The Unwilling Vestal | Page 2

created out and out not merely his Vestal, but his Vestals, their
circumstances and the life which they are represented as leading: that

he has manufactured his local color to suit as he went along.
Nothing could be further from the actuality. The details of rule and
ritual, of dress and duties, of privileges and punishments are set forth in
accordance with a full first-hand and intimate acquaintance with all
available evidence touching the Vestals; including all known
inscriptions relating to them, every passage in Roman or Greek
literature in any way concerning them, the inferences drawn from all
existing or recorded sculptures and coins which add to our knowledge
of them, and every treatise written since the revival of learning in
Europe in which the Vestals are discussed. The story contains no
preposterous anachronisms or fatuous absurdities. Throughout, it either
embodies the known facts or is invented in conformity with the known
facts.
Any one to whom chapter twenty-one seems incredible should consult
an adequate encyclopedia article or an authoritative treatise on physics
and read up on the surface tension of liquids.
End of Preface by Author
Contents

Book I
The Rage of Disappointment
I. Precocity II. Sieves III. Stutterings IV. Pestilence V. Escapades VI.
Notoriety VII. Audience
Book II
The Revolt of Despondency
VIII. Scourging IX. Alarms X. Conference XI. Farewell XII.
Observances XIII. Perversity XIV. Amazement
Book III
The Rebellion of Desperation
XV. Rehabilitation XVI. Vagary XVII. Recklessness XVIII. Fury XIX.
Comfort
Book IV
The Revulsion of Delight
XX. Accusation XXI. Ordeal XXII Triumph XXII. Salvage

Book I

The Rage of Disappointment


Chapter I
- Precocity

"Brinnaria!" he said severely, "you will marry any man I designate."
"I never shall marry any man," she retorted positively, "except the man
I want to marry."
She gazed unflinchingly into her father's imperious eyes, wide-set on
either side of a formidable Roman nose. His return gaze was less
incensed than puzzled. All his life he had been habituated to
subserviency, had never met opposition, and to find it from his
youngest daughter, and she a mere child, amazed him. As she faced
him she appeared both resolute and tremulous. He looked her up and
down from the bright blue velvety leather of her little shoes on which
the gilt sole-edges and gilt laces glittered to the red flower in her brown
hair. Inside her clinging red robe the soft outlines of her young shape
swelled plump and healthy, yet altogether she seemed to him but a
fragile creature. Resistance from her was incredible.
Perhaps this was one more of her countless whims. While he
considered her meditatively he did not move his mighty arms or legs;
the broad crimson stripe down his tunic rose and fell slowly above his
ample paunch and vaster chest as his breath came evenly; on his short
bull neck his great bullet head was as moveless as if he had been one of
the painted statues that lined the walls all about. As the two regarded
each other they could hear the faint splash of the fountain in the tank
midway of the courtyard.
Her father, a true Roman to his marrow, with all a Roman's arbitrary
instincts, reverted to the direct attack.
"You will marry Pulfennius Calvaster," he commanded.
"I will not!" she declared.
He temporized.
"Why not?" he queried.

The obstinacy faded from Brinnaria's handsome, regular face. She
looked merely reflective
"In the first place," she said, "because I despise him and hate him worse
than any young man I ever knew; I would not marry Calvaster if he
were the only man left alive. In the second place, because, if all the
men on earth were courting me at once, all rich and all fascinating and
Caius were poor and anything and everything else that he isn't, I'd
marry nobody ever except Caius. You hear me, Father. Caius Segontius
Almo is the only, only man I'll ever marry. Nothing can shake my
resolution, never."
She was breathing eagerly, her cheeks flushed a warm red through her
olive complexion, her eyes shining till tiny specks sparkled green and
yellow in the wide brown of her big irises.
Her father's jaw set.
"I've listened to you, daughter," he said. "Now you listen to me. I have
no objections to Almo; I rather like him. I have thought of marrying
you to him; if Segontius and I had not quarreled, we might have
arranged it. There is no possibility of it now. And just now, for some
reason or other, Pulfennius is keen on arranging a marriage between
you and Calvaster. His offers are too tempting to be rejected and the
chance is to good to be missed. Our properties adjoin not only here and
at Baiae, but also at Praeneste, at Grumentum