“Not so, dear lady, it beats at the present moment with anger. It can also beat with love.”
“Never towards him who has maltreated me.”
“By the Gods! forbear. I am endangered by listening to such words.”
“What—what—what is Ursus saying?” asked Messalinus, who caught a word or two. “He is beside the Augusta—what did he say—and in a low tone also. No treason hatching at the table of our Divine Lord, I trust.”[12]
“Here come the jesters and the mimes,” said Ursus, “and may the god of Laughter provide such matter for mirth as will satisfy Catullus Messalinus.”
“Then it must be a tragedy,” said another guest, “for to our blind friend here, naught is jocose unless to some other it be painful.”
“We have all our gifts,” said Messalinus, smirking.
Then entered some acrobats who went through evolutions, casting knives and catching them, forming human pyramids, ladders, wheels, balancing poles on their chins whilst a boy went through contortions at the top.
But there was no novelty in the exhibition. The Emperor wearied of it, and ordered the performers to withdraw.
Next appeared mimes, who performed low buffoonery in gesture and dialogue, interspersed with snatches of song, that were so offensive to decency that Domitia, who had never seen and heard anything of the kind at her mother’s house, sprang to her feet with flaming cheeks, brow and bosom, and made a motion to leave. She knew it—this disgusting performance had been commanded by the prince, for the purpose of humiliating her. She would go. But Domitian, whose malignant glance was on her, saw her purpose and called out,—