Roads from Rome | Page 8

her emeralds
and her shimmering Cean silks and then travelled to the nude grace of
Venus the Plunderer. He faced her violently. "Clodia," he said, slaying
a sentence on her lips, "Clodia, do you know that hell is here on this
earth and that such as you help to people it? There is no Tityus, his
heart eaten out by vultures, save the victim of passion. And what
passion is more devouring than that frenzy of the lover which is never
satisfied? Venus's garlanded hours are followed by misery. She
plunders men of their money, of their liberty, of their character. Duties
give way to cups and perfumes and garlands. And yet, amid the very
flowers pain dwells. The lover fails to understand and sickness creeps
upon him, as men sicken of hidden poison. Tell me," he added brutally,
leaning toward her, "for who should know better than you? does not the
sweetest hour of love hold a drop of bitter? Why do you not restore
your lovers to their reason, to the service of the state, to a knowledge of
nature?"
His eyes were hot with pity for the world's pain. Hers grew cold.
"Jove," she sneered, "rules the world and kisses Juno between the
thunderbolts. Men have been known to conquer the Helvetii with their
right hands and bring roses to Venus with their left. Your 'poison' is but
the spicy sauce for a strong man's meat, your 'plundering' but the
stealing of a napkin from a loaded table. Look for your denizens of hell
not among lovers of women, but among lovers of money and of power
and of fame. Their dreams are the futile frenzies."

"Dreams!" Lucretius interrupted. Clodia shrank a little from the strange
look in his eyes. "Do you, too, dream at night? I worked late last night,
struggling to fit into Latin words ideas no Latin mind ever had. Toward
morning I fell asleep and then I seemed to be borne over strange seas
and rivers and mountains and to be crossing plains on foot and to hear
strange noises. These waked me at last and I sprang up and walked out
into the Campagna where the dawn was fresh and cool. But all day I
have scarcely felt at home. And I may dream again to-night. This time
my dead may appear to me. They often do." He walked toward her
suddenly and his eyes seemed to bore into hers. "Do you ever dream of
your dead?" A horrible fright took possession of her. She fell back
against the Venus, her sea-green dress rippling upon the white marble,
and covered her eyes with her hands. When she looked again, Lucretius
was gone.
How terrible he had been to-day! Dream of the dead, he had said, the
dead! And why had he talked of _a hidden poison of which men might
sicken and die_? She felt a silly desire to shriek, to strike her head
against the painted wall, to tear the jewels from her ears. The orange cat
arched its back and rubbed its head against her. She kicked it fiercely,
and its snarl of pain seemed to bring her to her senses. She picked the
creature up and stroked it. The bird in the cage broke into a mad little
melody. How morbid she was growing! She had been depressed by her
ridiculous dinner and Lucretius had been most unpleasant. He was such
a fool, too, in his idea of love. The brevity of the heated hours was the
flame's best fuel. Venus the Plunderer seemed to smile, and there
quickened within her the desire for excitement, for the exercise of
power, for the obliterating ecstasies of a fresh amour. She had not had a
lover since she accepted Catullus. How the thought of that boy
sickened her! He had been so absurd that first day when she went to
him at Allius's. After writing her that his heart was an AEtna of
imprisoned fire, in the first moment he had reminded her of ice-cold
Alps. He had knelt and kissed her foot and then had kissed her lips--her
lips!--as coolly as a father might kiss a child. The unleashed passion,
the lordly love-making which followed had won her. But that first
caress and its fellow at later meetings was like crystal water in strong
wine--she preferred hers unmixed. Of a poet she had had enough for

one while; if she ever wanted him back she need only say so.
In the mean time it would be a relief to play the game with a man who
understood it. Youth she enjoyed, if it were not too inexperienced.
Caelius's smile, for instance, boyish and inviting, had seemed to her full
of promise. He was worth the winning and was close at hand. Catullus