CHAPTER XXV.
BY A RAZOR.
Two days passed, and Domitia remained undisturbed. No tidings reached herfrom Rome, but to her great relief the Caesar Domitian did not appear. Thata meeting with him must take place, she was aware, but in what manner hewould address her, that she could not guess; whether he would takeoccasion to exhibit ignoble revenge for her treatment of him on the nightwhen he sought refuge in her house, or whether he would approach her as alover. This the sequel could alone disclose. The second alternative waswhat she mainly dreaded.
On the third day, hearing a bustle in the hall, and conjecturing that someone had arrived, and that the critical moment had come, Domitia waited inher chamber with beating heart, and long-drawn sighs. When the curtainswere sharply withdrawn, to her surprise and delight her mother entered,radiant in her best toilette, her face, as far as could be judged throughthe paint, wreathed with smiles.
"Well!" said she.--"But first a seat. You sly fox! who would have thoughtit? But there--I am content. I have sent out no invitations to a littlesupper, there is now no occasion for it, and one does not care tospend--without an expectation of it leading to results. To look at yourface no one would have supposed that depth in you--and to play us all sucha trick, poor Lamia and me. It would really make a widow of a week oldlaugh. Don't smother me, my dear, and above all, don't cry--that is to say,if you cry do not let your tears fall on my cheek, you know Iam--well--well--it might spoil my complexion."
"Mother," gasped the unhappy girl--"O, how can you speak to me in thismanner. You know, you must know, I have been carried away against my will.O mother, Lucius does not suppose that----"
"My dear child, it does not concern me in the least, whether the kittencarried off the rat, or the rat the kitten. Here you are in the rat'shole, and all you have to look to is to eat your rat and not let the rateat you."
"Oh, mother! mother! take me home with you."
"Domitia, do not be a baby. Of course you cannot return. You have biddenfarewell to the household Gods, and renounced the paternal threshold."
"Mother--I have embraced the gate-posts of the Lamiae."
"But the Gods of that family have been unable or unwilling to retain you,they have resigned you to--I cannot say, in conscience, nobler hands, forthe Flavian family--well, we know what we know,--but to more powerful hands,that will not let you go. Besides, my dear, I have no wish to have youhome again. When a bird has flown, it has said farewell to the nest, toits cracked eggshells and worms, and must find another."
"Do not be cruel!"
"I am not cruel--but what has happened must be accepted, that is the truephilosophy of life, better than all that nonsense declaimed byphilosophers."
"Mother! I will not stay here."
"Domitia, here you must stay till somebody comes to take you away. Why! asthe Gods love me! I expect yet to hear you proclaimed Augusta, and to haveto offer incense and to pour a libation on your altar. Think--what an honorto have your wax head among the ancestors, as a divinity to beworshipped--but no--I am wrong there, you would be in the _lararium_, or setup in the vestibule, a deified ancestress or member of the family isexalted from the atrium to the temple. I really will go out of my way andhave a little supper to honor the occasion. I see it all--we shall beforelong have a college of Flavian priests, and all the whole bundle of mouldyold usurers, and tax-collectors, and their frowsy womankind will be gods,with temples and a cult, and you, my dear! It makes my mouth water."
"But, mother, why am I carried away?"
"Why! O you jocose little creature, _why_? because some person I know ofhas taken a fancy to your monkey ways and baby face."
"I belong to Lamia. I have been married to him."
"Oh! that is easily settled. I thank the Immortals, divorce is easilyobtained in Rome--with money, influence in Rome--to the end of time, mydear."
"I do not desire to be divorced--I will not be divorced. I love Lucius andhe loves me."
"You are a child--just away from your dolls, and know nothing of life."
"But, mother, there are laws. I will throw myself on the protection of theSenate."
Longa Duilia laughed aloud. "Silly fool! laws bind the subjects and theweak, not princes and the strong. Make your mind up to accept what hashappened. It is the work of destiny."
"It is an infamous crime."
"My child, do not use such words, what might be crime among common folk ispleasantry among princes. They all do it. It is their right. It is of noavail your attempting resistance. Domitian has taken a fancy to you--he isyoung, good-looking, Caesar, all sorts of honors have been heaped on him,and he has but to put out a rake and comb together all the good in theworld. And"--she drew nearer to her daughter,--"he may be Emperor some day.Titus has but one lumpy, ugly girl--no son."
"I care not. I hate him! let me go back to Lamia!"
"That is impossible."
"Not if I will!"
"You cannot. You would be stayed by the servants here."
"But you--cannot you help me? O mother, if you have any love for me! Forthe sake of my dear, dear father!"
"Even if I would, I could not. Why, there is not a court in Rome, not theSenate even can afford you protection and release. The Flavians are upnow."
"I will appeal to Vespasian, to the Emperor!"
"He is in Egypt."
The girl panted and beat her head with her hands.
"Lamia! he shall release me."
"He needs some one to release him."
"How so?"
"He insulted Domitian in the Senate House--all because of you, and is underarrest. For less matters, than what he has done, lives have been lost."
"He will never--no, never!" she could not finish her sentence, her heartwas boiling over, and she burst into a paroxysm of sobs.
"The Gods! the Gods help me!" she cried.
"My dear Domitia, you might as well call on the walls to assist you. TheGods! They are just as bad as mortals. You may cry, but they will lookbetween their fingers, accept your prayers and offerings and laugh at youas a fool. Why, as the Gods love me! Does not the family derive fromLamius, and was not he the child of Hercules and Omphale? It was verynaughty and shocking, and all that sort of thing--but they all do it, andare not in the least disposed to assist you. On the contrary, they willback up the ravisher."
"Then I have no help--save in myself. I will never be his."
"Be advised by me, you foolish child. When you come under a cherry treeyou pluck all the ripe fruit; and what you cannot eat yourself you give toyour friends. Do you not perceive that having been fortunate enough tocatch the fancy of the young Caesar, you can use this fancy and make largeprofit out of it? He is already very freely distributing offices to allhis friends and such as most grossly flatter him. What may not you obtainfor me! That is if I take a liking for any one and wish to marry him, youmust positively obtain the proconsulship of Syria or Egypt for him. And asto Lamia, he can be choked off with a praetorship."
The veil was plucked aside, and Domitian entered.
Longa Duilia rose; not so Domitia Longina.
He stood for a moment looking at the girl.
"Saucy still?" he said.
"Wrathful at this treatment," she answered, with her eyes on the ground,and her hands clasped. "Because I would have denied to you a suppliant,the hospitality of our house, must I, unsoliciting it, be forced to acceptyours?"
"Domitia, has your mother informed you what I have designed for you?"
"I should prefer that you concerned yourself with your praetorial duties."
Domitian bit his lip. He had been invested with the office of praetor ofthe city, but in his overweening conceit deemed it unworthy of him todischarge the duties of the office.
"It is my intent, Domitia, to elevate you into the Flavian family."
"O how gracious!" sneered the girl,--"taken up like Trygdeus."
"Domitia!" exclaimed her mother, then at
once perceiving that the allusionwas lost on the uneducated prince, she said:--
"Quite so, on the wings of the Bird of Jove."(7)
The young man became crimson. He was convinced that there was some bittersneer in the words of Domitia, and he was ashamed at his inability tocomprehend the allusion.
"What I intend for you," said he, moving from the doorway to where hecould observe her face, "what I intend for you is what there is notanother woman in Rome who would not give her jewels to obtain."
"Then I pray you address yourself to them. Pay your debts with theirsubscriptions, and leave me who am content to be disregarded, in thetranquillity I so love--with my husband, AElius Lamia."
"Lamia!" laughed Domitian. "You are to be divorced from him. Your motheris willing."
"My mother has no more power over me. I am out of the paternal family."
"You will consent yourself."
"Who will make me?"
"That will I. It is easy to rend apart----"
"Any fool can break, not all can bind."
"Domitia, be advised and do not incense me."
"I care not for myself. I have but one wish. Let me go. Take, if you will,what is my property, take that of Lamia, but let us retire together tosome little farm and be quiet there, drive us, if you will, out ofItaly--but do not separate us."
"You talk at random. Follow me."
He led the way, stood in the entrance, holding back the curtain, andDuilia drew her daughter from her seat.
"Come,--Lamia awaits you," said Domitian.
Then the girl started to her feet.
"He is here! You will be generous,--like a prince!"
"Come with me."
She now followed with beating heart. Her cheeks were flushed, a sparklewas in her eye, her breath came fast through her nostrils, her teeth wereset.
Without were many lictors lining the way, filling the court.
He led into that portion of the villa where were the baths and entered thewarm room. There Domitia saw at once Lamia, stripped almost to the skin,held by soldiers of the prince's guard, his mouth gagged, and a surgeonstanding by with a razor.
She would have sprung to him and thrown her arms around him, had she notbeen restrained.
"Domitia," said the young Caesar; "you will see how that to divorce you isin my power, unless you consent to it yourself, and give yourself to me."
Domitia trembled in every limb. She looked with distended eyes at Lamia,who had no power to speak, save with his eyes, and they were fixed on her.
A large marble bath stood near, and both hot and cold water could beturned on into it.
She knew but too well what the threat was. Seneca had so perished underNero,--by the cutting of the veins he had bled to death.
Petronius, master of the Revels to the same tyrant, had suffered in thesame manner, and as his blood flowed he had mocked and hearkened to ribaldverses till the power to listen and to flaunt his indifference were at anend.
And now the second Nero, not yet full blown, but giving earnest of what hewould be, was threatening Lamia with the same death. It was not a gradualand painless extinction, but a death of great suffering, for it led toagonizing cramps, knotting the muscles, and contracting the limbs. Domitiaknew this--she had heard the dying agonies of Seneca and Petroniusdescribed,--and she looked with quivering lips and bloodless cheeks on himwhom she loved best--on the only one in the world she loved, threatenedwith the same awful death.
She would do anything short of taking the Caesar Domitian as her husband inplace of him to whom she was bound by the most sacred ties,--anything shortof that to save the life of Lamia.
The struggle in her bosom was terrible; her head spun, she tried to speakbut could frame no words.
She sought some guidance in Lamia's eyes, but her own swam with tears, andshe could not read what he would advise.
"My child," said her mother, "of course it is all very sad, and that sortof thing--but it is and must be so. If a wilful girl will not be brought toreason in any other way--well, it is a pity."
Domitian turned to Domitia.
"His life is in your power," said he. "He has insulted me before theConscript Fathers, and is under arrest. I have brought him hither--to die.But I give his life to you on the one condition that you allow divorce tobe pronounced between you and him, and that in his place you accept me."
Domitia turned her face away.
"So be it," said he. "Surgeon, open his veins."
With a slash of the razor across the arm at the fold, an artery wassevered, and the black blood spurted forth.
Uttering a cry of horror, Domitia battled with those who held her, toreach and clasp her husband.
"Cut the other arm," commanded the prince, "then cast him into the bath."
"I yield," gasped Domitia, burying her face in her hands and sinking toher knees.
"Then bind up his wound, and let him go!"
"Destiny must be fulfilled," said Elymas who stood behind. "You were bornfor the purple."