I was eagerly watching these events from the corner of the "horse-dealer's" stall, my arms pinioned behind my back with double iron manacles, my legs chained and my feet fastened by fetters of enormous weight. I still felt under the influence of the sorcery that had been practiced upon me. Nevertheless, my blood, so long frozen in my veins, began to circulate more and more freely. A slight tremor occasionally went through my limbs. The spell was breaking. I was not the only one to tremble. The young Gallic women and the matron, forgetting their own shame and despair, experienced in their hearts of maid, of wife, or mother, a frightful horror at the fate of the children offered to that detestable old man.
Although half nude, they no longer thought of withdrawing themselves from the licentious looks of the spectators who were crowding at the entrance to the booth. Their eyes brooded with motherly terror upon the two veiled children, while the matron, bound to the post, her eyes glittering and her teeth set in impotent fury, raised her chained arms to heaven as if to call down the punishments of the gods upon such monstrosities.
At a sign from lord Trymalcion, the veils dropped—I recognized you both—you, my son Sylvest and your sister Syomara. You were both pale and wan; you were shivering with fear. Anguish was depicted in your tear-bathed faces. The long blonde hair of my little girl fell upon her shoulders. She dared not raise her eyes, neither did you; you held each other by the hand, closely clasped. Despite the terror that disfigured her face, I beheld my daughter in her singular and infantine beauty—accursed beauty! At sight of her Trymalcion's dead eyes lighted up and glistened like glowing coals in the middle of his wrinkled, paint-covered visage. He stood up, stretched out his emaciated arms towards my daughter as if to seize his prey, while a shocking smile disclosed his yellow teeth. Terror-stricken, Syomara threw herself back and clung to your neck. The merchant quickly tore you from each other and brought Syomara to the old man. The latter impatiently pushed away with his foot the slave that crouched on the ground before him, and grabbing my little girl, took her between his knees. He easily subdued the efforts she made to escape, while she uttered piercing cries; he violently snapped the strings that fastened my little girl's robe, and stripped her half naked in order to examine her chest and shoulders. While this was going on, the merchant was holding you back, my son, and I—the father of the two victims—I, loaded with chains, beheld the spectacle. At the sight of this crime of the patrician Trymalcion, outraging the chastity of a child, the three fettered Gallic women and the matron made a desperate but vain effort to break from their irons, and began to pour out a torrent of imprecations and groans.
Trymalcion finished complacently his disgusting examination, and said a few words to the merchant. Immediately a keeper replaced the robe on my girl, who was more dead than alive, wrapped her up in her long white veil, which he tied around her, and taking the slender burden under his arm, held himself in readiness to follow the old man, who was taking some gold from his purse to pay the merchant. At that moment of supreme despair—you and your sister, poor little ones bewildered with terror, cried out as if you believed you would be heard and succored:
"Mother! Father!"
Up to that moment I had witnessed the scene panting, almost crazy with grief and rage. Slowly my heart, struggling against the sorcery of the "horse-dealer," was gaining the upper hand. But at that cry, uttered by you and your sister, the charm broke with a clap. All my intelligence, all my courage rushed back to me. The sight of you two gave me such a shock, it threw me into such a transport of rage that, unable to break my irons, I rose upon my feet, and, with my hands still pinioned behind me, my legs still loaded with heavy chains, I bounded out of my stall with two leaps, and fell like a thunderbolt upon the old patrician. The shock caused the old man to roll under me. In default of the liberty of my hands to strangle him, I bit him in the face, near the neck. The "horse-dealers" and their keepers threw themselves upon me; but bearing with all my weight upon the hideous old debauchee, who was howling at the top of his voice, I kept my teeth in his flesh. The monster's blood filled my mouth—a shower of whip lashes and blows from sticks and stones rained upon me—yet I budged not. No more than our old war dog Deber-Trud the man-eater did I drop my prey.—No!—Like the dog, when I did let go, it was only to carry away between my teeth—a strip of flesh, a bleeding mouthful that I spat back into Trymalcion's hideous, tortured face, as he had spat at the Gallic women.
"Father! Father!" you cried out to me through the tumult. Wishing then to approach you two, my children, I stood up, an object of terror—aye, terror. For a moment a circle of fear surrounded the Gallic slave, with his load of irons.
"Father! Father!" you cried again, stretching out your little arms, in spite of the keepers who held you back. I made a bound toward you, but the merchant, from the top of the cage where you had been confined, suddenly threw a large piece of cloth over my head. At the same time I was seized by the legs, thrown down, and tied with a thousand bonds. The cloth, which covered my head and shoulders, was tied down around my neck, and through it they made a gap, which unfortunately permitted me to breathe—I had hoped to smother.
I felt myself being carried across to my own booth, where I was thrown on the straw, incapable of making the slightest motion. Quite a while later I heard the centurion, my new master, in a sharp altercation with the "horse-dealer" and the merchant who had sold Syomara to Trymalcion. Presently they all went out. Silence reigned around me. Some time later, the dealer returned; he approached me; he kicked me angrily; he tore off the cover from my face, and said to me in a voice trembling with rage:
"Scoundrel! Do you know what it has cost me, that mouthful of flesh you tore out of the face of the noble Trymalcion? Do you know, ferocious beast? That mouthful of flesh cost me twenty sous of gold! More than half of what I sold you for, for I am responsible for your misdeeds, wretch! while you are in my stall, double villain! So that it is I who have made a present of your daughter to the old man. She was sold to him for twenty gold sous, which I paid in his stead. He insisted upon it. And even so I got off cheaply. He demanded that indemnity."[33]