Catullus yawned and puffed out his stomach:
“I shall stay and sleep here in my cushions,” he said. “I shall not go to my pavilion. I shall stay and sleep here, under the stars. To-morrow we shall be at Alexandria! Alexandria! The city with the most exquisite cooking, so they say! I am tired of Rome and Baiæ; I am really tired of roast peacock and oysters. Nothing but Rome and roast peacock; nothing but Baiæ and oysters: I shall end by turning into a peacock or an oyster! Change of diet is the secret of good health. I was losing my gaiety and had not a joke left in me to charm an occasional laugh out of Lucius. He did not even listen to me, Cora, when I was witty ... and you expect him to listen to your song! He listens to nothing and nobody since Ilia is gone.”
“Was she so very beautiful?” asked Cora.
“She was very beautiful,” said Thrasyllus, with grave appreciation.
“She was beautiful,” Catullus echoed, in airy praise, “but she was too heavy and too big. Her ankles were not slender. Her wrists were as thick as a man’s.”
“She was very beautiful,” Thrasyllus repeated. “She was as beautiful as a goddess.”
“That is just where I never agreed,” cried Catullus, vehemently, “either with you or with my nephew. You both said that she was like a goddess....”
“She was like the Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles,” Thrasyllus persisted.
“I could never see it!” Catullus persisted, in his turn. “I could never see it. There may have been something of Praxiteles’ Venus in the lines of her body ... something, perhaps, though much coarser; but her face certainly lacked the charm, the smile of that divine statue. Now, though I do not believe in the gods, though I do not believe in Venus, I do believe in my own correct and sometimes sober opinion! I was not in love with Ilia as Thrasyllus and Lucius were! And really, between ourselves, I can understand her bolting, though she did reign as queen in the house. She was far too much admired for her divine ankles and wrists and for her big feet and hands! Did she not sometimes have to turn and turn for a hour, while Lucius lay looking at her, to turn on a revolving pedestal, which two slaves under the floor moved round and round and round, and did not Lucius grow angry if she stirred? ‘I can’t endure this, uncle!’ she would often declare to me; and I can well understand it. To play at being a living statue strikes me as wearisome; and I also should say, ‘Thank you for nothing,’ if my nephew were to take it into his head, because nature has at least blessed me with a fairly perfect form, to make me turn and turn on a revolving pedestal as Cupid with his bow and arrow or as Ganymede with a drinking-cup in his hand! What do you say, dreamy Cora?”
“I don’t know,” said Cora. “No one will ask me to pose as the Cnidian Venus. I have nothing but my voice....”