“But where, how are we to seek it?”
“In God,” answered the slave.
“The Gods! of them we know only idle tales, and in place of the tales, when taken away, there remains but guesswork. There again—the pinch of dust.”
“Lady, if we are created to seek, as the fish to swim, there must be an element in which to pursue our quest, an end to attain. That is inevitable, unless we be made by a freakish malevolent power that plants in us desire that can feed only on dust, ever, ever dust. No, that cannot be, the soul runs because it sees its goal—”
“And that?—”
A bustle, and in a moment, in sailed Longa Duilia, very much painted, very yellow in hair, and with saffron eyelashes and brows.
“Little fool!” said the mother. “Come, let me embrace thee, yet gently lest you crumple me, and be cautious of thy kisses, lest thou take off the bloom of my cheek. Thou art ever boisterous in thy demonstrations. There, give me a seat, I must put up my feet. As the Gods love me! what a hole this Gabii is! How dingy, how dirty, how shabby it all looks! As the Gods—but how art thou? some say ill, some say sulky, some say turned adrift. As the Gods love me! that last is a lie, and I can swear it. The Augustus distills with love, like a dripping honeycomb. You must positively come back with me. I have come—not alone. Messalinus is with me—a charming man—but blind, blind as a beetle.”
“What, that fourfolder!”[10]
“Now, now, no slang! I detest it, it is vulgar. Besides, they all do it, and what all do can’t be wrong. One must live, and the world is so contrived that one lives upon another; consequently, it must be right.”
“Well have the Egyptians represented the God who made men as a beetle—blind, and this world as a pellet of dung rolled about blindly by him.”