Part 8 (2/2)

It was a hot, sultry afternoon and it suited her coachman to drive homeward along the Subura, that thronged and unsavory Bowery of ancient Rome. Three street urchins were teasing and maltreating a rough coated, muddy little cur. Brinnaria called imperiously to her lictor to interfere. He was too far ahead to hear her. Her coachman had all he could do to control her mettlesome span of Spanish mares. She spoke to the boys and they laughed at her. Before she knew it she had flung open her carriage door, had leapt out, had cuffed soundly the ears of the three dumbfounded gamins, and was back among her cus.h.i.+ons, the dog in her arms.

This escapade brought upon her a visit from the Pontifex of Vesta, the semi-globular Faltonius Bambilio, diffusing pomposity. From him she had to listen to a long lecture on deportment and to a reading of the minutes of the meeting of the College of Pontiffs which had discussed her public misbehavior.

CHAPTER VI - NOTORIETY

WITHIN a month she did far worse. She perpetrated, in fact, a deed with the fame of which not only the city, but the Empire rang; made herself notorious everywhere.

It was on the occasion of her introductory visit to the Colosseum when, for the first time, she was a spectator at an exhibition of fighting gladiators. She was in a high-strung state of elation and antic.i.p.ation.

Going to the Amphitheatre, in itself, was a soul-stirring experience.

Meffia, to Brinnaria's joy, had been on duty that day, along with Numisia. This alone was enough to put Brinnaria in a good humor.

Meffia's presence spoiled for her any sort of pleasure. Then, besides, they drove to the Colosseum, not in their light carriages, but two by two in their gorgeous state coaches, huge vehicles, of which the woodwork was elaborately carved and heavily gilded and whose cus.h.i.+ons and curtains were all of that splendid official color, the imperial purple. The name conveys to us a false impression, for the hue known then as imperial purple was not what we should call a purple, but a deep, dark crimson, like the tint of claret in a goblet. Against a background of this magnificent color, the Vestals, habited all in white, showed conspicuously. Their stately progress through the streets, gazed at and pointed at by the admiring crowds, was conducive to high spirits.

Still more so was it to be ushered obsequiously through cool corridors and up carpeted stairs to the Vestals' private loge, a roomy s.p.a.ce immediately to the right of the imperial pavilion. To be inside the Colosseum at last set her eyes dancing and her heart thumping; the antic.i.p.ation of actually viewing the countless fights of many hundreds of gladiators increased her excitement; to be seated in front seats, with nothing but the carved stone coping between her and the arena was most exhilarating of all. She was delighted with her great, carved arm-chair, deeply cus.h.i.+oned and so heavy that it was as firm on its solid oak legs as if bolted to the stone floor. She settled herself in it luxuriously, gazed across the smooth yellow sand, glanced up at the gay, parti-colored awning, and then conned the vast audience, line after line of rose-crowned heads rising tier above tier all about her.

She scanned the faces in the front row to left and right as far as she could make them out clearly. She peered across the open s.p.a.ce of the arena, puckering her eyes to see better. When she caught sight of what she was looking for she turned timidly, leaned past Manlia and asked Causidiena:

”May I wave my hand to mother?”

”Certainly, my child,” Causidiena a.s.sured her.

Brinnaria waved her little hand and was seen, and felt the thrill of a general family handwaving in reply.

Suddenly she experienced a qualm of bashfulness, as if every one in the enormous gathering were looking at her, watching her. She cast down her eyes, wrapped her white robe close about her, hiding her hands under it, and shrank into her arm-chair. For a while, for a long while, she fanned herself nervously, very slowly, and striving to appear calm. Gradually she became calm and laughed to herself at her own folly, realizing that n.o.body was noticing her.

n.o.body noticed her. Many spectators noticed the Vestals, but no one noticed her individually. This she realized acutely before the day was over.

At about the time when she began to feel herself at ease the entrance of the Emperor and his suite distracted her attention from herself. When the trumpet blew, announcing the approach of the Imperial party, a hush fell on the vast audience and all eyes turned towards the grand pavilion. When the trumpet blew the second time, just before the Emperor came in sight, the hush deepened and the spectators watched intently.

When his head appeared as he mounted the stairs the audience burst into the short, sharply staccato song of welcome, something like a tuneful, sing-song college yell, with which Roman crowds greeted their master.

This vocal salute, a mere tag of eight or nine syllables, each with its distinctive note, was repeated over and over until the Emperor was seated.

Then the audience settled themselves into their seats. Brinnaria had instinctively started to rise when she caught sight of the Emperor.

Manlia had put out a restraining hand. The Vestals, alone of all Romans, remained seated in the presence of the Emperor, not even rising when he appeared.

Marcus Aurelius was a tall, spare man of over forty years of age, with abundant hair curling in long ringlets over his chest and shoulders, and a full beard mingling with the carefully disposed curls. He was a serious-faced man, careworn and solemn.

Brinnaria regarded him with interest. She had never seen him so close and she felt a sudden fellow-feeling for him from the sense of semi-equality with him that flooded through her at having remained seated. She recalled vividly the half-dozen times she had watched from balconies the pa.s.sage of processions in which the Emperor took part, how her mother had made her stand up the moment he came in sight and had kept her standing until he was far away. Her sudden exaltation in social position was borne in upon her with startling emphasis. Not even her carriage rides had impressed her so tellingly with the sensation of her own importance in the great world of Imperial Rome.

”How does he look to you?” Manlia asked. They were seated in the order of their seniority, Causidiena on the right, then Gargilia, Manlia next Brinnaria.

”He looks crushed under his responsibilities and anxieties,” Brinnaria replied. ”He looks depressed, even sad.”

”He is all that, poor man,” her neighbor agreed, ”and no wonder in these days. The Parthians are at us on the east, the Germans in the north, and there have been more than twelve deaths in the palace each day for twenty consecutive days now. This pestilence is enough to make anybody sad.”

”More than that,” Brinnaria countered. ”He looks irritated and bored.

Everybody else is alert and keyed up with antic.i.p.ation. His eyes are dull and he looks as if he wished that the show was over and he could go home.”

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