When Domitia reached the first landing, she saw that the women and children, and such men as were there, had ranged themselves on either side, to give her passage, every face was smiling, and lit with pleasure, the men raised their forefingers and thumbs to their mouths, and the women and children strove to catch her hand, or kneeling to touch, raise and kiss the hem of her dress.
If, at one time it had caused surprise that she a rich lady, should enter a common haunt of the poor, it was now a matter of more than surprise, of admiration and delight—to welcome the sister-in-law of the Emperor, one who it was whispered would some day be herself Empress, Augusta, and an object of religious worship.
This sort of welcome always went to the heart of Domitia, and gave her a choke in the throat.
The great people never regarded the poor, save as nuisances. An emperor had said of the populace that it was a wolf he held by the ears. And it was wolf-like because brutally treated, pampered as to food given without pay, supplied with scenes of bloodshed, also without cost, in the arena, every encouragement to work taken from it, every demoralizing, barbarizing influence employed to degrade it.
The great people were supremely indifferent to the sufferings of the small, provided no hospitals for the poor who were sick, no orphanages for the homeless children—let them die—and the faster the better,—that was one wish of the great;—then shall we be alone on the earth with our slaves.
Had these poor people hopes, ambitions, cares, sorrows? Did they love their wives, and hold to their hearts their cubs of children? Did they have any desire that their children should grow up to be good men and virtuous women? Oh, no! such rabble were not of one blood with the rich. They had no fine feelings, they were like the beasts; they were without human souls; and so, when the poor died their bodies were rammed down wells contrived to contain a thousand corpses at a time, and then heaped over with a little earth.
But Domitia had learned that it was not as supposed. Amidst the falsity, barbarity of heart, and coarseness of mind of such as were of the noble Roman order,—the cultured, the rich, the philosophic—there was no sincerity, no truth. She felt happier and better after one of these visits to the Insula in the Suburra as though her lungs had inhaled a purer atmosphere. To the smiles and kisses and blessings lavished on her, she answered with kindly courtesy—and then stepped into the room of the paralyzed woman. Glyceria was as much a cripple as when first visited. She was more wasted—some time had passed—but she hardly seemed older, only more beautiful in her purity, a diaphanous lamp of mother-of-pearl through which shone a supernatural light.
Domitia drew a deep sigh.
“Glyceria,” she said, “when I come here, it is to me like seeing a glimpse of blue sky after a day of rain, or—like the scent of violets that came on me the first time I visited you.”
“And when you, lady, come to me, it is as though a sunbeam shone into my dark chamber.”