“Yes, yes,” answered the Emperor.
“Are you talking of Verus and Antonius?” the Empress broke in. “You promised me that they would be pardoned.”
“So I did,” said the Emperor, and then, turning to Narcissus, he said: “I think in this case, in view of the rather exceptional circumstances, we might strain a point.”
“But they are quite undeserving,” began Narcissus.
“The Emperor has pardoned them,” broke in the Empress, “he told me so yesterday; let us scratch out their names,” and bending over the Emperor with a kind and lovely smile, she suited the action to the word. The Emperor smiled lovingly at her, and Narcissus withdrew, biting his lips. Soon after that I withdrew also.
The next morning the Emperor started for Ostia. During the week that followed the Empress visited me frequently in the library, and was extremely kind; she took an extraordinary interest in my work, and revealed a wide knowledge of literature. Her criticisms were always acute. She evidently missed the Emperor very much. The more I saw of her the more I admired her beauty, her kindness, and her wit, and the more readily I understood the jealousy she inspired at Rome, a jealousy which found vent in spiteful gossip and malicious scandal.
The Empress, I at once understood, was a creature compact of kindness, gaiety, and impulse; she could not understand nor brook the conventions and the hypocrisy of the world. She was a child of nature, unsophisticated and unspoilt by the artifices of society. This is the one thing the world can never forgive. When she was pleased she showed it. Her spirits were unbounded, and she delighted in every kind of frolic and fun, and was sometimes imprudent in giving rein to her happy disposition and to the charming gaiety of her nature in public. This did her harm and gave her enemies a pretext for inventing the wildest and most absurd calumnies. But when she heard of this she only laughed and said that the malice of her enemies would only recoil on their own heads.
Alas! she was grievously mistaken. Her enemies were far more numerous and more bitter than she supposed; moreover, they resented the influence she exerted over her husband, just because this influence was gentle and good. Here are the bare facts of what happened. The Emperor was still at Ostia. The Empress was celebrating the Festival of Bacchus in the Palatine Gardens according to the Emperor’s wish. The feast lasted several days. Silius and Veltius Valens, who are both skilled at that sort of thing, had arranged an effective amphitheatre, and there were dances, music, and a whole pageant in honour of Bacchus. It was a lovely sight.
On the last day of the festival a procession of Bacchanals, clad in leopard skins and crowned with vine leaves, danced round the altar playing the double flute. One day on the stage in the amphitheatre a wine-press was revealed, and a chorus of wine-harvesters led by the Empress herself trod the grapes. Never had the Empress looked so beautiful as in this Bacchanal’s dress, and she joined in the fun with a wild, irresponsible gaiety and enjoyed herself like a child. During the whole festival, which had lasted a week, she had played a thousand pranks, and on the first day of the merry-makings Silius had dressed up as Bacchus, and the Empress as Ariadne, and they acted a play in which a mock marriage ceremony had been performed—all this in fun, of course.
But there were spies among us, and Narcissus, who was at Ostia, received daily accounts of what was happening. Skilfully he distorted the facts and represented what had been a piece of harmless fun as a scandalous orgy. He said the Empress, clad only in a vine-wreath, had danced before all Rome, and that she had publicly wedded Silius. He added a whole list of infamous details which were the fruits of his jealous fancy; but, worst of all, he accused Silius and the Empress of conspiracy, and said that they had attempted to bribe the Praetorian Guards, that they were plotting to kill Claudius and usurp the Throne. The festival was not over when a slave arrived breathless, and told us what Narcissus had done. The Emperor, he said, was on his way home. The Empress knew she must meet him face to face. She also knew that Narcissus would do everything in his power to prevent it. The courtiers, scenting the Empress’s overthrow, deserted her, and she set out on foot to meet the Emperor. But Narcissus prevented the meeting, and the Empress fled to Lucullus’ Villa, which Valerius Asiaticus had bequeathed to her.