion! I was not in love with Ilia as Thrasyllus and Lucius were! And really, between ourselves, I can understand her bolting, though she did reign as queen in the house. She was far too much admired for her divine ankles and wrists and for her big feet and hands! Did she not sometimes have to turn and turn for a hour, while Lucius lay looking at
