While I sat in my former master's stall awaiting the arrival of my new purchaser to take me away, the cloth that covered the entrance of the opposite stall was raised.
On one side were three beautiful young women, the same, I doubted not, who a little before had filled the air with groans and supplications while their clothes were being torn off them, in order to exhibit their charms to purchasers. They were still half nude, their feet bare, plastered with chalk[29] and fastened by rings to a long iron bar. Huddled close together, these three held one another in such close embrace that two of them, still crushed down with shame, hid their faces in the bosom of the third. The latter, pale and somber, hung her head, letting her disheveled black hair fall before her bruised and naked breast—bruised no doubt in the vain struggle against the keepers who disrobed her. A short distance from them, two little children, three or four years old, bound around their waists merely by a light cord fastened to a stake, laughed and played in the straw with the heedlessness common to their age. The children evidently did not belong to either of the three women.
At the other side of the stall I saw a matron of the noble carriage of my mother Margarid. Manacles were on her wrists, shackles on her ankles. She was standing, leaning against a beam to which she was chained by the waist. She stood still as a statue; her grey hair disordered, her eyes fixed, her face livid and fearful. Time and again she gave vent to a burst of threatening and crazy laughter. Finally, at the rear of the stall, was a cage resembling the one which I myself had occupied. In that cage, if what the "horse-dealer" said was true, would be my two children. Tears filled my eyes. In spite of my weakness, the thought of my children, so close to me, caused a flush of warmth to rise to my face—a symptom of my returning powers.
And now, Sylvest, my son, you for whom I write this report, read slowly what is now about to follow. Aye, read slowly, to the end that every word may imbue your soul with its indelible hatred for the Romans—a hatred that I feel certain must some day, the day of vengeance, break out with terrific force. Read, my son, and you will understand how your mother, after having given life to you and your sister, after having heaped all her tenderness upon you, could in the end give you no stronger proof of her maternal love than by endeavoring to kill you, to the end that she might carry you hence, to return to life in the other world at her side and in the circle of our family. Alas! You survived her foresight!
This, my son, is what happened!
I had my eyes fixed on the cage in which I surmised you and your sister were imprisoned, when I saw an old man, richly dressed, enter the stall. It was the rich patrician Trymalcion, worn out as much by debauchery as by years. His dull, cold, corpse-like eyes seemed to look into vacancy. His hideously wrinkled visage was half hidden under a coat of thick paint. He wore a frizzled yellow wig, earrings blazing with precious stones, and in the girdle of his robe a large bouquet, of which his red plush mantle off and on allowed a glimpse.[30] He painfully dragged his limbs after him, leaning on the shoulders of two young slaves fifteen or sixteen years of age, who were luxuriously dressed, but in such a style, and so effeminately, that it was impossible to tell whether they were young men or girls. Two other and older slaves followed. One carried under his arm his master's thick cloak, the other a golden night-vessel.[31]
The proprietor of the stall hastened to receive his patrician customer with tokens of reverence, exchanged a few words with him, and then moved forward a stool on which the old man let himself down. As the seat had no back, one of the young slaves immediately stationed himself motionless behind his master, to serve him as a support, while the other slave lay down on the ground at a sign from the patrician, lifted his feet, which were encased in rich sandals, and wrapping them in a fold of his own robe, held them to his breast to warm them.[32]
Thus supported with his back and feet on the bodies of his slaves, the old man spoke some words to the merchant. The latter first pointed toward the three half-naked women. At sight of them, Trymalcion turned half way round and spat at them, as if to evince the most sovereign disdain.
At this indignity, the old man's slaves and the Romans, assembled in the vicinity of the stall, broke into coarse laughter. Then the merchant pointed out to lord Trymalcion the two children playing on the straw. The senile debauchee shrugged his shoulders, while he uttered some horrible words. His words must have been horrible, because the laughter redoubled.
The merchant, hoping at last to please so fastidious a customer, went up to the cage, opened it, and brought out three children, draped in long white veils which hid their faces. Two of the children corresponded in height to my son and daughter; the other was smaller. The smallest one was the first to be unveiled to the eyes of the old man. I recognized her as the daughter of one of my relatives, whose husband was killed in the defense of the chariot; the mother had killed herself with the other women of the family, forgetting in that supreme moment, to kill the little one. The girl was sickly and without beauty. Patrician Trymalcion looked her over rapidly and made an impatient gesture with his hand, as if annoyed that they should dare to offer to his sight so unattractive an object. She was, accordingly, taken back to the cage by a keeper. The other two children remained, still veiled.