She was determined that she would sit up this night and await his return in his own bedchamber; and, as opportunity occurred, would either assail him by reproaches, or win him back by caresses. How could she kill the interminable hours? She had no friend, no child, no confidante—none near her but slaves who hated her and yet trembled at her presence. She had no resources in herself, nothing to occupy her but her own evil thoughts and deplorable regrets.
The Empress grew more and more weary, more and more tormented with intolerable thoughts through the leaden hours. At length, long after midnight, she heard the footsteps of the watch and of many slaves as they conducted Nero to his chamber.
‘What! you here?’ he said with contemptuous indifference as he dismissed his attendants.
She looked at him. He had evidently been drinking, and was fresh from one of the scenes of debauchery which always formed the conclusion of his charioteering displays. For he still wore the dress of a jockey of the green faction, and its succinctness revealed his thin legs and protuberant person. To her he looked a spectacle of ignominy. Where was the passionate courtesy with which her Otho would have greeted her? Where the fond caress which Crispinus would have printed on her cheek? To think that this thing was the Emperor of Rome!
She half-rose from her couch, her pale face aflame with indignation.
‘Jockey!’ she hissed out. ‘Companion of base minions, comrade of coarse gladiators, where have you been? Why do you thus steep manhood in ignominy and drag the purple of Empire through the mud?’
It was the pent-up passion of her woman’s heart which thus burst forth, and it came on Nero like an unexpected blow. He looked at her for a moment with eyes opened to their fullest, and then, staggering forwards, dealt her a brutal kick.
Poppæa, with a groan of anguish, sank swooning to the ground. She lay on the floor as dead, her features white as marble, her hair streaming from its bands and covering the floor with its gleaming waves. The sight sobered Nero. Had he killed her? Furious as he was, he had not intended that. He loudly summoned his slaves and Poppæa’s attendants, and they bore her, still unconscious, to her own apartments. Nero did not tell any one what had happened, but when the physicians saw the bruise which his foot had made they knew everything, and when she had awoke from her swoon Poppæa disdainfully told them the simple truth. From the first they did not conceal from her or from Nero that, in her delicate situation, her life would be in extreme peril.
She lingered on in anguish for many days, her heart broken, her life sacrificed. Nero would fain have testified his maudlin and unavailing remorse. He passionately desired a child to continue his line, and now he had shattered his own hopes. If he had ever loved any woman with anything resembling real love, it was Poppæa. He had only kicked her in the blind rage of ruthless egotism. Nothing had been further from his intention than to murder her or even to cause her excruciating pangs.
He asked to be admitted to her presence, but she refused to see him. She sent to tell him that unless he wished to kill her, he would not visit her. The physicians assured him that the mere suggestion of his entering the room had thrown her into dangerous convulsions. As for the expressions of regret which he had written to her, she was too weak and ill to write any reply, and she deigned to send no message.