Then again, falling into further musing, she said to herself:
“In time to come, if it chance that I become ill, will my Lamia be to me as is this actor to his poor wife? Will he think of and care for me? But—and if evil were to befall him, would not I minister to him, care for him night and day, and seek to relieve his sorrow? Would I grow indifferent when he most needed me? Then why think that he should become cold and neglect me? Are women more inclined to be true than men?—Yet see this actor—this Paris. By the Gods! Is Lamia like to be a more ignoble man than a poor freedman that gains his living on the stage?—I should even be happy serving him sick and suffering. Happy in doing my duty.”
And still musing, she said on to herself:
“Duty! Yes, I should find content and rest of mind in that; but to what would it all lead? Only to a heap of dust in the end. His light would be extinguished, and then I, having nothing else to live for, would die also—by mine own hand:—there is nothing beyond. It all leads to an ash-heap.”
Glyceria, observing the girl’s fixed eye, thought it was looking inquiringly at her, and said in her gentle voice that vibrated with the tremulousness given by suffering:
“Ah, lady! the neighbors and their children are very kind. There is more of goodness and piety in the world than you would suppose, seeing men and women only in an amphitheatre. I can do but very little. One boy fetches me water—that is Bibulus, and my Paris has bought him this little horseman—and Torquata, a little girl, daughter of a cobbler, she sweeps the floor; and Dosithea, that is a good widow’s child; she does other neighborly acts for me;—and they thrust me on my bed to the side of the hearth, and bring me such things as I need, that I may prepare the meals for my husband. And Claudia, the wife of a seller of nets, she makes my bed for me; but all the shopping is done for me by Paris, and I warrant you, lady, he is quite knowing, and can haggle over a fish or a turnip with a market-woman like any housewife.”
“He is very good to you,” said Domitia.
Then Paris turned, and, putting his hand on his wife’s mouth, said:
“Lady! you can little know what a wife my Glyceria is to me. I had rather for my own sake have her thus than hale as of old. Somehow, sorrow and pain draw hearts together wondrously.”
“He is good,” said Glyceria, twisting her mouth from his covering hand. “We have had a hard year; on account of the troubles, there has been little desire among the people for the theatre, and he has earned but a trifle. I have cost him much in physicians that have done me no good, yet he never grumbles, he is always cheerful, always tender-hearted and loving.”