She felt as though she were still capable of the sense of pain, but not of being sensible to pleasure.
The faculty of being happy was gone from her forever, and life presented to her a prospect of nothing better than gray tracts of monotonous existence, seamed with earthquake chasms of suffering.
Next day she rose white and self-restrained, she summoned to her Euphrosyne, but did not look at her tear-reddened eyes.
“Euphrosyne,” said she, “I bid you go, and take with you Eboracus, I place you both wholly at the disposal of your sister—and bid her spare no cost, but give to him who has been, a splendid funeral at my expense. Here is money. And—” she paused a moment to obtain mastery over herself, as her emotion threatened to get the upper hand—“and, Euphrosyne, tell Glyceria that I shall go to see her later. Not for a few days, not till the first agony of her grief is over; but go I will—for go I must—and I pray the Gods I may not be a cause of fresh evil. O, Euphrosyne, does she curse me?”
“Glyceria curses none, dear mistress, least of all you. Do not doubt, she will welcome you when you do her the honor of a visit.”
“If she were to curse me, I feel as if I should be glad—glad, too, if the curse fell heavy on my head—but you know—she knows—I meant to do well, to be kind—to—but go your way—I can speak no more. Tell Glyceria not to curse me—no—I could not bear that—not a curse from her.”
Euphrosyne saw by her mistress’s manner, by her contradictory words, how deeply she was moved, how great was her suffering. She stooped, took up the hem of her garment, and kissed the purple fringe. Then sobbing, withdrew.
That day tidings came to Domitia to render her pain more acute.
The kindly, sympathetic people in the insula of Castor and Pollux, in poetic, picturesque fashion had come with baskets of violets and late roses, and had strewn with the flowers the spot stained with the blood of Paris.
This was reported to the Emperor, and he sent his guards down the street to disperse the people, and in doing this, they employed their swords, wounding several and killing two or three, of whom one was a child.