“I thought so. I was sure it was so,” said Domitia gravely. There was an infinity of sadness, of despair in her tone. “Mother, I bring misfortune upon all with whom I have to do.”
“Ye Gods! not on me! I hope to be preserved from that! Do not speak such unlucky words—they are of bad omen.”
“I cannot help it, mother, it is true. I am the most unfortunate of women myself——”
“You speak rank folly. Ye Gods forgive me! saying such a thing to one who is herself divine. But, it is so—you are positively the most fortunate of women. What more do you desire? You are the Augusta, the people swear by your genius and fortune.”
“By my fortune! Alack poor souls!”
“And is it not a piece of good fortune to be raised so high that there is none above you?”
“My fortune! The Gods know—if they know anything—that I would gladly exchange my lot with that of a poor woman in a cottage who spins and sings, or of a girl among the mountains who keeps goats and is defended by a boisterous dog. Mother, listen to me. I have brought misfortune on Lucius Lamia, I have caused the death of that harmless actor Paris, I have been the occasion of Cornelia being—buried alive—watching the expiring of the one lamp. Ye Gods! Ye Gods! I shall go mad—and of Celer also.—He——”
She held her face, rocked herself on the seat and sobbed as if her heart would break.
“Yes,” said the old lady, roused to anger at her daughter’s lack of appreciation of the splendor of her position. “Yes, child, and mischief you will work on every one, if you continue in the same course. Do men say that the Augustus is morose? Who made him so?—you by your behavior. Do they say that he is severe in his judgments? Who has hardened him and made him cruel?—You—who have dried up all the springs of tenderness in his breast. He was not so at first. If he be what men think—it is your work. You with your stinging words goaded him to madness and as he cannot or will not beat you, as you deserve, he deals the blows on some one else. Of course he cuts away such as you regard and love—because they obtain that to which he has a right, but which you deny him.”
“He—he—a right!”