CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH.
While he was speaking, four dancers ran in to the time of the music, and removed the upper part of the tray. Beneath, on what seemed to be another tray, we caught sight of stuffed capons and sows’ bellies, and in the middle, a hare equipped with wings to resemble Pegasus. At the corners of the tray we also noted four figures of Marsyas and from their bladders spouted a highly spiced sauce upon fish which were swimming about as if in a tide-race. All of us echoed the applause which was started by the servants, and fell to upon these exquisite delicacies, with a laugh. “Carver,” cried Trimalchio, no less delighted with the artifice practised upon us, and the carver appeared immediately. Timing his strokes to the beat of the music he cut up the meat in such a fashion as to lead you to think that a gladiator was fighting from a chariot to the accompaniment of a water-organ. Every now and then Trimalchio would repeat “Carver, Carver,” in a low voice, until I finally came to the conclusion that some joke was meant in repeating a word so frequently, so I did not scruple to question him who reclined above me. As he had often experienced byplay of this sort he explained, “You see that fellow who is carving the meat, don’t you? Well, his name is Carver. Whenever Trimalchio says Carver, carve her, by the same word, he both calls and commands!”
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH.
I could eat no more, so I turned to my whilom informant to learn as much as I could and sought to draw him out with far-fetched gossip. I inquired who that woman could be who was scurrying about hither and yon in such a fashion. “She’s called Fortunata,” he replied. “She’s the wife of Trimalchio, and she measures her money by the peck. And only a little while ago, what was she! May your genius pardon me, but you would not have been willing to take a crust of bread from her hand. Now, without rhyme or reason, she’s in the seventh heaven and is Trimalchio’s factotum, so much so that he would believe her if she told him it was dark when it was broad daylight! As for him, he don’t know how rich he is, but this harlot keeps an eye on everything and where you least expect to find her, you’re sure to run into her. She’s temperate, sober, full of good advice, and has many good qualities, but she has a scolding tongue, a very magpie on a sofa, those she likes, she likes, but those she dislikes, she dislikes! Trimalchio himself has estates as broad as the flight of a kite is long, and piles of money. There’s more silver plate lying in his steward’s office than other men have in their whole fortunes! And as for slaves, damn me if I believe a tenth of them knows the master by sight. The truth is, that these stand-a-gapes are so much in awe of him that any one of them would step into a fresh dunghill without ever knowing it, at a mere nod from him!”
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.
“And don’t you get the idea that he buys anything; everything is produced at home, wool, pitch, pepper, if you asked for hen’s milk you would get it. Because he wanted his wool to rival other things in quality, he bought rams at Tarentum and sent ‘em into his flocks with a slap on the arse. He had bees brought from Attica, so he could produce Attic honey at home, and, as a side issue, so he could improve the native bees by crossing with the Greek. He even wrote to India for mushroom seed one day, and he hasn’t a single mule that wasn’t sired by a wild ass. Do you see all those cushions? Not a single one but what is stuffed with either purple or scarlet wool! He hasn’t anything to worry about! Look out how you criticise those other fellow-freedmen-friends of his, they’re all well heeled. See the fellow reclining at the bottom of the end couch? He’s worth his 800,000 any day, and he rose from nothing. Only a short while ago he had to carry faggots on his own back. I don’t know how true it is, but they say that he snatched off an Incubo’s hat and found a treasure! For my part, I don’t envy any man anything that was given him by a god. He still carries the marks of his box on the ear, and he isn’t wishing himself any bad luck! He posted this notice, only the other day:
CAIUS POMPONIUS DIOGENES HAS
PURCHASED A HOUSE
THIS GARRET FOR RENT AFTER