“We shall see, O thou effeminate Greek!”
“We shall see, then, perfidious Roman!”
“Ha! rash dolt! We will have no Brutus here. Slaves! Chloe! Bring up my guest and introduce her.”
At the same moment he dealt the Greek a powerful blow, which caused him to measure his length on the bear-skin rugs that were spread upon the polished, inlaid floor. Then, clapping his hands for a slave to assist him, they bore the prostrate Leander into an adjoining [pg 21]chamber, and deposited him upon a couch. Marcius then returned to receive the latest guest.
While the episode just narrated had been going on, there had come floating in from a distance the tones of unseen minstrelsy—now swelling, now diminishing—in a way to hold the soul spellbound. This was an accompaniment to the nightly revelry and orgies.
Adjoining the apartment where the comrades had held converse, and separated from it by heavy draperies, was a large banquet-room, and still beyond, the room from whence came the strains of music. Mingled with the melody and with the measured rhythm of the dance, there escaped fragments of hilarity, merrymaking, and the echo of voices in pleasing confusion.
All the apartments and their accessories were eloquent with a voluptuous refinement. Culture, wealth, and depravity seemed here to form a close combination. The occupants evidently were of patrician blood, corrupted by luxury and sensuality, while the pictures, statuary, symbols, and images indicated that their oft-invoked divinities were as cruel and degenerate as themselves. The whole interior of the palace was an intricate but beautiful maze, arranged to confuse and captivate the senses. It was one of those highly organized efforts, in a luxurious and depraved age, in a heathen metropolis, to storm the citadels of supposed pleasure, and to compel the inverted mechanism of Nature herself to yield without reserve the last charm that is contained in her storehouse. Art, nature, the flowers, the stars, rhythm, melody, beauty, and feeling, with cruelty and brutality interwoven—everything was placed [pg 22]under contribution in the mad and exhaustive search for a perfect sentient paradise. It was an age when the senses and instincts of mankind seemed to reach a climax of abnormity, while outwardly gilded with artistic charm and gracefulness. It was an era of intellectual delusion and spiritual insanity. Man must crowd and surfeit his baser nature to the bursting-point to-day, for to-morrow he is not.
The palace was brilliant with numberless lights; and the warm air was heavy with the odors of myrrh, violets, jasmine, and other flowers and spices. Fountains cast up a delicate spray which glittered like star-dust in their pulsating prismatic play. Mirrors of polished steel duplicated every beautiful object, dazzled the bewildered senses, and flung chaplets of rosy chains around the soul of every captive and victim. To breathe the magic air was to experience a delicious intoxication.
The vaulted ceilings of the principal apartments were frescoed with a sky in which were floating fleecy clouds of rosy hue, from the midst of which smiled faces of bewildering shape and beauty.
In the dances and religious processions that were painted upon panels trooped forms of the divinest beauty, bearing garlands and chaplets and lyres, keeping time to the soft minstrelsy of melody which seemed to issue from the very walls. Every ornament, picture, and statue silently chanted an invitation to ENJOY.